The Strain (FX) [** Spoilers **]

Soft Falling Rain

I thought the acting improved slightly this week but is still iffy. It's decent anyway, the show seems to have a unique approach towards the genre so I'll keep watching but I can't deny that the poor acting and "human element" of the show so far have been let downs.

Skerries

feels more like a mini series than a full show

not so bad far. I like how they are doing the whole CDC discovers bit-by-bit about the "disease". The only character that I don't really like is the dude who is the new boyfriend of Fffff's ex-wife. I hope that he gets an elongated tongue in the neck. It's a different take on the whole vampire thing with interesting Nazi Jewish throwbacks and other little things.

Skerries

I reckon the boyfriend is a plant to be revealed at the most opportune time as they knew that his team would be on point

mafaa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYPIS05VADo

pixelburp

The 'ick' factor is still pretty strong, with this weeks autopsy a pretty gross, unflinching scene. Events and the plot are rattling forward a little better, with characters beginning to find their place in the story. There's still some pretty terrible moments though: Gus is completely pointless and the wife to the infected husband was a bit of a stupid character (though that whole subplot was otherwise pretty ok). Still a poor show, but I guess as a reader of the novels I'm more inclined to be forgiving of its faults than if I was coming into this cold.

pixelburp

pixelburp wrote: »

Gus is completely pointless

yeah why the hell is this character in the show - aside from driving the van in the first episode he has had no connection to the main story.... I also find him an annoying character - generic latino knacker type who loves his mamma but is a complete scuzzbag. There must be some point to the character for a later plot in story?

sydthebeat

glasso wrote: »

yeah why the hell is this character in the show - aside from driving the van in the first episode he has had no connection to the main story.... I also find him an annoying character - generic latino knacker type who loves his mamma but is a complete scuzzbag. There must be some point to the character for a later plot in story?

there absolutely is.

im actually amazed at how dedicate to the book it is, chuck hogan must have decided that the book is good enough as a teleplay and went from there.

im enjoying it so far although it does feel weird sometimes as being a B type steven king tele-series like the langoliers... then theres a creey as hell moment that you dont get with those shows.

Dyr

sydthebeat wrote: »

im enjoying it so far although it does feel weird sometimes as being a B type steven king tele-series like the langoliers... then theres a creey as hell moment that you dont get with those shows.

First episode felt exactly like a stephen king b movie circa 1988, that should be a good thing but it is'nt here.

Given that the quality levels in the books fell off a cliff after the first one I'm not holding high hopes

Skerries

glasso wrote: »

yeah why the hell is this character in the show - aside from driving the van in the first episode he has had no connection to the main story.... I also find him an annoying character - generic latino knacker type who loves his mamma but is a complete scuzzbag. There must be some point to the character for a later plot in story?

because you can see that they are building him up to be the anti hero that most likely saves the day or co saves it with Eph, like the Gecko brothers in From Dusk till Dawn

Mc Love

Enjoyed this weeks episode, finally eph joins up with the old lad and they can go on their killing rage but I feel they will be too slow for it, still enjoying it though. Must see if I can pick the book up

mafaa

Toronto-shot ‘The Strain’ renewed for a second season

mafaa

The Strain Season 2: Guillermo del Toro Plans Heavy Influence

squonk

I'm surprised to hear people say the show isn't great. I think it's very decent. They're not flinching away from the gross bits and it's a little unnerving at times. I loved that scene where the guy's wife feeds the nasty neighbor to hubby! It's things like the blood pouring from the shed after the screaming stops that keep me watching. For a horror show it's pretty decent and engaging. I'm wondering myself about the latino guy but I'm willing to go with it. My thought was he either had a delayed reaction of some sort or gets contacted by the organization again.

mafaa

5 episodes in, it is pretty enjoyable with horror excitement & wtf moments

not a bad episode this week although hope that there's more to it that just long tongue appendages flying at people - getting a bit old already. needs a bit more in the character dept.

