Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Yakamoz S-245’ On Netflix, Where Civilian And Military Submarine Crews Try To Save Humanity From Solar Radiation

Jason George has quietly become one of Netflix’s super-producers, right along with Ryan Murphy, Mike Flanagan, Shonda Rhimes and Harlan Coben. He’s written and/or produced a number of the service’s biggest international hits, like Narcos, Alice in Borderland, The Protector and Into The Night. His latest series is part of the world of Into The Night, but instead of taking place on airliners, it takes place mainly under the surface of the Mediterranean Sea.

YAKAMOZ S-245: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We see and hear a closeup of the sun. An explosion happens and radiation shoots from the star out towards the solar system.

The Gist: Arman (Kivanç Tatlitug) is a marine biologist in a small Turkish port town on the Mediterranean. After a day where he was diving and taking pictures of the marine life in the sea, he gets a surprise visitor: His ex-girlfriend Defne (Özge Özpirinçci). She wants to commission him and the submarine he built to explore the Erebus Trench, a deep-sea region that Arman has been eager to explore. One issue: The funding for the mission comes from Arman’s father’s corporation.

Arman vehemently disagrees, but the next morning, when he goes to visit Defne, she tells him that his father is looking to drill for oil there, but if they find black coral, they can protect the trench. So he agrees to do the mission. He also meets her fiancé.

Meanwhile, a military officer named Hatice (Meric Aral) sees the radiation coming off the sun, but her commanding officer tells her not to breathe a word of it to anyone.

Arman and Defne go on the first test run with their old friend Cem (Onur Ünsal), a new oceanographer named Felix (Jerry Hoffmann), and her assistant Rana (Ecem Uzun), who will film the mission. They see a flash of light where there should be no light at all, and when they come back up, not only is the ship they launched from abandoned. A message from Defne’s fiancé says that the sun is killing people and that there’s a shelter in Kos they can go to, but when they get to the town, it’s also abandoned. There is another blip on their radar, though they’re not sure what it is.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Yakamoz S-245 is set up in the same world as Into The Night, complete with the same sun-related mass disaster.

Our Take: Created by Jason George (The Protector, Alice In Borderland), Yakamoz S-245 is setting up a situation where a civilian marine biologist team is going to work with a military submarine crew in order to save as many people as they can. It’s an intriguing setup, given the dire circumstances, and it seems to lean on the axiom that, even when the apocalypse is happening, the personal relationships forged among the survivors are paramount.

The first episode could move a bit more quickly in this regard, as we’re not introduced to the crew of the Yakamoz S-245. which encounters Arman and his crew at the end of the episode. But the episode did set up how Arman and Defne’s relationship played out when they were dating; he’s a bit hotheaded, and she’s frustratingly opaque. But they still have chemistry, and it stands to reason that, the longer it takes to find Defne’s fiancé, the more that Arman and Defne will be drawn back together.

It may get to a point where the solar disaster itself isn’t as important as the relationships among those aboard the Yakamoz. We just hope that things move a bit faster in subsequent episodes than it does in the first one.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The crew of the exploration sub is on shore in Kos when they see a massive military sub surface.

Sleeper Star: Jerry Hoffmann plays Felix, who speaks English and doesn’t know enough Turkish to follow what everyone is saying. He seems to be the proxy for the viewers in this story.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Defne asks Arman if she’s seeing someone, he replies that the word “someone” sounded weird in that moment. “It includes ‘one, but there’s ‘some’ in it. Man, I hate crowds.” That’s certainly a line of TV dialogue, not something anyone would say in real life.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Yakamoz S-245 presents a unique apocalyptic story that promises to concentrate as much on interpersonal relationships as it does the fact that the sun just killed most of humanity.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.