SeaQuest 2032 (nee-DSV) Season Three

Well, we made it. It was only thirteen episodes, but my good lady and I finally made it. We have finished watching the last of seaQuest. She was relieved, I was a little saddened. Why? Let me explain, gentle reader...

After the dumpster fire that was season two, the network was not a happy bunny. If the show were to come back, changes would have to be made. Much like the period between the first two seasons, cast changes were announced.

Scheider was out. After publicly calling the show garbage in press interviews, he had proven he wasn't impressed at all with the direction of the show and his contract was terminated, but with one proviso: three guest appearances to be included in the shorter 13 episode run. Who to replace him? Michael Ironside as Captain Oliver Hudson, and I can think of nobody better.

Initially reluctant to take on the role, Ironside fought for changes to the tone of the show and how some aspects would be addressed, including the right not to speak to the talking dolphin. The show would be more realistic, with darker storylines and losing a lot of the fantastical filler that littered the previous season. The producers agreed to this and the new captain was on board. Really, he is the best thing in the show and it is slightly embarrassing watching him out-act pretty much everyone else on-screen.

Elise Neal comes in playing hotshot sub pilot J J Fredericks, who throughout the season was given little much to do and only really seemed to get more screen time in the later episodes. However, with only 13 of them and a reduced budget, some cast members had to go. With realism coming in, telepaths were out and Rosalind Allen with them. Also out was Marco Sanchez, who wanted to return but was told no due to the reduced casting budget. One noticeable thing is that neither cast member is referred to after the first episode - in fact, they're pretty much dismissed in a couple of lines, so eager is the show to prove it is not the old seaQuest.

To freshen up the show a bit and set the scene for more conflict, the decision was made to set the show ten years after the events of the season two cliffhanger. I quite like this as they can demonstrate the effects of global warming and therefore give a genuine reason for the UEO to exist considering the loss of land to the rising sea level.

With a greater sense of continuity between episodes, recurring guest actors were brought in to play the bad guys of the piece: Tim DeKay as multi-billionaire Larry Deon, Ralph Wilcox as Deon's henchman Mason Freeman and Michael York as President Alexander Bourne of Macronesia. Each are suitably slimy in their roles, even if York is a little too... nice, even when playing bad, to be really evil. I think he's playing the role a little too seriously to hit the right tone.

Story wise, we're pretty much into realistic conflicts and problems, with a bit of character back story spread here and there, and it only truly gets a bit too silly with a time travel episode involving the Cuban Missile Crisis - Lucas seems to have become an expert on the theory and practicality of time travel in about five seconds, a total reverse from his thoughts in the time travel ep of season two. Playing it straight this time around doesn't help that much either.

Maybe that's the issue with this season - they're trying to be serious but there is still a level of goofiness and humour that doesn't sit well with the aim of each episode. It's much better than season two in my eyes, though my good lady was not as enamoured. Then again, season two...

Some points of note then:

• Henderson pretty much makes her way around the crew - ok, I get it, she's one of only two women in the main cast, but she's portrayed as such a vamp that it's amazing she's not got the stamp yet.

• Scheider wasn't the only returning cast member - John D'Aquino pops up as Ben Krieg in a drama heavy ep, but is pretty much wasted. At least when Scheider drops in, you get some gravitas, treating the character of Bridger much more seriously than before. It's actually quite good when he does appear and adds a level of conflict between him, Hudson and Lucas.

• Sea is the new space, with sub fighters and lasers and all that jazz. Physics takes a back seat here but it's entertaining enough if you don't think about it too much. The same can be said for the runaway Maglev train story - those people should have been jam when that thing stopped, as inertia will kill you.

• The writers seem to think all men are emotionally stunted and can't discuss their feelings with people they're supposed to be in relationships with - that gets tiring quickly, especially as one half of the couple is usually Henderson.

• I don't know if they were aiming for it specifically, but Lucas, now he's getting older, doesn't half come across as a bit of a shouty prick in a lot of stories. Serious and edgy, maybe, but prick-ish nonetheless.

• The music for this season sucks. The incidental stuff in individual episodes veers from 1930's to '60's, then to a terrible run of 80's synth. And that theme tune - think Hallmark Christmas movie crossed with SyFy movie of the week. Just terrible and totally at odds with the tone of the show.

