Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan

[Small Man Big Horse]

Amazon's latest big budget thriller, this sees Jim from The Office as a young Jack Ryan, the twist being he's smart and sensitive along with being a former marine. I didn't have high hopes for the show but it's surprised me by being pretty watchable, John Krasinski's really likeable in the role (and given how much I hated Jim in the final seasons of The Office this surprises me a lot) and the terrorists have personalities and backstories and aren't two dimensional types. I'm only two episodes in so there's still time for it to go terribly wrong, but right now I'd cautiously recommend it if you're in the mood for this kind of series.

[Dex Sawash]

I had given it a pass but just watched the pilot. Was OK. Better than the Condor tv adaptation that just finished first season.

[Bronzy]

Is this the TV adaptation of Threat Level Midnight?

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

It looks like a more action-oriented version of the early Homeland seasons, before it turned into a soap opera or a pretentious 24. There are some stakes, a bin Laden comparison, but the enemy is more intimidating due to their determination and their cleverness than through their fanaticism.
So far, the writers have done a good job at staying clear out of Tom Clancy's politics, or appealing to the conservative audiences.
The sequences set in France are a little caricatural in their description of how the Muslim community is considered in society, but they're not offensive. The writers have spent some time in Paris and talked to people here, rather than relying on second-hand reports.

[Mister Six]

Can I just urge everyone with an Amazon Prime account to watch Patriot? It's the best thing they (or any online telly site) put out by a country mile. Thank you.

[mothman]

Never heard of it. Sell it to us.

[Dex Sawash]

Patriot is very good. Watch it or go fuck yourself.

[mothman]

Well, on that basis, shan't.

[Dex Sawash]

Fair enough.

[rasta-spouse]

I've seen the pilot of Patriot. It was so jam-packed that it knocked me back at bit.

Better that than drip-fed minimalism, but I'm not sure I can watch another episode for a week or two. Does it calm down a little?

[mothman]

I don't want you to think I'm not open to... new experiences... but I'm just working my way towards the end of a Leftovers marathon based on the recommendation of people here, and my goodness it's been quite a... ride. I've been... thrust... into some pretty overwhelming situations, and my sensibilities have taken a... pounding.

[Dex Sawash]

I said in the Patriot thread that I wished it had been released 1/week so we could do proper thread about it.

I'm 5 or 6 into TCJR and I don't love it, will press on through though.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I watched the third episode and was a bit bored by it, hope it picks up soon and I guess as it's only eight episodes I might make it to the end, but if episode 4 is bad I might quit.

[Mobius]

First episode was alright but I just feel I've watched far too many 24 type shows.

Quite enjoyed Patriot ep 1 but is the singing necessary?

[Dex Sawash]

Quite enjoyed Patriot ep 1 but is the singing necessary?

I like how fucked up he is

[Dex Sawash]

Done now, everything happened a little to easy for everyone. Spoilers-       Walk to an unknown secret refugee smuggling beach, arriving right after the trucks. Tip off via game chat just in time.  Shoot a bad guy on the elevator as the door opens.

The end was kind of mattter of fact-ish.

Haven't watched any of the other 24-type shows so not much to compare it with.

[Mister Six]

Never heard of it. Sell it to us.

Comedy-drama that's so unique it's hard to pinpoint exactly - but let's say it's something along the lines of a Coen Brothers farce, but with a melancholy air, the recursive and dense plotting of Arrested Development and the raw humanity of a good Vonnegut novel.

CIA agent John Tavner has to go on an undercover role in a dull Milwaukee piping firm because he needs to use their jet to smuggle cash to Iran via Luxembourg. This would be a cakewalk except:

- He's having a nervous breakdown following a bungled assassination that saw him detained, locked in a metal box and made to listen to Don McClean's "American Pie" on loop for three months straight;
- His new boss is a hardass who wants to fire John from the piping firm because his PTSD is making him hideously incompetent;
- He used to be in a folk duo, and his former bandmate is about to stumble across his new identity;
- His Iranian counterpart is in Luxembourg with a sinister scheme of his own;
- His father is also his CIA handler, and guilt-tripping him into continuing the mission - because if he doesn't pull it off, they'll both likely go to prison.

