Last Resort (ABC) - season 1 thread (1 Viewer)

Forgive me if there's a thread already started for this show, I searched but couldn't find one.
The entire pilot is up on Yahoo!:

To be honest with you, the promos didn't really have me sold, but I came away thinking that it was a strong contender for the best pilot of the fall TV season. It felt more like a Tom Clancy novel brought to life than the actual Tom Clancy film adaptations. You can cut the tension with a knife most of the way through, and where most shows would cop out or push the reset button, this pilot follows through in a big way.

I thought it was terrible, a show thought up in a committee, crossing Crimson Tide with Lost.

I saw the promo on tv the other day and saw Scott Speedman's name and knew I wasn't going to watch it

It's the best pilot of the season, hands down. I like "Elementary", but this show has much more potential.
The first 20 min or so is pretty "Crimson Tide" cliche. Annoyingly so. But, once it gets started it really grooves. And, Braugher is great.
I don't get the "Lost" comparisons except for the obvious island setting. There is nothing fantastical at work here. And, the conspiracy is not on the island but in D.C, - typical cloak & dagger conspiracy stuff.
The big question is, where do you go from here? Some of the island politics/intrigue/interaction may be interesting...but, how does it hold up to the high stakes set in the pilot and with what will be at stake in D.C.?
I hope Shawn Ryan can pull it through.

As a former submariner, this show is a joke. Way too many errors to note, but the main one was with the damage aft that boat was never getting off the bottom.

This whole show is a laughing joke if you ask me. The whole concept that any government would let a rogue sub just go rogue is nonsense. At first sign of a takeover or not being able to hail them you scramble all you have to destroy them with no regard. Otherwise you would have sheer chaos of people second guessing orders, running amok, etc. Everything about this show is dreadful, from the script to several of the actors, it just is very poor in concept.
All of this smacks of some political soap box that several of these networks try to pass off, but it just never works out for them. If I want to watch a good show watch Crimson Tide, this is just sad.

Jeffery_H said:

This whole show is a laughing joke if you ask me. The whole concept that any government would let a rogue sub just go rogue is nonsense. At first sign of a takeover or not being able to hail them you scramble all you have to destroy them with no regard. Otherwise you would have sheer chaos of people second guessing orders, running amok, etc. Everything about this show is dreadful, from the script to several of the actors, it just is very poor in concept.
All of this smacks of some political soap box that several of these networks try to pass off, but it just never works out for them. If I want to watch a good show watch Crimson Tide, this is just sad.

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Actually, I felt it was more Dr. Strangelove-ish, but instead of the bombers blindly fulfilling their mission, they asked for confirmation (since they thought it was someone like Col. Ripper who gave them the order). They weren't the 'rogue', the person who secretly sent the order was.
Based on the TV News they showed, there is obviously some type of power struggle going on between the President and the people trying to impeach him. One side or the other went outside the chain of command and issued the orders to the sub (i.e. someone other than the President, or the President without a Declaration of War). This was apparent when the Admiral was unaware of the situation
IMHO, it was a solid opening. I do have problems with its longevity. Unless they do something very rash (like a WW III), I can't see them staying as outsiders for more than the season.
David

Actually thought it was a great pilot, almost feature film quality in places and very well done.
As for the factual errors, people need to lighten up, it's entertainment. Of course things are over the top, dramatic and also totally fictional. You don't hear people bitching about "Dr. Who".
There's a phrase, "suspended disbelief" where you just go with the flow and don't judge things, just enjoy.

I also enjoyed the pilot. Very much so, in fact. I think the Captain could play a bad-ass Darth Vader if and when the Star Wars prequels get remade. Earl Jones, move over.

I thought it was the best pilot of the new season (certainly much better than the trash that is Revolution). I can forgive the technical details, though I can see how they would bother someone in the profession (it's the reason I avoid watching most lawyer shows). I enjoyed Shawn Ryan's tenure on The Unit, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with this show.

Robert Duncan's score was fantastic.

Great pilot, even though I'm not sure where they go from here. But it makes Revolution look like child's play -- the performances were outstanding, and the script was interesting and engaging and moved the plot along. I liked this more than Elementary as a pilot, but I if had to choose, I'd go with the latter.

When I first heard about this show, I had zero intention of watching it.

