Plot: Petro-chemist Andy Yeats knows how dependent the world is on oil; if something were to happen to the world’s oil supply, it would set off a chain reaction: transportation would grind to a halt, supplies would cease to be delivered, law enforcement would be overwhelmed. While on a business trip to the Middle East, Andy realizes that his worst fears are coming true and his family is separated at this crucial moment. His teenage daughter, Laura, is alone at home in London while his wife, Elena, and young son, Sam, are in Paris. Amid this chaos, each family member will sacrifice everything to find one another, despite the distance and the dangers that separate them. Based on Alex Scarrow’s best-selling novel of the same name.
Review: Disaster and apocalypse tales have become commonplace on the small screen in recent years. But, what was once the realm of zombies, monsters, and pandemics has moved aside from stories more grounded in terrifyingly realistic scenarios. Whether they be political or technological, the possibility of our governments and social structures falling apart is just as scary as viruses and pathogens. The new limited series Last Light, based on the novel of the same name, presents an all too possible end of days scenario centered around the global oil supply. Knowing how reliant our planet is on fossil fuels, suddenly losing a primary fuel source causes a domino effect captured in this five-episode thriller. While Last Light is scary in concept, the execution ends up a bit underwhelming.
Set between London, Paris, and the Middle East, Last Light focuses on the Yeats family. Andy Yeats (Matthew Fox) is a chemist who works for a large private oil company when a mysterious attack renders it useless. Andy leaves his wife, Elena (Joanne Froggatt), and their vision-impaired son Sam (Taylor Fay) alone as they travel to France for experimental surgery on his eyes. Their older daughter Laura (Alyth Ross) is an activist protesting against global warming and travels to a rally in England. The family is scattered around the continent when reports come in of vehicles suddenly unable to function which leads to catastrophic riots and violence around the world. When a terrorist group known as Apocalypse Watch claims credit, the Yeats family scrambles to reunite as society comes crashing down.
Aside from the Yeats family, there are many other characters that factor into Last Light. At the top of the list is British agent Mika Bakhash (Amber Rose Revah) who suspects that Andy may have more involvement in the disaster than he lets on. Owen Jones (Victor Ali), a friend of Laura’s, gets dragged along as she tries to help her father and gets pulled into the conspiracy. Tom Wlaschiha plays Karl Bergmann, an authority figure who oversees an intelligence team trying to prevent calamity. The entire cast shares little screen time as the episodes shift between multiple storylines that place the characters in car chases, riotous crowds, and gunfire. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger leading into the next episode, replete with pulsing music and red herrings designed to make the eventual villainous master plan all the more shocking.
With such a short season, Last Light should feel much more urgent as it drives towards its conclusion. Instead, this series still feels like it is full of filler and subplots full of obstacles meant to keep the characters engaged while the main focus is investigated. There are entire characters introduced with significant connections to the main characters and then are taken out of the story abruptly. I can imagine this was meant to shock the audience into believing that no one is safe but it instead comes off as poor writing. A lot of Last Light also relies on cliches that have no place in a story that takes itself as seriously as this one. By the time you reach the fifth and final episode, you will likely look back and wonder why the middle three existed at all. By trimming the excess away, Last Light’s core story barely fills two hours of screen time.
Last Light started out with a plot ripped from a season of 24, ventured into The Bourne Identity and Mission: Impossible territory with a little 007 added for good measure, and even touched on some very timely themes about environmentalism and climate change before devolving into a padded and overlong mess of a show that cannot tell if it wants to be exciting or not. The bulk of this series consists of subplots and characters that seem to have been created for a show with expectations for a second season. Last Light was either changed from an ongoing to a limited series after production began or the writing staff never understood how to end this story in five episodes. It is a confusing approach that fails on every level.
The shame of it all is that director Dennie Gordon does helm some solid moments of intrigue and tension that reminded me of The Da Vinci Code and similar potboilers. Had this story, scripted by Patrick Massett, John Zinman, and Patrick Renault, actually exploited the story in Alex Scarrow’s novel, it may have worked a little better than it does here. I kept waiting for this series to do something different or unexpected but fails to do much more than giving a generic story a very preachy message without much subtlety. From the generic techno-thriller music to the by-the-numbers plotting, Last Light is an underwhelming waste of time that fails to work as a limited series or the first season of a longer story.
Last Light premieres on September 8th on Peacock.