When it debuted on the first day of July, The Terminal List strongly divided opinion.
Take a look at the show’s Rotten Tomatoes page and you’ll see a critical mayhem with a score of 35% and some savage reviews, including one that called the show “A Barely Heated Slice of Red Meat.” Then, next to that, you’ll see the Audience Score, which sits at 95%, showing that even though the critics didn’t go to the show, the viewers did, and in a big way.
The Terminal List is led by Jurassic World: Dominion star Chris Pratt and is based on the novel of the same name by Jack Carr and follows Pratt’s Lt. platoon was ambushed while on a secret mission.
Reece is the sole survivor of the mission, and as he tries to piece together the truth of what happened, his version of events doesn’t match the account given by the Navy’s top brass. So, naturally, the beginnings of a murderous plot begin to form.
Taking place over eight episodes, the series also stars Constance Wu from Hustlers, Taylor Kitsch from Friday Night Lights, Riley Keough and Jai Courtney from The Suicide Squad.
Antoine Fuqua, director of The Equalizer and Academy Award winner Training Day, helmed the first episode, with David DiGilio, who worked on pirate thriller Crossbones, serving as showrunner.
The show was a huge hit for Prime Video, but a second season has yet to officially greenlight. However, Carr, who wrote and published four sequels to The Terminal List, told the Daily Mail (opens in a new tab) recently that things are looking good for a second round.
He said of the possibility, “Chris wants to do it, and Amazon wants to do it. But it could all fall apart. It would be an eight-part series based on the second True Believer book. We’ll see.”
Pratt himself also acted to reassure fans, saying during a chat with Carr on his podcast, Danger Close (opens in a new tab)“To the rabid fans of The Terminal List, you have nothing to fear. We love you and appreciate your support. It’s our life’s mission to make sure you can get back to the pit. We’re working away.”
With best wishes from Pratt and Amazon, you’d expect that to happen, but given that it hasn’t started yet, you imagine, at the earliest, we won’t see it until the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
So if you loved the show, or if it sounds precisely like your thing, here are six alternatives to dive into. Enjoy…
Reach
A great place to start, the same streaming platform as The Terminal List, the same muscle feel and the same steady stream of vein-pumping action.
Reacher, which is based on Lee Child’s best-selling novel series Jack Reacher, had been two modestly but critically successful films starring Tom Cruise in the title role, but it finally found its stride on television.
Jack Reacher is a former US Army major and military policeman who, after leaving the military, decides to travel the United States taking odd jobs and always finding himself investigating suspicious and often dangerous situations.
Longtime fans of the books weren’t happy with Cruise’s casting, largely because of the actor’s height. Cruise is five-foot-seven and, on the page, Reacher is six-foot-five. When asked about it at the time, Child said no actor of that stature could play Reacher effectively. Obviously, at that time, he had not been introduced to Alan Ritchson. Ritchson isn’t quite Reacher’s height (he’s six-foot-two), but the man is built like an armored tank and as wide as a cruise ship. He dominates, literally, in every scene he finds himself in.
The series adapts Child’s first book, Killing Floor, and finds Reacher arriving in the town of Margrave, Georgia, at the exact moment the small American town is reeling from its first major crime in 20 years. Wrongly accused of the crime, Reacher clears his name and reluctantly agrees to help the local police, which is just as well, as the bodies keep coming up.
Action-packed, well-written, and with a healthy dose of wry humor, Reacher is a good watch. A second season is on the way.
Where can I stream it?
Prime Video (worldwide)
SEAL Team
A long-running CBS and now Paramount+ drama that has more of a procedural feel than The Terminal List, but it has the same chest-busting feel and it’s full of action and adventure and done on a real scale.
David Boreanaz, best known for his role as Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is front and center as Jason Hayes, the leader of Bravo Team, a sub-unit of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group , the Navy’s most elite unit. The SEALs leave.
Each episode brings a new and dangerous mission somewhere in the world, the threats being varied and constant.
There are 95 episodes and five seasons to go through so far with more on the way.
Where can I stream it?
Paramount+ (US, UK, Australia)
Jack Ryan
Jack Ryan walked so James Reese could run, he’s the genesis of so many super soldiers and Prime Video gave him a good spin with this new run.
The character is the creation of the late author Tom Clancy and has been the subject of 21 novels that have sold over 100 million copies. It was previously portrayed in films by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine before being rebooted for TV by John Krasinski and Prime Video in 2018.
Ryan de Krasinski is a former Navy veteran, who now works as a financial analyst for the CIA. Happy to sit behind his desk and perform numbers, Ryan finds himself constantly drawn into the line of fire.
The show has a similar sensibility to Reacher in that its heroes and villains are clear and there’s no ambiguity in Ryan’s motivation. He’s the good guy and he takes out the bad guys all over the world. That said, the show is extremely fun, well-crafted, and Krasinski is a great leader.
The third season is on the way soon, with a confirmed fourth and final one to follow.
Where can I stream it?
Prime Video (worldwide)
Counter attack
Strike Back, the long-running book series by writer and former Special Air Service soldier Chris Ryan, produced eight seasons for Sky, with the fire and fury ever-present.
Over time, the likes of Richard Armitage, Andrew Lincoln, Philip Winchester, Sullivan Stapleton, Roxanne McKee, Nina Sosanya and Rhona Mitra have all played key roles.
The show follows the woes of Section 20, a top-secret branch of the British Secret Intelligence Service (Ryan’s code for MI6), which is given high-risk missions around the world to take down bad guys.
It doesn’t have the budget of The Terminal List or Jack Ryan, but it’s a fun and appropriate action drama.
Where can I stream it?
DIRECTV (US), NOW (UK), BiNGE (AU)
Band of brothers
This drama is widely credited as signaling a sea change in what was possible for television. Released in 2001, the show cost $125 million, making it the most expensive TV show ever produced. It’s also brilliant.
Based on the true stories collected in the book of the same name by historian Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers dramatizes the American World War II paratroop unit, Easy Company, and tells the stories of their time during the war. .
With Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks serving as executive producers and a cast list including Tom Hardy, Damian Lewis and Michael Fassbender, the show is a powerful and utterly invigorating drama.
Where can I stream it?
HBO Max (US), NOW (UK), BiNGE (AU)
Generation Kill
It’s the other side of the coin, the other side of war and a burning look at military life.
Based on Rolling Stone journalist Evan Wright’s book about his experience as an embedded reporter with the US Marine Corps 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and adapted by The Wire creator David Simon.
Lee Tergesen starred as Wright, with Alexander Skarsgård, James Ransone, Jon Huertas and Stark Sands portraying the battalion members.
Powerful, hard to watch at times, but incredibly captivating. It’s seven episodes and done and well worth your time.
Where can I stream it?
HBO Max (US), NOW (UK), BiNGE (AU)