Promised a lot and failed to deliver. First problem - too many characters. Second problem - too many sideline stories.Third problem. Clunky, slow paced script, that seemed to miss a meaningful edit. An adventure story, that had way too much Days of our lives, soap quality about it.Big problem- nothing resolved at the end, which is galling, especially as season 2 was canned. (not exactly a big surprise). Another thing that spoiled the series is the casting was not very good. The good guy lawyer looks far too young to have all the experience he was supposed to have.The female star looks too old to be in this sort of military action.The young activist was so bad, that I was fast forwarding his contributions after a while. The computer geek hacker stood out, as the best cast member. The transvestite in an Arab country seemed to be more of a soapbox statement by the writer, than anything else.It was just not believable. The romantic hookups all lacked chemistry.In the story, the writer seemed addicted to plot twists. There were so many that it became predictable and boring.You could have canned over half the scenes and missed nothing. Slow paced story, that promised a lot at the start, but went downhill very quickly. Don't wait for a re-run. It won't happen.

One time in North Africa I got so fed up with the hassle that I bought myself a Nubian headdress and a gray-brown robe worn by most men. Suddenly I was invisible, being able to walk undisturbed right past the masses of desperate peddlers, boatmen, touts and what have you. For most part they didn't give me a second glance. In the Odyssey series an American soldier Odelle Ballard is on the run trying to hide herself in plain sight in North Africa and I really felt for her. I know what it's like. Odelle is put in the complicated situation of a whistle blower who possesses proof that private defense contractors do not hesitate to do business with terrorist enemies of her country. She is declared dead and the powers be will not rest until she is. Many reviewers who gave low points to the series have perhaps missed the title word Odyssey. What Odyssey means is a long and perilous journey where you are trying to get home but circumstances throw you further off the course again and again. This is exactly what happens to Odelle. The network was seriously misguided when they re-titled the series American Odyssey. There is none. There are a couple of quite hopeless subplots taking place in the U.S., but they are in place just to underline that the fate of Odelle will not be decided by others in America while she is on her African (not American) Odyssey, beautifully shot on location in Morocco by the way. Anna Friel is perhaps a bit old for the role of a active front line foot soldier and she looks (at least to this reviewer) very, very British rather than American, which she is, too. But wow, does she look good with those gray eyes peeking from under a blue Tuareg headscarf interwoven skilfully around her head. Only men do this in real life, women wear simple modest scarves, but in this case who cares. Anna Friel was a great choice to star in the series, she is able to convey the complicated emotions of a survivor fugitive from everything she's ever known, in an environment alien to most viewers but luckily not quite so alien for her character. She is for practical purposes the only female character of any consequence in this series, quite rare in these days, and makes the most of it. She gets to wear a lot of different clothes and costumes in this series of camouflage, hide and seek! There is a very good international cast to support her, while the American subplot cast is quite wooden in comparison. Having spent quite a lot of time in the Sahel area, North and West Africa I appreciate that the environment is seen in a much more realistic light than one would expect from an American network series. Sure there's exoticism and even magic thrown in, but hey, that's what Africa will throw at you in living color if you give it half a chance. I give it 9 out 10. As a final note, several reviewers have wondered why Odelle didn't just email the incriminating secret files from the nearest laptop to the press. I would say that the problem is the other way around, it would take someone reliable on the other end to decrypt the encrypted files to plain text once received. I am a member of the press and we do not decrypt top secret government files.

After reading so many slams against this show I streamed it anyhow and was quite pleased even if it was cancelled after 1 season. The problem with these types of shows is that when successful they have to keep making the plots more and more extreme (Scandal, Covert Affairs, Alias, etc.) until they reach a point were the entire government is corrupt and all corporations evil (where it may seem that way, reality is obviously in between). What I liked was that even though the show started out to be heavily split between the 3 main characters, by the end they coalesced into a single story. We didn't get a Season 2 so there was no real closure for our characters, but even so they ended with each having accomplished what they set out to do. I don't need to see a screen writers story to take the end of Season 1 as things ending on a positive note. Yes, Adelle will have to live on the run her entire life, but she had the backbone to take down all involved which supported the our two secondary characters. Yes, one was left broken, but killing your girl friend and finding out she had killed your father would leave most people a mess for a while. So again, not really a negative, just the state after winning his battle. I enjoyed seeing a show end on a positive even if that positive has some downsides, it is much better than the crap they tend to pull like they did on Dexter.

Lower your expectations and you will always be happier. Come on this is a TV series and forget how outlandish or technically incorrect it is at times. If you distrust our government in some of the things it does let it be your X file. " The truth is out there" according to agent M. Do you believe that huge corporations could benefit from war? Do you believe that the U.S. would favor certain terrorists if it meant a Senator or CEO could make a hefty bundle? If you answered yes this show is great. It makes you really believe that the show is dishing out real world dirty underwear and pushing the political envelope. It might make you think some of this is true. I loved the cast, settings,the run, talk, shoot, drive and tension it produces. Maybe it created too much tension therefore I do not believe they will get another season.