The Last Ship (TV Series) Tempest (2017) User Reviews

Tempest

[bobcobb301 · 8/10 · 29 September 2017]

The Last Ship has had an up and down 4th season but this episode really stood out to me. It was action-packed both in the war at sea and then the hunt on the ship. We knew he would get away with the seeds, but for the sake of the world we were hoping it would not happen.

More episodes like this is exactly what the show needs.

Decisions, stuck between a rock and a hard place

[AnnaPlummer · 10/10 · 10 October 2017]

On the way to safeguard the seeds to prevent them falling into Dr. Vellicks hands, the Nathan James is trapped between rocks, an enemy, and a turbulent storm, forcing the crew and Fletcher to make tough decisions.

Except for the crew's happiness that Slattery and Chandler are back in action, the atmosphere of the Nathan James is almost as dark as the water and sky outside. Harry, the U.K. spy, continues to remind Fletcher of his duties while the real refugees receive care from the crew. Making a decision to either follow your morals or obey orders has been an ongoing issue since season one of The Last Ship. Captain Chandler has always been successful choosing the moral and ethical route, all the while staying true to the military's core values, but what will Fletcher choose?

In a prior episode titled "Nostros", Chandler tells Doc Rios that Lucia called the nostros by another name "fleeta" - the symbolism of the word becomes obvious in this episode. There's many references to Homer's Odyssey and a reference to a real historical battle from the 1800s. History is so very interesting, so why make something up when there's real history to draw from?

A new relationship is blossoming on the Nathan James, there's talk of a previous one, and a question mark about another. The characters just never stop growing in this series. The writers use dramatic irony and a bits of humor in this episode, along with the theme for this season about the differences between aggression needed for survival, and excessive unnecessary aggression.

It's fun to find all the references to Homer's Odyssey in the episodes this season, and I was surprised that I found a very subtle one in Tempest. It's a symbol that's used as an allusion to a TV series from 1968.

The visual and sound effects are incredible, you can actually feel the sound in one of the scenes - and the scene I'm referring to is not some huge explosion, which shows that the producers do not only focus on the big stuff like missiles being fired, but the little things that are important too. At the end of this episode, the Nathan James has a new mission, one that has been suggested previously.

Great pace and tension, but some plot decisions are head-scratching

[tenshi_ippikiookami · 6/10 · 20 October 2017]

This episode plays "The Last Ship"'s strongest cards: great pace, a great set-up (the Greek ships following the Nathan James, the seeds being stolen, a storm), but falters and stumbles in a couple of moments, keeping it from being a great episode.

As said, the set-up is great. Having to run away from a danger to fall into another, the Nathan James between a rock and a hard place makes for a riveting episode. It helps that the pace is high and the tension starts from minute one and keeps there till the end of the episode. And the action also delivers. It is all highly entertaining.

However, there are a couple of problems with the episode. The first is the ease with which Fletcher and bad influence Sinclair steal the seeds. It is just too much, and they get through too many soldiers with to much ease. The second is the death of poor O'Connor, on of the most stupid and silly deaths on a show ever. He just happens to go out and get killed for no reason. That just happens to extras normally.

The rest of the episode is highly entertaining. But the theft of the seeds... not so much.

Stupid place to hide

[baddder · 1/10 · 14 December 2019]

So the most is important thing in the world (The seeds) is hidden in A small fridge in the doctor's room? not looked not hidden in somewhere very private? That's very stupid I don't understand how the navy can be that stupid it makes no sense whatsoever.

Like this series a lot, but its attitude towards the UK HAS GONE TOO FAR

[jrarichards · 1/10 · 18 February 2018]

I (as a Brit) previously reviewed "The Last Ship" after 2 seasons, and am in many respects a committed fan of this well-done series.

However, my June 2016 review was already able to note the outrageous way in which British accents in this series were (with the honourable exception that tests the rule of Dr Rachel Scott) associated with deviousness, merciless pragmatism, uncontrolled aggression and a readiness to betray friends and allies.

Now, especially but not solely in this 4th-season episode we see a furtherance of this agenda, with the UK government and PM also apparently portrayed as complicit in a selfish (admittedly survival-motivated) plot to turn on American allies, and betray them, and with a British MI6 agent ready to murder US Navy personnel he has been working closely with for months.

I'll admit that, having not yet watched through to the last episode of Season 4, I DO NOT yet know where all this is leading ... but I certainly have a sinking feeling about it (if you'll pardon the expression).

As I acknowledged in my then review, Brits have long served as bad-guys in a certain class of US series, and in some way we have become accustomed to it, but "The Last Ship" has been concertedly anti-British over 4 seasons now, and in this episode we now see that its profoundly negative scenarios are apparently not merely a matter for rogue individuals, but for the UK government.

While this scenario arises in a dystopian context of a world threatened by starvation, and while the makers' treatment of Greece is also at least as hostile (given that that country's regime and Navy are also here prepared to turn on their allies in NATO without hesitation), there are limits to what can be accepted; and all the more so when most of the Americans portrayed in the series are seen - apparently uniquely - to be able to uphold the pre-catastrophe virtues.

Admittedly, the makers do have the characters of James Fletcher (Jonathan Howard) and his concealed rescued colleague questioning whether the US would hesitate to stab the UK in the back if their survival was threatened - and that is a reasonable question (and one which may in fact leave British audience members wondering, in what is again a divisive strategy).

Maybe this is also what writer William Brinkley wanted, but he's been dead for 25 years now, and the series on TV obviously has a life of its own. And, as other reviewers have noted, episodes of sci-fi adventure series set in the near-future cannot be entirely divorced from our real world, and the seeds of doubt as to the UK's trustworthiness as friends and allies are being sown all-too-effectively.

TOO MUCH SO, AND QUITE INAPPROPRIATELY AND WRONGLY.

Indeed, at this point, we are entitled to question whose interest this kind of thing might in fact be in...

It is therefore with love from (and indeed for) Britain - my country in good times and bad - that I now invite the makers of "The last Ship" to go and take a running jump (for example off the Nathan James)...

And when they have emerged from that cold shower, perhaps they would finally think on about what they are trying to achieve here?