Goran Visnjic: Filming underwater drama The Deep with James Nesbitt

Watching this now.

This is the sort of thing I loved as a kid.

Disregard for science, awful exposition, hammy acting, ridiculous casting, familiar cliches.

I expect it will do well.

It was OK, it's just 'Event Horizon' underwater. I shall watch next week and wait for the plot to thicken....

I thought the first episode was alright. The CGI was very poor through.
The story a bit cliche but most opening episodes are.
Good thing they identified which characters the fans would dead an killed her in the first episode, but she was not killed by Raymond.
The other submarine looks pretty good hope this is the last episode with the Morpheus as the main submarine/
But I would rather have Defying Gravity on TV than this through.

Having just watch the deep i am in complete shock.
The BBC for once have spent the money from our TV licenses on something that is good entertainment and new and interesting as well as informative.
I say thanks and can not wait for the next 3 episodes

5* effort on this one BBC

'Event Horizon' under water? Yeah, could be but that wasn’t a bad film. This looks quite good so far (CGI a little soft) and James Nesbitt is always tops. Raymond (salvage investigator?) is good as the spook, obviously knows more than is letting on. Looks like Clem’s wife may not be dead after all? Just a guess. Though Scotty would not be too impressed with Clem’s main control room: Bit Captain Nemo-ish,

Drop the over zealous and loud background music and that constant drumming that’s meant to add to the tension.
Distracting and not needed. Hitchcock proved that with ‘Rear Window’ 1954. CSI New York copied it so it must be good!

Defying Gravity? Ah! Yes please.

Sam.
.

I watched the Deep last night or should I say I watched the BBC's version of Alien. Hope you have an agreement with the original producers of a classic film or we could see some of our license money going in a plagarism court case. Still it was entertaining and I will probably watch the remaining episodes.

CGI good, acting good, actors familiar, story ok.

However, I need to paraphrase Harrison Ford (when talking to George Lucas ref 1st Star Wars film):
"George, you can write this 'rubbish', but you can't say it"
Script is VERY POOR in places - I was squirming at the cliches and clumsy dialogue.
Hope it gets better.

Great special effects, pity about the script, and Antonia Thomas and Sacha Dhawan aren't up to the demands of acting their roles. Generally, when I see specialists and so called experts act like love-struck teenagers in life threatening situations, I get a bit worried about the general direction of the plot. I think this is aimed squarely at the Coronation Street/Eastenders brigade.

I hope this gets better, slightly too much 'slightly poor CGI/special effects' and not enough acting. Background music overpowering (too loud). Covering up bad script?? perhaps ;-).

Aliens, or another secret craft. expedition. I don't second guess plot lines now, waiting for the explanations. thinking there could be some sort of re-animation plotline somewhere....

Another lesson in how to get it wrong. Who the hell wrote this stuff? The script is awful 'If we stay here we're all going to die.' Oh really?
These are all good actors but they haven't a snowball in hells chance. The plot is daft and the characters evoke no sympathy whatsoever. The revelation of Samson's infidelity made me wish his air had run out. If this was partly inspired by Alien then take a lesson in how to write a decent script from that movie. If I carry on watching it, it will only be because it makes me laugh so much.

watched The Deep last nite in HD but just could,t see the quality this was not filmed in HD
Can anyone confirm this?

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Hire new writers immediately. So much potential in a great premise ruined by poor writing. Seems reminiscent of JJ Abrams' style storytelling. Leaps in logic, the crew not behaving realistically, leaving out common sense questions that normal people would ask, etc... Get Russell T Davies to the writing room. Stat!

We get only 3 episodes of the excellent Sherlock but this pile of rotting fish entrails gets 5.The script is laughable with acting to match (hysterical woman in first ep replaced by hysterical man in second) and the pace of the show would come last in a race against snails.
One great piece of stupidity was on the Russian vessel Maddy tells Samson not to touch the dead body for fear of what he could catch.To late is the reply so Maddy joins in moving the body missing the fact that Samson is wearing gloves and she is not.
The 'only' good bit was Svetlana's retort "You don't think I have this accent for fun,do you?"

To read my review of 'The Deep' Please visit https://www.thesanctumofsanity.blogspot.com

In case you can't easily access my blog to read my review of 'The Deep,' here it is in plain text.

