Andre Braugher returns to TV on a thrilling new ABC series called Last Resort that will be taking the challenging Thursdays-at-8 position. One of the two creators of the show is Shawn Ryan, the creator of The Shield. How’s how ABC describes it:
Five hundred feet beneath the ocean’s surface, the crew of the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine “Colorado” – the most powerful nuclear submarine ever built — receive their orders. Over a communications channel designed only to be used if the U.S. homeland has been wiped out, they’re told to fire nuclear weapons at a foreign country. This suspenseful, emotional, epic series with high stakes will evolve like a classic, action-packed drama.
Captain Marcus Chaplin (Andre Braugher) demands confirmation of the orders to fire, only to be unceremoniously relieved of duty. XO Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman) finds himself suddenly in charge of the submarine and facing the same difficult decision. When he also demands confirmation of the orders, the Colorado is fired upon and hit. The submarine and its crew, who are actually honorable patriots, now find themselves crippled on the ocean floor and declared rogue enemies of their own country. With nowhere left to turn, Chaplin and Kendal take the sub on the run and bring the men and women of the Colorado to an exotic but dangerous island. Here they will find refuge, romance and a chance at a new life, even as they try to clear their names and get back home.
The impressive cast for “Last Resort” features Andre Braugher (“Men of a Certain Age,” “Homicide: Life on the Streets”) as Captain Marcus Chaplin, Scott Speedman (“The Vow,” “Felicity”) as XO Sam Kendal, Daisy Betts (“Sea Patrol”) as Lieutenant Grace Shepard, Dichen Lachman (“Being Human”) as Tani Tumrenjack, Daniel Lissing (“Crownies”) as SEAL Officer James King, Sahr Ngaujah (“House of Payne”) as Mayor Julian Serrat, Camille de Pazzis (“The First Day of the Rest of Your Life”) as Sophie Gerard, Autumn Reeser (“Hawaii Five-O,” “No Ordinary Family”) as Kylie Sinclair, Jessy Schram (“Falling Skies,” “Once Upon a Time”) as Christine Kendal and Robert Patrick (“The Gangster Squad,” “The Unit”) as Master Chief Joseph Prosser.
“Last Resort” was created by Shawn Ryan (“The Shield,” “The Unit,” “The Chicago Code”) & Karl Gajdusek (“Trespass,” “Dead Like Me”) who, along with Marney Hochman (“The Chicago Code,” “Terriers”), serve as executive producers for the pilot and series. The pilot for “Last Resort” was also executive-produced and directed by Martin Campbell (“Green Lantern,” “Casino Royale”). “Last Resort” is produced by MiddKid Productions in association with Sony Pictures Television, and is broadcast in 720 Progressive (720P), ABC’s selected HDTV format, with 5.1 channel surround sound.
The cast and producers of Last Resort appeared on Friday at the Television Critics Association Press Tour in Beverly Hills, California, where they previewed the show, talked about the race-blind casting, and what else there may be to expect. But first, Shawn Ryan spoke of the origins of the project.
“My ambitions have grown, and the story started with Karl [Gajdusek],” Shawn Ryan says, referring to the series’ co-creator. “I want to give Karl credit. The initial nugget of this story was his, and then we joined forces. But when we pitched this to Paul Lee and his cohorts at ABC last summer or fall, I described it as the show that I couldn’t make five years ago because I didn’t possess the skill set and that I felt like the shows I had done up to this point, the ongoing serialization of The Shield, combined with the production value of Chicago Code, combined with this buddy thing that we had done in Terriers, that all this stuff sort of got me to this place where I felt I could do something this ambitious. It’s not like I didn’t want to do something of a huge scale like this before. But this is a really difficult show from a storytelling standpoint, from a production standpoint, to have the production in Hawaii and to manage that. It’s a big‑budget, very huge, monstrous‑scope show that I don’t think I would have been capable of doing before. So it’s not like my ambitions have grown, but my feelings about my capability to live up to those ambitions has grown, I think,” he says.
“We go in a lot of different directions,” Ryan continues “You know, there’s going to be a Tom Clancy aspect to this show, the way there was in the pilot, every episode. But TV is about relationships, whether it’s Sam‑Marcus, whether it’s Grace trying to prove herself, whether it’s a character like Kylie, who’s grown up in a very privileged life and now has to decide whether she wants to risk that to uncover a conspiracy that may ultimately unravel her own family’s company. TV is about characters, and so it will come characters first. We’ve described this, Karl and I, not as a show about war, but it’s a show about people in a time of crisis. So in the same way that Casablanca and Gone with the Wind and Reds and Doctor Zhivago were personal character stories about people in the middle of crisis, that’s what we’re hoping to do in a weekly series. And as a result, we’re going to delve into what happens between Sam and Marcus. They’re in lockstep at the beginning of this pilot. Will they stay in lockstep? Will they become opposed to each other? Grace is a trailblazer. You know, only recently has the U.S. government allowed women on submarines, so her character is a trailblazer. Can she live up to that? Will she be viewed as a creature of nepotism, or will she prove herself amongst her crew? I could go on in eight, ten more of these storylines between these characters. So it will be a character piece,” he says.
