E-Ring: Pilot

I've never been interested in joining the military, but after watching the series premiere of E-Ring last night I might change my mind. Apparently you can pretty do whatever you want, and any "orders" given by superior officers should merely be taken as suggestions. At least, that's the Jerry Bruckheimer version of the military.

The episode begins in China as the camera and audience follows an unknown Chinese woman frantically running through a crowded street. She stops at a fountain, removes a brick from the structure, and pulls out a PDA on which she types the words "Dance Sport." Soon the message is bounced from one place to the next and eventually ends up at the Pentagon in a flurry of shots that have become Bruckheimer's signature.

We soon learn that the woman in China is actually an American asset who is waiting to be extracted and taken back to the US and safety. Officials in the Pentagon refuse to go after her, which, in real life, would probably have been this woman's fate, but since this is television we know she'll be rescued eventually with the help of some unorthodox military strategy and a final rousing emotional speech.

And that seems to be the conflict E-Ring has with itself. It's a show that wants to reveal what it's like inside the Pentagon, but fills its version of the structure with "play by your own rules" types whose disregard for authority would have had them booted out of the real Pentagon in less than no seconds. This is no surprise, as Bruckheimer has always had a soft spot for men who play by their own rules, going back to Top Gun. In this case his "Maverick" is Major J.T. Tinewski (Benjamin Bratt) who manages to save the world from nuclear devastation during his first week at the Pentagon. Driven by the mantra of "No man left behind" Tinewski, much to the horror of his superior officers, sends a nuclear submarine to the China coast to rescue the spy, who may or may not have a microchip holding the blueprints for a nuclear submarine, exactly the kind China isn't supposed to have. His superior, Colonel Bob McNulty (Dennis Hopper) is put off by Tinewski as first, but soon grows to like the new kid. I've never been in a job where risking World War III was met so casually. During the tense final moments, the spy is rescued, and Tinewski is celebrated for his unconventional approach.

I've never been a fan of Jerry Bruckheimer, and E-Ring isn't without the flash and bang that have made Bruckheimer's films and the CSI franchise the kind of exercise in "style over substance" that have made him, to paraphrase The Onion, "a man whose movies everybody sees, but nobody likes." Despite being labeled as "A look inside the world's most powerful building" the show doesn't exactly adhere to realism. This isn't necessarily a shot against the show, as the emotional detachment and strictness of the real Pentagon wouldn't make a compelling dramatic series. The cast is rounded out by Tinewski's wife, a former CIA operative played by Kelly Rutherford, and a sergeant played by Aunjanue Ellis who keeps both McNulty and Tinewski in line. The show might be better described as "A look inside the world's most powerful building if its workers were driven by emotion rather than a strong military sense." While I'm not going to make any absolute judgments about the show based on one viewing of the very first episode of the series --which isn't without a sense of humor-- I will say that if the real Joint Chiefs of Staff were as malleable as the guys on E-Ring, I'd be in my garage right now constructing a rocket to get myself the hell off this planet as soon as possible.