Inside Combat Rescue: The Last Stand

Following the success of last year's critically acclaimed series, Inside Combat Rescue, NGC returns to the front lines of Afghanistan in The Last Stand.

With incredible access, the crew is embedded with the "Reapers" as they carry out a search for a wanted Taliban leader and arms dealer. We also continue to follow the pararescuemen as they fly into hostile situations to pull out the injured.

Shows like this give civilians like me a glimpse into the lives of the men and women serving on the ground and in the air in the final stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, the kind of thing you don't get from headlines and random snippets the major news outlets deem worth of reporting.

Tragically, as interesting and real as this is, it is also fairly dull compared to the fantasies produced out of Hollywood. The reality is that there is a lot of paperwork and planning and waiting around, puncuated with a few minutes of walking or flying further puncuated with a few seconds of warnings about threats that we never see. But that is the way reality often is.

Inside Combat Rescue: The Last Stand, like the series that came before it, is important for giving a look at something that most people would only know about as a concept, and it excels at that, even if it isn't the most thrilling thing to watch.