The new ABC drama Last Resort puts the crew of the USS Colorado, a fictional Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, at odds with a secret conspiracy inside the U.S. government with aims of sparking a global conflict. News.usni.org asked Naval Institute Editorial Board member and U.S. Navy submariner Lt. Jack Walsh to assess the reality of what was on screen to how things really work on board a boomer.
Spoiler Alert: There are many.
The show is Hollywood’s take on the end of the world with enough gaps in real naval procedure to make the entire plot impossible.
Here is what any qualified submariner would say the show did wrong:
Busy First Day
The crew of the fictional USS Colorado had an unbelievably busy first day on screen:
Colorado picked up a group of Navy SEALs in a hostile environment with a nuclear ballistic missile submarine; the boat received missile-launch orders out of the blue; spoke via phone with the deputy secretary of Defense; instantaneously watched TV news at sea (possible, but highly unlikely); disobeyed a launch order; had the captain relieved; dodged a cruise missile underwater; crossed the equator and then ended up off the coast of Pakistan; bottomed the submarine on the ocean floor; miraculously escaped the ocean floor; occupied a remote Pacific island harbor; hit a fishing vessel, took over the island; threatened the U.S.; went back out to sea; launched a nuclear missile at Washington D.C.; and were threatened by U.S. bombers.
Last Resort tried to combine Crimson Tide, The Hunt for Red October, U-571, Down Periscope into just not one show, but into one episode. Hollywood’s timelines for submarine movies are bad enough — this is just laughable.
