Future Timeline

The Last of Us review – one of the finest TV shows you will see this year

Mon 16 Jan 2023 22.35 GMT



Photograph: HBO


What if it wasn’t a flu-like virus that threatened the existence of humankind, but a parasitic fungus that used rising temperatures to evolve and switch hosts, from ants to humans? That is the terrifying premise of The Last of Us, another post-apocalyptic prestige drama in a TV landscape that, for understandable reasons, is stuffed with game-over scenarios. While its zombie skeleton brings immediate comparisons to The Walking Dead, its beating heart is more in line with last year’s Station Eleven, with which it shares a surprisingly steady and meditative pace.

Much has been made of its origins as a video game, in part because the source material looked as if it might offer the best chance yet of a convincing transition from console to screen. The series was adapted by the game’s creator, Neil Druckmann, and Chernobyl’s showrunner, Craig Mazin, a combination that suggested it might buck the trend of video games reworked into another format. (Thirty years on, the Super Mario Bros film is still cited as a cautionary tale.)

But The Last of Us games provide more than a stylistic blueprint. They are harrowing, emotional and profound, as well as action-packed. Those familiar with the franchise will spot recognisable scenes, locations and even dialogue. This adaptation does not reinvent its source material, but why would it when the source material was so complete?

Those not acquainted with the game, however, should feel confident about entering this world. The series begins by laying out the parasitic fungus scenario as a hypothetical, discussed by pundits on a talkshow in the 1960s, before moving to 2003, when that worst-case scenario is ripping society apart by the second. For the first half an hour or so, it is a self-contained disaster movie that reminded me of those end-of-days blockbusters in the 90s such as Deep Impact, Armageddon and 12 Monkeys. Then it shifts again, to 2023 and the aftermath. What is left of society is in the hands of an authoritarian military regime fighting rebel groups classed as terrorists and it is bleak as hell.

Pedro Pascal is Joel, a Texan construction worker in his 50s and a semi-outsider in the Boston quarantine zone, where he does grim maintenance jobs and has a sideline in the hidden market. Life is hard and ruthless. Eventually, he meets Ellie (Bella Ramsey, another Game of Thrones expat), a 14-year-old girl whom he must transport west across the ravaged US. She might be the saviour the world has been looking for.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... -this-year

I am really enjoying season 2 of Picard. An interesting combination of the Borg, Q, and time travel.

wjfox wrote: ↑Sun Feb 19, 2023 9:46 pm I am really enjoying season 2 of Picard. An interesting combination of the Borg, Q, and time travel.

I have to wait until its on DVD as i don't have Amazon anymore.