The Strain |OT| Guillermo del Toro's new show for FX - Sundays 10/9c

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Pretty excited for this. Going to try to convince a few people I know to watch it too so I'll have someone to talk to about it. Awesome job OP, but I think the dates of the last few episodes are off unless they're going to switch it to Wednesday nights or something.
 
Draconian said:
Pretty excited for this. Going to try to convince a few people I know to watch it too so I'll have someone to talk to about it. Awesome job OP, but I think the dates of the last few episodes are off unless they're going to switch it to Wednesday nights or something.
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You're right, September 24 and 31 should be September 21 and 28. Will fix.

Edit: Fixed.
 
Does anybody else think of the fungus king from the Mario Bros. movie when they see that caped vampire at the end of the ads?
 
- WSJ: Guillermo Del Toro on ‘The Strain’ and His Lifelong Obsession With Vampires
Why did “The Strain” become a TV series instead of a movie?

From the beginning it was pitched as a TV series. And then when we couldn’t do it, I knew I wouldn’t want to make a movie because I would have huge censorship problems with the fact that you are spending so much money that they wanted to make it a commercial and acceptable — even if it’s a horror movie — they tried to make it conform a lot to canons that could cripple the essence of the story, which is the painful loss and destruction of a family, one by one, and then the vampirization of society through the family nucleus. I went and re-wrote the three books, and we knew we didn’t want to sell the rights for film. The genesis of it all was when I started to fall in love with long-form TV in the early days with “Deadwood” and “The Wire” and “The Sopranos.” I was so enamored of being able to do a bottle episode, like, you know, when Christopher gets lost in the woods [in "The Sopranos"]. And I like the idea of doing a series that was as much procedural as it was horror, and hopefully as much melodrama as it was horror. We tried to do that with the books. What I said to Chuck when we started the books was to promise the audience — some of which were disappointed — that the three books were going to be very different from one another. The first book is going to be
basically the scientific aspect of the plague, the second book is going to be the sociological aspect of the plague, and the final one is going to be the spiritual, religious, mythological aspect of the plague.
We did just that with the books. The TV series is going to be a lot less clear-cut; we can combine and mix and match. We tried to make the books completely different from each other, which to some readers was joyful, to others it was frustrating.
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There are 13 episodes in the season, right?

Yes, 13 episodes. I’ve seen all the cuts, I’ve color timed all the way to episode eight so far. We are mixed, right now, all the way to episode five. We’re expecting episode seven next week. I’ve seen most of the bits and pieces, and I’m very happy with the whole first season.
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I forgot that this is starting on Sunday. I'll check it out.

It is a little annoying that FX is programming Sunday night, though at least there isn't a wealth of HBO/AMC shows that I want to watch during the Summer.

Thread looks great, TheOddOne.
 
- Variety review:
FX is so steeped in brooding drama, the comicbook-y roots of “The Strain” feel mildly off brand, but also like a breath of fresh air. While there’s not much new to be done with the vampire genre, director Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s adaptation of their book/graphic novel plays like perfect summer popcorn fare, filtering the threat of marauding bloodsuckers through fears of global pandemic. At times the portentous dialogue can sound hokey, but for the most part, the slick pilot and three subsequent episodes set the tone for a series with enough of a hook to get under one’s skin.
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- NY daily news review:
Whether you prefer your fear to be delivered as an extended psychological tease, or sudden gruesome bolts of old-fashioned lethal violence, “The Strain” gets the job done.
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Sounds good, can't wait for this one. Looking at my calendar... this, Hemlock Grove, Suits and Korra are the only shows that'll keep me occupied the coming two months.
 
