Set in 1859, The North Water follows Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former military surgeon haunted by his past in India, who reluctantly signs on as the ship’s doctor aboard the whaling vessel The Volunteer. His prospects for redemption seem slim, yet he clings to the hope of rebuilding his life through honest work—even though the world around him is anything but honest.

From the moment Sumner boards the ship in Hull—a gritty industrial port where the whale oil trade is teetering on collapse—the audience is plunged into a world both morally and physically brutal. The ship’s captain, Brownlee, and owner Baxter have secretly orchestrated a grisly insurance scam: they plan to sink the Volunteer, abandon the crew, and collect the insurance payout. Unknown to Sumner, he steps into a trap far more treacherous than the icy Arctic itself.

Among the most unsettling presences aboard is Henry Drax, the ship’s master harpooner—played with bone-chilling ferocity by Colin Farrell. Drax is a physical force of darkness, unburdened by morality or conscience. He embodies raw violence, both animalistic and refined in his sadism. Opposite him stands Sumner: a man of reason, introspection, and inner torment, yet morally frail under pressure. Together, they form a tense, deadly contrast—order versus chaos—over the course of their doomed voyage.

As the voyage unfolds, the Volunteer sinks under a violent storm—Brownlee’s scheme derailed, and the rescue ship never arrives. Now stranded, the men face the deadly expanse of the Arctic: a desolate wasteland chanting survival. Seals and whales are slaughtered in excruciating detail, not only as sustenance but as a symbolic descent into the depths of human savagery. The stark, beautiful yet merciless Arctic landscape mirrors their internal disintegration.

The series blends genres: part whodunit, part survival horror, part existential horror. Sumner investigates the rape of a cabin boy—a case laden with prejudice and secrecy—while grappling with his addiction to laudanum and the haunting specter of his own failed past. As the crew dwindles and the ice closes in, alliances shift and morality shatters. The bleakness intensifies, the sense of hope evaporates, and each man is left facing the true horror of their own nature.

Cinematically, The North Water is striking—filmed as far north as 81 degrees in the Svalbard Archipelago, making it possibly the northernmost drama ever shot. The cinematography contrasts the fragile darkness of the ship’s interiors with the luminous, brutal clarity of Arctic ice. Critics praised the atmosphere, performances, and immersive realism, though some felt the final episodes lost a bit of momentum.