It's a well-crafted series that keeps you guessing, with some excellent set pieces as well. Some of the supremely dangerous convicts and antagonistic forces could feel a little scarier or more dangerous, but The Last Frontier still boasts spycraft hat regularly feels new.

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.

“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.

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.

The Last Frontier doesn’t necessarily need rich character depth—The Blacklist and 9-1-1 didn’t exactly become hits because of that—but audiences have a limit for manipulation that feels cheap and inconsistent.