"Last Resort": ABC is trying to tempt me back to TV

A new drama from ABC promises to combine two of my favorite concepts: civilization-building, and submarines.

“Last Resort” is about the crew of a nuclear submarine, declared pariahs, who find a tropical island and start building their own civilization there.

As far as I can tell, it’s the first submarine-based show since the late “SeaQuest DSV,” a corny, uneven, very-1990s sci-fi drama that nonetheless was a formative show for me. (It was cancelled partway through its first season, just as it had started to find its footing by discarding the post-Cold War utopianism and paranormal elements that had weighed down the first two seasons.) There’s always been something I’ve found cool about submarines — the alien undersea environment, the close quarters, the tension from observing the world only indirectly through sensors.

The show also seems to mirror eerily closely a game/exercise I used to do with a friend when I was in first grade or so. Inspired by SeaQuest, we would make up and act out a scenario where a super-powerful submarine started its own country (and then conquered the world, because obviously) from a base on some tropical island. Hawaii? I can’t remember. Anyway, it was pretty sweet, and ABC has clearly plagiarized me.

But from then on until now, I’ve enjoyed world-building — making up new places, new countries, new societies, from the very mundane to the fantastical. Watching the formation of a new community was one of the coolest parts of the late great “Deadwood,” and I’m hoping “Last Resort” follows through.

A lot could still go wrong — the series could be corny or predictable, the writing could suck, it could get major network interference. But I’ve got my hopes up for “Last Resort,” which just from the premise seems aimed squarely at my interests.