Round Two: The Last Ship

The Last Ship: Season 1, Episode 2 “Welcome to Gitmo” (B)

So what we have here is your typical postapocalyptic series, full of fascinating ideas but not always completely on the money in terms of execution. The concept of guards at Guantanamo Bay thinking that the world government structure had collapsed and society was doomed so they might as well let their Al-Qaeda prisoners go is truly intriguing. Less so are the unnecessary gun battles (substitute swords in “Revolution” and alien clashes in “Falling Skies” for reference) that take up too much of the hour. Raiding for supplies at a remote station reminded me of the second episode of “Battlestar Galactica,” though the human drama here is far less compelling. Tom’s mantra of “We don’t negotiate with terrorists” is a good catchphrase, albeit a rehearsed and excessively dramatic one. I much prefer the token greeting on “None of us have been infected” that seems to be the new “hello” these days. My mistrust of John Pyper-Ferguson’s guard is probably unfounded and likelier rooted in the actor’s character on “Alphas,” who would certainly have manipulated a new world order to his advantage. He’s a strong actor and it’s good to have him around for the foreseeable future after he survived this episode. I should be much more suspicious of the actual Russian spy aboard, especially considering the fact that a friendly British vessel turned out to be an angry Russian boat which will definitely spell troubles for what is not going to be a second Cold War but something far more destructive.