I (as a Brit) previously reviewed "The Last Ship" after 2 seasons, and am in many respects a committed fan of this well-done series.
However, my June 2016 review was already able to note the outrageous way in which British accents in this series were (with the honourable exception that tests the rule of Dr Rachel Scott) associated with deviousness, merciless pragmatism, uncontrolled aggression and a readiness to betray friends and allies.
Now, especially but not solely in this 4th-season episode we see a furtherance of this agenda, with the UK government and PM also apparently portrayed as complicit in a selfish (admittedly survival-motivated) plot to turn on American allies, and betray them, and with a British MI6 agent ready to murder US Navy personnel he has been working closely with for months.
I'll admit that, having not yet watched through to the last episode of Season 4, I DO NOT yet know where all this is leading ... but I certainly have a sinking feeling about it (if you'll pardon the expression).
As I acknowledged in my then review, Brits have long served as bad-guys in a certain class of US series, and in some way we have become accustomed to it, but "The Last Ship" has been concertedly anti-British over 4 seasons now, and in this episode we now see that its profoundly negative scenarios are apparently not merely a matter for rogue individuals, but for the UK government.
While this scenario arises in a dystopian context of a world threatened by starvation, and while the makers' treatment of Greece is also at least as hostile (given that that country's regime and Navy are also here prepared to turn on their allies in NATO without hesitation), there are limits to what can be accepted; and all the more so when most of the Americans portrayed in the series are seen - apparently uniquely - to be able to uphold the pre-catastrophe virtues.
Admittedly, the makers do have the characters of James Fletcher (Jonathan Howard) and his concealed rescued colleague questioning whether the US would hesitate to stab the UK in the back if their survival was threatened - and that is a reasonable question (and one which may in fact leave British audience members wondering, in what is again a divisive strategy).
Maybe this is also what writer William Brinkley wanted, but he's been dead for 25 years now, and the series on TV obviously has a life of its own. And, as other reviewers have noted, episodes of sci-fi adventure series set in the near-future cannot be entirely divorced from our real world, and the seeds of doubt as to the UK's trustworthiness as friends and allies are being sown all-too-effectively.
TOO MUCH SO, AND QUITE INAPPROPRIATELY AND WRONGLY.
Indeed, at this point, we are entitled to question whose interest this kind of thing might in fact be in...
It is therefore with love from (and indeed for) Britain - my country in good times and bad - that I now invite the makers of "The last Ship" to go and take a running jump (for example off the Nathan James)...
And when they have emerged from that cold shower, perhaps they would finally think on about what they are trying to achieve here?
However, my June 2016 review was already able to note the outrageous way in which British accents in this series were (with the honourable exception that tests the rule of Dr Rachel Scott) associated with deviousness, merciless pragmatism, uncontrolled aggression and a readiness to betray friends and allies.
Now, especially but not solely in this 4th-season episode we see a furtherance of this agenda, with the UK government and PM also apparently portrayed as complicit in a selfish (admittedly survival-motivated) plot to turn on American allies, and betray them, and with a British MI6 agent ready to murder US Navy personnel he has been working closely with for months.
I'll admit that, having not yet watched through to the last episode of Season 4, I DO NOT yet know where all this is leading ... but I certainly have a sinking feeling about it (if you'll pardon the expression).
As I acknowledged in my then review, Brits have long served as bad-guys in a certain class of US series, and in some way we have become accustomed to it, but "The Last Ship" has been concertedly anti-British over 4 seasons now, and in this episode we now see that its profoundly negative scenarios are apparently not merely a matter for rogue individuals, but for the UK government.
While this scenario arises in a dystopian context of a world threatened by starvation, and while the makers' treatment of Greece is also at least as hostile (given that that country's regime and Navy are also here prepared to turn on their allies in NATO without hesitation), there are limits to what can be accepted; and all the more so when most of the Americans portrayed in the series are seen - apparently uniquely - to be able to uphold the pre-catastrophe virtues.
Admittedly, the makers do have the characters of James Fletcher (Jonathan Howard) and his concealed rescued colleague questioning whether the US would hesitate to stab the UK in the back if their survival was threatened - and that is a reasonable question (and one which may in fact leave British audience members wondering, in what is again a divisive strategy).
Maybe this is also what writer William Brinkley wanted, but he's been dead for 25 years now, and the series on TV obviously has a life of its own. And, as other reviewers have noted, episodes of sci-fi adventure series set in the near-future cannot be entirely divorced from our real world, and the seeds of doubt as to the UK's trustworthiness as friends and allies are being sown all-too-effectively.
TOO MUCH SO, AND QUITE INAPPROPRIATELY AND WRONGLY.
Indeed, at this point, we are entitled to question whose interest this kind of thing might in fact be in...
It is therefore with love from (and indeed for) Britain - my country in good times and bad - that I now invite the makers of "The last Ship" to go and take a running jump (for example off the Nathan James)...
And when they have emerged from that cold shower, perhaps they would finally think on about what they are trying to achieve here?