• The show is not afraid to demonstrate its seriousness by killing off main cast members. Two die by the end of the run but this is a double edged sword. One was a long established (if still not entirely well rounded) character and their death should have resonated with the viewer. Except it doesn't, as we find out more about that person's background in the mourning scenes than we ever did in nearly thirty episodes of him actually interacting with people. As for the other death, it's a similar tale, though as they only had a dozen episodes to develop and most chances there were squandered, their passing was met with a resounding "meh" in TIT Towers.

And yet, despite all that, I'm actually quite fond of seaQuest 2032. Yeah, it's trashy, illogical and, at times, downright silly, but the tone of the show suits the concept of seaQuest in a much better way than either of the previous seasons. Part of me can't help but think that given a full season, this might have made it to re-commissioning. Then again, with the baggage of its original premise and the follow up, probably not. This show would never have made it into a list of sci-fi TV greats - as much as it tried to emulate Trek, it was trying to garner too much of a general audience to appeal to genre fans, then stepped too far in to the genre market to maintain any broader acceptance. What the third outing demonstrated, was that, with a little care and attention, this just might have worked. Final verdict then: seaQuest 2032 is a decent "first season" outing - six, veering to a seven out of ten, but couldn't save a show in it's third, as viewers, much like my good lady, had had enough. That, in my view, is a pity.

SeaQuest DSV - Season Two

The most important goal of a TV show's first season? Get the renewal! In the cut and thrust world of US TV shows, that's a hefty ambition. No, seriously, some US shows get cancelled after as few as two or three episodes, so making it to the end of your initial run can be a challenge in itself and the sun-lit uplands of year two can feel like the search for the Holy Grail. Sometimes though, it's easier than that as network's have so much invested in a show that, even if the first outing was disappointing, the show will get a second swing of the bat. And so it was with seaQuest DSV...

There were changes from season one, though. Quite a few changes. And whereas season one struggled to find its own identity, season two very quickly does - it's the one with the Groucho Marx glasses, nose and moustache kit...

Season one was expensive. The outdoor shoots at Malibu beach were costly and complicated to arrange so a change in filming venue was required to fit the budget. Since Florida offered good tax incentives, off they went. This was a problem for some of the cast as they didn't want to leave California (and why not, that's where future work would be), so according to what I have read, Stacey Haiduk and John D'Aquino walked. Stephanie Beacham had apparently already decided to leave and Royce D Applegate was booted off as not being right for the audience they were aiming for - again, so I have read. This led to replacement cast members.

Edward Kerr is Lt. James Brody - more beefcake for the ladies and a younger replacement for Crocker. Kathy Evison is Lt Lonnie Henderson - toothsome in the extreme and pretty much stuck in a vest top for many an episode - she replaces Hitchcock. We also have Rosalind Allen as thinking man's totty replacement for Beacham, Dr Wendy Smith. She's also psychic. Yeah, we have telepaths now. Who would have thunk it? Michael DeLouise is Seaman Anthony Piccolo - who happens to have surgically added gills(!) and Peter DeLouise is Dagwood, a Dagger or GELF (Genetically Engineered Lifeform). In case you missed it (hint: you didn't), there is a race of genetically modified beings called Daggers that play an important part in the Season Two opener. The upshot is that all of these characters are younger than their predecessors (as well as supporting the extended DeLouise family by keeping them in work).

Not all of the cast went for the younger look though, with Scheider now sporting a neat beard for most of the episodes (which due to showing order shenanigans, comes and goes in the latter part of the season). What can be said is that as the season progresses, you can see some of the cast looking particularly bored and sick of their jobs. So much so that Kerr stormed off the set of one episode and Scheider's press interviews during the show's production are a fine example of someone who wants out and doesn't care how it happens.

