"LAZARUS" is set in the future, where the NSA "hired" a group of talented and skilled people, in order to track down Skinner, the creator of a drug that once taken does not let you fall sick. However, this pill contains a toxin that will cause the death of anyone that ingested it. The only person that has the vaccine is the doctor that disappeared. Hence, an international manhunt starts against time, in order to obtain the cure before humanity is completely wiped out. The premises are simple and straight-forward. All the different missions involving the task force are set in different parts of the world. There are episodes set in more exotic locations such as Turkey or Pakistan, but also in cold and inhospitable environments like Antarctica, adding a lot of variation.
The series shines especially on the action sequences, which are dynamic and overall well directed. We can see shootouts and bare hand fights accompanied by energetic electronic or jazz music. Watanabe did a good job with Axel that has the most compelling combats, thanks to his acrobatic abilities and the capacity of always finding a way to escape the most deadly situations. Overall all the characters have their own peculiarities and personalities, and even if they all fall into well defined tropes, they all have something unique that make this group engaging. Every single member of Lazarus served a specific purpose and actively contributed to progress the investigation, complementing each other. My favourite characters were Christine and Doug. The first is the perfect balance of a sensual and skilled agent that manages multiple times to trick others into giving out crucial intel, while the latter is practically the critical brain of the group that handles all the logistics.
On the other hand, I have to say that the plot overall feels lazy and uninspired. Certain dynamics are very predictable. The screenwriter played it safe, but this also means that there is very little on this TV show that stands out. It seems to watch the umpteenth spy story involving yet another global crisis. We have plenty of those and there are productions that made it way better than "LAZARUS". What saved the show were the characters that, as I mentioned before, have some unique peculiarities. Moreover the ending felt rushed and quite disappointing, with everything explained in the very last minutes of the 13th episode. All the efforts to create an international web of conspiracies and subterfuges was ruined by the fact that the story needed to be wrapped as quickly as possible. Clearly the series required a few more episodes to go full circle, maybe even a full second season, especially considering that the episodes do not even last 30 minutes. My final rate is 6.5.
