In an otherwise excellent and totally enjoyable series, the one fly in the ointment is the way it portrays 21C Russia. Russia is either 1) still the Soviet Union, 2) the disintegrating country of the 90s, 3) a neo-Soviet dictatorship intent on recreating Empire, 4) a Garrison/gulag state. Any and all of these...
I've studied Russia all my life, having Russian ancestry. So I put up with this nonsense because I enjoy the rest of the series, and especially Tea Leoni and Tim Bradley immensely.
But the opening scene of this episode is such complete nonsense. Anyone who knows anything of the Ukraine conflict knows that a) NATO will not engage in any act of provocation against Russia and b) that the Russian air defence is among the best in the world. This is acknowledge in real life. So the scenario of US combat planes shooting down 11 Russian combat planes is pure fantasy. Russian air defence would have downed the US planes well before they got near any Russian forces. This series depiction of the Russian Armed Forces is somewhere in between late Soviet post-Afghan and 90s shambolic. It bears no resemblance to the Russia AF of the Ukrainian conflict. It speaks very poorly for the intelligence of the US audience and very powerfully for the brainwashing of the US by the corporate interest that wants to take over Russia, that even such an enjoyable and well-made series has to have such stupid and inexcusable nonsense about Russia in it. Pity the poor US that simply can't handle reality.
But the opening scene of this episode is such complete nonsense. Anyone who knows anything of the Ukraine conflict knows that a) NATO will not engage in any act of provocation against Russia and b) that the Russian air defence is among the best in the world. This is acknowledge in real life. So the scenario of US combat planes shooting down 11 Russian combat planes is pure fantasy. Russian air defence would have downed the US planes well before they got near any Russian forces. This series depiction of the Russian Armed Forces is somewhere in between late Soviet post-Afghan and 90s shambolic. It bears no resemblance to the Russia AF of the Ukrainian conflict. It speaks very poorly for the intelligence of the US audience and very powerfully for the brainwashing of the US by the corporate interest that wants to take over Russia, that even such an enjoyable and well-made series has to have such stupid and inexcusable nonsense about Russia in it. Pity the poor US that simply can't handle reality.
