Should You Watch 68 Whiskey?

                       

                        “68 Whiskey” is a new Paramount Network show.  It is set in present-day Afghanistan and follows medics working in a NATO coalition base.  It is based on an Israeli series entitled “Charlie Golf One”.  Paramount is hoping for its next big hit after “Yellowstone”, but this show has no Kevin Costner.

                        The tone is set immediately as the first words uttered are “f*** me” coming from a slutty female clerk.  Grace (Gage Golightly) is making love to medic Cooper Roback (Sam Keeley) in the medical supply building.  Before the scene is over, we get the words pussy and shit.  Welcome to the Paramount Network.  Roback is a playa and a schemer.  He and his buddy Staff Sergeant Davis (Jeremy Tardy) are in the war to make money.  This includes betting big on a boxing match between Roback and a hulk named Sasquatch.  He happens to be Grace’s boyfriend, so a cliched love triangle is established.  It is also established that Roback and Davis are poor gamblers.  This is supposed to be a war series, so Roback goes on a medevac to recover a soldier who turns out to be off base for black market activities.  On the way back, for no good reason, Roback is forced to ride standing on the skid.  Oh, the reason was it was cool.  Sgt. Alvarez (Cristina Rodlo) screws up and the G.I. dies.  Cue the PTSD.  They also bring back a wounded local.  Maj. Holloway (Beth Riesgraf) is the hard-ass doctor who laments having to care for a civilian.  She is also not thrilled to find Roback is hoping to cash in on the dead guy’s black market items.  It seems Roback will always be one step ahead of the law.  He and Davis go off base to meet a local warlord to do a drug deal.  Medical supplies for hashish.  They manage to rip-off the warlord for a cache of hash.  These are our heroes.  They end up walking back to base with no one in hot pursuit.  Cliffhanger ending.

                        “68 Whiskey” wants to be a 2020 mashup of “MASH”, “Sgt. Bilko”, and “Three Kings”.  It fails miserably.  There is little humor and the drama is laughable.  I have no idea who the technical adviser is, but he should be fired.  A medic gives shots through children’s clothing.  A trio of soldiers wander through enemy territory with no noise discipline and then threaten a goat for bleating.  The same trio manages to get back on base with packs full of hashish, no questions asked.  Much of what happens has holes the size of IED craters in it.  You have to suspend reality a lot.  This would be okay if the show was a farce and winked at the audience, but it appears to have no idea what it wants to be.  Other than naughty.  There are three sex scenes in the first episode, the last one to porn-style music.  That medical supply building is going to get a lot of action.  I mentioned no Kevin Costner.  In fact, the series has no one I’ve ever heard of.  Paramount must have bust its budget on Costner because this cast is low rent.  The goat is the best actor. 

                        I am not that familiar with Paramount Network, so I can not tell you who its target audience is.  I would guess, based on this series, it is not aiming for conservatives.  If you love the troops, you will find Roback and Davis less than medal-worthy.  They con a naïve kid soldier into going with them, not telling him about the drug deal which involves them trading medicine they stole from the base.  Then they introduce him to hashish.  Roback is insubordinate much of the time.  He’s supposed to be a likeable rogue, but he is not appealing.  A subplot has Alvarez being discharged and deported because she is an illegal alien.  Liberals will be incensed by her treatment.  Roback complains about the “asshole who wants to be reelected”.  There is a Blackwater type organization doing something nefarious.  (I’ll never find out what.)  Surprisingly, their Col. Potter is a firm, but fair leader.  The series is not trying to lampoon the brass.  I guess the satirizing is meant to be of the system.  Roback and Davis’ entrepreneurship is meant to be a thumb in the eye of the corrupt war effort.  Too bad you will root against them.  They ain’t Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John.  In fact, the logical approach would have been to bring “MASH” to Afghanistan.  Now that’s a winning formula.  This is a mess.  

GRADE  =  F