AMC+'s The North Water makes the case for more TV shows set on boats

The Week

"With a few notable exceptions (yes Black Sails fans, I see you), boats have made scant appearances as settings on the small screen," says Jeva Lange. "The S.S. Minnow might be the most famous television boat of all time, but the majority of Gilligan's Island takes place at the castaways' more terrestrial compound. The most identifiable boat series otherwise is undoubtedly Love Boat, the romantic comedy that aired between 1977 and 1986 and exemplified why boats naturally loan themselves to TV, with their exotic port of calls conducive to weekly episodes; their crewmembers making for returning characters with rotating passenger guests spots; and their inexhaustible opportunities for drama despite their relatively small physical size (as any sailor will wryly confirm). Beyond a corny sitcom that aired three decades ago, though, there are few other popular examples of boats in television outside of reality TV, like Bravo's Below Deck franchise, which follows around the abnormally attractive crew of a superyacht during its charter season. The North Water's course, then, is sailed both literally and figuratively in uncharted waters. Based on Ian McGuire's 'blood-drenched' 2016 novel of the same name and directed by Andrew Haigh (45 Years), the five-part miniseries premiering Thursday might best be described as The Terror meets Moby-Dick meets The Lost City of Z, all by way of Joseph Conrad. Though only the first half of The North Water technically takes place aboard the Volunteer, the ship scenes are the high points in the front-loaded miniseries. Even in a story as dark and sordid as this, there is a romance to the Age of Sail that immediately sucks you in with its creaking wood and gimbaled kerosene lamps. The showrunner, Haigh, gives the Volunteer space to show off, too; in the background of every shot on deck there are men busy at work, while plentiful runtime is given to moments like raising sails (and seasickness), as well as to sublime exterior shots of the ship in the North Atlantic waters. The dexterity of the camerawork on deck also gives a strong sense of the boat as a lived-in physical space, something of a rarity in the few maritime shows that have come before it that have had to make do with sound stages."

ALSO:

• The North Water features stunning performances and locations, but it's a nautical story told countless times before: "What this means is that watching The North Water is to constantly alternate between admiring the attempt to tackle a difficult genre at all and being aware that if you’re a fan of the genre, nearly everything you’re seeing has been done before, if not always better," says Daniel Fienberg. He adds: "The capturing of that brutality represents both what The North Water does best and what will prove its greatest barrier of entry. The series, written and directed entirely by Haigh (HBO’s Looking), is built around a handful of harrowing and occasionally spectacular set-pieces. But if I tell you there’s a breathtaking sequence of scruffy British sailors — nearly unrecognizable in their respective balaclavas — swarming across an ice floe slaughtering and butchering seals, or that the Volunteer’s first encounter with a whale culminates in a harrowing and graphic flensing sequence, is that likely to encourage you to watch?"
• The North Water creates a sense of chilliness that will permeate one’s bones on even the hottest summer night: "The show, to be distributed internationally by BBC Studios, effectively conjures a bygone world — both in its visual power and in its treatment of the past as rougher, with brutality that much closer to the surface," says Daniel D'Addario. "There are moments when its malice can seem slightly like a put-on: Opening the series with an Arthur Schopenhauer quote on-screen about how “the world is hell” and men are both tormented and tormentors feels a touch affected. Following it with the sounds of Farrell’s character rutting in the dark only heightens that sense. But, by the strength of its storytelling, the show eventually earns its darkest flourishes; it adds depth and real heft to its vision of the past as a land of monsters. In all, The North Water serves as a bracing plunge into inhumanity that’ll stick with you after its running time melts away."
• The North Water is a 19th-century Arctic adventure, complete with creaking ice, implacable storms, mystical polar bears and seal clubbing: "It is also," says Mike Hale, "as this sort of adventure tends to be, a parable, with strong family ties to the work of Joseph Conrad and Werner Herzog. Haigh’s protagonists — Patrick Sumner (Jack O’Connell), ship’s surgeon on the whaler Volunteer, and Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), its master harpoonist — represent civilization and savagery, respectively. And as the Volunteer sails past Greenland, they circle each other against a backdrop of shipboard rape and murder and a conspiracy to commit potentially deadly insurance fraud. The real evils, to a greater extent than in the book, are capitalism and empire, as Sumner eventually finds that a British shipping office holds even greater dangers than the Arctic."