With the change in filming location, there was more room for outdoor shooting and, to be fair, they do get out and about a lot more. Whereas season one might be remembered for being mostly dark, season two has a lot of time set outdoors and in the sunshine. This is both good and bad. Good, because, you know, outdoors, greater filming opportunities and the like. Bad, because this is supposedly set in 2021 and feels at times like a bad episode of Baywatch Nights, 90's fashion and all. There is only a token attempt at making you believe that your actually in the next century, and even then, it's not that convincing, with the odd tacked on bit of plastic to disguise 1995 objects. The cheap accessory vibe from season one (remember the motorcycle astronaut helmets) continues where in one episode, a video device is blatantly a pocket calculator where even the button colours have not changed. In addition, outdoor scenes with CGI added look terrible.

Stories are what make a show and by God, they scraped a barrel or two for this one. The first two episodes cover the origins of the Daggers and acts as a re-boot for the show. Where science is mentioned, it's usually complete and utter bobbins. And with crap science and re-used underwater shots, it's quite boring and does not bode well for the series...

We have the return of the aliens from season one, time travel with added dire CGI robots and a complete lack of care over whether they actually explain anything that happens in the episode - their explanation of time travel is hilariously bad. We have a human (with gills) and a dolphin swimming at 12,700 feet below the surface. Ok... Bridger being only 49? Hard paper round there, Nathan lad. AI conflict where the computer is beaten by emotion, killer plants (think a cross between Little Shop of Horrors and the Triffids - a bad SyFy movie is better than that), and a retelling of the Frankenstein tale with Daggers. Giant crocodiles that appear with crap didgeridoo music (must have learned that from Darwin's f**king pan pipes!) and then a story about Atlantis! Another alien story, effectively a "homage" to Aliens which seriously should have had lawyers at the ready, a telepathic take over story with ear grinding 80's synth music (I just... yeah... no) and then Greek Gods appear, though this show now gives so little of a toss now that they use the Roman names and even the script points out how silly the whole story is. Oh, and when possessed, the characters sound like the Honey Monster - this made it pure comedy gold, at least for three seconds anyway...

More god-possession pops up, a Predator rip off story that, again, should have had lawyers baying at the doors, and then more aliens, though this time they abduct the sub and crew, leading to a limp cliffhanger at the end of the season.

The nadir of the season is the Greek Gods episode but that's kind of like saying the fourth cowpat you've trod in on a country walk is the worst of the dozen you'll end up standing on. Whilst season one showed promise, season two is just diabolically bad in pretty much every sense and even episodes with a hint of quality soon get the memo and return to badly produced and written trash. At least they had good guests stars like the first season...

Well, no. We get the excellent value Kent McCord back for a few episodes, and Mark Hamill drops by, looking (and acting) like they had to sedate him to finish filming. And Dom DeLouise also pops up as Tony's dad - just what is it with the DeLouise's? Are they like entertainment mafia??? As for the rest of the guest stars? Never heard of them though have seen a couple in Murder She Wrote. Some act like they're just off Sunset Beach, others like they're the Dame in Panto season. I've not seen that much over the top action since the final episode of Blackadder goes Forth! And one guest actress, in the Greek Gods ep, is supposed to be a singer. The poor lady cannot act, sing or mime playing the guitar but hey, since this is the show that reckons the Ancient Greeks were around just one thousand years ago, all I can say is "Gan on, Bonny lass, the viewers have made it this far, be a shame to surprise them with quality performances now".

Finally, we have the factoid bits at the end of each episode, only these are now in an aquatic park and have various members of the cast talking about sea life. I miss Bob, and his soulless hostage eyes. At least he could do a piece to camera whereas some of the cast are distinctly poor at it.

In watching this show, my good lady and I decided an adequate scoring system for each episode would be the FML tally - where something happens or is said that generates the response FML. The lowest scoring was four. The highest (yep, the Greek Gods one) was eight. I don't recall a season one ep getting a single FML. That's how bad this season is.

And yet...

You thought I was going to say something nice there, weren't you? Well, no. It's pap. SeaQuest took a further dive into the ratings during this run and I can really see why. It appears neither the writers nor the producers actually gave a sh*t and were just collecting the paycheck. This is a shame as whilst the first run of the show had issues, they were not insurmountable and could have resulted in a program that would anchor a network's ratings. Despite that, a third season was commissioned. Oh dear lord...

SeaQuest DSV - Season One

That's Scheider's best Freeman's catalogue pose...

