The Strain

2014ish TV series made by Guillermo del Toro, after he had to make it into a series of books or something cos nobody wanted to pay for the TV show initially.
==First watch (February-October 2016)==
===Format===
At home, alone
===Journal===
I think I clocked the series in 2014 on Reddit, probably came up on r/rational or something. But I never got around to watching it until I was looking for entertainment in early 2016 in Japan.
Season 1 (February 2016)
I pretty much binge-watched the whole season in a couple of weeks in February 2016.
I had literally no idea it was about vampires when I started it. I just knew it was called 'The Strain' and was apparently good enough that it was recommended on some subreddit I'm interested in enough to bookmark it. So the opening to the season was really interesting, thinking it was just some virus, seeing the coffin full of earth and thinking, "Uh, is that Dracula's coffin?" and then having the reality unfold for me at the same time as for the main character was all really cool.
I liked this season a lot. It was fun, the science wasn't too bogus and the characters were believable.
2
Season 2 (attempted February-October 2016)
Started on about February 25th or something. I HATE the new actor for the kid. The old actor wasn't that great an actor, I'll admit, but his personality has just completely changed and because the new version is a stroppy little asshole when the old one was the total opposite it's super weird and I just hate every moment he's on screen. Also I'm not getting into this season. It opened with this super lame action sequence with everyone fighting a horde of vampires and it just seemed totally different from the tone of the original season. Where are everyone's moral dilemmas? How is everyone so proficient at using guns? Why why why why why doesn't anyone care about blasting vampire worm-blood all over the place at any range when they're not wearing protective clothing and IT'S SUPER FUCKING CONTAGIOUS? To be fair, there've been a lot of films/series or whatever where people do that.
I watched it super slowly over the year and, in around September/October after a fairly long break, I tried to give it a proper shot and watched about 4 episodes in quick succession. I was watching episode 7 on the 8th of October and turned it off half way through in disgust. The unnecessary new character of the half-vampire gladiator guy wound me up from his introduction, and this episode with its lame showing off of his ability to kill the child vampires and then the stupid 'you managed to wound the master (why's he calling him the master?) but your biggest victory is showing me to his lair - ooh we've got to bring this building down around him while we can! - oh my lame dynamite just collapse the roof between you and the master so he could escape and left everyone completely unharmed oops looks like my plan was total shit'. Just fuck off. This season is awful.
-2
Category:2010s TV series
Category:Horror TV series
Category:Vampire TV series
Category:TV series watched in 2016
Category:TV series with 2 rating
Category:TV series with -2 rating