So, while you may empathise with them on a fundamental level, it’s difficult to stay invested in their journeys because the series doesn’t provide a strong enough sense of who they are as people. As it stands, the show makes every character come across as a bit too robotic each of them has a job to do, and little else. And it wouldn’t have hurt anybody to be slightly tongue-in-cheek in telling it. And it’s dour to a fault, not only because it sidelines Pratt’s natural charisma, but also because this story is inherently ridiculous. Nearly every episode of the show has been directed by a different filmmaker, with Antoine Fuqua’s pilot setting the tone for the rest. Read more | Spiderhead movie review: Chris Hemsworth’s new Netflix film is like a discarded Black Mirror episode
And admittedly, when the conspiracy at the centre of The Terminal List is finally explained, it’s kooky enough to engage with on a theoretical level, and yet, close enough to reality to make you seethe. One episode, for instance, features Bob Dylan’s famous flower power anthem Masters of War, which was written in response to the escalating Cold War tensions between the US and the USSR. The big statement that The Terminal List is trying to make is that the American government doesn’t care about its soldiers at all. By comparison, John Krasinski was able to shed similar baggage as he transitioned to more serious territory, and was mostly believable as the star of another Prime Video series directed at essentially the same demographic, Jack Ryan. It’s not because of his history as a comedic performer, but perhaps because of his limitations as a dramatic one. We are also told, over and over again, that Reece is a particularly remorseless killer-and certainly, we see him murder dozens of people over the course of the show’s eight episodes-but for some reason, Pratt doesn’t fit the part. But this is diluted by the suggestion that his brain might’ve been addled by the authorities. The show at least seems to be aware of this problem, and addresses it timidly when it chucks Reece into repeated emotional spirals. Instead of taking a breath and acknowledging the gravity of the situation, it pushes Reece further into his mission, at the risk of making him seem rather cold, even though-and this is crucial-the personal tragedy is his only motivation to continue. But one particularly harrowing personal tragedy that Reece is struck by hardly registers at all. By definition, stories such as this always struggle to balance the character moments with propulsive plots. There is no way to talk about The Terminal List properly without revealing some of its potentially surprising twists, the first of which comes at the end of episode one.
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