(There’s a conclusion at the end if you want to skip the rambling)
For someone with a FOMO diagnosis, of varying severity, since my early childhood, it may be somewhat surprising that I am rarely the first to the scene on any trend. Many times my tardiness has created, in me, a bull-headed rejection of whatever pitch is being made. I remember actively resisting the Razr cell phone craze of the early 2000s. So deeply did I dig into my resistance to the Razr, and the emerging smartphone era in general, that my first smartphone would come in the form of an outdated Blackberry Pearl late in the decade (once iPhones were already leading the market).
[Side Note: I’ve still never purchased an Apple product, of any kind, my entire life. I also come down strongly on the far superior T9 texting vs the full keyboard that we use today. #QWERTYKilledTexting]
And I have not, merely, been late to the game when it comes to technology. My favorite singer of all-time, Eric Church, was initially met with a certain level of animus as well. And when it comes to TV, I have rarely been an early adopter; having hopped on the Breaking Bad bandwagon in season 4, Mad Men in season 5(and never finishing), and Game of Thrones around season 4. Not to mention several shows that I didn’t fully take in until years after they’d gone off the air; among them, Friends, West Wing, Sopranos, and The Office.
Now, much of this could be chalked up to my age at the time and simply not “getting around to it” until after I’d gotten out of college and gotten much more serious about wasting my free time. But it wasn’t like I was completely ‘out of the loop.’ The aforementioned FOMO was always a thing, it just manifested itself more at the movie theater and on the newest neon signs down the street on Friday and Saturday nights. (the bars, in case that was unclear)
With all that being said, my affinity for TV shows had grown massively from graduation till about 2015. TV had become my life, and there was plenty to keep a guy busy. It was around that time that the race-obsession in Hollywood hit a critical mass. I’d given up on the movie theater almost completely. Where I was once seeing 2 movies a week (living right above a theater that offered $4 Sunday matinees), I’d cut it out completely. I’d only see the movies I could definitively tell that I’d enjoy. And those were few and far between. Gone were the days of “taking a chance” on a movie that might look interesting. And the same was happening for TV.
It wasn’t that TV was, necessarily, behind Movies in the oppression Olympics, but TV is just different. With television it has multiple episodes and seasons. TV shows that started prior to the virtue-signaling epidemic had to be a little more subtle in the bastardization of their show. It’s hard to derail an entire show made as a comedy or period-piece and appease the woke-scolds overnight. So, it was possible, at the time, for a completionist to get through the last couple seasons of their favorite TV shows without a ton of teeth-gritting. BUT—as far as NEW shows that began post-2014? My analysis mirrors that of movies; a steaming pile of cringe.
Also, the emergence of streaming shows(which is why we need a new word for TV) seemed to coincide with the emerging internet world of commentary on media, including those very streaming shows. And thank goodness for that, as I believe it has saved me quite a bit of time (to waste on other irrelevant activities).
The moral of this long trip into the past is that my past heartbreaks with Movies and TV has me at a point, now, where I’m never aware of anything as it comes out. To me, the chances of turning on any current show and it not being drenched in fake oppression, cynicism, or cringe comedy is less likely than getting struck by lightning in the Sahara. The chances are so miniscule that watching soccer would be a better use of a person’s time (oof!).
And I have tested the theory. As opposed as I am to current-year cinematic culture I do, occasionally, heed the voices of the “If you don’t watch it you can’t have an opinion!” numbskulls that lurk around the internet. Every once in a while, I will take a shot on a random show without any more knowledge of it than I gather from the synopsis, and perhaps seeing an ad for it somewhere. A “random sample,” if you will. And just about every single time, I’ve been disappointed. Occasionally, the stench has been so bad that I bail after one episode. Other times, it’s taken a full season to reach peak-stench. And then, others still, have been crap from beginning to end, yet I still torture myself just to see how bad things truly are.