Birneybau

Has definitely hit it's stride. In all fairness, it wasn't great at the start.

TwoShedsJackson

Thankfully they've dumped the 'Eph and his tragic divorce' line for the last couple of episodes, slight warning signs of a new, pointless, back-story plot with 'the other CDC doc and her mother' this episode, one can only hope that gets jettisoned soon.

It's bad, but enjoyably bad.

pixelburp

I thought last night's episode was a strong one, probably due in part to the fact the virus has finally started to spill into the streets, reducing the attempts by the script to clumsily keep the contagion a mystery to everyone but the leads (although there were still some incredibly moronic moments, such as the FBI agent dismissing the blood-drenched man shambling about in hospital scrubs as 'just some homeless guy').

All the characters now seem to have a purpose and it's a shame Eph is the nominal, white Alpha-male lead because Fet is a much more interesting, purposeful character with a far more compelling backstory than 'generic marriage problems'

don ramo

im enjoying the show a lot, but i find it hard to believe that the media wouldnt be all over what is happening withing an hour or two of at least 1 passenger returning home, nevermind a possible 200, and yerman from the health department saw 20-30 people attack him in the sewer and didnt report it to the cops, suspension of belief is really at the edge for me, i really hope it just goes public next week,

like i said its been very good so far bar that one aspect that is really hard to believe,

Arghus

Last nights show was finally a step in the right direction. Things seem to be kicking up a notch or two after much faffing about up until this point. Best of all there wasn't anything too overtly stupid, apart from the previously mentioned FBI goon dismissing a gore drenched vampire as a mere harmless homeless guy. Expert deduction and observation skills on his part.

The show has got quite the way to go before it even attains the level of enjoyable schlock. It's still too much of a schizophrenic mess of good and bad. On one hand it's borderline great- Production is good, premise is intriguing, by and large solid performances. Also the horror elements are well handled. It's genuinely scary when it has to be scary. But.....

It is so, so dumb in places. At times unforgivably so. So many examples, but a few stick in the mind-

-A head honcho in the Centre for Disease Control is shown video evidence of an unexplained and highly contagious killer epidemic- and does nothing about it. Could scarcely give a fiddlers fart.

-A renowned expert in infectious diseases discovers an alien lifeform unknown to medical science- and tells no-one.

-The coroner from the morgue housing nearly two hundred bodies, who are there in mysterious circumstances worthy of a federal investigation, goes missing and nobody notices this for over twenty four hours. Oh and all the corpses dissapear too. Very few seem to find this odd.

-A wife is told by her husband to get as far away from him as possible due to the fact that he has developed a raging thirst for blood and wants to literally tear her throat out- she sticks around and feeds him the neighbor, all while an army of the press are supposedly encamped on their front lawn, completely missing the mayhem that's occurring twenty yards away. Don't be expecting Pulitzers this year guys.

-A single hacker can kill the internet. Not a bother.

If it was just wall to wall godawful, I'd just view it as B movie type romp but the fact that it is sometimes quite good makes the moronic elements grate all the more. Perhaps now that things are in motion there won't be so many plot contrivances. Or, if that's too much to ask, more of the oul fella vampire hunter slicing and dicing vampire kids. Even better if he had to dispatch Ephraim's annoying subplot son in such a manner. That really would be glorious.

sydthebeat

I suppose the book goes into a little more detail about how the Blackstone group organises to keep the outbreak hidden and the media quite. They organise that mobile phones become interrupted, and that the internet is slowed down to a useless pace. They also own most media outlets. Basically there's a concerted effort to hide the outbreak until it's too late, and this is worldwide.

