The Last Ship 2014

When I started watching The Last Ship, the second season had aired about four episodes. Of course, I watched from the beginning. In just four days, I was caught up and eagerly awaiting the next episode each week. The show started out that good, avoiding the cliché of a weak first season. It came out fighting, just like its heroes. That fighting spirit continued all the way through season two, too.

My enthusiasm stayed strong through the break. Trying to find another show like this proved futile, however. I had no choice but to wait for season three to begin, and once it did I watched each third-season episode as soon as possible.

The Last Ship has five seasons, however, and they are not all equally great.

The visual effects in this show were never amazing, I'd say. They mostly stayed out of the way—not award-worthy, but not glaringly fake, serving the purpose and carrying the plot forward with the appropriate battle excitement. Season three, though, brought a subtle dip in quality that morphed into some pretty terrible CGI by seasons four and (especially) five. The effects no longer blended in, but called attention to themselves by not quite fitting into the show's visual world.

I was even less amused by the slideshow-like slow-motion effect used in a few fifth-season episodes, wherein normal-speed footage was simply played back at just a frame or two per second. The director(s) might have chosen that style, but I would disagree with that creative choice. However, if the relative lack of shipboard action in the later seasons was any indication, the show's budget was cut pretty dramatically by that point. (Having the U.S. Navy run a destroyer for the film crew certainly wasn't free of cost.) I wouldn't be surprised if the production simply didn't want to invest in a high frame-rate camera for proper slow-mo.

If all I had were technical/production gripes, though, I wouldn't be as disappointed as I am in the latter part of The Last Ship. Far more than the obvious cuts in spending on shipboard locations and visual effects, the real let-down was in the quality of the scripts.

Understanding that The Last Ship was originally based on a novel doesn't really help explain why the show's writing quality declined. The series never really followed the book's plot, merely using its setting as a loose template to create a new narrative. But, where the first two or three seasons felt tightly written and thought-out, the last two seasons in particular felt thrown together and haphazardly constructed. The fact that seasons 4 & 5 were filmed around the same time gives a clue as to how rushed the writing process must have been, and I'd say it really is evident from the final product.

In the end, I just wish I could find even one other show like The Last Ship's first 2-3 seasons. Underneath the Michael Bay explosions and chest-pounding American patriotism, the real draw of this series was in the naval strategy and tactics. It was a lot like watching the Defiant fighting in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Dominion War arc, except the technobabble referred to real systems used on American ships right now instead of sci-fi technology—and of course, the ship was navigating in the ocean instead of space.

Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light...
or
Rassiya svyashchennaya nasha dyerzhava...
That's what this show is all about.
An EX-ruski Vice Admiral — there are no countries in the world anymore— trying to steal da cure for da biiiiig virus, yup!
An american Captain and his crew... Herye, Herye, trying to save the world- again! So altruistic! Gush ...cries

The story revolves around an (Ex)U.S Navy Warship and Ex-Ruskis fighting over a cure to stop a virus that killed ca. 80% of the planet's population!

The difference?
1. The Ex-Ruski Vice Admiral wants to play God, be the only one with a cure, dominate the world and drink Vodka. Na zdrowye!
2. The Americans want to save the world, so our kids won't have to sing the aforcited Russian anthem! (Our U.S protagonists bitchslap Russia 24/7 and I start feeling bad for the Ex-Russians!)
3. The Ex-Russians are no patriots. They simply want power.
4. The Americans- well, there's no government anymore, but they are still american. Not 90% yankee, but 110%! Yea! Take that!

That's it... simple, stupid, action packed and 110% yankee! X)
But, but, but, don't get me wrong, the show is watchable! I do enjoy it!

PS: What the faq happened to China? Hello? O.o China, big & developing superpower... I think the producer is obsessed with Russia! Russia's a relict compared to the mighty Chinese Empire.