John McClane, Jack Bauer, Batman. What do all three of these heroes have in common? Yes they all faced overwhelming odds to bring down terrible evils, but they were actually doing it on easy mode. They were all stone cold sober.
That’s not the case for our heroes in Netflix’s upcoming original series Obliterated which launches on November 30th. Having saved Vegas from a bomb threat, we follow an elite special forces unit who’s latest mission is to blow off steam, and boy do they succeed. But then the call comes that their work is far from over. Now absolutely hammered (and more) they have to save the day all over again. We’ve all soldiered into work slightly worse for wear sometimes (T3 editors take note, I’m speaking hypothetically) but the stakes aren’t normally this high.
It looks like a mix between a something like 24 and The Hangover and that’s enough to hook me straight away, I’m a bit sick of generic police and army shows so this is a great fresh take.
There have been so many great original and super smart comedies on Netflix this year (including a vampire political satire), but this looks to scratch a different itch. Big dumb fun. Of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and if done right Obliterated could be unmissable TV. The trailer (above) certainly looks promising enough.
Behind the camera this series does have some serious pedigree too. It comes from the creators of Cobra Kai, the Karate Kid follow up series that went from YouTube to Netflix and has an impressive 94% critics score on Rottten Tomatoes as well as 92% from audiences.
Netflix always has some big ticket series in the pipeline but it looks like we’ll have to wait even longer for its next prestige sci-fi series from the Game of Thrones creators. But if you need something to tide you over maybe look to the world of animation with the incredible Scott Pilgrim series recently added to the streaming service.