1990's US TV schedules were littered with sci-fi shows that never made it past their first season. Earth 2, Dark Skies, Harsh Realm, Space: Above and Beyond and VR.5 are now only recalled by rabid fans and uber-nerds (which probably tells you all you need to know about me!), and are generally considered failures because of their one-season-wonder status. True, there were some shows that carved a minor niche in 90's TV history - the Trek franchise alone managed to have three shows within the decade (although each had their own faults), and you had the likes of Sliders and Babylon 5 that didn't rely on franchise familiarity to reach the heady heights of five seasons. But SeaQuest DSV is something different from any of those. This show lasted three seasons, more by good luck than good judgement, and even with the headline names attached (star Roy Scheider and executive producer Steven Spielberg), has the reputation of being a stinker. Hell, at 57 episodes, it must have done something right. Right?

Starting in the then-distant future of 2018(!), the show follows Captain Nathan Bridger (Scheider), designer and captain of the United Earth Oceans Organisation submarine SeaQuest and his multicultural (through American eyes) crew as they try to bring peace to the new frontier of the 21st Century, the oceans. Naturally, starting off as a high profile prime time TV show, the producers go for every available demographic (hence the casting choices) and whilst this means the show has relatively high production values (though at times, it does look cheap, which I'll get to later), it also means that the writers have to pull their punches due to the time slot in order to keep every viewer happy - and as the saying goes, try to keep everyone happy and you end up pleasing no-one...

Premiering in 1993, SeaQuest used the then new and exciting field of CGI to portray the undersea actions and yes, it hasn't aged very well at all. At the time, the graphics were considered decent but murky and viewing on DVD today confirms that, though they are not as bad as I recall. You have Dr. Bob Ballard (he who led the expedition to locate the Titanic) as a technical consultant and, at least for season one, talking head at the end of each episode - more on him in a bit. Unlike some TV shows of the time, there is a sense of some continuity between episodes, but only where it suits the story, and usually you can, like the network did, treat each episode as a standalone story. This doesn't work when the broadcast order is scrambled (as mirrored by the DVD running order), with one character moving from Admiral to President then back to Admiral again within three episodes. The fact that the network was screwing with the play order tells you pretty much what they thought of the show.

So, does the show deserve it's reputation. Well... not quite... ish...

Where to begin? First up, SeaQuest season one has an identity issue. Many a first season of any show is uneven - after all, they are trying to find their feet and figure out what does/doesn't work whilst trying to get that all important second season renewal. You just have to look at Star Trek: TNG to see how long it can take, where it was well into its third season before the show started to work. With SeaQuest, however, you can see the initial goal for scientific accuracy and realism but the seemingly ever present drive of American TV shows to add "humour" brings up some really stupid stories; The Treasures of the Tonga Trench being a really, really poo (literally) episode. Then there is Knight of Shadows, a Halloween episode that, aside from one decent scare, shows how silly and vapid the show could get (and that's only episode eight...). Later episodes rattle from serious geo-political intrigue to war criminals, mermaids and aliens. Tonally, this show is all over the place.

Realism suffers a lot even when you have the respected Bob Ballard doing his piece to camera during the end credits, linking the episode's story with a real world (or frankly ludicrous predictions of what the future holds for humanity and the oceans). You see, it looks like he's been press-ganged into doing them, held at gunpoint, fitted with an overly small SeaQuest DSV baseball cap and marched around the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to sprout word salads to make you feel that the show is more science fact than fiction. Yet by the time you get to Knight of Shadows (which has ghosts on a hundred year old sunken liner), you can see the desperation in his eyes, the sheer panic at wondering why he has to say such things on camera, the pleading to the viewer to call the cops. Seriously, watch him, watch his eyes! Fortunately for Bob, he was rescued by the end of season one and we never see him again on SeaQuest.

