I hate how much this will sound like the ‘old man yells at clouds’ meme, but I generally don’t enjoy most of the movies or TV shows coming out these days. But I was searching for something new to watch and I’m a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, so when his face appeared on Netflix with a new show called F.U.B.A.R., I decided to give it a try.

The premise is pretty simple: Arnold is a badass CIA agent on the verge of retirement, only to be pulled back in when he discovers his daughter is also a badass CIA agent currently working a dangerous undercover mission. Through eight 57-minute episodes, the father-daughter duo hunt down a violent arms dealer trying to steal and sell a nuclear suitcase.

Actually, one of my first thoughts as I watched the show was that it felt like a parody of Zach and Abby in an alternate universe, one where zombies had not risen from the dead and where the father-daughter team could have led happy, fulfilling lives.

That bemusing comparison kept me roped in during the first couple of episodes, when I still wasn’t too sure what to make of the show. The daughter has a lot of problems with Arnold’s character, who was largely an absent father because of his job, and at first it seemed like the entire show would be her just dumping on her dad over and over, leaving Arnold as the constant sap and butt of the joke. That’s not the kind of show I have any desire to watch.

Fortunately, as the show progresses, each character gets their turn to be the wise old owl, the one who is right and who everyone else should have listened to at the beginning of the episode. Every character also plays the goat at least once, the one whose shortcomings create chaos and makes everyone else have to work harder to finish the mission and get back home in one piece.

I will say that I’m not a fan of the way it ended. There is clearly going to be a second season based on the events of the final episode in Season 1, but that to me feels like too much. The way this mostly delightful action-comedy progressed, it felt like one season was the best fit for it. But I understand that dollars drive projects more than storytelling.

Overall, I can say that I recommend this show to anyone with a Netflix account and who doesn’t mind quite a bit of cursing. There’s no nudity and though there is violence there’s nothing terribly gruesome. So check it out! But before you do, I must conclude the review with a quote from the show’s final episode, spoken by Arnold in his gruff, Austrian voice. It was a great line, no two ways about that, but I’m also purely including this for the benefit (detriment?) of one Berthold Gambrel:

“I’ll be fine. I’m just going to kick back, and drink some beers with Napoleon, Thomas Dewey, the Buffalo Bills, and all the other great losers in history.”