The Last Ship - Discussion Thread (spoilers possible)

Que, you want all interpersonal conflicts/grudges to be wiped clean at the end of each week, with no carry-over or irrational persistent grumblings? What do you take this for, Voyager?!


And the whole "my enlistment is up" thing was dumb in the first place. I'm pretty sure COs don't have authority to release service members from active duty; that's the job of your local Personnel Support Detachment, which clears each such action with Naval Personnel Command. For that matter, COs don't have authority to re-enlist members on their own, either. And, let's not kid ourselves: though the Master Chief only alluded to the possibility, if the ship were in contact with the POTUS via the DoN/DoD, those Sailors would absolutely have been stop-lossed and retained due to extraordinary mission/force manning requirements.

So, no, I don't find it the slightest bit odd that the dirty looks would last a while.

 

I've seen the USN represented worse

I don't think it was "dumb" It was an interesting point to bring up, since there probably isn't any personnel command left. But I agree.... "OP Hold" would apply here.

 

Agreed; I meant it was dumb on the Sailors' characters' part, not on the show's.

 

Yeah, true. Where the hell did they think they were going to go?

 

Smithsonian channel's Mighty Ships is doing the Uss Gravely Arleigh Burke class today. Just found it while channel surfing.

 

Another good doc on an Arleigh Burke is an episode of Build It Bigger called "Superfast Warship."

Meanwhile, that was the best LS episode yet. A nice little POW escape movie with a little Hot Zone and "The Enterprise Incident" mixed in.

And Dr. Scott gave the Chandler/Scott shippers some fanfic material.

Line of the show: (Russkie guard) "Stop talking or I will kiss your ass!"

 

I liked the Empire Strike Back reference, "They didn't even ask me any questions".


Yeah, after watching the Mighty Ships show I have to commend The Last Ship for the fidelity of the sets. The bridge and CIC are pretty damn close to the real thing. The only big difference I could see was the overuse of camo uniforms on The last Ship. The real navy personnel mostly wore blue uniforms.

 

I think the camo uniforms came into wide use so the Navy would be more in line with the other services during the War on Terror.

Speaking as a landlubber, I think they're silly.

 

That's the thing though. They're not in use on the USS Gravely.

 

This show is like a faster-paced The Unit, which I guess helps to make up for its shortcomings since you know you're getting a fun 43 minutes. Although they're still lacking in the character development department. Tex is like the No. 4 character on the show and he's recurring. Some of the regulars in the main cast have barely done anything and I can't recall many of their names. Hell, the official TNT site only lists Dane, Mitra and Baldwin for the cast.

 

Good episode. I'm curious to know the state of the Russian Cruiser now. Damaged in the assault (perhaps crippled) and now probably infected with Patient Zero out running around the corridors. You would think they just about have it all wrapped up (recovered the crew, have an antidote, etc) except it would have been interesting to see if the guinea pig officer actually would have survived. And I'm sure from previews, they are going to have problems with the antidote or setbacks which will continue the "plague cure" storyline a bit longer.

Good episode for Baldwin also. Up until now his arc (when not on the ground going ninja on drug cartel security forces) had been mostly to question and disagree with the Captain's decisions. Now at least he demonstrates his value in a leadership role and actually forms a bit of a connection with Dr. Scott.

 

Oh yeah, this was an awesome episode. Really cool raid the enemy story and it was nice to see a special ops mission where most everything goes according to plan and we see contingencies in place for the few snags that do pop up. That was actually refreshing to see, compared to usually this sort of storyline we see shit hit the fan almost right away and our heroes try to pick up the pieces just to escape alive and usually accidentally achieve the mission goals while trying to beat a hasty retreat. The young guy trying to redeem himself had a predictable end to his character arc, but otherwise I can't find much to complain about with this episode. A perfect hour of television.

To be fair though, the camo obsession is more a Hollywood thing than anything else. A lot of movies over the past couple of years to feature a US Navy presence have had the officers and sailors wearing the camo uniforms, like Battleship, World War Z and most recently Godzilla. Hell, on TV there was that Last Resort show from two years ago which also had its Navy characters in the camo uniform. Hey, at least they aren't wearing the white dress uniforms 24/7.

Hell, if it weren't for the fact he wears a nametag, I wouldn't even know the Master Chief's name.

I don't know about that. Yes, in the first episode he did seem a bit vocal in his opposition to Chandler's decision to avoid the US, but it is an XO's job to raise any objections he might have and allow the captain to draw from as many perspectives possible to make a decision. By the end of the second episode, it's clear Slattery is a proven and competent officer, as evidenced by how him and Chandler were able to coordinate the attack on the warehouse without actually talking to each other. While Slattery might not have always agreed with the way Chandler does certain things, it's clear he is loyal to Chandler and trusts his command judgements enough to support his orders, even when he might not agree with them.

 

The show is a few years old, so it was probably filmed during the transition to the blueberry camo Navy Working Uniform.

As a taxpayer, it's worse than silly, since it's now been found that the NWU just keeps on melting when exposed to fire, so it will not be allowed to be worn at sea after all and will have to be replaced with new flame-resistant coveralls.


This is after:

• The Army spent billions on new camouflage that didn't work well and now has to spend billions to replace it.
• The Air Force developed one camo pattern, had to replace it, and then said the second pattern couldn't be used in Afghanistan.
• The Marines developed a good camouflage uniform but refused to let other services use it.

A cynic might say that the services went on a spending spree with an unquestioned post-9/11 flood of money. God forbid they just updated and refined the common-to-all-services BDUs.

END RANT.

 

^^^Welp, there's that mystery solved in detail.

REAL LIFE NAVY: "Aaagh! It burns! Let's stop wearing it!"

HOLLYWOOD NAVY: "Wow! Look at the captain's muscles ripple under that awesome camo pattern! What? No, We haven't done the flaming ship stunt yet. Why?"

THE LAST SHIP: Fun and Educational!

 

That quote never made sense to me. Once you build one of something the second copy is always cheaper since you've got the development costs out of the way.

 

That's the point right. The government never finds the chepeast route to solving any problem.

[cough]A registration website for healthcare that cost over $500 million in contractor fees alone nearly what all of Apple spent to develop all of IOS and its subsequent upgrades[cough]

 

The episode was okay, but given that they hadn't gone the the level of ridiculousness previously; I was very disappointed by the whole Russian ship escape as written. I mean come on, not a single lookout or guard on deck saw the dingy or the U.S, Navy personnel climbing up on to the ship? What? does everyone on the ship except the Bridge crew go to sleep after 9 PM or something. Don't get me started on sentry-less corridors as they all make their escape and plant C4 bombs as they go.

The only thing missing on the Russian side was a Wile-E-Coyote in s Russian outfit grabbing one of the bombs off the wall and holding an "Oh no!" sign up just before said bomb explodes (it was that ridiculous, IMO.)

 

Is the russian ship based on a real one? I can't remember hearing the ship's class, but I could be misremembering.

 

Kirov class