When it debuted on the first day of July, The Terminal List divided opinion starkly.
Take a look at the show's Rotten Tomatoes page and you'll see a critical mauling with a score of 35% and some savage reviews, including one who called the show "A slab of barely heated red meat". Then, alongside that, you'll see the audience score, which sits at 95%, showing that while reviewers did not go for the show, viewers have, 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 Lieutenant Commander James Reece, a US Navy SEAL who is left bereft after his platoon is ambushed while on a covert mission.
Reece is the only survivor from the mission, and, as he tries to piece together the truth about what happened, his version of events doesn't match up with the account given by the Navy's top brass. So, naturally, the beginnings of a deadly conspiracy start to form.
Set across eight episodes, the show also stars Hustlers' Constance Wu, Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch, Riley Keough, and The Suicide Squad's Jai Courtney.
Antoine Fuqua, director of The Equalizer and Oscar-winner Training Day, took charge of the first episode, with David DiGilio, who worked on piratey thriller Crossbones, acting as showrunner.
The show has been a giant hit for Prime Video, but a second season has yet to be formally greenlit. However, Carr, who has written and released four sequels to The Terminal List, told the Daily Mail recently that things are looking good for a second run.
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 book True Believer. We shall see.”
Pratt himself has also acted to reassure fans, saying in conversation with Carr on his podcast, Danger Close: "To the rabid fans of The Terminal List out there, you have nothing to worry about. We love you and appreciate your support. It’s our life’s mission to make sure you can come back to the well. We are working away."
With Pratt and Amazon's good wishes, you'd fully expect it to happen, but given it's yet to be started, you'd imagine, at the earliest, we won't get to see it until late 2023 or early 2024.
So, if you've been loving the show, or it sounds like precisely your thing, here are six alternatives to dive into. Enjoy...
Reacher
A good place to start, the same streaming platform as The Terminal List, the same muscular feel, and the same constant flow of vein pumping action.
Reacher, which is based on Lee Child's bestselling series of novels, Jack Reacher, had been two modestly successful but critically-panned movies with Tom Cruise in the title role, but it's finally found its groove on TV.
Jack Reacher is a former US Army major and military policeman who, after leaving the army, decides to roam the United States taking odd jobs and somehow always finding himself investigating suspicious and frequently dangerous situations.
Long-time fans of the books were unhappy with Cruise's casting largely on account of the actor's height. Cruise is five-foot-seven and, on the page, Reacher is six-foot-five. Quizzed about this at the time, Child said there was no actor with that stature who could play Reacher effectively. Clearly, at that point, he'd 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 is in.
The series adapts Child's first book Killing Floor and finds Reacher arriving in the town of Margrave, Georgia at the exact moment that the small US town is reeling from its first major crime in 20 years. Wrongly framed for the crime, Reacher clears his name and reluctantly agrees to help local police, which is just as well, because bodies keep turning up.
Action-packed, tightly written, and with a nice bit of tongue-in-cheek humor thrown in, Reacher is a good time 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, which has more of a procedural feel than The Terminal List, but it has the same chest-thumping feel and it's full of action and adventure and done with 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 most elite unit of Navy SEALs going.
Each episode brings a new and dangerous mission somewhere in the world, with the threats being varied and constant.
There are 95 episodes and five seasons to make it through so far and more are on the way.
Where can I stream it?
Paramount+ (US, UK, AU)
Jack Ryan
Jack Ryan walked so James Reese can run, he is the genesis of so many super soldiers and Prime Video have done him a good turn with this new run.
The character is the creation of late author Tom Clancy and has been the subject of 21 novels with over 100 million copies sold. He has been portrayed previously in movies by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine before being rebooted for TV by John Krasinski and Prime Video in 2018.
Krasinski's Ryan is a former Marine veteran, who now works as a financial analyst for the CIA. Happy to sit behind his desk and run numbers, Ryan constantly finds himself drawn into the firing line.
The show has a similar sensibility to Reacher in that its heroes and villains are clear cut and there's no ambiguity in Ryan's motivation. He's the good guy and he's taking down the bad guys all across the world. That said, the show is tremendous fun, well put together and Krasinski is a great leading man.
Season three is on the way soon, with a fourth and final one confirmed to follow.
Where can I stream it?
Prime Video (Worldwide)
Strike Back
Strike Back, the long-running series of books from writer and former Special Air Service soldier Chris Ryan, yielded eight seasons for Sky, with fire and fury an ever-present.
Over the run, the likes of Richard Armitage, Andrew Lincoln, Philip Winchester, Sullivan Stapleton, Roxanne McKee, Nina Sosanya, and Rhona Mitra have all been in key roles.
The show follows the travails of Section 20, a very secretive branch of the British Secret Intelligence Service (Ryan's code for MI6), who are assigned high-risk missions all around the world to take down some bad people.
It doesn't have the budget of The Terminal List or Jack Ryan, but it's good fun and proper heart-on-the-sleeve 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 TV. Released in 2001, the show cost $125 million to make, making it the most expensive TV show ever produced. It is also brilliant.
Based on the true stories collected in historian Stephen E. Ambrose’s book of the same name, Band of Brothers dramatizes the WWII US paratrooper unit, Easy Company, and recounts tales of their time during the war.
With Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as executive producers and a cast list including Tom Hardy, Damian Lewis, and Michael Fassbender, the show is a powerhouse drama and utterly invigorating.
Where can I stream it?
HBO Max (US), NOW (UK), BiNGE (AU)
Generation Kill
This is the other side of the coin, the other side of warfare and a searing look at military life.
Based on the book from Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright 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 members of the Battalion.
Powerful, tough to watch at times, but incredibly gripping. It's seven episodes and done and well worth your time.
Where can I stream it?
HBO Max (US), NOW (UK), BiNGE (AU)
