Hello,
This is my review for the TNT show "The Last Ship". It stars Eric "McSteamy" as Commander Tom Chandler and Adam Baldwin (Jayne Cobb!) as his second in command Mike Slattery. It also stars the USS Halsey and the USS Dewey as the $3 billion ship the USS Nathan James. Appearing in the random eye candy role is Rhona Mitra as Dr. Rachel Scott. She happens to be a paleomicrobiologist who is in the right place at the right time. She's conveniently on board the last ship and she can find the cure to the pandemic.
I've watched the first episode so far, "Phase Six", the title refers to the virus spreading over the world. Or as Dr. Rachel Scott says very frightfully, "Global pandemic". At first I was incredulous that someone that could save the world just happened to be on board. However the show handles that and explains how that happened well. The government knew all about the virus before sending Dr. Scott and her assistant on board the USS Nathan James. I like the plot point of the crew being under four months of radio silence, that made some of the other plot points a bit more believable. It's a very good story telling trick.
With the Russians being the bad guys I'm wondering are we back to the Cold War? Other bad guys include the person who "weaponized the virus, you're Patient Zero"- Dr. Scott again. The Russians no longer have a functioning government which we find out from the current acting American President. She used to be the Speaker of the House. The President and Vice-President died within a week of each other a few weeks previous. The American government is barely functioning, the ship received orders that were five days old. What's a captain to do?
At the end of episode one we see someone who's obviously communicating with someone other than the US Government. That cliche wrinkle isn't needed in this show. It doesn't bring anything to the show and frankly it's lazy storytelling. If Dr. Scott's assistant, Quincy Tophet, is communicating with the Russians, which quite likely he is, that would be extremely disappointing. Let's hope "The Last Ship" can rise above a tired cliche.
This is one of the trailers:
Produced by Michael Bay, which usually indicates action over story. After the first episode the action/ story mix is okay, to make a truly classic series story is more important than action. (For instance, the Sundance show "Rectify" has relatively little action, but along with "Lost" and "Homeland" it had one of the best first seasons of any show ever.) In a smart combination of action and story the crew of the USS Nathan James has a nifty fight with the Russians, which involve snowmobiles, butt kicking helicopters and the ship itself. It's exciting, but slightly unbelievable. Although the presumption is the Russians are trained military, why do they have such poor accuracy when shooting? They need to find other ways to make this more exciting besides poor shooting soldiers. Obviously that's completely unrealistic and hopefully has been remedied by episode 2.
One of the first things that "The Last Ship" reminded me of was the alleged submarine thriller "Last Resort". "Last Resort" started out okay, but quickly ran aground. From reading comments on EW.com, I'm not the only one that makes that comparison. Nearly every one of those commenters made the same comparison. I'm hoping the producers and writers learned from "Last Resort" how to make a smarter and more believable thriller.
"The Last Ship" has a 10 episode season and we know the 10th episode title is "No Place Like Home". That seems to be giving away the ending, although it could be meant to lead us astray. Likely these will be all 10 episodes for this show. We already know that the crew will save the world, maybe that shouldn't be broadcast so early? Perhaps there should be some question about if they do save the world. Since this is fiction, it's perfectly okay that they don't save the world. Just whatever happens should be as thrilling, intelligent and unpredictable as possible.
While writing this blog I realized I like more things about this show than dislike. I give this a show a probationary B- after one episode, I will continue watching it. In fact I'll probably even watch it almost live, something I do with very few shows.
(Thanks to Wikipedia, Youtube and EW.com for clarifying things and providing details that I didn't remember.)
themusicaddict
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