The Last Ship Season 4

DVD Wholesale Quick Overview:

Before I begin, I have to say that I watched Seasons 1-4 back to back and each season was fresh in my mind as I watched the next. Season 4 begins with Captain Chandler living as a fisherman in Greece. His children are with him and he has a girlfriend. 16 months has passed and Chandler, still trying to get over breaking his oath at the end of Season 3, realizes that he was confused about justice and revenge. When his friend is killed, he realizes that he wants both justice and revenge.

The world has survived the virus but now the virus has taken up inside plant life and is again threatening human life. No plants, no feed for livestock, no food. The Red Flu has given away to Red Rust. The crew of the Nathan James is still fighting evil and this time they are looking to buy seeds that have survived ice ages and are immune from the Red Rust.

Unbeknownst to Captain Chandler and the crew of the Nathan James, they would meet up with the Captain Chandler realizing that he cannot escape his destiny to save the world yet again. And when he meets up with the crew of the Nathan James, he eventually decides to re-enlist with the rank of Captain. There is no shortage of action this time around. It just takes place in the Mediterranean Sea. I liked Season 4 and it’s a worthy successor to each of the prior 3 seasons. I am looking forward to Season 5.

– Dan J

The alchemy involved in the making of a hit television show is an intricate blend of just the right casting, brilliant writing, and a solid concept. Hit the mark and you have entertainment gold and judging by the many failed series we see year in and year out it’s an elusive thing. “The Last Ship” took a book which by most accounts was mediocre to begin with and spun it into an action packed, suspenseful post-apocalyptic adventure. Sustaining such a successful formula can also be an elusive thing and after three top-notch seasons we begin to see a decline with the fourth outing which explains why the upcoming fifth season will be the last.

Starting out we discover that now the “Red Flu” has been contained and the cure spread globally thanks to the stalwart crew of the USS Nathan James and the late Dr. Rachel Scott (Rhona Mitra) a new threat imperils the world. The “Red Rust” is affecting plant life across the planet poisoning food supplies leading to mass starvation. One type of seed has resistance to the blight and it’s been stolen from the world seed vault. The James and her crew (absent Capt Chandler who retired last season) are hunting for the seeds so the secret of their immunity can be discovered. Former XO Capt Mike Slattery (Adam Baldwin) is now the ship’s CO and a group of terrorists are trying to beat him and his team to the seeds.

So far, so good. There’s some hokey dialog to suffer through in the beginning but the action mercifully starts soon enough (‘thanks’ Michael Bay). Then we discover former Capt Tom Chandler (Eric Dane) is living in self imposed exile on a lush Greek island with his two children. He’s hooked up with some local babe and her father who’s a fishing boat skipper with whom Chandler works to gather his catch. It’s an idyllic life for a moment until we meet some sinister young guy named Giorgio and his crew of thugs who extort food and money from the villagers. Naturally, this offends Chandler’s sense of fair play and you know eventually there will be a reckoning. Giorgio also runs a Greek “Fight Club” pitting one of his huge goons against half starved peasants enjoying seeing them beaten half to death. Chandler (ex-Navy SEAL before joining the surface warfare community) ultimately takes this guy on and of course beats him earning the nom de guerre “Hercules”. Predictable, but okay.

Next thing the fishing boat skipper is killed by Giorgio’s men after an earlier incident; Chandler with very little coercion abandons his kids and accompanies Giorgio to his island lair. There Chandler has a few more fights, meets philosophy professor/fight doctor (so he says) Dr. Velleck, and seduces Giorgio’s sexy sister Lucia. There’s a private room that is secured with an electronic lock opened by a pendant that looks like a beetle. Giorgio and sis both have them. It should be noted that Eric Dane’s in his full “Dr. McSteamy” mode from his “Grey’s Anatomy” days and rocking his beard and mustache which must explain how he manages to remove the pendant from around the neck of the sleeping Lucia without her feeling it; his McSteamy mojo is so powerful that a night with him renders her insensate. Anyway, he gets in and out learning about the seeds and puts the pendant back without waking her.

Soon enough the James has tracked the terrorists to Giorgio’s island retreat where they’re going to sell the seeds to Giorgio, and Chandler reunites with his long lost crew. Personally, I found the odds of this incredibly unlikely but its television. We get a three way shootout with the James away teams, terrorists and Giorgio’s squad with Slattery ending up with the seeds. There’s a catch, the sister who gets grabbed with the seeds manages to escape after stabbing Slattery leaving him on his own and badly wounded. That’s fine but it’s the second time in that episode where a woman stabs someone; the terrorist chief gets stabbed earlier by an old woman who was hiding the seeds in the first place for her son. It just seemed like lazy writing to repeat that plot device so soon. Slattery staggers around the streets bleeding away and evading capture by terrorists and goons alike. At one point he goes through a yard with laundry hanging out to dry, does he takes something off the line and use it to fashion a makeshift bandage administering some self first aid? Nope, just plods along hemorrhaging. Just didn’t make sense that a guy with his experience wouldn’t understand that direct pressure might help keep him from exsanguination. Anyway they get the seeds then later lose them due to actions by a traitor in their midst.

