I mean, it's a show about labor unions that is both fundamentally paternalistic, and completely devoid of class consciousness (and is openly hostile to the idea). You can't really come back from that, regardless of the particulars.

And the particulars just aren't great. The directing and the acting are marginally better than the writing, but they're nothing to write home about, and at the end of the day the whole thing reeks of sanctimony. It's poorly structured, fails to bring its themes to life in any credible way, and wastes more time on its heroes' epic backstories than it spends with any of the characters they claim to speak for. The working class are presented as victims, objects of sympathy who must be saved from their tragic lot in life by a couple of Heroes doing heroic things. Don't expect their struggle to gain some agency and leverage in the workplace to come with any leverage or agency in the story.

If I had to sum up, I'd say that it's basically a mix between a dumbed-down political action piece that simultaneously deals in polemics and avoids taking a stand on anything beyond the obvious (the system is built to exploit the poor! Illegal=bad!), and a facsimile of a "serious" drama written by someone who doesn't understand what makes those shows tick.

Read More