It’s rare to see a show die before it even gets to catch its breath. Honestly, looking back at the Last Resort TV series, it feels like a fever dream of high-stakes political tension and submarine warfare that happened just a little too early for the streaming boom. If it launched on Netflix today? It’d probably be a global top-ten hit for a month straight. Back in 2012 on ABC, though, it was a weird outlier. A big-budget, cinematic thriller trapped in a network TV slot that didn't know how to handle it.
The premise was—and still is—absolutely killer.
You’ve got the USS Colorado, an Ohio-class nuclear submarine. It’s sitting deep in the Indian Ocean. Suddenly, an order comes through the "Antarctic Network," a secondary channel used only if the U.S. has already been nuked. The order? Fire nuclear missiles at Pakistan. Captain Marcus Chaplin, played with this terrifying, gravel-voiced gravitas by Andre Braugher, smells a rat. He refuses to fire without confirmation through the proper channels. For his trouble, his own country tries to sink him.
The High Stakes of the USS Colorado
Most shows about the military fall into two camps. They're either "Rah-rah, go team" or "Everything is a conspiracy." Last Resort tried to be both and neither at the same time. It was incredibly grounded in the technical realities of naval life, yet it felt like a Shakespearean tragedy played out on a tropical island. When Chaplin and his crew take over a NATO communications station on the island of Sainte Marina, they aren't just rebels. They're a sovereign nuclear power.
Think about that for a second. One submarine holding the world hostage just to stay alive.
Scott Ryan and Shawn Ryan (the mastermind behind The Shield) created something that felt dangerous. The tension between Chaplin and his XO, Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman), wasn't just typical TV drama. It was a philosophical debate about what it means to be a patriot when your government has gone off the rails. You see Kendal struggling with his loyalty to the flag versus his loyalty to a captain who might actually be losing his mind. Or is he the only sane one left? That ambiguity kept people watching, or at least the 5 million or so who stuck around until the end.
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Why It Actually Failed
The ratings were a mess. There’s no other way to put it.
ABC tried to market it as a high-octane action show, but it was actually a dense political thriller. If you missed episode three, you were basically lost by episode five. In the era before "binge-watching" was a household term, that was a death sentence. Network TV in 2012 lived and died by episodic procedurals—shows where you could drop in any time and know what was happening. You couldn't do that with the Last Resort TV series.
Also, the budget was astronomical.
Filming in Hawaii isn't cheap. Building a massive, realistic submarine set costs a fortune. When you’re spending millions per episode and the viewership is dipping below a 1.2 rating in the key demo, the accountants at Disney start sharpening their axes. It’s a shame because the show had so much more to give. They had to cram a three-season arc into 13 episodes once they got the cancellation news.
The Andre Braugher Factor
We lost Andre Braugher recently, and it makes revisiting this show even more bittersweet. Most people know him as Captain Holt from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the stoic, hilarious commander. But in this show? He was a lion.
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There’s a scene where he addresses the crew after they’ve been declared traitors. It’s not a "we can do this" speech. It’s a "we are alone in the dark" speech. His performance gave the show a weight that it probably didn't deserve on paper. He made you believe that a single man could stand up to the entire United States Navy and win.
- The Casting: Beyond Braugher and Speedman, you had Robert Patrick as the Command Master Chief. He was the "old guard" who hated the situation but loved the boat.
- The Setting: Using the island of Sainte Marina as a backdrop allowed for "land" stories, which saved the show from being too claustrophobic, though the sub scenes were always the best part.
- The Tech: They used a lot of real naval terminology. "Baffles," "thermal layers," "firing solutions." It didn't treat the audience like they were stupid.
A Legacy in the Streaming Age
You can see the DNA of this show in things like The Diplomat or Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. It paved the way for "prestige" military drama. It showed that you could have a series about global geopolitics that felt intimate.
The way it ended was rushed, sure. The conspiracy back in D.C. involved a puppet president and a shadowy group of contractors, which felt a bit "conspiracy-of-the-week" compared to the raw tension on the submarine. But the final moments of the series? They were haunting. They didn't go for a happy, "everything is fixed" ending. They stayed true to the idea that once you cross that line—once you point a nuke at your own home—there’s no going back.
If you’re looking for something to watch and you’re tired of the endless parade of superhero spin-offs, find a way to stream this. It’s a relic of a time when networks were still trying to take big, expensive risks.
Actionable Ways to Experience Last Resort Today
If you want to dive into this short-lived masterpiece, don't just mindlessly scroll. There are ways to appreciate the craft that went into it.
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- Watch for the Sound Design: Put on a good pair of headphones. The creaks of the submarine hull and the sonar pings were designed to create a sense of constant pressure. It’s immersive in a way few 2010s shows were.
- Track the Moral Decay: Pay attention to the crew. In episode one, they are pristine officers. By episode ten, they are fractured, dirty, and desperate. It’s a masterclass in character arc compression.
- Check the Credits: Look at the writers and directors. Many of them went on to work on some of the biggest prestige dramas of the last decade. You’re seeing a "school of excellence" in its early stages.
- Compare to Modern Hits: Watch an episode of Last Resort and then watch a modern military thriller. You'll notice how much more "physical" the older show feels—fewer CGI explosions, more practical sets and real locations.
The Last Resort TV series remains a fascinating "what if" in television history. It was a show about a mutiny that, in a way, committed its own mutiny against the boring standards of 2012 broadcast television. It lost the battle for ratings, but it won a spot as one of the most underrated dramas of its decade.
Go find the pilot episode. The first twenty minutes are as perfect as television gets. You'll see exactly why people are still talking about it over a decade later.
Final Insights for the Viewer
To get the most out of a rewatch, focus on the "Antarctic Network" plotline. It serves as a chilling reminder of Cold War-era fail-safes that still exist in various forms today. Understanding that the show was grounded in actual (though dramatized) nuclear protocols makes the stakes feel much more immediate. Rather than viewing it as a simple action show, approach it as a character study on the weight of command and the impossibility of true neutrality in a polarized world.
Final takeaway: If you value tight, high-stakes storytelling that respects your intelligence, this 13-episode run is essentially a long-form movie that outclasses most modern blockbusters.