Skip to content
Nightsleeper initially looks a bit like Apple TV’s Hijack, but on a plane. That series was pretty daft and I parachuted out after a couple of episodes. Can this one improve upon that?
The Ipcress File‘s Joe Cole plays cop Joe Roag – presumably using the same first name, so he doesn’t forget his own – with the drama quickly informing us that for the Glasgow to London overnight train that he’s taking, it runs across a distance of 410 miles, and has a scheduled length of 316 mins.
Good job that it’s not an Avanti West Coast train, otherwise it’d take an extra 24 hours…
Still, this one has its own problems, as it’s about to be hacked remotely, once it sets off.
But first some annoyances, since as he gets on the train, there’s no way a guard would stand outside and say, “Tickets, please. Final call”. You check your ticket at the gate – usually electronically, and with one of the station staff, not the train’s own guard – and any announcements about the train leaving would be over the tannoy, not by that same man from the train.
Plus, the driver wouldn’t step off the train to chase after a baddie, so this is already looking pretty stupid. Oh, and as Joe steps off to engage in his job’s derring-do, his train would leave without him, if he wasn’t central to the plot!
Oh, and I don’t think a train actually has a single button that’ll immediately lock all the doors. You can’t even trust the toilet door to stay closed!!
Then again, there’s more to whatever’s behind the train shenanigans, including a whole bunch of funky wiring in the train carriage.
Acting Technical Director at the National Cyber Security Centre (what a mouthful) Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach – Men Up) is about to go on holiday with a friend, but on hearing about the to-do just before she gets on the plane, she instantly ditches her plans and goes back to towards the office, claiming she can get all this done within the hour and they can still go on holiday – Well, you know she won’t be setting food on a beach any time during THIS series!
God, this is such bullshit. Okay, so she’s a workaholc, but she still wouldn’t be checking her phone so much RIGHT BEFORE getting on the plane. Her friend would’ve put a stop to that!
So, we have one of those dramas where instructions are given over a phone from one character to another, everyone looks pensive, and if the instructions aren’t followed to the exact letter, everything and everyone will explode, or something. Does anyone really care? This is just utter bollocks.
There’s twists and turns that don’t feel particularly twisty/turny enough to be worth caring about.
Plus, everyone on the train has got personal problems we’re supposed to care about, and the opener concluded with a situation about which I struggled to stop yawning.
If you care, the end credits of the first episode also contain clips from the second one, but it looked even more preposterous than the first. Almost makes Under Siege 2: Dark Territory look like a documentary.
For me, this train is derailed from the start, and for a programme “supported by the National Lottery”, someone deserves to lose their shirt.
Nightsleeper begins tomorrow night on BBC1 at 9pm, and is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date of October 21st.
From day one, all episodes be on the BBC iPlayer, so you can ignore them all in one go.
Series Directors: John Hayes, Jamie Magnus Stone
Producer: Jonathan Curling
Writers: Laura Grace, Nick Leather
Music: Tommy Reilly
Cast:
Joe Roag: Joe Cole
Abby Aysgarth: Alexandra Roach
Lindsey Ellis: Kim Chapman
Mouse: Adam Mitchell
Yas Brown: Sharon Rooney
Chrissy Doolan: Ruth Madeley
Fraser Warren: James Cosmo
Kyle Warren: James McAnerney
Rachel Li: Katie Leung
Erin Connolly: Lois Chimimba
Aaron Moy: Alex Ferns
Liz Draycott: Sharon Small
Billy McCloud: Scott Reid
Cal McKinsey: Murray Fraser
Ian Crieff: Douglas Russell
Andy Maver: Gavin Mitchell
Danny Geoghan: Daniel Cahill
Sophie Warren: Leah Macrea
Kate Nisbit: Naomi Yang
Meg Hooton: Remy Beasley
Saj Sidhu: Parth Thakerar
Zed Hylton: Jasmine Naziha Jones
Leon Parhill: Micah Balfour
Tobi McKnight: Gabriel Howell
Big beardy unnamed chap: David Threlfall
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.