Obliterated Review | The Worst TV Show of the Year

Summary

• Obliterated is a disappointment, with lazy writing, uninspired direction, and lousy cinematography.
• The show relies on objectifying, homophobic, and jingoistic humor that feels outdated and offensive.
• The large cast of characters is poorly developed, making it difficult to care about their stories or relate to them, and the action is empty and forgettable.

Obliterated essentially exists for teenage boys to fast-forward through until they see breasts, butts, and bombs. It’s embarrassing. In theory, a TV show about a team of drunk special forces operators tasked with preventing a nuclear disaster should be a recipe for fun. Top that with the fact the show is produced by Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald, and Hayden Schlossberg, the guys behind the spectacularly entertaining Cobra Kai series, and Netflix’s Obliterated seems sure to be an enthralling and wildly entertaining hit. Sadly, however, that couldn’t be more wrong.

Obliterated is a huge disappointment. Its lazy writing, uninspired direction, and lousy cinematography, as well as a story that isn’t half as interesting as it sets out to be, results in perhaps one of the worst shows of the year. However, its biggest sins are its objectifying, homophobic, jingoistic, and very frat boy “humor.” Obliterated doesn’t feel like a show that came out in 2023. Perhaps the best way to describe it is to compare the series to Michael Bay directing Entrouage without any technical skill. The show’s action is directionless and lackluster, and the characters are very shallow.

Obliterated follows a team of special forces operators who, after a successful mission stopping a nuclear bomb in Las Vegas, decide to celebrate by hitting the town. Renting out a large penthouse, the team let their hair down, drinking, taking drugs, and dancing the night away. (The showrunners assume you care at all about these obnoxious characters despite just being introduced to them). However, after realizing that the bomb they found was a fake, they must find the real nuclear weapon before it’s too late. And they must do all this while heavily intoxicated. What could possibly go wrong?

The Cast Make the Show A Little More Bearable

Immediately, it becomes apparent that this should’ve been a film, not an eight-episode series that amounts to roughly seven hours. There’s only so long someone can stay drunk or high, so Obliterated depends on flashbacks and lots of loose digressions which plague the action and consistency of the show. It also relies upon too many characters, none of whom are interesting.

There’s Nick Zano as Chad, a beefy Chris Hemsworth knockoff and Navy SEAL, and Shelley Hennig as the super-serious Ava, the team leader and CIA officer who Chad is simping for (they hook up in the first episode, in one of many instances of Cinemax-style softcore porn). There’s Terrence Terrell as Trunk, the gigantic but quiet Navy SEAL muscle (think Groot, Chewbacca, Teal’c, or a number of other better characters the show rips off). There’s Paola Lázaro as sarcastic super-sniper Angela, there’s Kimi Rutledge as the obligatory socially awkward hacker Maya, there’s Eugene Kim as the straight-man Paul, and there’s poor Alyson Gorske as ‘hot party girl’ Lana who is constantly objectified and frequently nude. Gorske is a better actress and deserves more than this insulting role.

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As if that’s not enough, there’s Carl Lumbly as the director of the CIA, David Costabile as black-market mastermind Maddox, Costa Ronin as the archetypal Russian arms dealer and gangster, Lindsey Kraft as a lounge singer, Minnie Mills as Paul’s daughter, and C. Thomas Howell as the typical ‘comically unhinged crazy guy’ who loves explosives. Few if any characters get development, and with a cast of characters as deplorable as these, that development is sorely missed. We get hints of the characters’ backstories, like Ava’s husband dying, and Chad’s father leaving him and his mother when he was five, but that’s predominantly it. The script doesn’t flesh out these characters enough to make us care on an emotional or relatable level.

If you haven’t gotten the hint, the point is that there are way too many people in this show, all clustered together, only distinguishable by their paper-thin character traits. The actors deserve better than these obnoxious, empty caricatures of people.

There’s No Way This Show Came Out in 2023!

Beginning with a bunch of butts in bikinis being groped in a pool by shirtless dudes with sculpted pectorals, Obliterated is a horndog of a show, yet is never really erotic. It feels the need to inject limp humor or cringe interruptions into its sexy scenes. There’s nothing wrong with sex in shows, of course, but when it’s one-sided (pure male gaze that reduces women to bodies), poorly filmed, awkwardly edited, and filled with dumb dialogue, it becomes cheap and redundant.

The same could honestly be said about the action in the series, which never rises to the occasion. There is anticipation and build-up to some scenes, but the delivery is always flaccid, either anticlimactic or confusing in its editing and excess of characters. It’s ugly and nonsensical when it actually happens.

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Ultimately, a person would have a similar but much better experience by watching two things simultaneously — a Michael Bay movie and porn. It would scratch the same itch that Obliterated wants to reach but can’t at all.

Perhaps its worst offender, however, has to be the show’s attempt at tackling homosexuality, specifically with one character. There are two gay characters in the team. There’s Angela Gomez, an openly gay character comfortable with her sexuality, who is lazily written as the most two-dimensional butch exaggeration one could imagine. There’s also Trunk, a special forces operator struggling with his sexuality. This could have created a compelling dynamic where Trunk opens up to Gomez about his struggle, but instead Trunk’s sexuality is played off for comedic relief. Making fun of someone for being gay may have gotten some laughs 25 years ago on Saturday Night Live, but in 2023, it just feels outdated, banal, and cruel.

Ultimately, Obliterated is an unpolished show. It’s founded upon empty writing, shallow characters, disorienting editing, and forgettable action. However, if this sounds like the show for you, Obliterated is now streaming on Netflix through the link below:

Stream on Netflix

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