Among this list of un-solicited shows (there have been others I’ve seen, but was urged to watch) that I’ve taken in over the years are (in no particular order):
All-American – Hot Cringe Garbage
You – Bad Dexter reboot that I had to watch the full season of
Umbrella Academy – Not terrible, first season, destroyed in season 2
Flight Attendant – Decent beginning premise, wrecked by episode 6
Ozark (way ahead of the curve on that) – Decent 7 episodes, ruined by the end of season 1
The 100 – LOL
A Teacher – Vomit
Billions – Maybe ok if you haven’t had your fill of pure nihilism
Westworld – Actually good till the end of season 1
The Righteous Gemstones – Oh, poor Kenny Powers!
So, no, I have not merely stuck my head in the sand and thrown bombs from the back row. The ‘woke Hollywood’ claim is real. And, as old and tired as it is, it is even understated among the entertainment truthers out there. Predictably, in an effort to seem “fair,” so many of the entertainment reviewers in the space are beginning to overlook much of the cringe trash that comes out, and give praise where it certainly does not belong(more on that in another post). However, when it comes to The Terminal List, this is not the case.
ON WITH THE SHOW
I was late to the game on The Terminal List (for reasons detailed above), and I believe it aided in my enjoyment of the show a bit. Having, now, seen the show and looked into the creating and reception of it, I recall having seen the show’s creator making the rounds on a couple podcasts/shows that I watch. I never picked up exactly who he was or what he was promoting; only that he was an author that wrote military thrillers. I did not know that The Terminal List was one of those, and all of my show notes were made prior to finding it out. I don’t think it would’ve influenced me much to have known that going in, but it did feel a bit confirming (perhaps some confirmation bias) to hear the sentiment of the man that wrote the book.
As cliché as it sounds, The Terminal List is just good old fashioned ‘red meat’ for the action/mystery fan. Starlord (Chris Pratt) and Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) are great together in this show(we got both Riggins boys, in fact!). Where Kitsch plays the hits, with his same-old ‘laid back and loyal” to the Nth degree, Pratt gets the chance to flex his acting chops a little bit. And he did a great job. So well did he do, in fact, that in the 1 part of the show where he made a Starlord-type wise crack, I cringed a bit, and begged for the dramatic Pratt to return. Constance Wu was not an actress I was familiar with, but holds her own in the show as well. It’s always difficult to assess the “reporter” role in any show or movie. So often, the reporter character can easily be pulled off with an actor simply showing up and reading lines. Viewers only, really, look to these characters for information, and as long as they’re delivering it, it can be convincing. Unless they are given a particularly compelling sub-plot or back-story to go through(à la Kate Mara in House of Cards), assessing this character’s acting skills can be a little tough. I think her character suffered, a little bit, from this. She was not given a whole lot more than exposition through out most of the show, outside of the very beginning and at the very end.
But as far as characters go, those 3 are the mainstays throughout. We are given a carousel of villains, which we’ll touch on later, but nearly all of the progress of the show falls on these 3 actors (and, actually, mostly just Pratt and Wu) and they prove to be up to the task. The chemistry between Pratt and Kitsch is undeniable. And for his first time(that I’ve seen) carrying a show in a dramatic role, I give Pratt 2 thumbs up.
As far as story-telling goes, the show does a good job of adding its own spice to a story that’s been told before. Which, incidentally, is the most common criticism of the show; “the story has been told before.” Ha! The most irritating part of this criticism are the people giving it. The same “professional critics” dressing down this show for unoriginality are the same people that trip over themselves to praise every awful re-boot and re-telling of the same, exact, ‘strong female’ story that we get today. Pretty much, if you’ve seen Erin Brockovich, you’ve seen every “strong woman who don’t need no man!” story that’s being told in action movies today. Only difference being, it was still ok for her to be sexy in that film. But the scores will still rank in the 90s with these, completely damaged, members of the access media any time you check the right intersectional boxes. Take a shot-for-shot remake of an existing movie, but throw a minority and/or a woman in it, and it’s “profoundly important”. Anything with white guys is derivative. Thems the rules.