Casting did a decent enough job with most of the actors, I have no issue there, but some characters are poorly handled and, dare I say, miscast. Scheider is always good value and as the season progresses, you can see the other actors becoming more comfortable in their roles; Stacey Haiduk as Lieutenant Commander Hitchcock (younger lady eye candy) and Don Franklin as Commander Ford (supposed foil to Scheider) in particular but really, the casting choices of Stephanie Beacham (Dr Kristen Westphalen - thinking man's totty) and Royce D Applegate (Chief Crocker - to get your Grandpa interested) are puzzling. Beacham, for one, comes across as rather too plummy and is pretty much an exposition machine (apart from the last two episodes when an out of the blue romance with Bridger appears because... the writer's needed something to do???), though her turn in Knight of Shadows is particularly cringe-worthy. John D'Aquino (Lieutenant Krieg) is suitably annoying and the source of much of the (American) humour - think Sgt Bilko and you have the right idea, whilst Ted Raimi (Lieutenant O'Neill - he's the awkward nerd) and Marco Sanchez (Sensor Chief Ortiz - Cuban, so we're going for ethnic minority eye candy) are suitably decent in their limited roles. The last two main characters... well...

Darwin the (f***ing) Dolphin is a Marmite addition to the crew - you'll either love him or hate him. Guess which camp I fall into... It's not the idea of a dolphin in the crew that's an issue, it's the way he's brought to life, with annoying speech effects by Frank Oz and those bloody pan pipes. Yep, pretty much every time he appears on screen, you get bloody pan pipe music! Arrgghhhhhh!!!

Finally, you have Jonathan Brandis as child prodigy (and border line sex pest) Lucas Wolenczak. Oh. Dear. Lord.

Look, I get it. I really do. Wolenczak is a teen genius who happens to be easy on the eye for those who like the blond floppy hair look. As a network TV exec, you want your teenage male audience to want to be him, and your teenage female audience to want to date him (this is the early '90's, that's how binary the TV networks looked at their audiences). Not calling Brandis out here (because his personal struggles both during and after the show are well known, leading to his untimely suicide), but the handling of his character ranges from heartfelt (he was effectively dumped on the SeaQuest by his parents) to the aforementioned sex pest. In one episode, he is in the gym with Hitchcock and notices her chest. He starts staring with an expression that defies polite explanation. Being a TV show from the past, the director then cuts to a few seconds of Haiduk's chest moving up and down due to the exercise. Yeah, they did that back then in family TV shows and is about as subtle as a diver's boot to the bollocks... In another episode, he get's to re-use that look with another crew member who, to put it politely, is old enough to be his mother. Cue another few seconds of uncomfortable viewing. And that's not even to mention the safe sex/abstinence message at the end of "Abalon". Just wow...

Like most TV shows, SeaQuest has its fair share of guest appearances, and like most TV shows, these are variable in quality (I'm looking at you, Murder She Wrote. You lived (and died) by your guest actor casting). You get William Shatner as unshaven despot Milos Teslov, complete with "accent". I don't know what accent, so we'll just go with "accent". Then you have Charlton Heston as some kind of Dr Moreau character - though he obviously believes he is in a different TV show and out-acts pretty much everybody else on screen with the exception of Scheider. W. Morgan Sheppard is given little to do as the submarine's hologram, which is a shame, whilst Richard Herd is dependable as Admiral/President/Admiral Noyce (that bloody running order thing again!). Kent McCord rocks it as an astronaut for two episodes, kind of like a '90's Anson Mount (no disrespect to either actor meant in that comparison), whilst James Shigeta gels nicely as a confederation President, even if it does look like he's just walked off the set of Die Hard (pre-gunshot to the head, obviously). We even get Seth Green in the painfully technologically dated episode Photon Bullet, where he plays... Seth Green. To top it off, we have David McCallum. In the '90's, he scored gigs on Murder She Wrote, Babylon 5, VR.5, The Outer Limits and Team Knight Rider. Alongside the similarly talented David Warner, it seems you weren't a '90's show without one of these two actors. Warner's '90's run included Murder She Wrote, ST: TNG, Wild Palms, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Babylon 5, The Outer Limits and Total Recall 2070. Kudos to Babylon 5 for snagging both, albeit in separate episodes. Anyhoo, back to McCallum in SeaQuest and... it's not good. Set in an outpost called Broken Ridge, McCallum plays an Australian, but in no way gets the accent. In fact, his accent does a Grand Tour to anywhere but Australia during the course of the episode. Lord knows why he was cast here, but it was the wrong choice.

