Hey, I caught the premiere of The Last Ship on TNT last night, and it was pretty good, even if we have seen the pieces of the set-up before.Helix on the SyFy Channel is the most recent disease apocalypse tale on television, and Last Resort on NBC a few years told the story of an American captain fighting the U.S. and a lot of the world on his rogue nuclear-armed submarine.
But The Last Ship is a little different. The U.S. is not (yet) the ship's enemy, but rather seems all but wiped out by the plague. Actually, the government is all but wiped out, but some number of Americans are still alive, including the CO's family, which makes for a compelling continuing story line.
The nature of the virus is of note as well. It's a deadly virus, already doing damage, but apparently made even more deadly by some deliberate genetic engineering. This gives the scientist on board an interesting hand to play. As Dr. Rachel Scott explains to the CO Tom Chandler, she is more likely to find a cure, because she has the original, unengineered virus in her possession.
But the ship - a destroyer not a sub, which is also more interesting - is beset by at least two types of enemies. One are the creators of the genetically engineered virus. The other are the Russians - or a splinter group from what is left of Russia - assuming they are not the same as the evil genetic engineers.
So, while the premise is a bit trite, there are possibilities here for a good series, and I'll be watching. Hey, if it's science fiction, I'm usually more than halfway there whatever the pilot.
another biological agent on the loose ...
#SFWApro
1 comment:
I watch plenty of TV shows and the choices a network faces is way out of date...Nelson ratings rely on viewership by time slot to this day...our working world is divided into 3 working shifts...Nelson ratings use those working 1st shift 1 third of viewership...a very small percentage....shows live and die by this...for real results you must depend on availability to the rest second and third shift people...who must pay for streaming services...and those company's have their own original series...to produce a real winner in viewership it needs to be avaliable to all not just cable viewers vs streamers...someone will figure this out...making a blockbuster like those in the past that had huge ratings...it is happening slowly...but people will not pay for a service for a single show...shows gain real popularity by being able to talk about last episode...the network with the real solution is still waiting to be found...the line between network and streaming is wide open to the smartest innovators...availability at the same time needs to be worked out...or as is happening shows get canceled before the writers finish the story
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