Nightsleeper, a thriller that debuted earlier this month on BritBox, imagines what might happen if an overnight train between Glasgow and London was hacked, and two people talk over the phone to try to get the out-of-control train to stop. Interesting idea, but how predictable is the execution?
NIGHTSLEEPER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman plays a single note on a piano at Glasgow’s train station. A man walks in, looking to board the Heart of Britain nightsleeper train between Glasgow and London.
The Gist: The woman at the piano notices the man, Joe Roag (Joe Cole) and texts someone to see if they’re ready. On the platform as the train boards, a man grabs the bag of a woman with a stroller. Joe, a DI with the Metropolitan Police, chases the man along with the train’s conductors. There are others who are seemingly affected who end up helping the bag snatcher. But eventually, he gets the bag back to the woman. What Joe doesn’t know is that they’re all part of an elaborate plan.
Right as the train leaves Glasgow, the main conductor goes into his office and sees a floor tile pulled up and a device connected to the train’s electronics. He can’t stop the train or call the driver. He finds Joe and shows him the device; given his job, he knows who to contact, but the only way he can do that is via the satellite phone of a passenger; there is no cell service and wifi is off.
While at the airport with her wife to leave on vacation, Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach), the acting technical director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, gets a call from one of her young analysts about an virus that may be affecting some critical systems. She calls her second-in-command, Saj Sidhu (Parth Thakerar), and he assures her they can handle things without her, until the call from Joe on the hacked train comes in. So, as Abby is on a train back to Victoria in London, talking to Joe.
She doesn’t want him to touch the device, which she knows is there as a hack into the system. Right before the train slows down at the first stop, though, Abby finds out something about Joe that throws her initial trust in him into doubt. The train stops, and Joe hides from the police, finding a kid nicknamed “Mouse” (Adam Mitchell) hiding from his mother, who disembarked with the other passengers. Some passengers, for various reasons, stay on the train. Suddenly, the doors close and lock, and the train starts to move, with the driver still on the platform.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Nightsleeper feels like a cross between Hijack and Snowpiercer.
Our Take: Despite the somewhat newfangled way the hostage situation in Nightsleeper plays out, the show’s first episode doesn’t offer a whole lot of surprises. Even down to the half-dozen or so passengers that manage to not get off the train before the hackers make the train leave the station, there is a lot about the first episode that’s predictable.
It wasn’t hard, for instance, to figure out that just about everyone involved in the bag snatching on the platform in Glasgow, including the woman with the baby carriage, was in on the plan, and that Joe was the target of that plan. When Joe wouldn’t identify himself to Abby when she first connects with him on the phone, we knew something was up there, too. And when certain people ended up staying on the train as it was evacuated, we knew that they’d be stuck there and will eventually help Joe and Abby bring it to a stop (we hope that’s the case, anyway).
One of the people on the train, for instance, is Fraser Warren (James Cosmo), an older gentleman who resists help from his daughter Sophie (Leah MacRae). When he says that he used to work for the railroad as a driver, we had a feeling that his expertise will be used later in the series. Rachel Li (Katie Leung) is a lifestyle reporter who has stumbled on a career-making story. Mouse inevitably gets separated from his mother. And there’s a few other passengers who will either help Joe and Abby or get in their way.
It’s almost a given that one of the people who is a “hostage” is a part of this hack, but that’s the only part of this show that we haven’t been able to get any insight into yet. All of that being said, though, we’re OK with the predictability if we do get thrown off the track (pun intended) every so often, and the performances of Roach and Cole continue to be as compelling as they are in the first episode.
Performance Worth Watching: Alexandra Roach is especially good as Abby, who is told by her boss that she may be promoted to permanent technical chief if she can get the train stopped.
Sex And Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: When Abby sees on the screens at Victoria Station the words “I Am The Driver. Tonight I Am In Control,” she gets a call from Joe. He offers his help, if she can help him in return. When she asks how she can possibly trust him, his response is, “What else you got?”
Sleeper Star: Sharon Small plays Liz Draycott, the Minister of Transport, who just happens to be stuck on the train that’s now operating without a driver. Wonder what part she’s going to play in getting the train under control?
Most Pilot-y Line: If we were the kid nicknamed “Mouse,” we’d ask our parents to stop using that nickname and start calling us by our given name.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Nightsleeper has the potential to be a tense six-episode thrill ride or it could be a predictable bore. The first episode makes us think it might be the latter, but there are enough good elements in the first episode to keep us watching.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.