Minor plot spoilers in this review

I’ll be very upfront: I wasn’t a big fan of The Terminal List. The Chris Pratt-led military revenge thriller had some good moments, but I found it dull more often than not. So I was surprised when the trailers for its prequel spinoff, The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, actually looked good. Was this just clever marketing, or did they cook up something more my tempo? Let’s find out.

Set some five years before the main show, Dark Wolf sees Taylor Kitsch returning as Ben Edwards, a former US Navy SEAL turned CIA spook. This show chronicles how he made that transition and how his first job with his new handler was sensitive, to say the least. Joining him as a series co-lead is Tom Hopper, perhaps best known from The Umbrella Academy and Black Sails, as Raife Hastings, a Rhodesian-born soldier who, like Ben, is also a former member of the SEALs who finds himself in the shady world of black ops. After a job goes wrong in Iraq, the pair find themselves stripped of rank, facing court-martial. But, en route back home in Europe, they make the acquaintance of CIA spy master Jed Haverford (Robert Wisdom), who gives them a second chance at redemption and finishing a job that was left unresolved. Much like how Kitsch was the highlight of the original series, Hopper is the highlight here in this show. Unlike Edwards, Hastings still has a moral compass intact and acts as the voice of reason and maybe even sanity, whereas Edwards rapidly falls into this more lawless and ruthless world of espionage.

About that minor spoiler alert at the top of the article. At the opening of the first episode, a disclaimer comes up saying that the show is pure fiction and isn’t based on any recent events. I was unsure what this meant at first, but by the third episode, it became far clearer. The CIA team are actually part of a joint task force with Mossad in an attempt to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear technology. Considering events happening now on that end of the world and the global perception, one could see why a disclaimer could be issued, and one could also see how audience members may be put off from watching the show due to this eerie parallel to the present day. I thought I would warn readers and potential viewers of that up front, in case it affected their interest.

Where the original Terminal List was a slow-burning revenge thriller set in the world of the SEALs and shady organizations, Dark Wolf feels much more like a Jack Ryan spinoff. It’s a globetrotting show, bouncing around from Iraq, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, among others. If you’re like me and think that European settings, especially older-looking cities, lend themselves well to espionage thrillers, then this one should tick a lot of boxes for you. As such, it feels more dynamic and fluid, always on the go and gathering information against a ticking clock. There’s also an element of trust/distrust, with information being a much more powerful agent than a weapon in this kind of show. I also liked the cast, particularly Hopper as Hastings. But everyone does a great job, from Kitsch and Pratt, who returns in three episodes (of seven) as Reese. Rounding out the cast are Rona-Lee Shimon as Eliza Perash, Shiraz Tzarfati as Tal Varon, Luke Hemsworth as Jules Landry, and The Covenant’s Dar Salim as Mo Farooq.

Dark Wolf doesn’t do anything new with the genre. Much like a sports film, the spy genre has had pretty much every trope played out by now. So Dark Wolf doesn’t really do anything new, and some events can be predicted. But the writers also do a decent enough job to misdirect or cause doubt to throw you off the scent a bit to make the story a bit more engaging, especially in the first half. Despite being more of a black ops-style show, there’s still action, and it’s pretty entertaining, particularly a shootout scene that’s shot as a oner in the fourth episode.

But I have to say I quite enjoyed The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, a lot more than I thought I would, considering my lukewarm reaction to the original show. I thought the characters were more interesting, it was much better paced, and the globe-trotting nature of the show gave it a sense of scale. I’d be much more interested in seeing a second season of this series than of the main show at this point.