One of the new series on Peacock is Last Light. You may have read my thoughts about another Peacock original series The Undeclared War a couple of weeks ago, which turned out to be a disappointment. For this reason I wasn't too eager to watch any new shows on Peacock. However, Last Light caught my attention because of Matthew Fox who plays the main character Andy Yeats in the series. I remember Matthew Fox from one the most popular tv shows Lost. In Lost Fox played Dr. Jack Shephard, one of the main characters, if not the main character. I don't remember seeing Matthew Fox in any other shows or movies after Lost. So, I had to see what Last Light was about.
Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers. If you haven't seen the series yet and are planning to, please stop reading here. Feel free to come back after watching the series to share your thoughts.
Last Light is not one of the greatest works in TV, but it isn't bad either. It is definitely a lot better than The Undeclared War. What I find interesting is, it seems Peacocks latest series are relevant to the world and its problems today. The Undeclared War explored the topic of cyber warfare. Last Light attempts to tackle the topic of climate change, dependence on fossil fuels, and imagining the future without them. Fossil fuel will definitely will go into the history as something that played great role in advancement of our civilization and perhaps as one of the core ingredients of the 20th & 21th centuries. It is great to see innovation to continue and newer technologies emerging that offer alternatives sources of energy. After all, with or without climate change, fossil fuels would run out at some point. Might as well figure out new ways of sourcing energy and building a better future now.
The series starts out with Yeats family celebrating the youngest member of the family, Sam. Sam is Andy and Elena's son. They also have a daughter and her name is Laura. After a family birthday dinner, they are driving home. Andy looks at Sam and says you are old enough to learn how to drive, drive the car sitting on his laps. Clearly, Sam wasn't old enough to learn how to drive a car yet. At first I didn't understand the meaning of this scene. But later it became very obvious and why that scene was important. Sam is blind and he had had a medical condition that made his eye sight worse over time. He has been going through treatment in Paris and his long waited surgery was scheduled to be done in Paris in a couple of days. It made sense that Andy wanted to let Sam know that everything was going to be ok and one day he will be engaging in many activities including driving a car. It meant a lot for Sam, as he remembers this time later in the series as the moment when he realized his father fully trusted him.
Even if without the main topic of climate change, oil, global crisis, etc, the story of this family is interesting on its own. The series tells the story of Yeats family and the relationships between its members. The family lives in London. Andy a scientist who works for one of the big oil companies and always traveling. His teenage daughter, Laura is blogger and climate change activist. There is tension between father and daughter about how they feel about climate change. Elena, is not too happy with Andy's travels and not giving enough time and attention to the care of their son, Sam.
When family arrives home after the birthday celebration dinner, Andy gets an urgent visit informing him that his needed by his boss in the Middle East and he needs to leave. Elena is not happy with him leaving, when Sam's eye surgery is going to be happening in two days. He assures Elena, that he will meet them in Paris. After saying good-byes, Andy leaves to one of the unknown countries in the Middle East. He is informed that there is some major issue happening with oil and somehow the companies oil was contaminated, but nobody knows what is happening. He is tasked to figure out the issue. He is joined by Mika, who introduced herself as a British government official to oversee the investigation. Later it is revealed Mika is actually MI6 agent, but still interested in solving the mystery of global oil contamination phenomenon.
Andy along with Mika and two other company security guards travel to one of the oil facilities to get some samples. Things start going hostile right away. They are followed by some unknown individuals who attack them on their way to the lab to test the samples. After the initial confrontation with hostiles they are able to bring the samples to the lab. But then lab gets attacks, and workers killed. Andy manages to pick up the laptop with the test results and escape the lab. As he is being chased by the attacker, Mika catches up with him and they escape. A lot of things happening fast, and this part of the story doesn't make a lot of sense. Because I would assume a big oil company would have decent security measures to protect its facilities, labs, workers, and this investigation. Somehow, a couple of mercenaries are able to intervene with the investigation of finding out what is contaminating oil and causing big losses to the company.
As Andy is trying to stay alive in the Middle East, Elena and Sam have arrived in Paris and are getting ready for the surgery. However, crazy things start happening in the world. Planes are crashing, cars stopping and fire starting out of nowhere, power girds going shut down, riots and demonstrations happening. Sam's surgery doesn't happen, because the hospital loses electricity and all patients are being evacuated elsewhere. Now that surgery is cancelled, Elena needs to get back to London, but all flights are being cancelled as well. This leads Elena and Sam to an adventure of their own of making back to London. Back in London, Laura is trying to escape a killer herself. Family is separated in three different cities, trying to survive on their own. Eventually they all make it back to London, Andy reunites with Elena and Sam. But now, Laura is kidnapped by a man who is responsible for the global contamination of the oil. This person ends up being Andy's university friend and both of them wrote a thesis that worked as a blueprint in creating a bacteria that eats oil. This idea actually seems very clever, if ever possible.
The idea they came up with long time ago, is that if they could engineer a bacteria that eats oil, this would help cleaning up oil spills. At least that is how Andy tries to justify his thesis. But Andy also had different ideas, and may have jokingly shared that something like this could end the entire oil industry and help with the climate change. Andy abandoned these thoughts long time ago, and never took them too seriously. But his college friend with whom he lost contact with years ago, embraced this idea and dedicated his time in developing this bacteria. During Covid crisis, when oil consumption went down, a lot of produced oil wasn't being bought and kept in some storage facilities. By contaminating the oil in these facilities, and after demand increased to oil, the bacteria was able to spread worldwide. Now that the bacteria was spreading and growing, Andy and team of scientists were working against the time to come up with a counter measure. If solution is not found within a day, the effect of this attack would become irreversible.
After Laura is kidnapped, Andy's focus shifts to find her and he agrees to follow kidnappers instructions. But the kidnapper, his old friend, wasn't going to hurt Laura, he was trying to distract Andy from working on a solution and maybe even remind him about his old views about climate change, oil, etc. Eventually, Andy is able to reunite with Laura and face his old friend. Bad guy dies. Time runs out. No solution is found for the bacteria. New world, a world without oil begins. I am not sure I like this ending. On a positive note, at the end they show that Sam is able to see again, and the family is together and well.
This was a thought provoking series that would make a viewer ask what if multiple times. The story of the family is beautiful, and the end of the world theme is interesting. I think the details in the story could have used some improvements. But overall the series were fun and entertaining. Better storyline could be showing a world afterwards. How would such a world without oil or fossil fuels survive? What would be the benefits and drawbacks of such world? Have you seen the series? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.