The Last Ship - Discussion Thread (spoilers possible)

I saw the show and didn't think it was too bad compared to all the crap on TV these days. I also recorded Falling Skies. I had stopped watching that sometime in season 2 but thought I might give it another shot. Though I don't have high hopes.

I thought the Captain holding the breaker (or fuse, whatever it was) seemed a bit ridiculous. If you were going to do it . . . why not use some rubber gloves or something non conductive between yourself and the possible electric path.

But hey . . . its a TV show.

 

I enjoyed this show and it's a lot better than some of the other stuff on currently. Also, the general quality was really high. E.g. when they discharge the shell to shoot helicopters and the casing falls on the deck plating of the ship. Great visual, and sound for that matter - it didn't even appear to be CGI.

I'll stick with this for now. The challenge - like with the Walking Dead - is that they have to make some powerful characters or the storyline will fall apart quickly. Moving from location to location and scavenging fuel, food, and spare parts will become boring quickly without some powerful back stories to make the whole thing work.

 

Because he's badass!

 

I thought it was pretty good, and I liked it better than Falling Skies. Although I can see it going off track pretty quickly, especially if the Russians keep showing up like I think they will.
Michael Bay really needs an alias, because I was seriously not going to watch it because it had his name on it, until I saw that Adam Baldwin is on the show.

 

It was enjoyable which is all a TV show should be. It'll take up the space between now and the Walking Dead's premiere.

 

I read it back then I don't remember it having the umpf of a war story that techno thrillers had. I was never compelled to reread it the multiple times like I had with the best of the genre. wasn't there a 50's movie with the same basic story of a last crew surviving the nuclear apocalypse? Only it that case the women were civilians on the beach not crew mates.

The story about a modern naval ship not by Douglass Reeman drew me in. IIRC it was before Poyer's Commander Lenson series.


I would admit I was bothered by practically the first scene with a US Naval officer saluting uncovered. And then you would think that destroyer was a battleship by the way she ignored those missile hits.

 

The name of the show is, "The Last Ship," not the, "Last Sub." That will be coming up by season 3 as a spin off series should this show prove to be successful.

 

Without giving too much away, a sub ends up being very integral to the book.

 

He also appeared to speak Italian when they boarded the cruise ship and he and Rhona Mitra discovered the survivor.

My query was where did the nuke detonate - it appeared to be heading over southern England, and my thought was that they were trying to bomb London. But the location of detonation never got mentioned -

 

I was being sarcastic of course - but I assumed as well that eventually part of the storyline is that the ship would end up meeting up with others to expand the storyline.

BTW - maybe someone can answer one part of the plot that was confusing in the pilot episode. The nuclear explosion was detonated over France - or over the ocean? It wasn't clear to me in the dialogue which.

 

Yes, there should be subs out there; they're never all in port and some of the boomers would have been lurking around longer than the infection took to spread.

Looked like the missles were defeated by chaff/countermeasures for the most part, only one looked to have maybe impacted (or blew up close at least). Should have been a few other systems they could have used to cut these down from far away, like the CWIS (trashcan looking gattling gun under the bridge) for example, shouldn't have been close.

Nuke looked to be a hit on either France or maybe England? Was hard to tell from the maps in the quick glance. Around the Channel, though?

Coincidence, but ended up reading a similar story over the weekend before this aired. Omega Sub, involved a new class of sub doing Avoidance testing under the icecap for a couple weeks, they come up to find everything nuked, pretty quiet. From there, investigate the silence, some survivors, some zombie-ish creatures (victims of "radiation insanity" they say), etc. Apparently part of a 5-6 book series, never read past book 1, but entertaining how similar it was.

 

To me, it looks like the nuclear missile was heading in the direction of Calais, France.

 

Yes, he translated the request of help of the survivor.

By the way, his Italian was atrocius and probably translated with Google Translate.

"Aiutami" is the literal translation of "Help me". But in that situation it would have been more appropriate "Aiuto" or "Aiutatemi".

 

Good question. The computer tracking seemed to show it approaching France. And there seemed to be enough time for it to make it over land, but who knows?

 

Can a destroyer actually feed a crew and maintain station for 4 months without an oiler and tender support?

 

It's Ballesteros of course.

With all the unmanned refueling stations out there they should be OK.

 

Average deployment for surface ships is six months, and they probably took on provisions in port (they'd actually need extra for the scientists and shooters) so they should be fine on that front. As for fuel, they can stretch it by cruising slow and direct to their destinations until they can get to another fuel source

Meanwhile on the subject of similar stories, a colleague clued me in to one written and filmed in the fifties, On The Beach. Given what I found out about it William Brinkley should have been sued for infringement.

 

It's more like 8.5 months these days, but either way, smaller ships absolutely typically hit ports every few weeks to refuel and re-stock.

 

True, but some smaller ships - like attack subs - can't do that, given the nature of their missions. In that case nuclear power takes care of the refueling need, but as for food they pack every space they can with enough food for a full deployment.

In this particular case, even though the crew of the Nathan James didn't know the nature of their mission, their superiors obviously did. Fuel needs are one thing, but I can't believe the higher-ups would be stupid enough to have the ship in port and not pack in enough food so that they wouldn't have to re-stock in the typical way, especially since available foodstuffs might be contaminated and therefore useless to them on their mission.

Of course, I fully understand that real-life history is filled with such higher-up stupidity, but I'm hoping against hope here...