Completely agree on the ludicrous scenes though, but it's still enjoyable for me.

it's all a bit tongue-in-cheek neck to me.

mafaa

just following the list to kill is very tedious & ineffective, wonder what is Abraham Setrakian new plan for his team without the authority helps in the fight :cool:

red dave

mafaa wrote: »

just following the list to kill is very tedious & ineffective, wonder what is Abraham Setrakian new plan for his team without the authority helps in the fight :cool:

Think it's already gone well beyond just that list so it's not tedious at all :cool:

mafaa

red dave wrote: »

Think it's already gone well beyond just that list so it's not tedious at all :cool:

at episode 6, the situation so different the infected & turned really beyond the list

mafaa

SDCC Scoop: Corey Stoll, Sean Astin, Mia Maestro and More Talk THE STRAIN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1xWRM2dxfY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRL5Lzcsdws

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sByXSFreoow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of--Yw5k0Ao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCTgFPNB6Es

squonk

I'm very impressed so far. I'm not that worried about plot holes in a show like this. When it delivers it delivers big and I think that if you look at anything there are plot holes or contrivances. I'm loving it so far. My brother is as well. There's so much crap out there that anything like this is a real breath of fresh air.

Dyr

tbh from what I recall the books fell of a cliff quality wise around this stage and only decent thing in them after that was the whole vampires backstory so I don't expect much. I find myself skipping scenes right now.

duridian

mafaa wrote: »

wonder what is Abraham Setrakian new plan for his team without the authority helps in the fight :cool:

Well if the new plan involves a wedding feast the vamps are screwed

Birneybau

duridian wrote: »

Well if the new plan involves a wedding feast the vamps are screwed

He also has a huge armoury:

mafaa

duridian wrote: »

Well if the new plan involves a wedding feast the vamps are screwed

just now from Promo 1.07 their new plan to track down the Master using Jim as bait :cool:

duridian

Ep 7 was fairly enjoyable.
But really, I wish they'd quit with the vamps who keep whacking their tongue/stinger-tube yokes up against car windows, or plate glass doors/windows, or in absence of glass, simply miss by two metres. It kinda takes from the menace when they regularly do that facing higher ranking characters. While other times the vamps can virtually pinpoint a capillary at the end of a Pacman maze, when attacking a redshirt.

TheDoc

This show is thoroughly enjoyable. The world needed a reminder of what real vampires are and this show is helping

Long may the quality here continue.

gandalf

Good episode that. Eichorst is an absolutely brilliant character, loving every moment he is on the screen!

TwoShedsJackson

gandalf wrote: »

Good episode that. Eichorst is an absolutely brilliant character, loving every moment he is on the screen!

Yeah this guy is head and shoulders above the rest in the acting stakes. With the train scene at the end I was really hoping the train might stop and he'd be left hanging there...

duridian

TwoShedsJackson wrote: »

With the train scene at the end I was really hoping the train might stop and he'd be left hanging there...

Mighty set of nails he has. I thought for sure he jump right onto roof of train, but I suppose depending on the design there could be electrics up there which even ubervamps wouldn't like.

squonk

Still really liking it, especially the concentration camp angle now as well. I thought the setup to catch the Eichorst was a bit stupid really. They have the hobbit meet him out in the open and then allow him to escape onto the subway where it'll definitely be harder to catch him. Also, having made a big deal about the effects of silver, he seemed nimble enough after getting shot in the leg when they did catch up with him.

I don't mid plot holes to a point but I am not as pushed about plain stupidity. The writers seem to have reverted to making the track-down team temporarily dumb to allow Eichorst to get away.

Are we supposed to know what's up with he vampire swat team at the end? They were certainly a surprise! Nobody told me Emperor Palpatine was joining the cast!

Still very much enjoying this though and, as was said earlier, it's time we got back to seeing proper vampires who are horrifying and not gothy, trendy teenagers posing and preening, consumed with teen anxst.

Dyr

squonk wrote: »

Are we supposed to know what's up with he vampire swat team at the end? They were certainly a surprise! Nobody told me Emperor Palpatine was joining the cast!

