SAF3

First, I very much like the concept of emergency service personnel (our day-to-day heroes) although injured in the line of duty, able to return to work, albeit obviously changed human beings. JR Martinez brings his personal horror story of injury & facial derangement to his role & I sympathized greatly with not only his pain, but his social discomfort & sadness. Dolph...well...is Dolph. ...great in the typical quasi-militaristic plot but a tad sketchy in those little personal drama scenes. Texas Battle is good & believable, as is Karl Thaning. The plots have evolved nicely. (Among others, I enjoyed the container that submerged containing trafficked humans, and their rescue.). I would like to see improvement in the female role though. Why are their shoulders/arms so pitiful? Come on Lydia, Jocelyn & Katie, pick up some weights. Carry a hose pack. Work out for gods' sakes. This is not 1990 you know. I also liked Danielle Caley Anderson's playing of Kacie. She brought some fresh drama to the role of a non- emergency person/fairly abandoned kid's confused life. Inter-agency cooperation is tricky in real life with egos on the line & in the end, real life at stake. The season's second half showed much improvement in all ways and I'm looking forward to more rescue stories next year!

On my first draft of the review I felt like I was ripping the whole episode to shreds on soundtrack, camera-work, overacting and poor acting and even continuity and makeup issues. I know professionals put huge amounts of effort to get a show on air and viewer support and reviews are their lifeblood.

I often prefer television dramas and I hope that most of these issues smooth out so we can accept the world they are attempting to bring the viewer into. A premier episode should try to be a best foot forward and this feels more like an unaired pilot episode for those that have seen them and know what I'm referring to - These Pilots are often unpolished and are often trying different aspects of production to see what does and does not work. Up to this point I believed most went through trial viewings with audience reaction reviews which I have participated in a fair number of times over the years. The goal being to get the responses needed to take the show from a concept to a more polished work. To make the best possible product or in many cases, whether to go forward with production at all. I have previewed many that seemed stronger than this yet never were produced.

I made it to minute 18. I wasn't surprised to read that it was taking its inspiration from Baywatch - but presumably that meant the rather poor later seasons rather than the earlier and better ones.

The acting is so wooden I was genuinely worried that they would all spontaneously combust when getting to close to the fires that they are supposed to fight. Lundgren and Lyster are clearly too old to be in the rescue services on the front line, and the rest of the cast all look far too young. Everything about these first 18 minutes tells me that I'm only going to regret it if I carry on watching. Like a car crash, I might not be able to resist it though.

I watched the show specifically for Dolph and Texas Battle, I'm a fan of both. J.R. Martinez is pretty good in this, despite the weak material given to him and his fellow actors. The latino lady comes off as stereotypical spicy, but I can work with this. Most of the cast looks like they're reading directly from their script in hand, but I hope that's because they are first time actors, maybe? Texas has a great sense of humor in this and it shows, and Dolph and JR. have a slow burner storyline, but the rest of the girls and the other two guys aren't too memorable, they need some characterization and to show us their background and story, but this show is still more diverse than most shows on TV. Hopefully the acting will improve but I've been watching every episode, something won't let me stop.

The writing is bad. The sets are a joke and the things they have the actors doing are ridiculous. Is someone actually directing this ? Is there even a screenplay to work from. I am amazed there are 20 episodes, who approved this and more importantly who paid for it ? The situations are ludicrous.

Now I need another three hundred.

The writing is bad. The sets are a joke and the things they have the actors doing are ridiculous. Is someone actually directing this ? Is there even a screenplay to work from. I am amazed there are 20 episodes, who approved this and more importantly who paid for it ? The situations are ludicrous.