The Last Frontier

They obviously did not use any sort of technical experts or cultural advisors. Not about law enforcement, aviation, wilderness search and rescue, not even hospital operations. It's clear they never spoke to anyone from Alaska or that knew anything about Fairbanks.

I get the need for creative story telling choices. But every single thing they got wrong and not just a little wrong, there was no creativity or artistic choices. The prop and production staff were clearly using by-the-book out of date style guides not intended for location driven stories. It would have worked fine for a generic police procedural set in a nondescript mainland/lower 48 urban landscape where prop and location details don't matter. But they got everything wrong.

One example; the theft of the aircraft black box, they showed the "ambush" taking place on a small bridge on narrow road. In reality the road from where they put their location and "on the way to Anchorage" would have been the Park's Highway, very wide, very flat, with the vegetation further cut back from the pavement.

It wouldn't have impressed production to use technical advisors and at the very least local knowledge. The last season of True Detective took place in Alaska while being filmed in Iceland. It was visually very different from Alaska they still managed to capture some of the feeling of a large Alaskan village.

The premise and the initial 3 or 4 episodes set up an interesting conflict between the FBI and the CIA as they try to capture escaped prisoners from a plane crash in Alaska. One prisoner is a CIA traitor.

The problem is the you learn what the CIA is up to through backstory exposition and the finale strains credibility.

It's mostly fun, but not the most satisfying story.

Started reasonably well. I like Jason Clark so tried to stick with it but couldn't get past ep2. I was looking forward to some glorious scenery but that seemed to end after ep 1. After that the majority of scenes were indoors in various 'locations'. It is also preposterous that we are meant to believe that CIA agent Sidney Scofield trained 'Havlock'. She's way too young to have gained the qualifications and experience to pull that off.

I'm about to finish The Last Frontier and while it's far from the best show I've seen this year it's edgy and suspense enough to hold your attention and for you to be entertained by it. It's about a U. S. Marshall (Jason Clarke) whose life is turned upside down when a plane full of violent inmates is deliberately crashed in the remote wilderness of Alaska. The CIA officer (Haley Bennett) is after one very dangerous person (Dominic Cooper) while the Marshall wants to bring them all in. The pacing could've been a little better and this probably should've been a 7 or 8 episode series instead of 10 but I still enjoyed it and never found myself bored.

The Last Frontier is ridiculous but it's also worth watching as long as you can turn your brain off and watch for fun. It gets better with each episode as the stakes rise. Jason Clarke, Haley Bennett and Dominic Cooper all give solid performances that make the show that much better. I like that's there's a big storyline that takes up the whole season while each episode focuses on a different inmate's manhunt and how they're brought in. It also shows how beautiful and dangerous Alaska is, a world that most of will never know. Overall, it's a fun action thriller that's a solid watch as long as you don't take it too seriously.