One of the few high points of the books for me is this characters arc

bogmanfan

This show is pretty terrible, yet also very enjoyable. The acting from Sean Astin, Mia Maestro and Corey Stoll's wig is awful. Some of the dialogue is shocking. And yet, I'm liking it overall. Enjoyable nonsense.

mafaa

episode 7 , " don't touch her, she is corrupted " said the master's old nemesis :cool: but wonder what they feed on ?

so Abraham Setrakian new plan didn't work, his silver bullets not that very effective ; look like the master's old nemesis is .... what the Abraham Setrakian team needs to stop the master to take over the world , interesting how the master will counteract

PhiloCypher

mafaa wrote: »

episode 7 , " don't touch her, she is corrupted " said the master's old nemesis :cool: but wonder what they feed on ?

so Abraham Setrakian new plan didn't work, his silver bullets not that very effective ; look like the master's old nemesis is .... what the Abraham Setrakian team needs to stop the master to take over the world , interesting how the master will counteract

Tru Blood ??

pixelburp

duridian wrote: »

But really, I wish they'd quit with the vamps who keep whacking their tongue/stinger-tube yokes up against car windows, or plate glass doors/windows, or in absence of glass, simply miss by two metres. It kinda takes from the menace when they regularly do that facing higher ranking characters. While other times the vamps can virtually pinpoint a capillary at the end of a Pacman maze, when attacking a redshirt.

Yeah, I noticed this too and it's funny 'cos it's almost exactly the same problem that exists with another monster show, The Walking Dead; in that, the zombies' ability to grab and bite is often directly proportional to what character is in their grip. If it's one of the main cast, the zombie tends to just gawp & dawdle without ever trying to chomp down. A side-character though seems to elicit faster reactions from the undead & overall it just neuters the sense of danger the monster actually poses. It's the same here, and although as a book reader I kinda know what's coming, it's little visual eccentricities like the one described by duridian that ruins the sense of threat that should at least be within these scenes.

Anyway, another strong episode, this show is finally hitting a stride and has finally committed to the crazy. Still rubbish, but enjoyable rubbish all the same. And while he may come off like a cut-price Christopher Waltz, Richard Sammel is the show's strongest performer and a genuinely effective villain, full of menace and creepiness.

Arghus

Much improved episode, I actually thought it to be a satisfying forty minutes of television. As a few have mentioned here it's still pretty stupid but at least I didn't feel like grinding my teeth down to the gum line due to it's total lack of narrative sense and implausible character reactions.

The horror side is still totally effective for me. The repulsive tongue appendage still makes me squirm no matter how many times I see it. Make up is still believably vampiric and hideous. If only the wig department was as effective.....

I wouldn't mind seeing Eph and his co workers meet a sticky end at this stage. Not that I'm expecting that to occur any time soon, the show seems dated in it's unending willingness to give us an archetypal hero who must eventually save the day, no matter what- complete with a drinking problem, an estranged wife and a glorious, luxurious head of hair. To bad him and the scooby gang really are far less interesting than Setrakian and Eichorst, who are by far the most entertaining and charismatic people in the show. I feel the show would be many degrees better if it focused solely on the battle of wills between those two. With a fairly big reservation though-I find it tasteless when entertainment media uses the holocaust as a reference point for irredeemable evil. It actually happened, so to use it to spin us a good yarn seems to me to disrespect and cheapen real life events. There must be a less lazy way to flesh out the characters, even if I'm happy they are at least making an effort to do so.

There was of course some dumb- Surely by now the epidemic should be raging like wild fire through New York instead been on and off like a tap as the action demands it. Eph and Nora brandishing guns and cocking them like staight up G's. The whole plan to snare Eichorst, which he would have no doubt seen coming from a mile off.

