In the eight-episode series The World's Toughest Forces, three former Special Forces officers train with elite military units and law enforcement around the world. Dean Stott is a former officer in the SBS, a British special forces unit. Cameron Fath was a US Army Ranger and Ryan Bates is a former Navy SEAL.
In the first episode, the trio trains with King Abdullah II's Royal Special Forces in Jordan. In two desert exercises, each of the hosts leads a team of Jordanian officers in a game of cat and mouse; One team follows the other two as they try to hide behind rocks and use the terrain to their advantage. The next day, the drill shows how they would react to an ambush while traveling in armed vehicles in the open desert.
Stars: Cameron Fath, Ryan Bates, Dean Stott
The three hosts then go to a state-of-the-art counterterrorism training center, where they participate in a drill in which they find terrorists hiding in a building. The next day, the drill consists of confronting the hijackers of a plane while protecting the hostages. Eventually, the trio returns to the desert and participates in a drill in which they have to invade a compound and drive out rebel forces who have the ability to escape through a tunnel system.
Toughest Forces On Earth is as testosterone-driven as any show on Netflix; It's essentially about the three hosts visiting different elite forces, whether military or police, and participating in training exercises. Do they carry out real operations? Maybe; In the second episode, they work with the Jungle unit of the Colombian National Police and, after their training, accompany the unit to what appears to be a real cocaine bust. But who knows how that was organized and whether the hosts are ever in any real danger.
There isn't much context in the Jordan episode about the origin of the king's special forces unit (it is mentioned that King Abdullah II was in the special forces before ascending the throne) and there is a cursory reference to the fact that they are a stable country surrounded by unstable territories and nations. But the show is less about context and more about operations and how the hosts fit into the units they train with.
We also wanted to see more about the officers in the unit, rather than seeing them helping the hosts. It may vary from episode to episode, but we only see a brief glimpse of the hosts engaging in some sort of conversation with any of the unit's officers about their reasons for joining the military or about their special forces training or anything remotely personal.
Hosts should take a bit of a backseat to allow the people who are actually in the unit to take center stage and highlight the tactics and methods they use. Yes, the hosts have a lot of personality, but we wish the producers would see fit to give more screen time to the people the hosts trained with.
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