SummaryCaptain Joe Martin (Jeremy Neumark Jones) arrives with his new wife, Honor (Jessie Buckley), to take over the Royal Military Police unit in British-occupied Aden (in what is now Yemen) in the 1965.
SummaryCaptain Joe Martin (Jeremy Neumark Jones) arrives with his new wife, Honor (Jessie Buckley), to take over the Royal Military Police unit in British-occupied Aden (in what is now Yemen) in the 1965.
Deliberate without being plodding and sumptuous without losing sight of the troubles below the surface, The Last Post is more than the standard period fare.
It's difficult to tell apart the military personnel in the pilot, and it isn't until the end of the third hour that a larger narrative arc emerges. But the first half of the season (the portion screened for critics) is taut, brisk, moving and gorgeous.
The socio-sexual side of the story is the real point of it all, and there’s a certain sauciness therein. But the military aspects of the tale are almost too familiar.
Though gorgeously shot and replete with a who’s who cast culled from top-tier British television shows, the first three episodes available for review suffer when they step gingerly around colonial politics, appearing as uncomfortable as its mid-century characters are in exploring those messy intersections between peacekeeping and oppressive foreign occupation.
The Last Post trades too heavily on cliches in character development, but benefits from strong performances, especially by Raine, Buckley, Elma and Neumark Jones.
There are only two or three recurring characters with dialogue in the three episodes sent to critics, only one of which is bestowed with a shred of backstory or distinctive personality. Even ignoring the impolitic elements of character development, however--which again, Moffat really shouldn’t have--the greater sin of The Last Post is that the writing is stodgy and unrealistic plot is as parched for tension and excitement as the dunes in the desert where these men and their families are stationed.