It's a shame then that most of the stories in season one are pretty forgettable and that the world-building was so haphazard. Indeed, apart from the episodes already mentioned, it's difficult to recall many of the others. What should have been exciting and dramatic often falls flat, much like the cultural approach to humour. Above all, this show feels like it is going through the motions, meaning most of the episodes come across as generic retreads of familiar themes, and that's before you get to casting choices and slightly dodgy production values (one episode with astronauts uses barely disguised motorcycle helmets that look more like something out of Blakes 7 than a prime time US TV show - and yes, I have just finished watching the four series of B7 and know exactly how cheap it could look!). Given a bit more depth (yes, I went there), this show could have been a ratings success in the long term. As it was, it was an expensive show to make and expectations were probably set too high. In the end, no-one really knew which direction to take the show.

SeaQuest DSV season one falls into a common trap of many TV shows, both genre and mainstream, in that by trying to please network execs, advertisers and viewers, it came across as bland and boring. Bad in places, though not as terrible as many think, it demonstrated a level of promise that unfortunately, it couldn't deliver. Out of ten, I'd stretch out to a six, since there was the foundation of a decent show in there somewhere. However, the network were troubled by the ratings and this meant changes for season two...

The Expanse - Season 3

A few weeks ago, Amazon dropped season three of The Expanse (alongside the first two having gained the UK rights from Netflix last year) and although it took a while to catch up, I've finally finished all thirteen episodes. And what episodes they are.
One of the things that I really like about The Expanse is that it combines personal stories from excellently well defined and acted characters with grand scale sci-fi, big ideas and a good dose of realism. True, the first season took a while to get going but with the third run, they drop the viewer right back into the action that season two ended with and you get much time to breathe. This show does exactly the opposite of many short run series, packing in more than enough for the compact 40 minute episodes and ensuring that the pace never slackens. Whereas I found watching pretty much every Marvel TV show a slog as they seemed to have eight episodes of story for a thirteen episode season, The Expanse is almost the opposite, and while they never feel rushed, you get the impression that there is much more they could put on screen. No, the writing and direction of the show is taut and lean to the point of bare bones - and this is not a bad thing.
The season itself is divided into two parts story-wise, with the conclusion of the Prax story as he searches for his daughter taking up the first six episodes, whilst the remaining seven deal with the "Ring". It's a roller coaster ride to be sure. 
Standouts for the season - Shawn Doyle as the reptilian Errinwright - there is a man you'd love to hate. Pretty much all of the regulars are also at the top of their game and even the child actors get by without being annoying. Tonally, there is no black and white to the story or the characters and their actions, and it is this contrast that old-school Trek (amongst others) really misses out on.
Of course, combining small and large scale does put pressure on the shows budget and it is telling at a few points that the vision exceeded the money. Not by much, and what you get on screen is uniformly good and in places excellent, but hopefully Amazon will through a little more dough on screen for season four. Having said that, I still think they have the scale of the crew wrong when you see them on the exterior of their ship, the Rocinante but maybe that's just me.
Having mentioned Trek, I must admit I am watching and immensely enjoying ST Discovery. With one episode to go of the current season, it pretty much surpasses any other sci-fi on TV at the moment, except maybe The Expanse, especially as my good lady and I are slowly getting through season one of Star Trek Deep Space 9. I know, DS9 is 25 years old, but it feels much, much older, not just in style, but in pacing and story telling. I am told it does get better, but by God, the 45 minutes in DS9 feels like hours compared to The Expanse and Disco. Out of the 19 episodes in season one, only one, The Duet, really stands out. And the semi-regular heavy focus on Jake Sisko and Nog make it almost a children's show at times. Anyhoo, we'll get to season two shortly and see if it improves.
Once again, The Expanse is a highly rated show and if you don't have an Amazon Prime account, seasons one and two are available on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Jack Ryan - Amazon TV Show

One of them most anticipated television shows of the year and one that Amazon were so confident about that they commissioned a second season prior to the first being aired, Jack Ryan arrived with a fair amount of hype and it was something I was looking forward to. Is it worthy of the hype? Well...

