“Extinguished”
Courtesy of Netflix
Especially in the first parts, 24 built in a mid-season break. Jack Bauer would achieve what he thought was his goal – secure the bomb, identify the conspiracy boss, etc. – and then, after enough time to breathe but not enough time to go to the toilet, discover a BIGGER bomb or realize that behind it There was a GREATER evil in seemingly great evil. Gasp!
But what if, instead of just taking a breath, Jack Bauer had celebrated securing another victory for America by doing the barrel riot to end all barrel riots, or dropped a pill of acid – and only then found out he had half a day left of torture, cliffhangers and mountain lions.
Extinguished
The conclusion: It only works sometimes, but the premise is a blast.
Air date: Thursday, November 30th (Netflix)
Pour: Nick Zano, Shelley Hennig, Terrence Terrell, Alyson Gorske, C. Thomas Howell, Eugene Kim, Paola Lazaro, Kimi Rutledge
Creator: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald
This – or maybe just “It’s The Hangover as a 90s action film!” – is the start of the new Netflix series “Obliterated” from the Cobra Kai trio Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald. As far as Netflix’s ’90s action-comedy pastiches go, “Obliterated” is far more consistently entertaining than “FUBAR.” This Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle relied on A-list star power and general narrative momentum to cover up its lack of humor and charm, while Obliterated relies on its humor and charm to bolster its limited star power on A-listers and the likes to conceal a general lack of narrative dynamics.
We’re quickly introduced to an elite, multi-agency unit trying to wreck a deal for a nuclear weapon that could, well, wipe out Las Vegas. The team is led by Ava (Shelley Hennig), a CIA agent who has recently suffered personal trauma. She’s the most wounded brain while Navy SEAL Chad McKnight (Nick Zeno) flexes the muscle. Of course they bump heads and threaten to bump into ugly people.
The team includes super sniper Angela (Paola Lázaro), super soldier Trunk (Terrence Terrell), super hacker Maya (Kimi Rutledge), air force pilot Paul (Eugene Kim) and slightly deranged bomb guy Hagerty (C. Thomas Howell). . They all have various secrets and psychological stumbling blocks, but within the first 22 minutes of the Obliterated pilot, they’ve caught Russian arms dealer Ivan Koslov (Costa Ronin) and recovered a suitcase nuclear bomb. After a six-month operation, they decide they’re in for a wild and crazy celebration at Uncle Sam’s expense. There’s drinking alcohol, eating mushrooms, banging Molly and making questionable sexual decisions.
Just one problem: the bomb they recovered and defused was a decoy. There’s still a real bomb in Las Vegas, set to explode at 9 a.m. with enough power to wipe out Sin City.
Make that two problems, because the only team on the ground in Vegas, the only team with the knowledge and skills to stop this second bomb, is Ava’s team. And they are smashed. Or, well, wiped out.
The fate of Las Vegas therefore depends on a team of action heroes who are drunk, high and crazy often and together. In some cases, the effects of the things consumed are not even remotely noticeable, so the situation gets worse before it gets better.
It’s a great premise that’s perfectly tailored to Hurwitz, Schlossberg and Heald’s status as the Duffer Brothers of lowbrow ’80s and ’90s blockbusters. Drinking every time the show or one of its characters references a genre favorite — some as direct and expansive as Rambo and various James Bond films, others more fleetingly — would be a recipe for viewers, well, obliterated to become, but it’s also a recipe for entertainment if you’re in the cultural wheelhouse of the series, its characters and its creators.
However, the truth is that as great as the premise is, it is a premise for a 95-minute movie, not an eight-episode television show. At a certain point, the references become supporting rather than complementary. It’s easy to excuse how rambling and rambling the series is because it suits the looseness and carelessness of the characters, but I was always aware of the different forms the filler took here.
There are running gags that run and run and run and would have paid off even with half the setup. There are long fights that don’t so much escalate as drag on. One of the hallmarks of “Cobra Kai” is the violent brawls, and “Obliterated” has four or five sequences that rival, for example, the high school melee that concluded “Cobra Kai” season two. And there’s plenty of proud and self-aware gratuitous violence and nudity – somewhat over-the-top combined in an over-the-top case – of the kind that young viewers who stayed up late watching HBO in the 1980s would have appreciated.
The actual story? It’s thin and lacks traditional escalation. Despite a ticking time bomb at the heart of the series, there’s never the nascent momentum you’d want from a show in which millions of people could theoretically be vaporized if our heroes fail. “Obliterated” never feels big and never feels expensive, despite filming locations in Las Vegas that wouldn’t have been easy to snag. It is a detailed story about a shaggy dog in which the dog does whippets. This is a pun about dogs and drugs, kids!
The ensemble is generally an entertaining, if aggressively fraternal, group (even the women) to spend this time with. Zano and Hennig banter and argue engagingly, and they both have a penchant for the crudeness and slipperiness that are central to their characters’ dynamics. There are hints of depth to both characters, but the depth also feels like filler. Among the supporting players, Rutledge and Kim make the most of some witty dialogue, while Howell has fun both empathizing with Haggerty’s largely boorish personality and, by mid-season, displaying some ridiculous “Weekend at Bernies”-style physicality.
Carl Lumbly, David Costabile and Costa Ronin, all veterans of legendary shows who receive direct or indirect recognition, add additional credibility.
Perhaps Netflix was lucky to land the perfect demographically expansive ’80s pastiche so quickly with Stranger Things, and it’s easy to see why the streamer was looking for something similar for the ’90s. FUBAR wasn’t quite close, but it was shaped like an action show and had the right star to anchor the vehicle. “Obliterated” has a tighter tone and its ensemble is well established after one season. Maybe the second seasons of both shows could join forces? Have the FUBAR team provide a plot outline and Schwarzenegger and let the Obliterated team do the rest?