The Last Frontier (2025)

At 10 episodes, with a lot of plot to keep in order, it can be confusing — even the characters will say, “It’s complicated” or “It’s not that simple,” when asked to explain something — and some of the emotional arcs seem strange, especially when characters turn out to be not who they seem. Things get pretty nutty by the end, but all in all it’s an interesting ride.

Ultimately, I think it scores more than it fails, but your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for lies and deceit.

Whether The Last Frontier can maintain this pace for the next nine hours is unlikely. But it’s a good start more than a rocky one (and note, future episodes reportedly stray from some of the core drama as Frank and co. track down loose escapees). Give it another ep or two before you move on.

Unlike 2023’s winning Apple TV+ thriller “Hijack,” “Last Frontier” is another streaming series that should have been a movie.

“The Last Frontier” flits between two distinct modes, one entertaining and one frustrating.

The further “The Last Frontier” gets into the halls of power or Sidney’s past as the daughter of an agency legend — yes, she’s the CIA’s version of a nepo baby — the more you’ll wish we were back out on the frozen plain, hunting for murderous psychopaths as the elements do their worst.

The Last Frontier begins and ends on a high, but the middle crashes down to earth with slow, lumbering diversions that waste its cast and squander an incredible premise.

It’s the very opposite of fast-moving, a lumbering and padded journey that stretches two hours of story across 10 hours bogged down in over-telegraphed twists, hollow military jargon and insufferable domestic melodrama, squandering most of the entertainment value of its premise and leaving most of its overqualified cast in the lurch.