I’m not going to go into the technological mumbo-jumbo here. There’s a lot of that in BBC One’s latest thrill-ride, Nightsleeper, but trust me, the majority of that is not exactly important for you to understand. In this article, we’re going to go through the plot of the series before sharing our thoughts.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in the Show?
It kicks off at Glasgow station. The Heart of Britain Nightsleeper service is about to commence, like on any other night, but it gets delayed by a sudden mugging incident at the station. Two masked men snatch away a woman’s bag on the platform and climb onto the train. Fortunately, police officer Joe is on the scene, here to catch the same train. Joe chases down the muggers inside the train and snatch back the bag from them. The muggers get away, but it’s mostly a win for Joe, who receives a hero’s welcome from the passengers, train manager Ian, and the staff on the train.
The train starts moving, but just when everyone’s about to relax, Ian finds a single-board computer (SBC) installed inside the train engine, with no driver around. After the initial bomb scare, it becomes evident that it’s the handiwork of some hacker. Thanks to his earlier heroics, Joe is brought into the inner circle, and he suggests they call the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Problem is nobody on board has any network, indicating there’s a jammer hidden somewhere in the train. Fortunately, there’s a satellite phone onboard, thanks to this passenger, Danny, who just happens to work at an oil rig. Using the sat-phone, Joe managed to contact Abby, who’s the acting technical director (ATD) of the NCSC and in charge of containing the situation. Abby was on her way to a vacation in Marrakesh, but she had to cancel at the last minute because of the situation. Not that she’s complaining, as it comes with her job, which is her first priority. Joe and Abby form a rapport instantly, and she promises to guide him through the situation. Of course, it can never be that easy.
When the train (thankfully) stops at the Motherwell station, NCSC orders the train manager to take everyone out through the first door of the front carriage. There’s a major problem, as Joe is revealed to be a policeman who is on the run for stealing some drug money. Quite naturally, you think it’s him who might be behind the whole thing. However, it soon becomes clear that Joe might have done some questionable things (which he denies); he’s not behind the train hack-jack. While NCSC planned to empty the train and examine the whole situation at Motherwell, the hacker (who’s now calling him the driver) clearly seems to have other plans as the train starts moving, with some passengers still inside. Some of the passengers, like former train driver Fraser, had the chance to get out but refused to leave the train for no valid reason (other than adamancy and demands from the narrative), and some others, like university student Erin Connelly, who was in the bathroom, are just unfortunate enough to be on the train.
The train keeps running, and Joe and Abby try their best to take control of the situation. Even after knowing about his wrongdoings, Abby decides to go with her gut and put Joe in charge. She also has to deal with regular government bureaucracy at the office, mainly coming from her boss Nicola Miller, director of Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), and Mark Hudson, a senior security officer. She also has this rivalry going on with colleague Saj Sidhu, which seems like a very unnecessary addition to the already convoluted plot. Abby does have support in rookie tech expert Tobi and her mentor, former TD Paul Peveril, aka Pev, whom she has brought in from a concert, due to the urgency of the situation. Pev is a genius who was fired by Nicola, who’s understandably skeptical about his presence, but that soon gets sorted when he manages to give them a small win by managing to track the location of the train. Abby, meanwhile, manages to stop all the trains in the UK from moving and clear out the path of the Nightsleeper. The first big trouble comes when the train finds a freight train near Gretna blocking the path. Abby does manage to make the freight train move just in time, but a minor collision still happens that leaves the passengers a little battered.
Just before the collision, Joe discovers a gun in the train, and Abby also confirms that there’s someone in the train who might be responsible for the whole thing. This leads to a complete “Among Us” situation in the train, which is fun to watch but gets tiresome pretty soon. There’s this reporter, Rachel Lee, who’s looking for a proper story in order to boost her career. She just happens to meet one of the muggers (by now it’s established that it was all staged to install the SBC inside the train) who handed her a pendrive, which she had been foolishly hiding for a long time. But Rachel is not the one who’s responsible, nor is Erin, Fraser, or Danny. The oil-rig guy is, in fact, a soon-to-be father who tragically dies when he tries to get out of the train and it runs him over. Transport secretary Elizabeth Liz Draycott being one of the passengers is a big deal, but she’s just unlucky to get stuck here. It’s revealed that Liz is also advocating for selling the UK rail to private buyers, a move that Abby and Pev absolutely disapprove of.