Plumbing New Depths

A review of ‘The Deep’ BBC 1 Tuesdays 9.00pm.


As Thomas Gray observed in his famous elegy:

'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:'*

Unfortunately, 'The Deep' BBC 1 on Tuesdays at 9.00 pm is not one of them. The cast of this sub-surface story of skulduggery in the ocean's darkest depths must be wondering how they might escape from a script so dire it makes 'The Woodentops' seem like high art. Shot in what appears to be a disused Victorian swimming pool with marine door access to a long abandoned gasworks, it possess all the tension and excitement of watching an underwater episode of The Teletubbies in Turkish.

The story so far involves the bemused crew of 'The Orpehus,' (a supposedly sophisticated submersible which seems to be constructed from obsolete car parts) bobbing up in the swimming pool from where the crew enter into the gasworks part of the set to discover some sweaty. balding, hirsute Russian oafs, one of whom is found hitting a gas pipe with a very large spanner. Fortunately, most of these Russians are dead from what appears to be 'bleeding eyeball syndrome,' a mysterious disease, which has also thankfully, already killed a member of the crew of 'The Orpehus.' Regrettably, although deadly, I suspect that the disease will not prove deadly enough to protect us all from more episodes of this dreadful deep-sea drivel.

One of the surviving Russians is a scruffily suited, chain smoking KGB agent who's obviously based his ridiculous accent upon Alexander Orloff, the lovable mendacious meerkat who's regularly berating us all for confusing his ancestral website. I was totally distracted from what passed for the plot waiting for this nicotine addicted thug to exclaim 'simples!'

The rest of the cast, who are all supposed to be portraying well educated, intelligent scientists and engineers, are certainly 'simples,' and all behaving like dysfunctional teenagers with ADHD. In fact, one of the females, who looks about fourteen, is probably going to be permanently scarred by her encounter with this lamentable nonsense. From their behaviour I'd be very reluctant to place any of them in charge of an empty bird cage.

Even the advertised love interest between Goren Visnjic and the delectable Minnie Driver was a major disappointment. Their encounter, when it finally came, was conducted in what appeared to be a large goldfish bowl sprouting yellow claws. They were both dressed in concealing orange jump suits. They looked about as attractive as members of a motorway repair gang after a long shift in the rain. It was extremely uninspiring. Fifty fathoms down and cramped together in the cold depths of an inhospitable environment, Miss Driver was given no opportunity to even partially disrobe, which just may have added some mild interest to their supposed in-depth relationship.

As the writers and producers of this extremely wet and puerile drama no doubt bask in the deepening gloom of their own mediocrity, it is to be earnestly hoped, for the sanity of us poor licence fee payers, that whatever dreadful affliction is killing the cast develops sufficient virulence to wipe them all out long before the final watery episode. But don't hold your breath, not unless you too are struggling to keep your head above water.


*Thomas Gray 1716-1771. Lines taken from: Elegy in a Country Churchyard.

Ill be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this series. The first I heard about The Deep was the dig they had at it on The Now Show (Radio 4, last friday) and Ive never been a big fan of James Nesbit (possibly due to those terrible directory enquiries adverts), but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

The plot is intriguing and both episodes broadcast so far have left me hungry for the next part in a way which reminded me of how I felt during the first series of Lost. In places the script is admittedly a little ropey (most lines from the characters Vincent and Svetlana are horribly cringe-worthy) but on the whole its not a bad effort.

The only thing which really lets the series down so far is the CGI. In places it looks alright but in others its really terrible and you can always tell its been done on a computer.

Obviously Ive only seen 2 episodes so far, but based on that Ill give it a cautious 4 out of 5

There's not much that can be said of this dire waste of the TV license revenue except that it in no way justifies its existence and only adds to the many calls for its abolition.

It could have been very good, had decent writers been employed - alas they weren't and hence the series failed in the first episode. Characters are unconvincing and fail to engender any sympathy whatsoever for their predicament. The only possible response to: "If we stay here we're all going to die", would seem to be: "Well hurry up and get on with it then!"

When will the BBC realise that some reasonably big names (Goran Visnjic and Minnie Driver) plus basic CGI - do not a blockbuster make? Start with the writing e.g. 'Sherlock' or 'Luther' and work from there. Yet again the intelligence of the average viewer has been underestimated.

