“Ghosts of Christmas Future” — Jason and the SEAL Team refuse to abort a mission to capture a dangerous war criminal after it goes sideways. Also, Clay’s controversial father, Ash Spenser (C. Thomas Howell), comes to town on his book tour, on SEAL TEAM, Wednesday, Oct. 18 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured left to right: Neil Brown Jr. as Ray Perry, David Boreanaz as Jason Hayes, and Brian Howe as Oliver. Photo: Erik Voake/CBS é2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
First of all, a BIG congrats to SEAL Team! This week CBS has given them a full season order through the 2017-2018 broadcast season. SEAL Team, with it’s amazing cast and crew, ranks as Wednesday’s number one program in viewers through the first two weeks of the season, averaging 12.04 million viewers with 2.0 million viewers in the coveted 18-49 demographic.
In ‘Ghosts of Christmas Future,’ I’m feeling a bit let down. After last week’s highly-rated episode, this episode was just so-so. I’m somewhat disappointed because I felt that SEAL Team was finally finding it’s footing in the time slot. Here are some of the issues that I have in this episode:
1). The title of the episode. I’m confused. No, really. There were NO (zero) references to Christmas whatsoever. No mentions of ghosts, either.
2). This episode was seriously all over the place. A little bit of this, a little bit of that and not really much of anything. There was not much substance AT ALL. This was the first episode that was not directed by Christopher Chulack. It was directed by Larry Teng. I’m not sure if THAT was a factor, but it was almost as if there was way too much content written into the episode, and they tried to cram in little bits of everything into 46 minutes. It was very spastic. It was also very annoying.
3). I felt like I was in a recurring dream with the same theme every time. Ash Spenser’s book and Nate’s burner phone. If the writers are not going to dig deeper into these subjects they should just drop the subjects altogether.
4). Speaking of Nate…in the pilot, the story opened with Jason in the therapist’s office discussing Nate’s death, and it almost seemed that this would be one of the biggest arcs in the series. Since the pilot there has been absolutely no follow-up. Maybe that goes under the episode being “all over the place,” but I had to mention it again.
“Ghosts of Christmas Future” — Jason and the SEAL Team refuse to abort a mission to capture a dangerous war criminal after it goes sideways. Also, Clay’s controversial father, Ash Spenser (C. Thomas Howell), comes to town on his book tour, on SEAL TEAM, Wednesday, Oct. 18 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured left to right: David Boreanaz as Jason Hayes, Brian Howe as Oliver, and Neil Brown Jr. as Ray Perry. Photo: Erik Voake/CBS é2017 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The one big positive out of this series is this. After the compulsory family segment at the beginning of each episode, we go straight to the CIA briefing where we learn about the mission and begin the mission planning and training phase. As Bravo Team is being briefed from the CIA and their mission specialists, so do we. They go “back to basics” and really go beyond the basics for the audience who may have little or no military training. Then again, that’s why it is called a “procedural,” so we have an idea of how the system works and what we can expect each week.
This one gets a “C” folks. Do you agree? Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments section.
SEAL Team airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on CBS.
