'The Rig' Will Launch Season 2 New Year's Weekend

Amazon Studio's Scottish series, The Rig, will return to Prime Video with Season 2 just in time for hangover viewing. The series, which initially debuted the first weekend of January 2023, returns almost exactly two years later, and sadly, it's still not safe to get back in the water. Emily Hampshire (Schitt's Creek) once again joins Martin Compston (Line Of Duty) and Iain Glen (Mrs. Wilson) as part of the Kinloch Bravo team, heading back into the oceans to dig for oil, only to have Mother Earth fight back.

The first season took three years to launch; it was greenlit during the 2020 pandemic, filmed in Scotland right when Lockdown 3 ended, and then sat on the shelf from mid-2021 to January 2023. An attempt at eco-horror, The Rig's first season was marred by its willingness to pull one too many punches. The idea behind The Rig was sound; as Gandalf so eloquently said, "They dug too greedily and too deep." It was more about the execution that turned it into a semi-rote "Save the Earth" morality play.

Considering how few people tuned into The Rig Season 1 in the U.S., it was slightly surprising Amazon greenlit a second season. However, the series, which was the inaugural production out of Amazon's Scotland studios, did well in the U.K. We have our friends across the pond to thank for giving the series a second chance to make a first impression. Will Season 2 do better? Check out the trailer and decide for yourself.

Here is the Season 2 synopsis:

The second series of The Rig sees the surviving crew of the Kinloch Bravo arrive at a new secret offshore facility called the Stac, nestled deep in the extraordinary and deadly landscapes of the Arctic Circle. Here, the trapped crew must deal with the emotional and physical fallout of the devastating tsunami that destroyed the Bravo, and contend with swirling conspiracies, corporate conflicts, and new threats from the dark depths of the world’s ocean. The second series will continue exploring global themes – weaving together the past, present, and future of the planet while taking the viewer to spectacular environments and drawing on the frontiers of cutting-edge ocean technology – including the controversial world of deep sea mining.

Glen, Compston, and Hampshire are once again joined by Rochenda Sandall (Hijack), Owen Teale (Game of Thrones), Mark Addy (The Full Monty), Molly Vevers (The Spanish Princess), Abraham Popoola (The Great), Nikhil Parmar (We Live in Time) and Stuart McQuarrie (Shetland). Season 2 newcomers include Ross Anderson (The Last Kingdom), Phil McKee (Deadwater Fell), Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (Bodies), Alice Krige (Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime), and Johannes Roaldsen Fürst (White Boys).

David Macpherson penned Season 2 of The Rig with Meg Salter. Director John Strickland (Bodyguard) and Alex Holmes (The Letter for the King) split helming duties across the six episodes. Suzanne Reid is the series producer, and Matt Brown is the co-producer. Macpherson and Strickland executive produce with Derek Wax. The series is produced by Wild Mercury Productions (part of Banijay UK) and filmed in Scotland.

The Rig Season 2 will premiere with all episodes on Thursday, January 2, 2025, on Amazon's Prime Video on both sides of the pond.