Pregnancy was pretty good to Autumn Reeser.

I had a feeling this would not be good, just based on the concept. Thirty minutes in, and I am done. Pretty ridiculous.

The basic concept now makes no sense to me. It's really well acted, but you would think there would be infinite safeguards to prevent some guy on a sub going crazy, taking over an island and threatening the world with nukes. Even with good reason, or if the rest of the world is the mad people, you'd think this wouldn't really work out.. that computers could be disabled or whatever..

Just doesn't seem to make sense. I'm not sure how the heck this actually moves past about 6 episodes. Which is too bad, because if someone told me this was going to be a Mini-Series, it'd be an awesome concept.

that computers could be disabled or whatever

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I don't think you would create a scenario on a weapons platform where the enemy could potentially disable your fire control systems, not that this show is a model for realism.
Like the acting (mostly) but the concept is kind of a stretch. A rogue element of the government has launched a first strike on Pakistan? A country not capable of launching a ballistic missile against the continental U.S. Not really buying into that plot device. I'll stick around and see how things develop but not off to a promising start for me.
- Walter.

Man, I love that I am easy to please when it comes to mindless television. For me this show is exactly the kind of craziness that I like to escape into. Do I care that technical details are implausible? Hells no. If I did, 95% of any given network's shows would be unwatchable.

mattCR said:

The basic concept now makes no sense to me.   It's really well acted, but you would think there would be infinite safeguards to prevent some guy on a sub going crazy, taking over an island and threatening the world with nukes.   Even with good reason, or if the rest of the world is the mad people, you'd think this wouldn't really work out.. that computers could be disabled or whatever..
Just doesn't seem to make sense.  I'm not sure how the heck this actually moves past about 6 episodes.   Which is too bad, because if someone told me this was going to be a Mini-Series, it'd be an awesome concept.

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While I agree there should be 'safeguards', it seemed to me that these safeguards had already been disabled. There are questions about the validity of the original order, so we don't know if the official channels gave the order, or someone outside the official channels who bypassed these safeguards did. Portions of the government thought the sub had been destroyed, so they wouldn't be trying to 'stop them', since they thought it had already been done.
As for 'some guy', well it was shown it wasn't just one person, the majority of the command staff went along with the decision. We've seen some opposition from within the sub, but so far, that has been dealt with (although I expect more stories focusing on additional in-sub conflict). In fact, the way the original command was handled sounded like the captain was attempting to put into place safeguards to ensure that the order wasn't 'some guy going crazy' asking them to shoot off their nukes.
As for remotely disabling the sub, either the computers or otherwise - that goes both ways. We'd like to think that our official channels can control our subs in the field, but we also don't want our enemies to have that ability as well. Think Wrath Of Khan - each starship had the ability to be controlled remotely, but each captain could change the codes to prevent it from being controlled remotely.
I do agree, like several other shows over the past few years (Missing), that the concept seems to fit a mini-series better than a long-term show. They could string this out for a full season, but not sure how they'd go further.
But it was an enjoyable hour.
David

Hard to believe the same guy behind this show was also behind The Shield, The Unit, Terriers and The Chicago Code. I get that people enjoy it and call it good, mindless entertainment, but I don't know how anyone can say it's well done (at least based on the pilot). Very poorly written, and other than Braugher poorly acted.

That said, I'll probably stick with it for an episode or two more because I'm such a sucker for serialized drama, but I was disappointed to see the direction it appears to be headed based on the previews. I was hoping for something more about this group of people surviving off the grid.

I think they should have just called the show "Stretching One's Incredulity".

ScottH said:

Hard to believe the same guy behind this show was also behind The Shield, The Unit, Terriers and The Chicago Code.  I get that people enjoy it and call it good, mindless entertainment, but I don't know how anyone can say it's well done (at least based on the pilot).  Very poorly written, and other than Braugher poorly acted.
That said, I'll probably stick with it for an episode or two more because I'm such a sucker for serialized drama, but I was disappointed to see the direction it appears to be headed based on the previews.  I was hoping for something more about this group of people surviving off the grid.

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Yes, I would agree with most of those feelings too. As mentioned prior, I still think this smacks of a political soap box type of statement they are going for (especially in a real life election year). When I watch a show, I want to be entertained like with Elementary or 666 Park Avenue, not this drivel of a show.