After a rocky start, Guillermo del Toro’s vampire show revealed some promise before ending on a note so low it could’ve been sung by this guy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit weary of vampires. I’m not even going to blame it on Twilight – I’m simply fed up with the last decade or so of new takes on vampires. There are a few good ones which I’m glad for, namely Let The Right One In (2008), but as a general rule I’m tired of their mythos. And I’m even more tired of reboots (Dracula Untold, I’m looking at you).
Still, when I heard that Guillermo del Toro was adapting his own series of novels into a TV show, I was intrigued – because who better to make a fresh take on vampires than the man behind Blade II and Hellboy 2: The Golden Army? Sure, del Toro hasn’t made a masterpiece since Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), but even in the very flawed Pacific Rim he proves that it is possible to make a movie about giant robots fighting aliens that’s fun instead of a slog. I had confidence that he would bring a pulpy, fun, yet horrific vision of vampires that would breathe new life into both the genre and his own filmography.
The Premise: More Vampires, Really?
Unfortunately for us viewers, The Strain hasn’t done much for del Toro’s body of work. It wades through countless clichés and poorly executed exposition that not only makes a horror/drama dull, but annoying. The premise is promising: a plane full of passengers is sitting dead on the runway in New York – no one knows what happened to it. The CDC investigates, lead by Dr. Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll), Dr. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro), and Jim Kent (Sean Astin). Once you get past the fact that this is effectively the pilot to Fringe, or that Corey Stoll’s follicles have suddenly regrown, or that Sean Astin is not playing a hobbit, it’s intriguing.
There is one thing that the series want to make very clear: these are not the Vampires whom the world has come to know and love/hate. They are not romantic or sexy in the way that Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, and True Blood have presented them. Neither are they the tortured souls and cackling villains a la Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. But they also bear little resemblance to Bram Stroker’s Dracula. Neither does it produce complex vampires in a way that can contribute to a cultural dialogue about art, history, and society, such as Jim Jarmusch’s recent film, Only Lovers Left Alive.
Yet, even as The Strain severs ties with previous vampire movies and some of their mythology, the show shackles itself, both conceptually and thematically, to the other monsters of the moment: zombies. While it’s an interesting idea to blend the two genres, it’s not as successful as it could be, because instead of seeming unique, it simply brings to mind The Walking Dead (not to mention that thus far The Strain has proved to move slower than Season 2 of The Walking Dead, a feat I thought impossible). But this is where the problem inherent with The Strain rears its ugly head: while it is easy to describe it by what it is not, once I begin to look at it on its own terms, it becomes more apparent that there isn’t much there to describe.
The Strain may have a B-movie atmosphere, but it’s lacking the B-movie attitude. Instead of diving into its own cheesiness, it struggles against the current to fit in with a more dramatic approach to its subject matter. It ends up delivering wannabe dramatic lines where an over-the-top, throwaway one liner would have served the scene better. And, lest I am inundated by fans with examples of one liners from the show: I will admit that it does have its fair share of them, but they’re usually couched in a self serious gravitas that lacks the playful banter of a good one liner (i.e. “ I just want to go on record that this is not a good idea” is answered with “A monster just tried to murder us, there are no records”).
Looks Promising, But Crashes Hard
After its sixth episode, “Occultation,” I was willing to give The Strain the benefit of the doubt. Not only does it move at a pace slightly faster than glacial, but it’s the point where we begin to see where the show is going once the background information is out of the way. The show seemed to be on the upswing, especially with an unusually good bottle episode in “Creatures of the Night,” where character strands were finally meeting up, some deserved emotional cues were taken, and there was actually tension in the air. Then the next few episodes happened, which I shrugged off as the doldrums of any first season, expecting the finale to set the plot in gear. Unfortunately, “The Master” is one of the worst finales I’ve seen – and I watch far too much television for my own good.
In theory, the show’s best feature is a pre-set arc that will last 39-65 episodes – and kudos to FX for agreeing to that. Think back to shows like Babylon 5 – the first six episodes aren’t all that great. Hell, the first season is pretty hit-and-miss, but it was setting up a brilliantly executed plotline that spanned its entire series. I’m still on the fence about it, but if The Strain is able to cultivate its plot half as well as Babylon 5, then there’s hope that it can redeem its rough beginning. The heart of the problem is that where B5 and other shows (even ones with failed arcs like Lost) actually used occasional slow pacing to lay down clues, reveal background information, and lead us down a trial of breadcrumbs, The Strain seems to just want to be slow paced, without any of that extraneous plotting clogging up all of the nothing that’s happening. Apart from a few moments, and some often ill timed flashbacks, the show is extremely rooted in the present.
The Few Positives Going Into Season Two:
- Vasiliy Fet. Kevin Durand’s Ukranian architectural graduate student drop out turned rat-catcher is the only interesting character on the show. It’s apparent that Durand is actually having fun with his lines and he rolls with the B-movie attitude instead of soaking in the melodrama of everyone else.
- The introduction of the Ancients. I love a well developed history and mythology of created worlds. World building is why I immerse myself in fantasy series like LoTR and The Wheel of Time, or shows like Babylon 5 and Twin Peaks. I haven’t read del Toro’s books, so I’m not sure if it’ll be worth it in the end, but the introduction of these ancient vampires, who are at war with The Master, for reasons unspecified, gives me hope that there’s more to this show than its slick, dissatisfying surface.