Luckily, the vlogger showed up shortly after the critic industry was broken and reduced their usefulness to that of tits on a boar. And, while this is an overall good thing, there is something to be said for the ‘eye for quality’ that we miss out on by not having a reliable stock of entertainment critics. Audience scores for shows are completely dependent on the types of people that are attracted to the show. The types of people that may be interested in a show based off of a trailer can, often, result in a somewhat unfair review of it; in the positive (most or the time) or the negative. And this is what I used to lean on critics for. Audiences can be good at conveying whether or not a show has good pacing, good visuals, and a compelling plot. But when it comes to acting, writing, or delivering that plot, audiences can tend to overlook them. With unreliable critics, you’re really just left in the dark. The Blockbuster will always win.
With all that being said, and even with how much I enjoyed this show, it does have its issues; being unoriginal just ain’t even on my radar.
Probably the most annoying issue is the same one you get in every streaming show. They are 2-hour movies that have been drug out to 10, 50-minutes episodes(in this case, 8), so you get a ton of irrelevant content to pad the run-time; most notably—staring. In every show you watch today they stare………….a lot. And The Terminal List is no different. And, at least in these streaming series, they have an excuse. But when we see it in movies I wanna yank my hair out(I just finished The Batman—OMG). But, perhaps, my more significant disappointment with the padded run time of a show like The Terminal List, is with my hunch that they missed out on so many opportunities. The show was based on a book. Presumably, they had plenty of material to work with(books always do), yet they still wasted so much of our time with flashbacks and staring…lots of staring.
The second criticism references back to the medium. While I didn’t know it going in, it was very easy to tell that the show was a film adaptation of a book. I realized this very early on, and much of the stuff you see on screen comes off as a ham-fisted attempt at illustrating something that “looked way better on paper.” Specifically, 3 main areas; 1 – The laughably slow response time of authorities, 2 – The chase scenes, and 3 – Too many storylines.
It’s funny that when you read a thriller, you give the author quite a bit of leeway when it comes to the world’s reaction to any event. When a crime is committed or someone dies, or any other big event takes place, it may be a couple chapters later before you get to the reaction to such a thing. And you’re ok with that. You understand the medium that the author is dealing with and you give them some rope. In this show, however, more than once, I found myself wondering “where are the police in all this?” It became a bit distracting and removed me from the story a bit.
As far as the chase scenes go (‘pursuit scenes’ may be the more appropriate term, as chase seems tends to insinuate that vehicles are involved, which they aren’t always), we are asked to swallow some pretty un-believable escapes from capture, by Commander Reece that, again, you could tell looked better on paper. When you are constrained by space and the outdoor sets available to you, the cinema product will always fail to the setting in your mind while reading a book.
[SPOILER]
On that note, the most hilarious part of this was the “river” Reece was to have escaped in when he was being chased through the mountains. You know, in the book, it was likely a Mississippi-sized river. What we see in the show is something that probably wouldn’t even get the top of Reece’s boots wet. LOL
[SPOILER OVER]
And, lastly, perhaps the most difficult part of adapting a book is the number of manageable storylines. Honestly, even in books, I often find an overabundance of story-lines to be a common misstep for novelists. I don’t know if they feel the need to hit a page count, or maybe they get in their heads too much to the point where they can’t see the forest for the trees, but it happens a lot. And when you’re creating a film adaptation, it can have an outsized affect. It’s happened quite a bit for me. Maybe I’m but a simple-minded man lacking the mental capacity to juggle multiple story lines but somewhere around episode 4 or 5 I realized that there were way too many plot-threads out there for us to, possibly, get a satisfactory resolution to all of them. This disappointed me (in a “I could’ve predicted this” kinda way). Once this realization hit, I began to, seriously, doubt that they’d be able to stick the landing on any of the threads; let alone ALL of them. And the answer to whether they did or not?: Yes? Loose threads do leave us with some fuzzy timelines and unexplained plot conveniences. The result is, merely, that we are asked to increase our suspension of disbelief a little more than usual. Something that shouldn’t be terribly difficult for the Superhero-conditioned viewer of today.
