The new ABC drama series Last Resort, from co-creators Shawn Ryan (The Shield) and Karl Gajdusek and premiering on September 27th, tells a suspenseful, emotional and action-packed story about what happens when a U.S. submarine crew receives an order to fire nuclear weapons at a foreign country, and then ignores that order. With nowhere left to turn, Captain Marcus Chaplin (Andre Braugher) and XO Sam Kendal (Scott Speedman) take the sub on the run and bring the men and women of the Colorado to an island where they will find refuge, as they try to clear their names and get back home.
RYAN: They’re all difficult. The submarine was more difficult. For the pilot, that set had to be built. Now that it’s built and we’re understanding the best way to film it, I think it’s going easier with every episode. Our production offices are in Los Angeles. We edit it here, but we’re filming in Hawaii, so our set is five hours away. It’s a three-hour time difference for half the year, and a two-hour time difference the other half of the year. So, you’ve got some separation there. You’ve got a big sprawling cast where we’re trying to service everyone. You’ve got action taking place on a fictional French Polynesian island, you’ve got action taking place in the D.C. area, and you’ve got action taking place in the Maryland suburbs where Sam’s wife lives. Additionally, you have a lot of special effects and visual effects, and then there’s the water. For the pilot, things were filmed around the water and then visual effects were added later. That requires really giving a lot of lead time to our special effects team. To do that, the scripts need to be in early. You need to know what you’re doing in the episodes, so that you can start planning with these people, a month and a half or two months ahead of time, in order to get the work done.
It’s not something where you can just decide on Wednesday, “Well, we’re going to write some scenes that we’re going to shoot on Friday,” because it’s not just a hospital set and we can’t change it. We really need to have a very firm plan. We need to fly a lot of actors from L.A. to the Hawaii. The acting pool in Hawaii isn’t as deep as it is in L.A., Chicago or New York. So, you’ve got to plan ahead. You’ve got a lot of characters who are recurring, and that are going to span over a certain number of episodes, and you’ve got to manage that. And then, to serialize the show where things are changing, week-to-week, you’ve got to be able to keep track of all that story and stay ahead of the game, so that you can meet your production schedule. That’s why it’s very ambitious. And then, on top of that, we’re trying to tell great big stories with great big scope. It’s a challenge. If we pull it off, I think it will be a great treat for the audience. If we don’t pull it off, there will be a very public humiliation, on our part. The stakes are high, and that inspires us to do the best we can.
How will you tackle the fact that Scott Speedman’s character has a wife back home that he may never be able to get back to?
RYAN: Well, we love that situation. One of the things that we spoke about when we first started the show, is the idea of Odysseus in The Odyssey, and trying to get back home to Penelope while being separated by an adventure. Scott Speedman is alone on an island with beautiful women all around, but what’s best about the sexy side of our show is that it’s unfulfilled, very often. It’s about the moral problem of yearning for what you can’t have. It’s a show about people in a time of war, not a show about war, and that can mean people are separated by war. Sam and his wife are separated by war. You can also get pressed together with strange bed fellows. There are attractive characters that, all of a sudden, he can’t not be around. That can lead to the edge of temptation, and we think that’s probably the best situation to play those such stories in.
How did you convince ABC to let you make a serialized drama?
RYAN: First of all, we had our choice of a couple of different networks to go to, and we chose ABC because they’re the one network that embraces serialized dramas. Grey’s Anatomy, Revenge, Once Upon A Time and Desperate Housewives, before it ended last year, are all examples of shows on ABC that have embraced that serialization. When you’re talking about the resistance of that kind of thing, it exemplifies the other three broadcast networks, at the moment. So, knowing that this one is going to be a serialized, ongoing, big show, ABC felt like the perfect place for us. People have talked about some comparisons to Lost, but the fact is that Lost was a big hit, as a serialized show on ABC. So, for us, ABC was really the one natural place to try to make that work because they’ve had some success, and they will embrace the idea of serialization.
GAJDUSEK: The value of a hit serialized drama shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s really a great serialized show. It becomes event television, in a way that a network can hang its hat on. We hope to do that.
What is the balance going to be, between the military from the submarine, the characters from the island, and then also the characters that are back in the United States?
RYAN: There’s some crossover there, so it’s hard to say an exact percentage. What we’ve talked about is probably 60% of the action will take place on the island, 20% on the sub, and 20% D.C., but some characters can be fluid. Obviously, characters like Sam and Marcus will be on the island and on the sub, and sometimes there might be some communication with people in D.C. We’ll be on the island a lot, we are definitely going to use our submarine going forward, and we’re definitely going to play up the D.C. thing. We don’t want to get too formulary with the show, so not every episode will match up to a pie chart, but that’s the general pie chart that covers the whole season, I would say.
GAJDUSEK: After the event of the pilot, we consider the people on the sub and the people on the island to be a group. And then, we’ve got D.C. as a remote place. We don’t consider this show to be a military intrigue show. We think of it as a large, dramatic epic-adventure. Although the military intrigue and the political intrigue is a huge juicy part of our show, hopefully, it will lead to some great mysteries and some great thriller-tension moments. But, the question of who’s done it is not nearly as big as, what will these people do with the situation they’re in?
What are the dangers that these people will be facing, in the first season?
RYAN: I would say that they boil down to three different types. One is danger from the outside, with people who feel threatened by the power of this nuclear sub, who are looking for ways to neutralize the sub or neutralize the crew. Another kind of threat is the population on the island, when they arrive. There can be people there who are not thrilled with the presence of these people, who view them a little bit like an occupying force that’s endangering them. As a result, they’re going to look for relief in dangerous ways that will provide some stories. And then, I would say that the third one is the people on the ship itself. The pilot starts with approximately 150 crew members. Not everyone could be down with this program. Not everyone is going to love what Marcus and Sam have done, in the situation that they find themselves in. So, they’ll be dealing with some internal descents and some dangers from that. Those are the three main plot engines that are driving some of those storylines.
What qualities do you feel make a great leader?
RYAN: Well, I don’t know that I am one, so I don’t know the secrets. But, I’m a believer in team work more than individual accomplishment, so I would say having the ability to inspire those around you to do their best work is a mark of a great leader. Grace under pressure is a phrase we use, here in America, and it applies there. Intelligence and some kind of moral compass are important, as things get tougher and tougher, along with the ability to reach down and do the right thing, even when it’s the difficult thing to do. Finally, the ability to inspire confidence. Maybe that goes along with the ability to inspire.
What makes Hawaii the ideal place to shoot this show?
GAJDUSEK: One of the issues is actually a practical issue of casting. We have this amazing cast that we’re so proud of, but as series regulars, we’re asking them to make a commitment to be with this show for a long time. Knowing that we would have to shoot somewhere that would double for a tropical island, we were going to ask these people to move somewhere completely off the map, for many years of their lives. Hawaii offers a chance to be somewhere exotic, beautiful and somewhat unknown, even though we are familiar with it, to a degree. It’s also a place you can make a home in. That’s the practical answer. From an artistic point of view, Hawaii really does offer incredible vistas and dramatic places. One of the only challenges is that sometimes it’s too beautiful. We actually have to look at parts of it and say, “Okay, how can we ugly this up for our show?”
Last Resort airs on Thursday nights on ABC.