FX's The Strain

I was put off by the fathers reaction as well . But if you watched the whole show, it paid off at the conclusion of the episode, where he gets his just desserts and because the show had earlier made me dislike him, I was actually thinking "hug her" in a gleefully sick way. I know, I'm a "monster".

 

Well it worked in Jaws. Seriously, I thought it was a homage to that film and the scene with Brody being slapped in front of others although in that case Brody felt guilt for not allowing them to close the beaches so it played a bit false here to me and within a different context it might have worked.

It does pay off in the episode with a tech of irony.

Beyond that film I'm hard pressed to say what other film uses a scene like that so, to me, that wouldn't make it a cliche.

To opyour other point horror films often work with cliches and, I think, we are seeing that here as well although I suspect we will begin to see the, subverted in some small way as del Toro often does.

Edit: I see Trem Two thought the same thing.

 

To reiterate what you've pointed out, in Jaws, the sheriff (at the request of the mayor) kept the beach open knowing there was a possible threat. The mother who slapped the sheriff became aware of the fact--she had every reason to be furious. The CDC guy in The Strain was simply there to assess a situation. He had no prior knowledge of the situation and he shared pretty much everything he knew. There was literally nothing to blame the guy for. And while I can't recall specifically (nor will I) other scenes from TV or film where irrational family members lash out at those trying to help, I can assure you it exists about a thousand times over and was about as cliched as it gets. It was joined by plenty of other cliches. I'm glad you liked the pilot, though. I thought it started off as average and slowly got worse.

I'm glad the annoying character got his comeuppance. I didn't make it that far because I tuned out after overdosing on tired plot devices.

 

Just watched the first episode. I like it, despite the ham fisted dialog and cartoon like characters (the rock star, the lawyer, the old man...).

 

Watched the second episode last night. Still good. Still no one has actually spoken the words "I vant...to suck...your blood..." although actions speak louder than words. The scene with the French guy was kind of ridiculous: Looking at the the girl half under the water with bloody eyes and he's talking about the Lion King soundtrack?

Don't like the Marilyn Manson character much. Would be happy to see him disappear somehow.

One has to look past the many "oh come on" moments, like the fact that when the CDC guy is being put on leave and they end the quarantine he doesn't mention the worms, the guy found with his head bashed in, the fact that all the passengers had insertions in their necks or anything else.

 

Also the hamfisted way the guy's personal life is being insterted into the proceedings. "Yes, I know you're dealing with a mysterious emergency involving an airplane and hundred of deaths...but Daddy, you're still going to miss my ball game again!!"

 

YES. I liked the rest but shoving all the stuff about that guy's personal life in there slowed the story down ... but I haven't read the books but maybe there's some compelling reason to do it.

 

Spoiler

Don't worry.

 

Interesting tweet from a critic covering the show at the Television Critics Association today.

@BiancoRobert: "If you read the books and you think that's going to be a guide to what happens in the show, you're wrong." Carlton Cuse, on 'The Strain.'

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

The event also revealed the show is close-ended and won't go past five seasons.

Shalom, y'all!

L. Bangs

 

Episode 2 down and was about to bail on the whole thing until I got to the last 15 minutes or so. I haven't read the books and know almost nothing about the plot, so I'll stick with it to see where this goes. But the awfulness of the dialog and cartoon-like characters is making it tough to watch. What's frustrating is the fact that there are so many well written shows out there within the past few years, there's no reason why the dialog and character development isn't better. The dialog is a lot more Lifetime than it is AMC.

 

It's ok , the attack at the
airport was wild !

will keep watching for now

 

Post episode three...still enjoying this...still quite suspenseful as the pieces start to fall into place. What will be interesting to see is whether, after the good guys understand what they're up against (which started tonight), it turns dopey or remains suspenseful.

The plot come-on-ances remain (no one bothered to follow up on the other three "survivors" the second they realized that the captain had some crazy worm virus inside?)

The idea that "Marilyn Manson" would urinate and then his ***** would fall off seconds later was pretty stupid, although kind of entertaining.

 

i liked the preview quote.:

"we told you this was going to be awesome"

 

Do you think the guy who says, "Previously, on "The Strain" is the same guy who used to say, "Previously, on "LOST"?

 

Anyone know what the intro song was to this most recent episode? It was in the vein of classical, and had a choral solo - was playing while Toadie #1 was um...suiting up.

Still greatly enjoying this series. Gladly looking past its shortcomings.

 

Yes, this sums it up for me, too. So far, extremely suspenseful.

 

Found the answer - the opening choral track was Beethoven's Choral Fantasy.

 

Tonight's episode was all over the place:

Spoiler: Here be spoilers. View at yer own peril.

A long section about the Hispanic guy who brought the box into Manhattan and who is now stealing cars. Not clear how this advances the plot.

The trope-worthy wife of the survivor who, when she found the dead dog, took that as a sign to go into the shed. But then it turns out she's quite evil herself, and uses her husband as an elimination mechanism for annoying neighbors.

The woman CDC member who bails because obviously you can't kill "humans" even if they have 8 foot snakes inside of them, and are trying to kill you.

The government woman who is easily manipulated and in cahoots with the old guy who needs (and gets) a liver every few days (David Crosby is jealous). (We still don't know why the head of the airline was killed).

The hot cyber warrior woman straight out of a comic book who can bring the Internet to its knees--and does.

 

Yes and it was a mess. Things are taking far too long to progress.are we going to spend time with every survivor as they turn?

 

We've spent time with 3 of the 4. They've so far ignored the annoying woman who was responsible for calling her friend in government and getting them all released (except for that dinner scene where she wasn't noticed her gums bleeding and decided not to have sex with Marilyn Manson). I imagine she wasn't as kind to her family as was the guy in the shed.

 

Spoiler: Here be an icky question :)

the other question I had was where are the worm like things? We've seen that they survive without a host for some time. They were everywhere in the guy's body originally. [\SPOILER]

 

Yeah, they expressly mentioned that question when examining a body, but no answer was given or even suggested...