From the NCSC HQ, Abby manages to change the direction of the train’s route by putting it on a loop and also cutting off the electric supply. Her plan is to drain all the diesel, which will stop the train eventually. But the hacker’s one-upped her by taking the train out of the loop and directing it towards London. Abby is also questioned by Hudson for snooping on Miller’s email, and after the revelation that the code that is being used is actually written by her only. After a lot of confusion and arguments between everyone, it is concluded that since it is Abby’s code coming from the NCSC, they’re the ones who can actually reverse the whole thing. The solution is to get connected to the SBC and then disable it, which effectively takes the control away from the hacker.
However, chaos breaks out inside the train with the possibility of an imposter on board. Annoying accountant Arran gets shot accidentally (and the gun is revealed to be his only), while everyone finds out a stranger named Caleb Mahmood is traveling with them, who was hiding the whole time. Caleb is train staff Billy’s boyfriend who was there as the two planned to have a good time on the next day in London, as it’s Billy’s day off. On Hudson’s orders, the police also do some very unnecessary firing at the train in order to drain the diesel instantly. The first genuine success comes when Fraser comes up with this plan to uncouple half of the train from the engine and it works out. Sadly, Fraser himself gets stuck on the side of the engine along with Joe, his daughter-in-law Sophie, train staff Billy and Yasmine, and the impressive little boy, Mouse. It all comes down to Abby as the train heads to Victoria station in London, where the NCSC HQ is located. She does manage to take control of the SBC, but ultimately she has to run to the station and manually change the signal from green to red in order to activate the shutdown mechanism of the train. Fraser dies from a heart attack, but the rest of the passengers are saved. Joe finally meets Abby, and he also decides to hand himself over to the police.
In what some would call a killer twist, Pev is revealed as the mastermind behind the whole thing. His reason for doing it is not actually selfish; all he wanted was to alert the government to a possible disaster and stop the privatization of the UK railways. However, hacking a train is still questionable in my book, and I have discussed it here.
Final Thoughts
One of the major problems I have with most of these genre shows is the desperate attempt to make us feel for the characters. There are so many moments in Nightsleeper that are screaming at the audience for that. Be it a mother and child getting separated, or the retired train driver Fraser trying to retrieve his watch, or Abby and Joe bonding over music, it’s quite clear that the show wants you to invest your emotion in its characters. To make that happen, the only necessary thing is to write these characters well. That’s where many shows fail, and Nightsleeper is no exception, sadly. It’s already difficult for a six-episode miniseries to pull it off, but the writing you see in this show is pretty much atrocious.
Firstly, they’ve introduced tons of characters, and by the time you get familiar with all of them, you’ve reached the climax. And then none of the characters are developed well; most of the backstories are either generic or undercooked. For example, it’s evident that Abby and Saj have a professional rivalry. It’s possible that he was vying for the job, but since she got it, he got jealous. But there’s a scene where the two of them have such a conversation that makes you wonder if these two had some sort of personal relationship that had gone sour. Also, writer Nick Leather seems to be extremely confused with his characters and what he really wants to do with them. While Joe and Abby’s chemistry is admirable, it’s also kind of flirty, which doesn’t make sense considering Abby is in a healthy relationship. In fact, her partner is actually helping her throughout the whole chaos by staying in the Victoria station. We also see Saj getting jealous many times when Abby and Joe are communicating well. Sure, Abby could be bisexual, and the show doesn’t have a responsibility to be morally correct, but isn’t this whole thing a tad unnecessary?
Many times, woeful writing is saved by great acting, but that’s not the case in Nightsleeper either. I have liked Joe Cole in many things before, but the Peaky Blinders actor is so underwhelming here, performance-wise. His Joe lacks both the charm and charisma that were needed for a character like this. Alexandra Roach has been a favorite since “Utopia,” but here she’s saddled with a role so generic that nothing substantial can be done with it. However, she still tries her best and does better than Cole. Other than these two, not one performance in the show is anything noteworthy.
All this said, Nightsleeper is quite binge-worthy. I mean, there are times it does become a slog, mainly because of how it tries to force the technology and bureaucracy upon the viewer in an intimidating manner, but when it’s just trying to do the basics, it does work. Some of the finest moments in the show have to be the ones where everyone is trying to save the train from a collision or Joe is going after a possible mole with a rifle. The show does have the thrill, which makes it an easy watch. It’s like a moderately tasty snack, which you start eating to pass time but end up finishing just out of habit. It’s clearly no Bodyguard (which is still the best British show set on a train), but Nightsleeperdoes offer you plenty of thrills and chills. It should work for you if you’re really into real-time thrillers and used to be a fan of movies like Speed back in the day.
