New series on Paramount+ starring Zoe Saldana, Nicole Kidman, and Laysla De Oliveira. It’s an action drama about a CIA special ops team, whose primary mission is to infiltrate female operators into terrorist environments to ultimately take out high value targets.
Saldana plays a longtime CIA agent “Joe” whose married to a surgeon and they have two daughters. Joe is absent quite a lot and it is putting pressure on their marriage and life with their two daughters. Kidman plays Joe’s boss.
It is well written and well acted. Created and primarily written by Taylor Sheridan (of Yellowstone fame). It is vaguely similar to the Jack Ryan series on Amazon Prime, and although female character lead, takes nothing away from the bad assery.
New episodes are released weekly. 5 episodes out currently.
Given the title and the creator, I expect that Sheridan will create a whole universe of Special Ops series, depending upon this one’s success.
My wife was interested because of Nicole Kidman’s involvement, although she usually doesn’t care for action shows.
After one episode I told her I didn’t care to watch more, because it was jingoistic, showing the US, with its high tech weaponry that works perfectly every time, fighting an unreservedly evil Arab/Muslim enemy. And although the show nominally features “strong female characters,” it undercuts that message by having them play occasional nude scenes with enough T&A to keep the fan boys happy.
The acting is fine but what I saw lacked nuance and subtlety in the characterizations and storyline.
The original title, “Fox Force Five Minus Two: Lioness” was a bit unwieldy, so they workshopped something else that was more palatable to focus groups.
Taylor Sheridan created another creative show. I don’t know how he juggles so many productions.
Zoe’s character is very interesting. She isn’t afraid to make brutal decisions.
I plan to keep watching. The show is very good. Only 8 episodes in season 1. I’m half way through it.
I get it that killing her own operative is brutal. But it was a quick death compared to the extended horror that awaited her.
The only goof I noticed was sending in a rock hard, bad ass female Marine undercover with a wealthy Muslim heiress. Coeds typically don’t hit the gym and run every day.
Beating and waterboarding the new operative during a toughness test was inexcusable. I wonder if Zoes’ character ever got put through that hell?