Two months ago I posted a review of the streaming series The Rig about ancient threats from the ocean’s floor endangering the crew of a North Sea Oil Rig. At the time I called the first couple of episodes an intriguing start.

Sadly, I can’t say that the season ended well.

It did not end terribly either.

It sort of petered out, revealing some things, establishing its deeper mythos and lore, but clearly more focused on a second, or possibly even more, season that crafting a tale well told.

I do not insist that every season of a multi-part project be presented as a complete story. Game of Thrones first season certainly ended with loads of unresolved plotlines, but it also had a finality to it that gave it a sense of ending. The Stark’s time in King’s Landing had ended, that chapter was done, and the tragedy had befallen the family.

The Rig, while superficially, presenting the same sort of season close had none of that emotional weight. The oil rig is abandoned, some characters survived, some did not, but none of it felt like a close. It reeked of ‘cliff hanger,’ something I truly despise.

Endings are critical. I personally cannot start writing a short story or novel without knowing the ending. It is the culmination of all those hours of reading and watching. It is the treasure that is the artist’s gift to the reader and audience. It is the bow that completes the wrapping.

An ending doesn’t have to be ‘happy.’ Michael’s at the conclusion of The Godfather is far from happy. He has become everything he said he was not, but that transformation is the point and that’s what we see fully realized in the ending.

The Rig gave me nothing but the dangling thread that more was to come but without the character arc, without the human transformation, more to come is far from enticing.