Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The North Water’ On AMC+, A Drama About A Shamed Doctor Trapped With A Psychopath On A Doomed Whaling Ship

When the producers of The North Water wanted to shoot scenes in Arctic-style waters, they wanted to do it right. So they shot at 81 degrees north latitude and shot on the ice pack there. The BBC claims this is the furthest north any drama has ever been filmed. So to say filming conditions were harsh was an understatement. But, the visual results are stunning. Does the story match the visuals?

THE NORTH WATER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We hear a man huffing and puffing in the dark. He looks like he’s having sex with a hooker, but he continues to huff and puff even after he’s done.

The Gist: We follow this gruff man around the streets of Hull, England in 1859. As he tries to trade a drink for his knife, we see that this man, Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), is a gruff man who has no compunction with using violence to get his way. When a man at the bar buys him the drink he wants, he later asks the guy to buy him another drink. When the guy tells him to “fuck off” as he’s making out with a concubine, Drax follows the two of them into a dark alley and brains the guy with a brick, coldly dragging his body off to hide it at the urging of the woman.

In the meantime, Patrick Sumner (Jack O’Connell) has been hired to be the ship’s doctor on a whaling vessel headed to the Arctic. When he comes aboard, Captain Brownlee (Stephen Graham) talks to Sumner’s experiences as an Army surgeon in India; Sumner was shot in the leg, and saw other soldiers killed or dead. What Brownlee doesn’t know is how much that experience has affected Sumner. Bownlee has his own issues; the ship’s owner, Baxter (Tom Courtenay), tells him to sink the ship in order to collect on a generous insurance policy.

We find out when Sumner goes to an apothecary to get supplies and asks him to sneak in some absinthe. Sumner goes to the local pub and sneaks shots of the absinthe while writing in a journal about his horrific experiences, including the sight of a local boy that he tried to buy off with a stolen ring after he got shot.

As the ship pushes off, Cavendish (Sam Spruell), the first mate, invites the doctor to come ashore at their first stop to visit the local distillery. This is where Sumner meets Drax for the first time. At the distillery, Drax starts a brawl, which knocks Sumner out, triggering flashbacks. When Cavendish and Drax get the still-wasted Sumner back to his cabin, they rummage through his stuff, finding papers that indicate he was dishonorably discharged from the army. All of it will help them later if needed.

The first hunting activity involves shooting, clubbing and skinning seals. Drax, the ship’s harpoonist, is especially proficient and brutal at the job. On the second day, an all-hands-on-deck order forces Sumner out on the ice. As he struggles to bring his pelt back to the ship, he sees Drax in the distance and calls to him. Drax keeps moving.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Arctic setting of The North Water, the time period, and the slow pace reminds us of the first season of another AMC show, The Terror.

Our Take: Adapted by Andrew Haigh from Ian McGuire’s novel of the same name, The North Water is also like The Terror in that it rewards the viewer who has the patience to stay with the show beyond its first episode. The first episode mainly is there to set up the differences in character between Sumner and Drax, and how the two of them are going to interact in future episodes.

Farrell does a fine job of playing Drax as the snorting brute he is. It’s not that Drax isn’t intelligent, but his worldview is “kill or be killed,” given how harsh things have been for him in his life. He’s rough and psychotic, but he’s also cunning; he wanted to get Sumner drunk in order to dig up dirt on him. Farrell has played a variety of roles in his career, but seeing him play Drax still feels like a welcome departure from his norm.

O’Connell, though, has the heavier emotional lifting to do as Sumner. His inner demons are right below his seemingly erudite exterior, and he is a flashback away from being either a drooling mess or as brutal as Drax; at this point we’re not sure. He’s on the whaler to escape those demons, but what he realizes early on, especially as he struggles to get across a cold ravine on the glacier where he’s hunting, that those demons go with him. This will likely play into his rivalry with Drax, especially when things on the ship get murderous.

Because the first episode is largely introducing us to those two characters, and the characters to each other, it’s a slow go. There’s lots of conversation, lots of extra scenes — Drax looking at a pig being butchered on his way to the pub, for instance — lots of character-building dialogue. And that’s OK. But you need to be a fan of these kinds of dramas, with guys in beards manning massive sailing ships in the 19th century, to want more by the end of the episode.

We suspect that the remaining four episodes of the limited series will pick up, as the ship actually fulfills its doomed mission as an insurance claim. But if you want to get a good idea about the main two characters, the first episode does a fine job setting things up.

Sex and Skin: Except for that first scene, there isn’t any more sex. And no skin.

Parting Shot: Sumner almost drowns in the cold rivulet that splits the ice, but then he flashes back to India again and suddenly pops out of the water.

Sleeper Star: We like Stephen Graham in anything he does, so we hope to see Brownlee more involved in the story going forward.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Sumner gets kicked in the head while down on the ground during the brawl, we hear the usual sound effect that’s used to indicate someone is knocked out, the high pitch squeal a person hears in their head after an explosion or trauma to the noggin. At this point, it’s cliche.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even though The North Water moves a bit slow, the performances more than make up for the dodgy pacing of the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The North Water On AMC+