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Thursday, September 27, 2012

Review: Last Resort

My girlfriend called me an awful blogger last night.  It was actually the second time in a week that she's said something about it, so I figured I needed to write something.  I had originally planned on writing a weekly series of posts to wrap up the weekend action in the NFL, but that never got off the ground.  There's other stuff in the ongoing saga among my family too, but I'm going to hold off talking about that for a little while.

Instead, I'm going to talk about a new series that premieres tonight.  It's called Last Resort.

The pilot episode has been available online for a couple weeks now, so I checked it out when it hit the web.  I've actually watched it a more than once since there are some scenes where it's easy to miss a few details, and the episode actually gets better with subsequent viewings.  I'm even planning on rewatching it when it finally airs on broadcast TV tonight while the Ravens play (GASP!)

When I first heard about this series being put into production, I had really high hopes for it.  Andre Braugher (Homicide: Life on the Street) plays Marcus Chaplin, captain of the U.S.S. Colorado, a submarine far out at sea.  His first officer is Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman), and they receive sudden orders to fire their nuclear arsenal at Pakistan without warning.  Since this action would incite World War III, they want confirmation from their superiors, but no such confirmation is given.  Instead, the Colorado is attacked by another U.S. submarine, and the crew is forced to fend for themselves.

Meanwhile, people in DC think the sub has sunk, and they're trying to piece together what happened.  Chaplin decides to secede his boat from the U.S. and sets a course for a NATO base on an island in the middle of the ocean.

(Hmm...an ABC drama series featuring a remote island and a submarine.  Where have I seen this before?)

Once the crew reach the island, Chaplin announces his intentions to the rest of the world.  If any invading force comes within radius of the island, he will launch his nuclear missles at a target of his choosing.  He declares the island a nuclear nation with his 18 Trident warheads, and he's ready to make use of them. 

I know it sounds like I've spoiled most of the pilot, but there's a lot more going in DC that I glossed over.  Plus, once the sub gets to the island, they meet a few inhabitants there who aren't exactly happy at having U.S. military personnel taking over.  There are plenty of threads for the series to develop beyond the crew creating their own new independent nation.  The conspiracy of who ordered Chaplin to nuke Pakistan can only be drawn out for so long, but dealing with the other inhabitants of the island could present all kinds of stories and conflicts.  And make Last Resort somewhat similar to that other ABC series I had alluded to earlier.

Last Resort's pilot is the best pilot to any series I've seen in years.  It's intense, the characters are drawn well so far, and it doesn't rely on cliches to push the plot forward.  The show was created by Shawn Ryan, who had previously put cop shows on tilt with The Shield.  He knows exactly how to write an anti-hero, and Chaplin walks that very thin line between patriot and madman throughout the pilot.

I'm really looking forward to seeing where this show goes in the coming weeks, but I'm pretty concerned that because it's heavily serialized, it won't last more than a year or two.  I'm heartily sick of procedural shows featuring doctors, cops, and/or lawyers, so Last Resort is exactly the kind of show that I'd like to see succeed.  I'd highly recommend checking it out when it premieres at 8:00 tonight on ABC.

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