Good actors and camera work, story is incredibly lacking

jakeloudermilk

score 3/10

I feel like the writers of the story did very little research and have probably never met a Navy SEAL themselves. This show is essentially a Military Soap more so than it has much story value.

The men are all portrayed as loose cannons with deeply flawed moral compasses and character. After watching the first episode I found it difficult to want to continue because after making an incredibly long first episode with mostly nothing but character development... I just didn't care about any of them.

Our damsel in distress is a psychopath murderer, our SEAL team has a casual relationship with the Geneva convention and various other wartime laws and could probably all be considered war criminals, they treat each other generally like crap and have very little sense of camaraderie or unit cohesion. Every member who has a family is basically indifferent to them. Our presumed main villain is fairly contrived but, on the flip side, his motivation is basically the only one that makes any kind of sense.

It makes me wonder if the entire thing is intended as an apologist depiction of the U.S. Military more so than it is realistic. Now, I'm sure there is a time and a place for that, but I have to wonder how a show that will appeal primarily to pro-military leaning people is supposed to sustain viewership with an anti-military leaning story.

I actually believe that perhaps the writing was done with the intention of providing realism, but it was basically hyperbolized on the assumption that the audience was too stupid to pick up on the fact that even SEALs have personal life issues and so instead we're left with a cast that has been depicted as shitty dad war criminals who just so happen to be one of the U.S. Military's most elite fighting forces (whose elitism is completely absent from the story). The sheer lack of discipline alone ruins any attempt at realism.

I think the most important thing is that the shows lays heavily on the assumption that the audience is an idiot. Sure, it makes sense that the team would be upset that a guy was leaving, but do you really think they'd be a bunch of passive aggressive babies about it? That they'd be fine for years but suddenly resort to trying to kill their teammate over reporting a war crime years ago? That they would treat each other such casual disrespect and indifference? Surely they could have found a better way to show interpersonal conflicts without making everybody look like children fighting over a favorite toy.

jakeloudermilk 25 October 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3841393/