“There’s not going to be a ‘monster of the week’ kind of situation, but there will be high stakes,” Ryan continues. “They find themselves in a very precarious situation. There will be three kinds of threat that we deal with, first from the outside world. America’s not happy that the submarine is sitting parked with nuclear weapons aimed at it. Other countries are going to want to get involved in some way. So there will be external threats. There’s threats on the island, as represented by Julian Serrat, our character who was the local strongman, who’s not thrilled at the arrival of these people. And then probably most interesting to me is the internal threats. There started off being 150 people on the submarine. There’s 130‑some by the end of the pilot. They’re not all going to think alike. Some of them are going to be solidly with Marcus and Sam. Some are not. What do they want to do? What threats will emerge from within that group? So we feel like we have lots of stories to tell, and any one episode is not going to be like another. This isn’t going to be the kind of show where every episode feels the same. We’ll delve into all that stuff,” Ryan says.
“The world’s a crazy place right now, and this country is divided in many ways. You look at the Tea Party on one side and the Occupy movement on the other, and they share something, which is a distrust of our institutions and the people running our governments and what these people might do. And that’s something that we’re tapping into. We’re going to do it in a very character‑based way. I certainly hope that the world stays relatively sane, and I hope that what we’re portraying doesn’t come too close to reality, obviously,” Shawn adds.
His co-creator, Karl Gajdusek, wanted to point out that the show will be much more than what it appears to be. “A lot of people have characterized the show as a nuclear sub goes rogue or a nuclear sub defects from the United States, and that’s very much not how we see this show,” he says. “We believe that our crew and our captain and XO are patriots, and are patriots to the end of the pilot. And they get this very questionable order and do ‑‑ you know, we talked to several commanders of submarines in preparing for this, and they do what should be done, which is question an order. Before you know it, they’re on the run. This is only to say that it’s not the United States as a whole that has chased them out. It is a portrait of an executive gone wrong, of what could happen if the checks and balances in our system went off the rails. And so, you know, this is going to be something that Kylie especially and her character in DC and the admiral and Christine ‑‑ they’ll be sort of uncovering that side, even as our submariners are dealing with trying to prove their innocence or at least prove their righteousness, if you will. And that’s how we see the essential conflict of the show,” he explains.
One other subject to surface frequently in the panel was the color-blind casting of African-American Andre Braugher in the lead role. For Ryan, the race was not even a consideration. “I just never looked at it that way,” he says. “I’ve wanted the best actor for the role. I try to be as color-blind as possible in most roles that I cast. You know, when we put together a list for this role, there were various ethnicities involved, the same for Sam, you know, literally every role. You know, networks want people to watch their shows, and a lot goes into who the audience is. I just don’t concern myself with that. I concern myself with how good can the show be? And you’ve heard Andre speak here today. What writer wouldn’t want him saying their words? So things are changing. Things are getting better, I think. I feel like I’m doing my part. And we are just trying to make as good a show as possible, but I do believe that ‑‑ you know, it’s interesting. The U.S. military was one of the first places that they gave opportunities to people of color. You go way back in the past, and the history isn’t always so great, but they did. And I actually do believe that Hollywood is the kind of place where merit can and is rewarded, and so I assume ‑‑ it will be nice when these questions don’t get asked anymore, when Andre can just be an actor playing Marcus Chaplin and portray him and get praise for his performance, but unfortunately, we are not to that point yet. But it feels like we are better off than we were 15, 20 years ago, and hopefully, 20 years from now, we won’t have to worry about it,” Ryan says.
Last Resort premieres Thursday, September 27 on ABC. Here are some images from the show, and keep coming to KSiteTV in the coming days for more ABC Fall 2012 previews!
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LAST RESORT - "Last Resort" stars Andre Braugher as Captain Marcus Chaplin, Scott Speedman as XO Sam Kendal, Daisy Betts as Lieutenant Grace Shepard, Dichen Lachman as Tani Tumrenjack, Daniel Lissing as SEAL Officer James King, Sahr Ngaujah as Mayor Julian Serrat, Camille de Pazzis as Sophie Gerard, Autumn Reeser as Kylie Sinclair, Jessy Schram as Christine Kendal. "Last Resort" was written by Shawn Ryan and Karl Gajdusek, who are also executive producers along with Martin Campbell and Marney Hochman Nash. The pilot for "Last Resort" was directed by Martin Campbell. "Last Resort" is produced by Middkid Productions in association with Sony Pictures Television. (ABC/CRAIG SJODIN) AUTUMN REESER
