Shawn Ryan, creator of ABC’s new “Last Resort,” isn’t afraid of its global hot spots being very close to real life hot spots. The main drama occurs when the nuclear submarine refuses to fire on Pakistan because the order seems suspect, for example.
But Ryan says, “if nuclear war erupts in Pakistan, we’ll have bigger problems than what it does to my show.”
Nonetheless, real countries are named “because the world’s a crazy place right now,” the former creator of “The Shield” says.
The elaborate set up in the plot will be followed by some deeper delving into individual characters and how they relate with one another.
“There’s not going to be a monster of the week kind of situation,” Ryan says. “But there will be high stakes. They find themselves in a very precarious situation.
“There will be three kinds of threat that we deal with, first from the outside world. America’s not happy that the submarine is sitting parked with nuclear weapons aimed at it. Other countries are going to want to get involved in some way.”
Secondly, he adds, “ There’s threats on the island, as represented by Julian Serrat, our character who was the local strongman, who’s not thrilled at the arrival of these people.
Finally, Ryan says, “and probably most interesting to me is the internal threats. There started off being 150 people on the submarine. There’s 130 some by the end of the pilot. They’re not all going to think alike. Some of them are going to be solidly with Marcus and Sam. Some are not. What do they want to do? What threats will emerge from within that group?
“We feel like we have lots of stories to tell,” he says, “and any one episode is not going to be like another. This isn’t going to be the kind of show where every episode feels the same. So we’ll delve into all that stuff.”
“Last Resort” runs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on ABC.