There are mixed sentiments about The Last Frontier among critics. For some it is good and others are not so happy. The reason could be the name of Jon Bokenkamp as the co-creator of the show, the famous creator behind The Blacklist.
Naturally everyone has high expections from him after The Blacklist and if he puts before us anything even a little lower than the standard he had set is not good or enough for the audience.
I did enjoy the show, though. Not in the way I liked The Blacklist but, I did.
There are no second opinions that the plot and the story of The Blacklist was so excellently woven that it captured its audiences' attention from the very begining, and it continued to do so for a long time, almost in all of the seasons. The ending of The Blacklist was also satisfactory. I tried but couldn't imagine any other scenario where The Blacklist could have ended.
This isn't the case with The Last Frontier. Show started big, succeeded in capturing a lot of attention of audience but then, in a way, failed to keep up the pace, at least in the middle of the season. Though it was not bad, just felt slow comparing to the tempo they developed at the start. Also, how they ended the finale and gave a hint about a second season to the audience, felt rash and hasty.
Plus points of The Last Frontier are excellent performances, beautifully choreographed action sequences, excellent cinematography and the Alaskan/snowy environment presented in the series is fascinating to say the least. Scenic and atmoshpheric visuals are truly one of the main attractions of the series.
If a story is started with a prison transport plane crash that was full of convicts and inmates then my expectations are several good stories and highly dangerous criminals' clever approach and stunts for their survival and exciting strategies from the officials to capture them. This show has them, not enough though. The length of the season could be the reason. In the past we used to have somewhere 20 to 22 episodes per season.
If you're not expecting an out of the ordinary action thriller then The Last Frontier is a fun to watch piece. Some of the parts are hard to anticipate, these are the exciting parts.
Jon Bokenkamp moves his characters and story like chess pieces, at least, this was what he had done in The Blacklist. He tried to do the same in The Last Frontier and succeeded in some parts of the stories but not that effectively as he was used to. May be he's not good working in partnership and comfortable enough to create a masterpiece like The Blacklist. He is the co-creator of the show along with Richard D'Ovidio (Thirteen Ghosts is one of my favorites). Result of this partnership is good but not something to be called, "Amazing, Marvelous or Top notch."
It is said that The Last Frontier was created by taking the ideas from Con-Air and The Blacklist. Many tv shows and movies have been creating by taking the ideas from the past movies and tv shows. We have no problem with that - as long as inspired idea is executed brilliantly with addition of something new and exciting.
All of the actors have done excellent jobs in performing their roles.
Despite its bad reputation, I still enjoyed a lot of its parts.
I still have high hope from Jon Bokenkamp and would love to watch something amazing created by him in the near future.