Deified Data said:
It's gotten to the point for me where I instantly dismiss any review that states "this thing is awful and I love it". Either it works on some level or it doesn't. They're trying to make their critique seem nuanced when really they just come off as confused.
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I can see where criticisms like that could be valid. Personally that quote describes the way I feel about The Following. It is an objectively terrible show but I have a blast watching it.
 
dead souls said:
I can see where criticisms like that could be valid. Personally that quote describes the way I feel about The Following. It is an objectively terrible show but I have a blast watching it.
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Is it like "The Room" tier? That's really the only situation I can imagine the comment being justified.
 
- The Artery review:
Whatever the creatures of “The Strain” are, this is a great new FX television series, based on the trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and local writer Chuck Hogan. Both are aboard here as executive producers and, unlike the Coen Brothers with FX’s “Fargo,” the EP titles are more than an honorific. Del Toro, the hyper-imaginative director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “Hellboy,” directed Sunday night’s pilot episode, which seems to be the cinematic template for the rest of the series. Hogan, like del Toro behind the camera, is more impressive working for the screen than the page. The writing in the book is prosaic while his writing on the series, and that of other writers, is as stylish as TV writing gets.
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Still, this is a creep-out show for the most part, not a gross-out one. The former relies more on atmospherics, and cinematography, as well as smart direction, writing and acting. “The Strain” has all of those ingredients in spades.
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Deified Data said:
Is it like "The Room" tier? That's really the only situation I can imagine the comment being justified.
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No, the room is so awful it ends up being a comedy masterpiece

Shit like following and under the dome is only bad to the extent where you can chuckle at it sometimes. Which is also fun. But the room is just....best comedy of the decade (even if it was unintentional)
 
- Sepinwall's review:
With three books to adapt over multiple seasons, there should be plenty of time to examine every weird, scary or funny burst of imagination from Del Toro and Hogan. I wasn't especially looking forward to another vampire drama, but I'm eager to see all the strange twists, turns and appendages of this one.
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More_Badass said:
That's a lot of material to cram into one episode...
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I can kinda see why they did it. With the book still fresh in my mind, the first half of the first book was filled with a lot of forensics, speculation, and Goodweather family drama (which I assume will be interspersed throughout the rest of the first season). If they really spaced it out more broadly you wouldn't even know you're watching a show about vampires until episode 5 or 6. FX has to hook people fast, and I think speeding through the first half to get to the outbreak is the way to do it.
 
- Onion A|V club review.
If nothing else, The Strain looks great. Guillermo Del Toro—who co-wrote the script with Chuck Hogan based on their trilogy of Strain novels—directs the pilot, and his gift for visuals runs through the first four episodes. The shot compositions are only occasionally inspired, but the effects work runs the gamut, from squirm-inducing to majestically creepy. Most impressive are the colors. The Strain pops, each location lit to bring out a vivid, striking variety of luscious blues, golden browns, and—as fitting for a thriller about a new variation of vampires—bloody reds. The hues are both lurid and surprisingly warm, suggesting a world simultaneously overflowing with vitality and horror, flush with life, and achingly vulnerable.

It’s a pity that nothing else is quite so memorable. As a novel, The Strain isn’t a classic; competently paced, and with the occasional clever twist on vampiric lore, it’s bogged down with flat, clichéd characters and a blandly forgettable prose style. In theory, a television adaptation of the material has the potential to transcend these problems. Putting actors in roles that seemed two-dimensional on the page could give them a chance to breathe, and a visual version of the narrative wouldn’t have to worry about sentences overloaded with clunky phrases and superfluous, unnecessary adjectives.
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I hope this is great and action packed. Penny Dreadful had a great 1st episodes, slowed to a crawl, then turned into one of those annoying possession/exorcism style films. So much wasted potential.
 
Decado said:
I hope this is great and action packed. Penny Dreadful had a great 1st episodes, slowed to a crawl, then turned into one of those annoying possession/exorcism style films. So much wasted potential.
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Considering they're condensing the first uneventful half of the book into the first episode, it should jump into the action pretty quick.
 
This show is sounding like it will be popcorn fun. I might be ok with this. I'm definitely planning on watching and seeing where this goes.
 
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