And so, with a straight white lead and a straight white side kick, you must now look to the villains to see how woke a show is. Afterall, even the wokest of shows can have a white protagonist. They simply poor every cringeworthy stereotype into their villains in order to do their preaching. And this where The Terminal List officially provides us the moderate departure from current-day tropes that send our eyes rolling to the back of our heads. Are they battling the played out evil “military industrial complex”? Yes. Are there cartoony evil rich white dousche-bags? Sure. BUT, there are 2 other villains that you won’t find in any other mainstream show (or comic book) through the last 10 years; a Black Male bad guy and a Woman bad guy! Whoa!
And these aren’t “misunderstood” bad guys either. In fact, at the end, right when it feels like they are going to go down that path with the female villain, the Secretary of Defense played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, they do an amazing 180 when the reporter refuses to accept her “well-intentioned” defense and throws it back in her face. This struck me as particularly satisfying. Almost a middle finger to the “misunderstood” and “well-intentioned” villains of the intersectional variety that we’re given in every…single…show(and book)…today.
Yes, these 2 bad guys are balanced out by a higher number of intersectional good guys, and yes, it sucks REALLY BAD to view a show in this way, but anyone who tells you they don’t notice it simply aren’t paying attention or are lying. It’s the world Hollywood has created, we’re all just living in it. And the fact that these 2 characters exist in a current-year show (although something that wouldn’t have meant anything 10 years ago) speaks volumes to just how little these creators seem to be affected by the identity politics of our time.
Now, back to “sticking the landing,” the show gets a B. The aforementioned plot-threads littered throughout the story make for a little less satisfying ending than, perhaps, could’ve been, but the actions of Katie Buranek (the reporter) combined with the final twist between Commander Reece (Pratt) and Ben Edwards (Kitsch) provided an adequate ending for a show that started out on such a high note.
And that’s, maybe, the biggest take away. The 1st episode is the absolute best. There’s, really, no debate to be had. The 1st episode of this show pushes all the emotional buttons in a way that a person cannot help but watch the other 7. Yes, the story doesn’t actually get started until the 2nd episode and, in the grand scheme of things, the 1st episodes serves as nothing more than a catalyst for everything that happens, but it was damn good. If you find yourself to be an unabashedly rigid judge of all your entertainment and, given what you’ve read so far, have felt that you wouldn’t like the show, I would still recommend watching the 1st episode. It’s good.
TO CONDLUDE
So, in closing, The Terminal List is the show we’ve been told so many other things were but weren’t. We’ve been told, so many times, that there are shows out there that are “non-woke,” but really aren’t. Shows like Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Yellowstone, Suicide Squad, and The Batman (big oof). And with the lens we’re forced to watch through, today, there are even whispers of woke in this one. But never more than a whisper. (where the aforementioned shows are fully audible in their leanings)
No, the story isn’t, particularly, original. It has shades of Reacher, John Wick, and the OG of them all when it comes to this type of vengeance: The Punisher, but it does a good job of being its own thing. It efforts to provide us with competent action, real emotion, and acceptable military vernacular(for the non-veteran types). And it does it all without the crutch of a love interest(aside from…well you’ll see).
Should there be a season 2? No, probably not. Will there be? Does the Pope shit in the woods? But it is a non-woke show that is good, rather than just a non-woke show(here’s looking at you, Cobra Kai). Will its success get us more of it? That’s the question. Success seems to have different definitions today. And the streaming companies have done so much to muddy the waters and re-define success that I often wonder if they’re even capable of recognizing a good thing when they have it.
If you’re a red-blooded American that enjoys a good whodunita about sacrifice and justice, with a healthy serving of vengeance, check it out. If not, well, Disney+ has quite a library.
AgingMillenial 