We have some new cast members to replace fan-favorite Tex Nolan (John Pyper-Ferguson), and LtCdr Burk played by LaMonica Garrett who is badly wounded early on and air-evac’d to Germany. Presumably he was written out to allow Garrett to play a Secret Service Agent on the now cancelled “Designated Survivor”. Joining the team is a Warrant Officer helicopter pilot and his female door gunner (who happens to be Tex’s daughter, Catherine). Cobra Team picks up a female Nigerian army NCO named Azima Kandie who has some manufactured sexual tension with Aussie Spec-Ops warrior ‘Wolf-Man’ (Bren Foster) that goes nowhere. The aforementioned Dr. Velleck (Peter Weller, a long way from “Robocop”) is the villain of the season playing a mad scientist who plans to synthesize the immunity from the palm seeds and cure all crops from the “Red Rust”. He also has combined his formula with a compound that suppresses human aggression turning people into virtual sheep. Weller hams it up big time in this role but it kind of works for him.

Things settle into the usual pattern of “The Last Ship” as our crew tries to get the seeds back and disrupt the evil plans for world domination of Dr. Velleck. I’m sure it’s easier to film and they’re Navy guys after all but most of their commando missions ashore are executed in broad daylight. Tactically it would seem better to infiltrate enemy compounds teeming with armed guards under the cover of darkness but the James’s team like the sunshine. Also very unlikely was on one raid to provide a distraction at an enemy party Kandie strips off her uniform to reveal she’s wearing a…bikini!? That’s really what she’d be wearing on a commando operation? Convenient but hard to believe.

Velleck’s co-opted the Greek Navy with promises to give them priority for the cure for their infected crops and with his shipboard laboratory manufacturing his tainted plants he seems unstoppable. Of course, he and his misguided offspring haven’t counted on the tenacious Tom Chandler and the indomitable Nathan James. After some cat and mouse maneuvering against 3 Greek Navy warships the James takes them out in some exciting sequences that highlight the awesome power of the Arleigh-Burke class guided missile destroyer. Anchor’s Aweigh! The thrill packed finale includes a ship-to-ship fight and boarding action that would have made Horatio Nelson proud.

Ultimately our heroes prevail as we know they will and Chandler and the James save the day. So despite some questionable moments “The Last Ship” delivers some satisfying entertainment that’s fun to watch. The only bonus feature is a rather pedantic 12 minute lecture by some professor trying to draw parallels between “The Last Ship” and “The Odyssey” (you know, that book from English lit class you used ‘Cliff’s Notes’ to get through). I recommend a pass on that.

You can only save the world so many times and it makes sense to wrap things up with the fifth season. I will hate to see it go but don’t see how they could plausibly reinvent the series given its fundamental premise and keep it going. I’ve seen the trailer for Season 5 which airs next month and Chandler’s sporting 4-stars, Slattery’s an admiral too and things look intense. Better to go out on top of your game than to drag things out and get canceled. 4.5 Stars!

– Colonel DT

This is still a strong season but its plagued by the similar things that the other seasons have…that is that the US navy seems to be composed of super soldiers that never tire, never miss, and never have to reload. No one can even match up to them and they always have the right explosive at the right time.

I dont mind the fact that America is badass, but they make killing the opposition seem to easy. They stroll through an enemy compound, and the enemy just “sprays and prays” while the navy “one shot, one kills”

It gets boring after awhile because you know what’s going to happen….at least the earlier seasons had a better plot, and more of a unpredictability to them….here’s hoping season 5 is better

-Stephen

DVD Wholesale Main Features :   

Actors: Eric Dane, Bridget Regan, Adam Baldwin, Travis Van Winkle, Marissa Neitling
Directors: Paul Holahan
Writers: Steven Kane
Producers: Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, Andrew Form, Hank Steinberg, Steven Kane
Format: Color, NTSC, Widescreen
Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Dubbed: English
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 3
Rated: NR – Not Rated
Studio: WarnerBrothers
DVD Release Date: June 5, 2018
Run Time: 440 minutes
ASIN: B079PDLQVW