Soliloquy Sam wrote: "I think this is aimed squarely at the Coronation Street/Eastenders brigade." Unfortunately I think it falls short of half-way reasonable soap operas, where even the acting is far superior.

"Disregard for science" - very specifically the 'moon pool'. If they are at 2000ft below [609m+] the pressure will be 62 atmospheres - and the air pressure in the dock will have to match that to keep the water out! Can't walk about in jump suits!

Will resrve judgement on storyline!

Ok, so the script picked up a little bit tonight in ep 3, but then the CGI gets very ropey.

Put it this way - I cannot foresee a "The Deep - The Return"

For those of a slightly older age the best thing I can compare this to is Blake's Seven......

Who wrote this ham scented, sub aquatic, mind numbing melodrama? I had hoped that the BBC had learned its lesson after the unintentionally hilarious drivel that was 'Bone Kickers' and entrusted the licence fee payer's cash to a skilled and creative script writer, fat chance! What a waste... of money, of acting talent and of viewer's time.

The main story line is excellent and James Nesbitt is first class, as always. Sadly, the script is too often unrealistic and occasionally verging on puerile, and Minnie Driver's character is dire. One would hope that the captain of such a vessel, leading a dangerous and pioneering mission would be an altogether stronger individual with decisive leadership qualities. And for God’s sake what was the wardrobe manager thinking when he/she dressed Driver in something you might expect her to slop about in on a Sunday morning? This is a technologically advanced diving vessel not a coffee shop. If the series had been an American production, the captain would have been wearing a para-military set of coveralls and at least would have looked the part. I do like the cgi of the Russian vessel, though.

Now that they are going down into the deep trench can they leave the script down there. It's so bad you just have to keep watching. Like "Crossroads" must have been.

Someone once said that swearing or blaspheming is a sign that an author or a speaker is to lazy or incompetent to use an appropriate adverb or adjective .... Are all the " Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" necessary in the poor dialogue of The Deep? Can you imagine what will happen if they substitute it with "Mohamed"? Surely that will be seen as an offence to an ethnic minority but they don't seem to care to offend Christians or any other person who will enjoy a proper dialogue in stead senseless blasphemous interjections

What a complete waste of the licence fee. A show aimed squarely at the sub intellect X Factor generation. I don't think I have ever watched a TV show where I actually wanted characters to die. Thank God James Nesbitt's character revival was only temporary! Shame too that the Orpehus survived a point blank nuclear detonation when the Russian vessel exploded.

We want quality shows along the lines of The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad etc not this tripe.

So long as you suspended all scientific and physical facts, dropped any concern for the characters, ignored the script and the dodgy CGI in places, then the Deep was great.

But then, the testcard was as about good a way to spend 5 hours.

How on earth did they talk Goran Visnjic & Minnie Driver into appearing in such drivel?

Bring back El Dorado, all is forgiven!

you lot with all your negative comments - if you didn't like, why keep watching it !!!!! the deep was an excellent production, and i can't wait for the deep returns

Dear Boochapman

It was not necessary to watch more than half of one episode to work out that it was rubbish ... so don't just assume that we have all watched all the episodes ... the only reason why I went on this site in the first place was no make sure that I have not lost my marbles and that I was not the only one who thought it was junk ... I felt better when I realised that unlike you, who are in the minority, all seem to agree that The Deep was completely substandard for any intelligent person who has not had her or his senses dulled by watching and enjoying other junk all the time and use that as their standard of judging other a programme.

Appalling, reasonable special effects do not make up for a poor story. It reminded me of the Mitchell and Webb sketches about the script writers who produce stories about subjects they have no knowledge of, and end up producing ridiculously simplified/inaccurate script in a couple of hours. How this was commissioned is a total mystery to me.

Please don't waste your time watching this, I cannot believe I carried on watching all the episodes (it doesn't get any better or resolve in any satisfactory way by Ep. 5)

Having recorded all five episodes I've only just watched them. Overall the storyline wasn't bad but could and should have been condensed into about 3 hours. I pressed fast-forward during the melodrama bits when no one seemed to have any real sense of urgency to resolve the situations they found themselves in - much more productive it seems to get "emotional". The "Moon Pool" was fitted to Howard Hughes' "Glomar Explorer" - perfectly feasible for a surface ship - utter balderdash for any submersible unless pressurised to the same as the outside...........