Why 'The Brave' Feels Too Real, Even Though It's Not

It's officially premiere week and NBC is looking to have yet another gem on its hands. Premiering Monday, Sept. 25, The Brave follows the lives of elite undercover military personnel as they work together to save the world with members of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Created by film producer Dean Georgaris, the NBC show explores top secret missions performed by heroes who typically go unnamed when all is said and done. All this may have fans wondering if The Brave is based on a true story?

According to an interview Georgaris did with Entertainment Weekly, he said he came up with the concept for the show after watching a ton of documentaries about special forces. "I don’t have a military background or anything like that, but I was always interested in special forces ... in the humanity of how these people are able to accomplish what they can accomplish: Their resiliency, their ingenuity, their intelligence," he told the outlet.

So while his show isn't based on one true life event, The Brave is inspired by the documentaries Georgaris grew up watching, and the show is dedicated to showing a side of the military that isn't as often explored. He further explained to EW:

"I wanted to do something with a wider palette ... and I wanted to do something that, again, sort of tried to get what actually makes these people right [for the job] ... Long story short: I decided I kind of wanted to do the E.R. of special forces shows."

According to the official site, those who make up this E.R. of the special forces include Mike Vogel who plays Captain Adam Dalton, the leader of this squad. There's also Anne Heche's Patricia Campbell, Deputy Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. (Fans should probably be counting the episodes until Adam and Patricia get together.) Rounding out the special forces and the Defense Intelligence Agency teams are Sergeant Jaz Khan, mission coordinator Noah Morgenthau, CPO Preach Carter, Sergeant Joseph McGuide, DIA member Hannah Archer, and Amir Al-Raisani.

As with most military focused shows, the plots will feel real — even if they're not directly pulled from real life. According to CinemaBlend, one such storyline includes a doctor getting kidnapped in Syria. Meanwhile, TV Line reports that ISIS plays a role, and Task & Purpose reports that there will be plenty of military-style shootouts and combat scenes. It's the sort of stuff you read about in the news, and that grounds the show in reality even if its characters are fictional. And, Task & Purpose spoke to Mikal Vega, a military technical advisor for the show, who further explained how the show was dedicated to accuracy. For example, he ran the actors though tactical drills with real weapons.

“We started exposing them to threat awareness and situational awareness, and responsibility to your other teammates, and why you do what you do,” he told the outlet. “Why you’re covering a corner this way; why you don’t look away from a threat.”

All of that training is sure to show when the NBC drama premieres on Monday. And, even without the case-of-the-week being based in truth, the core of the show will feel real to anyone tuning in. These days, military action and terrorism and defense initiatives are discussed at length in every paper, website, and news show. Maybe tuning in for a fictional show about those topics will be a nice respite from the reality of our situation. And, if not, well, no one will blame you for having military show and movie fatigue. Sometimes it's all a little too real.