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Primetime Picks… 8/31/18

Aug 31, 2018 Posted by in Features | Comments

Early this morning, Amazon released the 8-episode first season of the new original series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan (John Krasinski, The Office) is a former Marine, the sole survivor of a helicopter crash that killed 12 of his fellow soldiers. For the past four years, Ryan has spent his days behind a desk, working as a CIA analyst, studying financial markets and transactions in Yemen, looking for suspicious activity. As the series opens, Ryan discovers an unusual pattern of bank transactions, and thinks he has identified the next Bin Laden, a possible terrorist named Suleiman. But when he takes his data to his new boss, he gets a lot of push back. Ryan got off on the wrong foot when he first met his new boss, James Greer (Wendell Pierce, Suits, Treme, The Wire). Greer also has a chip on his shoulder—he was a former Base Chief who just returned from a forced leave after an incident, and now finds himself demoted to Group Chief for a team of analysts. However, it isn’t long before Greer sees some merit in Ryan’s findings, and Ryan suddenly finds himself thrust into the field, ending up in the middle of a dangerous and deadly situation.

I had never seen any of the five Jack Ryan films, nor read any of the books, so I didn’t really know what to expect from the series or the character. However, John Krasinski is fantastic in this role, which is drastically different from his more comedic Jim Halpert on The Office. The pilot takes its time to introduce the characters and set up the premise, but by the end of the episode, it has really hit its action-packed stride, and I am really looking forward to checking out the rest of the season! The series comes from creators Carlton Cuse (Lost, Bates Motel, Colony, The Strain) & Graham Roland (The Returned, Almost Human, Fringe), and has already been picked up for a second season of 8 episodes, so there’s plenty more to come.