I have been a Tom Clancy fan since the late 1980's, first reading a paperback copy of The Hunt for Red October at the tender age of 11 and enjoying each of the subsequent Jack Ryan-verse novels, pretty much up to The Bear and The Dragon which, although not bad, wasn't up to the author's usual standards and felt like it was ghost written.

The cinema adaptations of Clancy's books were mostly entertaining, starting off with the Alec Baldwin-leading The Hunt for Red October. This was slickly made and aimed to be an intelligent Cold War thriller. It certainly had the requisite tension and technological accuracy (mostly), but the character of Ryan took a back seat to the more seasoned and recognisable Captain Marko Ramius, played by Sean Connery. Still, it's my favourite Clancy film and works well even today. The Harrison Ford follow ups (Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger) each had their strong points and portrayed a more mature and scholarly Ryan. That style made me want them to make more of the Ford-starring films but that was not to be. What we ended up with was the Ben Affleck led The Sum of All Fears, again well made but that suffered a change of villains (to neo-Nazi's of all people) and a quite bland Ryan. The most recent film, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, was a play for a new franchise starring Chris Pine but this didn't find the success it needed and to be honest, Pine didn't fit the Ryan character as envisaged by Clancy. This brings me to the Amazon financed TV show with John Krasinski, better known for starring the the US version of The Office, as Ryan. We're once again at the beginning of his CIA career so we're getting another origin story too.

Surprisingly for a modern limited run TV show, Jack Ryan runs for a mere eight episodes which, when you consider the likes of Netflix's bloated Marvel TV shows, is a blessing. Episode length varies from around 44 minutes to an hour and each feels about right in length, never dragging but also never feeling overly stuffed. Nope, they got this just about right. Having the Middle East as a focus, there is a great deal of location filming and, in general, the production values are high. A bit of a side trip to Paris (Montreal in reality) and you have a show that portrays a global reach very well, something that older shows (with greater episode counts per season) such as The Unit, Scorpion and NCIS often failed at as they were reduced to backlot filming and the same Californian orchards time and time again. Kudos must also be given for having non-English characters speak in their native language with added subtitles. It does get more than a little wearing that all foreigners speak with "British" accented English (as Americans would put it. As a native of the UK, I have never heard what a "British" accent sounds like).

The casting is excellent too. Krasinski is a rather good fit as Ryan, playing a former US Marine recovering from a traumatic incident and trying to settle into an office job at the CIA. He gives off the sense of being slightly out of his depth rather well but is also capable when forced to wing it as the situation demands. If there is a downside then it comes from the shows inability to completely convince about how clever Ryan is. That and the "by accident" meeting with Cathy Mueller, a contagious disease expert that fits in too neatly into the over-arching plot. Quite what they can do with Abbey Cornish's character is season two remains to be seen because there is the risk that a handy plot device in season one will just lead to a one-dimensional background character in season two and that would be a great injustice to all concerned.

Wendell Pierce plays James Greer, recently dumped in to Ryan's department to lead it after a fall from grace. Some reviewers have been a bit unkind to the actor for his bulk but that fits in with the desk-based role the character has and it works for me. However, the character's religion, Islam, feels like another easy plot device and again, I can't see what relevancy it will have an the next season. He does, however, work well with Ryan and the sarcastic banter between the two is a highlight of the show.

Ali Suliman as Mousa Bin Suleiman gives a cracking performance as the villain of the piece, as does Dina Shihabi as his wife who is put through the wringer by his actions and her conscience. Both emerge as well rounded and sympathetic characters, even though Suleiman is callous beyond redemption. Indeed, character building is a strong point through episodes one to six and it is only in the final two that this, as well as the pacing, falters and the show degenerates into the standard "catch the bad guy tale". It also demonstrates that the show is not as intelligent as it wants you to think it is. There is still enough drama, both with the primary storyline and the different secondary strands to keep you hooked and those strands are tied up reasonably neatly by the closing credits of the final episode.

Jack Ryan is not without its faults, as noted above, but it does enough to not only establish the main characters but also the TV-universe that those characters inhabit. Certainly, it succeeds in bringing to life the titular character and hopefully the second season can build in the foundations of the first and improve on its weaknesses. If you have access to Amazon Prime, I highly recommend Jack Ryan and await with anticipation the follow up season in 2019.