Not to mention the various other people who will complicate his mission, including - but not limited to - a bitter security guard named Birdbath who's figured out his secret identity and is using it to blackmail him; Luxembourg's best police detective; a Japanese thief-cum-puppeteer; a perverse CEO with a fetish for being whipped with liquorice, and an entire Brazilian judo team.

It's great. I can't do it justice and neither can anyone else, so please just go watch it now!

[Dex Sawash]

^ I forgot how brilliant it actually was. Should do a rewatch.

[rasta-spouse]

Did The Looming Tower get much talk on here? Although it was flawed it was much better than this Jack Ryan lark, much more modern in its sensibilities.

Episode one of JRyan - right at the beginning on his way to work Mr Ryan on his bike cuts off an angry commuter in a car who then berates him. And who does that angry commuter turn out to be? Five minutes later we realise that it's his NEW boss on his first day in the job. That's some hack writing.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

It's even obvious during the near accident, because the actor is Wendell Pierce, who is also a David Simon regular (Bunk Moreland in The Wire, Antoine Batiste in Treme). They wouldn't waste a name actor for a part that would just require an extra to say a couple of sentences.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I thought the fourth, fifth and sixth episodes were pretty good and I started to quite like it, but the last two were horribly predictable, and the big finale was as dull as dishwasher that someone had shit in. Really disappointed and wish I hadn't bothered with it considering how crap those two episodes were, and I won't bother with a second season, if there is one.

Edit: Yeah, turns out they commissioned a second season before the first aired and it's already mostly shot, but I definitely won't be watching it.

Edit: Just reading the wikipedia page for the character and apparently he eventually becomes the President. Which sounds all kinds of ridiculous, I just hope the series gets cancelled way before they do that storyline.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

The twist that closes the 7th episode is so predictable that it actually made me laugh. We have this agent who connects the unlikeliest dots together, and he needs so much time to put two and two together?

Jack Ryan progressively became in the books the vessel for Tom Clancy's conservative wish-fulfillment fantasies, and this is why they never tried to adapt anything he wrote past 1994. His final works rival the novel recently signed by Steven Seagal.

[mothman]

Clancy died five years ago. But it's incredible to think the novel where it all started going wrong - Debt of Honour - was twenty years before that. The ending - Jack Ryan becomes president FFS - was certainly a bravura move, but the rest of the book was totally forgettable (something about Japan declaring war on the US for some reason. Backpack nukes hidden in Japanese cars being exported to the US? I dunno). After that he'd painted himself into a (rabidly neocon) corner.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Clancy also gave up for a while the Jack Ryan novels because his ex-wife would make money from the new books, due to the divorce settlement. When he resumed the series and progressively turned it into an ensemble also involving Jack Ryan Jr, the books got a tepid reception, he had another long gap of eight years between novels, and returned with books where he just supplied the main plot (at best), while ghostwriters would handle the bulk of the writing and get a small credit.

One of these novels had Jack Ryan, who had already completed a term as President, running a few years later for presidency as a Republican because he wants to save the world from the moral bankruptcy created by the current President, who is the puppet of "Czech" billionaire "Paul Laska", who funds liberal causes and some other shit. Laska tries everything to make Ryan lose the election (because he hates the real American values), including helping Islamist terrorist The Emir, who is himself a Bin Laden surrogate.

There are also eight different Jack Ryan or Jack Ryan Jr. novels fully written by other people (even if Clancy's name is still in big letters on the cover) since he died in 2013.

[mothman]

The first half dozen of his books were OK. The politics wasn't too obtrusive and as a body of work they were the cornerstone of the 80s/90s technothriller vogue. I'll admit to reading them and enjoying them. When you're a student faced with a 12hr journey home st the end of term, popping into Waterstones or Dillons and picking up the latest Clancy doorstep was a guarantee I'd not be bored on whatever combination of coaches, trains, ferries and even hydrofoils I'd be on. But I doubt anybody'd disagree that The Sum Of All Fears was the end of his good run. Maybe the definitive end of the Cold War didn't help. But after TSoAF, came Without Remorse, which was pointless (he'd already detailed John Clark/Kelly's backstory in previous books, and what was there wasn't enough to fill a whole 2in chunk of book, so it had to be padded out with some rescuing-Vietnam-POWs subplot that actually took up most of it).