The Last Ship: The Complete Fourth Season (DVD)

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!

I really did not intend to binge watch this season.My plan was to watch no more than two episodes a night so that I could savor what has become one of my most favorite television shows.Alas, I got caught up in the story and wound up watching the whole season at once.That's a real tribute to the writers of this excellent series. Their ability to craft multiple storylines into a cohesive whole kept me watching each unfolding adventure in this fourth season while, at the same time, berating myself for forsaking my plan.The plot is, on the surface, straightforward.The plague that devastated the world's population has been defeated but there's a new threat on the world stage in Season 4 - a blight that is destroying food crops across the planet. Many scientists around the globe are racing to find a way to defeat this blight but aren't having great success.The plot starts to thicken when it turns out that one scientist has, in fact, discovered the cure and he is seeking to profit hugely from his work.The plot deepens, however, when it turns out that he also has a hidden agenda - one that transcends mere greed.The only people standing in his way - the men and women aboard the USS Nathan James.As in the previous three seasons, this season is full of high-energy scenes, very intriguing new characters, and just enough humor to lighten the tension at key points. It kept me riveted to the screen and every time I thought I was going to stop watching for the night there was a twist in the narrative that forced me (maybe "forced" is too strong a word but...) to keep watching.For my money, an excellent season and one that I will enjoy watching again and again.

Waited a long time for this to be officially released on 5 June 2018. Lost a star because these discs (two) for season Four will simply NOT play, in the exact same machine which plays the first 3 seasons flawlessly. Rather than return them (it), I tried to open them up for viewing with MakeMKV, and it too couldn't open them .. until I updated MakeMKV. Why they continue screwing with the BD format and encryption is simply beyond comprehension. I shouldn't have to juggle three hula hoops and do a rain dance to watch video that I've legitimately purchased.So if you too have an older (and/or non-updated) BD player, then figure out how to update your BD player, or buy a new one. For me, ALL my videos are committed to SSD's on a real computer, as it's infinitely more convenient with a couple of mouse clicks, and uses a lot less power than a 46" 3D flatscreen .. I'm off-grid on PV power. So if you too are facing this absurd frustration, then just download MakeMKV (free for 30 days) and Handbrake and make your own digital copy .. which you are legally entitled to do by the way. I might also mention, that your "free" digital copy requires you actually downloading online, and each episode being about 5.6 GB at full resolution is also ridiculous .. my cost here for 4G is $4.60 per GB .. after paying $27 for Season Four .. ain't gonna happen.Love the Series .. they put an incredible investment of resource in producing it, and introduced a raft of new actors into the industry .. which we sorely need. I rate it right up there with the "Hell on Wheels" series, which actually has some historical accuracy. Cheers!

It is great to have another ten episodes of this very enjoyable and exciting series with more of our favourite characters, but this disc was not quite what I expected from its description. Yes, the original soundtrack is available as an English language option from the menu, but whenever another language is spoken, like Greek, Italian or Arabic, the only subtitle option is German!In February 2018 it appears to be impossible to buy The Last Ship Season Four anywhere else, so the missing English subtitles are something I can live with. After all this is an action series, and it isn't hard to guess at what is being said in the short sections of dialogue in Greek, Italian and Arabic. The final episode has quite a bit of Greek dialogue that isn't translated into English, but I didn't find that it detracted too much from my enjoyment.This ten episode set is expensive, and loyal fans deserve better treatment from TNT than having to wait months for a DVD/Blu-ray release, and then have to buy it imported from Germany with missing English language subtitles. Where is the UK, or even the US release? Five stars for the series (of course) but two stars for the lack of subtitles and genuine UK/US releases. I have read that Season Five is filming in 2018, so I hope we don't have to wait so long for the disc sets.

Great series , good characters roll on series 5. The only downside of buying the German version is that when story locations come up they are in German even if you switch to English in the menu .

Excellent as usual great.cast with some new faces my only slight gripe there are intermittent German subtitles which can't be turned off but apart from that a great series

not seen this season yet but husband likes the series anyway .

Great story