[DJ's left nut]

I guess where I've gotten on this is that I don't understand at ALL why it needed to involve Jack Ryan.

Stand alone, it's a good show. But they paid for a name. They didn't use ANY of the IP. This isn't recognizable in any way.

I mean let's just start with Jack's entry into the CIA. The dude was a multi-millionaire retired stock trader who's teaching history and living on a cliffside mansion. He's in London with his family when he ends up in the middle of an assassination plot against the Royal family. Things develop, he ends up an 'asset' and slowly drawn into part-time analysis with the CIA. He proves himself and becomes a baller agent.

In the show, he's a geeky cubicle dwelling single systems analyst with a shitty beltway apartment.

In the books he has an almost father/son relationship with Admiral Greer who is essentially the Presidents right hand in the military. In the show he meets Greer when Greer is a burnout on the decline in the agency and has an antagonistic relationship before they become peers.

None of the ancillary characters exist in the books, nor do any of the book characters exist in the show. The Foleys, Clark, Mancuso, Robby Jackson, Dan Murray, Scott Adler...hell, Cathy Ryan barely exists here and she's a central figure in the novels. And the only character thus far that could hang with any of the book characters is Mike. And even still, he's mostly a watered down Murray. Meanwhile Clark, Jackson, Mancuso and the Foleys are great in the books.

I don't mind that the stories don't mesh because...cool - tell new stories. I'm good with that.

But they didn't use ANY of the back story of the character. Worse, they flip the back story so far on its head that it makes him almost the opposite of who he is in the books. Shit, in the show he's essentially Ding Chavez. His traits are completely different. His strengths/weaknesses are different. His underlying philosophy and ethos (the 'Ryan Doctrine') essentially don't exist.

I mean they just borrowed a name and scrapped everything else.

I think the show is entertaining, don't get me wrong. It just has absolutely NOTHING to do with Jack Ryan. Had Disney purchased the Star Wars IP, made a show called "Skywalker" and then made him an Imperial Senator or something, it wouldn't have been much different. I just don't quite understand it so I'm left with pure cycnicism - they know the public has the attention span of a gnat so they had to put a 'known name' on the project to get it made.

It was done strictly as a bait and switch.