So we’ve got some details about the pilot episode of ABC’s Last Resort airing tonight. Yes, so that means there are some somewhat spoilery things floating around about this show. THIS MEANS DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO BE SURPRISED by the new thing ABC is trotting out.
What we’ve learned so far is that this new show starring the usually fantastic Andre Braugher as Capt. Marcus Chaplin, and the usually mediocre but sexy eye candy, Scott Speedman, playing Executive officer Sam Kendal, is that, yeah, it has some themes that resonate a bit with the movie Crimson Tide, with some Tom Clancy thrown in, and maybe a little Lost to round out the three, urgh. Please don’t get us started on the mind-bending, infuriatingly overwrought Lost.
Basically at the heart of this show are questions about morality, geopolitics, and the U.S. as a nation, because, yeah, there’s some dirty stuff the old U.S.of A. is doing. Hoo-boy.
Here’s where we get to the good stuff or potentially the stuff full of lunacy and oddness.
Both Chaplin and Kendal are in charge of a nuclear sub with 18 nukes and a crew of 150 called the Colorado. As the Colorado is passing the equator, Capt. Marcus Chaplin gets an order to fire on Pakistan. We don’t know why. Oh, geez. Pakistan. Well, this is exactly what Chaplin wants to know. When he questions Washington he’s relieved of his command which places Executive officer Sam Kendal in charge. Yet, when he also questions the order, a missile is fired on the Colorado — from the U.S. military. This sets off a chain of events that is probably everyone’s worst nightmare. The Brass in Washington then tells the world that Pakistan sank the Colorado using the action to strike the defenseless country. Fearing the worst, Chaplin takes his sub and crew to an island, where he holds D.C. hostage by threatening to detonate the sub’s nukes. OH CRAP! So we have a standoff with Pakistan and the U.S. started, infiltrated, and occurring on the side of the U.S.? Geez.
Okay. Okay. Um, well, first there’s the notion that there’s now going to be a television series that shows the U.S. firing on Pakistan, a country we currently have no active conflict with — can anyone say “Innocence of Muslims” film — add to that the plausibility of making the U.S. out to be a potentially depraved nation that would wage war on unsuspecting Middle East regions with no provocation. Yep, that may be a lot to swallow. Verne Gay of Newsday says:
“[Viewers] have to accept a portrait of U.S. leadership as depraved as Hitler and Stalin combined. We all know Washington has its screw-ups, but this does seem like a bitter and cynical take on them — at least for an 8 p.m. series. “Last Resort” purposely leaves questions hanging: When did Pakistan become an outright enemy (or is the attack a diversion)? What’s really going on in Washington? The rest of the world? The geopolitics alone will give you a headache. BOTTOM LINE Good pilot. Crazy premise. But maybe just crazy enough to be engaging in the early going. It’s the long run that looks questionable.”
If nothing else ABC attempts to make this show daring. Is it too much for viewers to believe and get behind? If you’re going to do a show with this much political heavy-lifting, it’s just got to be a chronicle of events that we could actually see happening. Sure, sure, it isn’t as if there are no heroes. Chaplin and Kendal are being positioned to be the lone cowboys working behind the scenes to restore order — and possibly save the world from nuclear war. Sound far-fetched? Maybe we’ll buy that or we’ll start picking it apart after flaws are uncovered like we’ve started with other new offerings (Revolution), but the critics seem to think that either the show will be brilliant or it’ll give you a crazy headache.
That’s an interesting vote of confidence — or not. We’ll have to see if it works, or if it suddenly disappears from the face of television while we are in the midst of the election season, ahem. Haha. The U.S. wouldn’t do that. Would they?
Last Resort airs Thursdays at 8pm on ABC
