The Strain premiered on FX last night. It’s based on a book trilogy co-written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, about a vampire-like creature who feeds on blood and can apparently infect others through some kind of parasite or virus.
I have not read any of the books, and I would like this thread to remain spoiler-free of anything that hasn’t appeared in the show as the season progresses.
I thought it was a pretty good start, though I did have some problems with it. The “production” elements all looked very good, including the special effects. The story so far seems to be very derivative of previous vampire stories, with the nature of the vampirism being the new twist.
In this episode we have:
a doomed transport (airplane) that carries the vampire to the new world
a coffin filled with the vamp’s native soil
a Van Helsing type character
a Renfield type character acting as a servant of the vampire
a secret and powerful cabal also working for/with the vampire
Being derivative is not a bad thing, though, if they do it well, which I thought they mostly did. There was some bad writing with regard to the CDC people’s actions (“hey, let me hold this possibly infectious organism right up next to my hand–I hope it can’t bite through this thin latex, but it sure is trying!”). And my biggest issue, unfortunately, is the main character–the CDC guy. Maybe he’ll become more likable as the season goes on, but he’s just kind of an asshole so far.
I didn’t realize Sean Astin was going to be in this. His part in the first ep was small but significant. I thought the Van Helsing-ish guy was good. The actor played Filch in the Harry Potter movies and was in the UK series Broadchurch.
Anyone else watch? Thoughts?
BTW: The first episode is re-airing tonight on FX at 11:00 Central Time. It’s about 100 minutes long.
Tangent, I had thoughts about the premiere very similar to yours: I was disappointed by how closely the set-up adheres to the Dracula plot, and I didn’t like the way the protagonist was written.
For example, a sensible scientist would react to a claim that someone has experience with the mysterious situation, with at least a nod to investigating the claim. He wouldn’t go straight to the eye-rolling. That came across as stooooopid.
And the women simply can’t understand that a man has a job to do! scenes with the ex were truly annoying. Hasn’t this meme been done to death??
On the whole, I’m not optimistic about the writing of this one. But I’ll give it at least another week.
Jeebus, that was painful! Mr. singular and I were discussing the fact that mildly annoying things are much easier to ignore in a novel than acted out. The characters were pathetically two dimensional and condescending. We loved the source novels, but man, it sure didn’t translate to screen well. I’m hoping it gets better, but I’m skeptical - is it the writing or a victim of FX’s limited budget? I’m leaning toward writing - whoever came up with the CDC guy’s dialog or the whole pawn shop scene needs to be prohibited from ever touching a keyboard again.
I’d blame the writing, too. FX has certainly come across with shows that hit the “excellent” mark in the recent past, but I suspect that Step One has to be the hiring of some smart scribblers.
I’ve DVR’d it but not watched it yet. This is disappointing as like you I enjoyed the source material. I read this and The Passage/The Twelve at around the same time. Enjoyed The Passage/The Twelve more but thought The Strain, The Fall, and The Night Eternal were fun reads.
I liked the airplane part and thought that part of the story held together ok.
But AFTER the plane, everybody just started acting stupidly, and that really bugged me. It looks like there are other show spoilers in here, so I won’t spoiler-box my next comments. Don’t read if you don’t want to know show details.
Ok, so we have a plane-full of dead people killed by something of unknown origin. Sure, let’s just transport their bodies and autopsy them in a morgue WITHOUT TAKING SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS.
Similarly, (same setup) let’s examine a 500 pound box in a regular warehouse without taking any special precautions.
This kind of stupidity really turns me off to a show. I’ll give it one more episode, but if it doesn’t smarten up, I don’t think I’ll be watching it.
I had this on the DVR and finally got around to trying to watch it last night. I was happy to see Sean Astin, but then my excitement level went downhill rapidly. I wound up shutting it off after about 40 minutes. I don’t know if it was the writing or the acting or maybe a little of both but I couldn’t sit through it any longer. I’m disappointed, I was looking forward to watching this.
I just watched both episodes. It has some good horror moments, but also many stupid moments. The scene with the airport guy being attacked by the giant vampire thing was horrifying. And the old pawn shop guy talking to the beating heart in a jar was great.
I’m okay with the old guy being turned away by the CDC at the airport, I would think there’d be other people coming along saying they knew what was causing it, and that it’s the Muslims or big Pharma or aliens. But it was strange that they used the big suits and containment stuff to first look at the airplane, and then not much protection after that. Especially when opening the giant mysterious box, or when performing the autoposies. And they could have had the coroner in a big hazmat suit type thing (or whatever protective thing a doctor or coroner might wear) and the worm tries to get him but can’t break through the suit, but then he turns around and the group of reawakened people get him.
Also the airplane survivors are idiots and assholes. You don’t have to be a scientist to realize that it wasn’t carbon monoxide poisioning on the plane. The average American watching the news could be fooled by that false report, but someone who was on the plane, and knows that it was powered down and cold shouldn’t be fooled. If a CDC official wants me to stay in quarantine because he’s afraid I’m going to spread an infectious agent, I’m going to listen to him. Both because I want to find out what’s wrong with me, and because I don’t want to be the cause of a contagion spreading across the country.
The father of the little girl at the press conference was weird too. The CDC guy starts talking and the father comes up and hits him and yells something about how all you people do is talk and talk and say he wants to see his daughter. At that point it has been something like two hours since the plane landed! He was just so over the top and not like someone would actually act that I knew it had to be so we’d know who he was later in the series.
I’m going to keep watching. I don’t think it will get any less stupid, but I think it will get better as the separate storylines start to come more together. And hopefully some of the cliched custody hearing stuff will not be as prominent.
First episode: So lets combine Stephen King’s *The Night Flyer *with some Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
Second episode: Time for some Salem’s Lot.
I can’t believe the Sec’y of HHS would release the quarantine before getting the report from the ME and just assume it was CO poisoning. I may have to take it off of may season pass if it doesn’t get better.
I can only echo the comments about stupid behavior undermining what could be a great show. Everything started unraveling for me in the morgue in particular…those scenes could have easily been written in a way that worked.
The good: At least now the three CDC characters know that this shit is for real, y’all. They’ll have to listen a little more carefully to what Van Helsing has been saying now.
The bad: The scene with Marilyn Manson’s dick dropping off and him nonchalantly flushing it and turning to show us his Ken doll crotch was hilariously over-the-top.
The ugly: the vamp design really does seem to be borrowing an awful lot from GDT’s own Blade 2.
I really hope the Dying Billionaire and his cronies quickly reach the limit of their ability to cover up stuff or pay off government officials. I’d much rather see the authorities scramble to figure WTF is going when all available evidence keeps pointing something to something as absurd as it is horrifying than this 1 guy (& his friends) fight the system they’re setting up. I don’t like how they’re writing not-Van Helsing. I get that he’s the Cassandra, but the selective information sharing is a tiresome cliché. Like how on two separate occasions he made seemingly insane demands (like cremating all the bodies of all the victims and the survivors, and 3rd parties they’ve come in contact without), but instead of even trying to explain why he just makes vague warnings of impending doom & complains about obstructive bureaucracy. :smack: