Passengers and employees of the National Cyber ??Security Center must work together in Nightsleeper when a train is hijacked and drives through Great Britain like a kind of armed missile. When the night train the 'Heart of Britain' is hijacked and starts a crazy ride, none of those involved know what kind of night they are in for. What follows are six exciting hours that will not end well for some of the passengers. In the BBC series Nightsleeper we follow the passengers and government agencies as they try to find out what is going on with the train and how to stop this terror.
The makers successfully manage to keep the tension level high throughout all the episodes.
After seeing the first episode of Nightsleeper I was immediately curious about the rest. The way of telling in real time, which is very similar to the American series 24, really appealed to me. Since the series only consists of six episodes, you can go through the story quickly. It is also just long enough to remain realistic and not become too long-winded. The makers did not have to spend a lot of money on sets. After all, everything mainly takes place on the train and at the headquarters of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) in London.
On the train the leading role is reserved for Joe (Joe Cole, Gangs of London). With his tough actions against a pickpocket on the platform, he quickly achieves hero status within the train. However, cracks appear when it turns out that he is not as good a guy as everyone thinks. Yet the fellow passengers place their trust in him and he is the one who is most in contact with the NCSC in order to regain control of the train.
Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach, Sanditon) leads the employees within the NCSC and tries to discover the hijackers' goals. When it turns out that their power extends much further than just governing the Heart of Britain, more and more parties within the government become involved. Bureaucratic rules and cover-ups make it very difficult for Abby and her team to get to the core of the problem and therefore the solution.
The makers successfully manage to keep the tension level high throughout all the episodes. Every episode I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. Unfortunately, the story does suffer from certain stereotypes and overdramatized scenes. For example, Abby is very emotional at times and train passengers Danny Geoghan (Daniel Cahill, The Control Room) and Rachel Li (Katie Leung, Annika) are very simplistic in terms of character development.
No one can be trusted.
No one can be trusted. When traces of sabotage are found within the train, fingers are quickly pointed at each other. But who is capable of this and why would anyone do such a thing? Trust is also hard to find within the NCSC. When Abby calls on former employee Pev (David Threlfall, What Remains) for help, she provokes a lot of resistance from her colleagues. Moreover, her boss Nicola Miller (Pamela Nomvete, Agent) appears not to be completely honest about certain things that go on behind the scenes.
I was very curious about how the story would end. Would the ending make sense and explain all the events? As far as I'm concerned, the answer to this is yes. The series is certainly not perfect. But the progression of the story in combination with how everything turns out left me with a satisfied feeling. Without saying whether it ends well or badly, I am happy with the depth of the main characters. The acting is also excellent and you feel the seriousness of the situation and time pressure in every scene.
The story was not completely realistic, but it was portrayed so well that as a viewer you could empathize with the situation. The special effects left a lot to be desired, but because this was only a small part of the series, I didn't find this very disturbing. Story-wise, Nightsleeper is well put together and that makes it a good series for me. There were certainly some parts that could have been improved. But if you're looking for a short, exciting series that is compelling then I would definitely recommend Nightsleeper. Due to the critical points here and there, my final grade is slightly lower than that of the first episode. But this series still gets a big pass from me!
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
