3 out of 5

Created by: Hank Steinberg, Steve Kane

Pure filler.  With the Michael Bay tag and the generally-good-but-not-great TNT flag flying high, I went into Last Ship expecting pure filler, and I wasn’t disappointed.  The ensemble cast fulfills all of the necessary parts: the hero role (Eric Dane, playing the ship’s captain), the strong and beautiful female lead (Rhona Mitra), the questioning but faithful second-in-command (Adam Baldmin), and the rogue hero (John Pyper-Ferguson) – a template which can be applied to your fantasy, sci-fi, or action story as needed – and then even finds time to cover a gay couple, some ill-fated lovers, and faceless Russian and Arab badguys.  Pipe in some nationalism hey-ho America, and you’re ready to go.  This was all apparent from the posters, the trailers, and the first episode… but then there was the hook, the crux around which the show is based – that a virus has killed off 80% of the population, with the crew of our ‘Last Ship’ unaffected and in a prime position to hunt down the cure.  And despite my checking off of TV tropes one by one, this hook was presented professionally enough that it warranted hanging around.  After which, and after several more episodes, I became aware that we’re dealing with a pretty top-shelf filler series.  Bay presumably opened up the production resources, giving us access to real or impressive sets on and off the ship, and due to the bit-by-bit approach of the story – land here, gather a cure ingredient, move on – the show never had to go full-scale with the effects and dip into sketchy TV CGI; the directors definitely deserve credit on this as well, though, as we still get our share of thrilling action sequences (especially a boat-escape toward the end of the season) that are shot and cut expertly to, again, work with the show’s production strengths.  Furthermore, the acting is above average, Dane giving Captain Tom Chandler more dimensions than his one-dimensional role demanded, and Rhona Mitra offered a role that allows her to effectively bounce between determination and desperation.  This doesn’t mean we’re not served up some silly one-liners or some redshirt deaths, but I didn’t often feel like we were being ‘fed’ plot developments via talking heads; most events were effectively synced up with actions.  ‘The Last Ship’ might not end up presenting anything truly new to television, and it falls back on unthreatening third-party threats every other episode or so, but when it dusts itself off, its got a pretty sturdy batch of creators and actors working for it, making it high quality filler that you won’t feel like is a waste of time.  (You know, most of the time.)