The Last Last Resort

ABC broadcast the last episode of Last Resort last night, and as I predicted back in May, it lasted a mere half-season. Last night's finale concluded the series' major narrative threads, though the abbreviated season clearly left writers scrambling to tie up all the loose ends. Most importantly, Captain Marcus Cole, played by the remarkable Andre Braugher, went out cackling like a maniac with his sunglasses on, refusing to compromise his principles right to the final curtain call.

It's a shame that Last Resort came to a premature end; it was gutsy and ambitious, casting the United States as the villain, depicting its immoral use of nuclear weapons and ominous curtailment of civil liberties while also featuring a very flawed cast of protagonists, most especially the this-close-to-unhinged Marcus Cole. (Sean and I took to calling this show Frank Has Nukes, after Braugher's best-known character, Detective Frank Pembleton from Homicide: Life on the Streets.) Network television is awash in cop shows, medical dramas, sitcoms and so-called "reality" shows; it's nice when the powers-that-be take a chance and try something different. It's too bad there aren't enough viewers to support even somewhat iconoclastic programming.

IGN has an interesting interview about where the series may have gone had it continued.

Earl and Sylvia on a submarine in Hawaii in 2008.