'Vigil' gets a second series with Suranne Jones

BBC One has confirmed that Vigil is back on board for a second series of the submarine crime thriller.

In a raft of new dramas announced as being renewed to return, the popular series starring Suranne Jones was one of the big names listed.

Vigil was the UK’s most-watched new drama launch in three years when it began last year, bursting onto screens as the most popular new thriller since previous ratings hit Bodyguard from Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio in 2018.

Read more: Martin Compston jokes he'll sack his agent after 'disappointing' Vigil ending

It attracted an audience of over 13 million viewers across 30 days for episode one, and the series overall had an average of 12.6 million viewers.

The tense drama featured Gentleman Jack star Jones as DCI Amy Silva who was sent aboard HMS Vigil, a Royal Navy submarine where she was investigating the suspicious death of Martin Compston's character.

As the death began to look more and more like murder, further attacks took place and the crew turned threatening towards her, Silva found herself stuck aboard the boat indefinitely and only able to receive messages in code from her partner Kirsten Longacre (Rose Leslie), who was also growing more concerned on land.

Read more: Suranne Jones creates and stars in double-life drama for ITV

Suffering plenty of personal issues too after the death of her husband, losing custody of her stepdaughter and a failed romance with Kirsten, Amy found many of her previous nightmares came back to haunt her while stuck on the submarine.

Claustrophobic scenes of Amy locked in a torpedo tube by the attacker gave some viewers nightmares, while others complained that popular Line Of Duty star Compston was killed off in episode one.

The BBC has announced that the second series of Vigil will be set and filmed in Scotland again, although writer Tom Edge has previously told RadioTimes.com that another series would be unlikely to return to the submarine.

He said: "We have probably told as many of the stories as we would wish to tell on a submarine.

"[But] some of the characters that we have developed as we've made it, they feel like characters that we'd love to burrow into. So if there's a will to do it from everyone else then certainly I would be up for it."

Also announced to be returning for a second series were Australian-set The Tourist which starred Jamie Dornan, The Responder starring Martin Freeman as a Scouse police officer, and Time, a gritty drama set in a prison featuring Sean Bean and Stephen Graham.

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