Greg Kogut

I tried this one because I enjoy The Rookie, and this show was created by the creators of The Rookie. But it has none of the characteristics that make The Rookie good. The acting is mediocre at best. While most of the characters in The Rookie try to be good people, almost every CIA character in The Recruit ranges from self-serving jerk to just a plain bad person. But the final straw for me was following in the Hollywood tradition of showing torture in a casual, fun way. To an innocent American citizen no less. I get it. It's entertainment, and doesn't attempt to achieve any sort of realism. I'm OK with shows that show one hero defeating 20 bad guys while holding a Glock in one hand and an AR-15 in the other. I still feel that "normalizing" torture as fun and casual isn't responsible.

Found it pretty predictable and formulaic. Slight variations on the same flashback sequences over...and over...and over. The usual corporate malfeasance plot with the ultra-creative name "Capstone." All the characters are cartoonish stereotypes. It passes the hours, but little more.

I had high expectations after hearing about this show, but I found it nearly unwatchable. After having watched the first few episodes of Season 1, I found it essentially to be a soap opera. Both in content and narrative structure. The characters are cartoon-like in sterotypical exaggeration. There is some handwaving treatment of some real issues with environmentalism and land use, tensions between Native American and Europe-based colonials, and other real-world issues. But that is mostly overshadowed by the silly characters and plot.