I just watched the opening episode of Last Resort, which was ok for the first five minuets, before it became the biggest steaming pile of crap I've seen since Hurt Locker. let's start off with the plot: An Ohio class ballistic missile submarine picks up some SEALs making a hot extract from Pakistan. . . OK that's a little weird but ok. The plot immediately takes a left turn, and the submarine gets orders to fire its missiles all over Pakistan.
It gets even stranger because the orders come from the "Antarctica network" which doesn't exist, and couldn't exist because Antarctica is international land, this throws the ship into confusion, because, they didn't get the orders from the ULF/ELF antennae in Nebraska. They turn on the TV (on an SSBN at battle stations, why would they have a TV that works?) and see America hasn't been attacked, and when they try to verify the orders, the captain is relieved, then when the XO refuses to obey, the ship is fired on.
Can you see the problem here? Another conspiracy show, where shadowy elements of the United States government try to dupe the poor soldier into committing acts of atrocity. Gee isn't this the plot of just about every Hollywood movie involving the military? The fact that there are numerous females on board (which hasn't even happened fully yet) and the fact that there are a ton of stereotypes in the characters was a dead give away that whoever wrote this doesn't know thing one about the military.
at some point they take over a small tropical island with a NATO tracking station in the Pacific (completely ignoring that NATO means North ATLANTIC Treaty Organization) they take over the island with their 150 men and women, and apparently a freaking arsenal, which doesn't exist on an Ohio class, and they proceed to try to contact both family and their chain of command to find out what the hell happened. When two bombers are sent to apparently destroy the island or the boat, they launch an Trident ballistic missile towards Washington.
What the fuck! The fact that no one on the show seems to know about Permissive Action Locks, which prevent the unauthorized launching of any missiles. It will literally explode a missile in the tubes if you try. The thought that an American captain in the United States Navy would willingly fire a ballistic missile, is so far out of the realm of possibility it truly staggers the imagination.
Who the hell would write this show, knows nothing about the Navy, the use of force, or the military in general. No Officer or NCO in charge of nuclear weapons. They also have no idea the kind of procedures and drills that are run involving the release of nuclear weapons. They can only be authorized by the President, and there are about a million types of safety measures to ensure that no one, rouge or otherwise can launch nukes without the consent of literally everyone in the chain of command from the President on down.
Furthermore, the very subject of the show is an entire US ship committing mutiny, and/or treason. Such a thing is just plain insulting, and there would have to be some very wrong things with that boat. Its insulting to tell the truth. I was never in the Navy, nor on submarines but my dad was and I know enough to know that just about everything that was in the show was just plain wrong. Sadly the civilians who see the show won't know that.
This is one of the many instances of the military civilian divide, which is becoming ever more painfully obvious. I wish I could find the words that could tell you how angry I was made by this show. That Hollywood thinks so lightly of our commitments is just plain troubling. From the wife begging the XO to go AWOL, to the Chief willfully challenging the XO, there are a ton of examples that just churn my stomach. Don't watch it. This kind of shit should not be rewarded.
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