For those who decide to give Splinter Cell: Deathwatch a try on Netflix who aren't familiar with Sam Fisher's long and incredible run in the 2000s as the Pepsi-to-Metal Gear Solid of the stealth video game genre, they'll find this to be a violent, slightly over-the-top, but quite charming eight-episode spy drama. But for those of us who have loved Splinter Cell for over 20 years and waited for a new game for over half that time, Deathwatch will tick all those boxes, but be a little bittersweet as well.
First of all, the good thing about Bittersweet is that the show is pretty good! The characters are all interesting and play an important role in moving the story forward, Liev Schreiber is a great understudy to Michael Ironside in the game as the voice of Fisher, and the show is paced so well that I kept eagerly pressing “next episode” until I finished all eight parts – Both I've seen it a few times. The “bitterness” comes from the realization that not only are we no closer to a new Splinter Cell game, but the show is already so far along in its timeline that we may not have any more time with my favorite sarcastic super spy.
Yes, Deathwatch comes decades after the latest game, Splinter Cell Blacklist. Anna “Grim” Grimsdottir heads up the U.S. government agency's fourth echelon of shadow operations, while Sam Fisher lives a quiet life without night-vision goggles on a farm in Poland. In fact, Sam has two lines of dialogue in the entire first episode. That's because Death Watch begins by tracking young agent Xenia McKenna (voiced by Kirby Howell-Baptiste) during a failed operation; the fellow agent she was sent to Lithuania to rescue is already dead—in fact, he was the victim of torture. Her youthful rage leads her to make mistakes that Fisher wouldn't make, and before long all hell breaks loose and Fisher is very reluctantly drawn into the whole mess, returning to the life he thought he had left behind.
By the end of the second episode, Sam had become the star of the show, and the first season was even better.
By the end of the first episode, I was intrigued and ready for the rest of the series—not to mention relieved that it was clear that Sam was going to be a central part of Death Watch, and that showrunner Derek Kolstad (whose action resume includes creating John Wick) wasn't just resurrecting Fisher in an attempt to hand over the Splinter Cell brand to McKenna and a new generation of Fourth Echelon agents. No, no; by the end of the second episode, Sam had become the star of the show, and the first season was even better.
As someone who means a lot to Splinter Cell – I've finished every game in the series (even Splinter Cell Essentials on PSP!) – the great Michael Ironside will always be mine Sam Fisher. It's especially fitting that Ironside gets the role here, since Fisher in Deathwatch is already old and Ironside himself is 75. But whatever the reason, Schreiber gets the call, and he does it brilliantly, bringing Sam's dry humor, bitter toughness, and human compassion to life in interactions with teammates, enemies, and his dog Monster. He gave Sam a tough and gruff attitude that was crucial to Fisher's character. I love his character and I'm looking forward to more of him as Sam Fisher if we're lucky enough to get a season 2.
It's also worth noting that the show is far more violent than the games themselves. Sure, you can kill everyone while playing the game, but Deathwatch isn't shy about showing off gruesome details. You'll see scalpels (and fingers) stabbing into eyeballs, knives digging into the side of skulls, bullets going into heads, knives ramming into guts, and worse. This isn’t a complaint, though; I love the violence in Deathwatch because it helps illustrate that for these lone-wolf spies stalking the shadows, every encounter is a matter of life or death.
Speaking of shadows, yes, there's a lot of espionage going on in this version of Splinter Cell. If this were The Blacklist, though, McKenna would be doing a Ghost game and Sam would be doing a Black Panther style game. He racked up a pretty hefty death toll in eight episodes – something I could only chuckle about because it's the complete opposite of how I usually play games. But anyway, yes, these agents do cool ninja moves in the dark, they do have a blast, and they do use gadgets here and there – although sadly, we don't get to see Splinter Cell classics like the sticky vibrator or sticky camera (or SC-20k gun).
Going back to Sam's supporting cast, I appreciate what each of them brings to the team: Grim has neither the patience nor the F to give, Joe brings a stability that Grim doesn't have as he holds down the fortress of Echelon 4's headquarters in Copenhagen, Thunder is a recruited Canadian hacker who quickly integrates into the team, and McKenna is a skilled agent whose missions become personal. As for the bad guys, Death Watch resurrects a name familiar to Splinter Cell fans: Douglas Shetland. While Shetland appears in flashbacks, he's long since deceased, but the show's story revolves around his daughter, Diana Shetl, as she works to transform Doug's company, Displace International, from a private military contractor into a clean technology company whose upcoming Xanadu project could power the world with renewable energy.
Wasn’t the plot a bit nonsensical at the end? Sure, but then again, so does gaming. On a related note, I do appreciate that, whether intentional or not (I'm leaning towards it being intentional), Deathwatch does reference a few missions from the best Chaos Theory of all games, but doesn't completely rewrite them. In fact, the last two episodes are titled “Chaos Theory: Part 1” and “Part 2.” Other Easter eggs from the past include not one but two very familiar sound effects: There's the classic three-lens night vision goggles, of course, but I particularly appreciated the radio/communications-activated noises lifted directly from the series' original Xbox days.
Deathwatch does feature several of the best Chaos Theory missions in any game.
Getting back to the bittersweet nature of the show, while there's nothing stopping Ubisoft (the show's creators) and Netflix from keeping the animated Splinter Cell alive for many years to come by simply making flashback seasons that take us back to Sam Fisher's super-spy days, the more likely reality is that this old Sam won't long be around where the show begins our Fisher life. If that turns out to be the case, it either means the show itself won't be with us for too short a time, or Schreiber's Fisher will be handing over the reins to Howell-Baptiste's McKenna, which audiences might resist because it would be like killing Batman and turning it into a Robin show. I think the former is more likely – after all, Netflix only gave Lara Croft (which, to be fair, wasn't a good show) two seasons, and even its star Castlevania only gave it four. Also, historically, Sam Fisher yes Cell division.
But for now, I just love having Splinter Cell back in our lives, a great (if too brief) ultra-violent romp that clocks in at just over three hours in total with eight 22-27 minute episodes, and maybe, just maybe, it might convince Ubisoft to go all out with a remake of Splinter Cell, which was announced four years ago and hasn't been seen or heard from since.