The US Navy destroyer USS Nathan James is in the Arctic, operating under a communications blackout as they conduct secret weapons tests. They're also acting as couriers for a couple of scientists who are studying birds.
Or so they think, up until the point that Russian special forces try to abduct the scientists. The weapons test mission is just a cover, you see, and the scientists aren't in the Arctic to study birds at all: they're looking for the "primordial strain" of a highly lethal, highly contagious disease that is sweeping the world. Quite how none of the crew were aware of this pandemic when it was apparently urgent enough to send people on secret missions to the Arctic is not explained.
Anyway, the whole world's dying and the scientist aboard this ship is the only one who has the primordial strain, and so might possibly be able to find a cure. So off they all must sail to find the facilities and materials for her to do so, whilst also keeping themselves supplied and one step ahead of everyone else who wants the cure. Since those people are foreign and therefore evil.
In 2020 after months of restrictions and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the idea of a pandemic-themed TV show may be a little on the nose, but back in 2014 it was an entirely theoretical concept, and this this program - very loosely based on a novel with the same name - came to be. How loosely? Well in the book the disaster is nuclear war, not disease, and the Russian characters are ultimately good guys, so ... very very.
So if we ignore the problems that the concept might have in today's situation, since the show really can't be held accountable for that, how is it?
Frankly, it's fairly mediocre, with overly familiar plot-beats and shallow characters. It has also got a lot of problematic elements in its casting. For one thing, Adam Baldwin is in it; for another, when you cast someone as the face of your evil social elite, you should maybe not cast an African American woman.
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