Yes Ma'am — Episode 1

What happens in episode 1 of Yes Ma'am

Episode 1 of Yes Ma'am puts a drill sergeant and a squad of recruits in a rain-soaked boot camp, and she singles one of them out. It runs 64 seconds.

Episode 1 drops you face-first into a flooded training field. Rain hammers the recruits, a buzz-cut instructor screams straight into the lens, and the mud is ankle deep before the first minute is half gone. Then Sergeant Demont walks into frame: wet hair plastered to her neck, uniform shirt hanging open, the name tape on her pocket the only thing on her that looks regulation.

The hook is power. She outranks everyone on the field, she is married to the man who outranks her, and she has just decided that the weakest recruit in the line belongs to her. The opening episode is all tension and almost no touching; Demont tests, humiliates and protects in the same breath, and the camera keeps finding her eyes on you rather than on the squad. It is the longest saga in our catalogue, which tells you how slowly the series means to burn.