No getting away from the fact that it was the strongest episode yet.The ending was the first time in the series so far where I was left genuinely intrigued and gleefully expectant of next weeks installment. Hopefully things will continue in this vein, no pun intended. Things keep going as they are and I might even not feel a sense of shame in getting people to watch it.

bogmanfan

bogmanfan wrote: »

This show is pretty terrible, yet also very enjoyable. The acting from Sean Astin, Mia Maestro and Corey Stoll's wig is awful. Some of the dialogue is shocking. And yet, I'm liking it overall. Enjoyable nonsense.

yes, very much summed up by "enjoyable rubbish".

don ramo

they badly need to get someone in that can make the show more coherent, the storytelling just seems all over the place, like the hacker chicks conversation didnt seem in any way important, but shes after shutting down the internet in new york and there doesnt seem to much being said about it,

and when jim told his wife that he was involved she just ignored him and left, after being told there are vampires on the loose, idiotic,

and all this location announcement is just annoying, they wont fully explain whats happening, but they make sure we know exactly where its happening,

its holding my interest, but its a show i could easily loose interest in,

not a bad episode this week - the purpose was mainly to get the "team" in place with vet now joining up. all a bit convenient how they do meet up of course. it was a bit like an episode of the falling dead though. presume that next will will be mostly about the latino guy in jail - the character that I don't really like at all at the moment.

duridian

I lolled when Vassily rebarred the first vamp from behind, and left him with a furrow right through the crown of his head.
I may be wrong but it looked kinda like a nod to Gary Oldman's portrayal of Dracula.

Arghus

This week felt like a step backward after two episodes in which the show finally shambled forward after an initial few weeks of dross.

It was inevitable that we were going to have to sit through an episode of zombiefied vampire onslaught at some point. It was probably also inevitable that the behavior of the characters would show them to be only slightly more intelligent than the bloodsucking hordes converging outside. We had people making a run for it, when only certain death was on the cards and,most unbelievably of all, a cashier so loyal to his till that he effectively chose death over a float that was a little bit out.

It was entertaining of course, in the manner that it usually is but there seemed to be a lot of needless repetition this week. Why does Eph continue to disbelieve every new piece of information Setrakian imparts about the situation they are dealing with? It led to Setrakian pointing out that he's been on the money every time up until now, something he also pointed out last week. His doubting Thomas ways should be long gone by now. He also should have twigged that Jim was a dead man walking. He would have driven him to a hospital? Come on, he wanted to kill him himself a couple of episodes ago. There was also the implausibility of the chances of them being in the same store at exactly the same moment the worlds most accomplished hacker needed some booze and crackers for the night.

While it's all well and good to have an episode like this, it does seem like a bit of a waste. There's only five left and we just spent forty minutes assembling or gang together for the future showdown. What about all the other sub plots- the jail cell situation or ,most glaring of all the new crew of undead vampire hunters who ensured last week ended on such an intriguing note. The show is too busy. It can't devote enough time to everyone and frequently spends too much of it with those I can't bring myself to care about.

Though on the upside maybe there will be a serious cull over the next few installments. Jims death was a godsend, getting rid of an irritant in an instant and auguring well for the future- hopefully some more dramatic deadwood will be sacrificed soon.As well, we now have Setrakian and Vasily in tandem. Never a dull moment when these two are on screen.

squonk

I liked this week's episode. It's always good to see a 'guys caught in a store under siege by zombies' ep and we've gotten it out of the way now. We all knew it was going to happen and it's been done now. It was a bit of a John Carpenter-esque episode. There are always the 'Oh let's see if I can escape the zombies' types in all these things and there's always the Apu type as well. It was formulaic but par for the course and pretty good fun.

The hoo-haw over Jim marred the episode for me. We all knew he was a zombie recruit as soon as he got that scratch. They've been highlighting how dangerous any contact is up until now I don't know how anyone could have thought anything different. The effort to save him was valiant and well meant but I think the realization that he was a new breeding ground was enough to seal his fate for even the most ardent opposer of beheading! It was all just needless drama. Having said that, I thought going anywhere near the bread truck driver for the keys was pretty fool hardy as well and could have ended up with another cast fatality. I presume they'll get around to the other storylines next week now?