The Swarm

Once again I almost miss out on a series because I made the mistake of reading reviews on imdb, but thankfully I decided to watch it and make up my own mind, yes it is a little bit slow in parts, but nowhere near as bad as some have said. The story is actually very good, as is the acting, and yes things do actually happen, also there's a couple of familiar faces, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers from Game of Thrones, and Rune Temte from The Last Kingdom.

So if anyone is thinking of watching this, don't be put off by the reviews on here, watch it for yourself and make up your own mind, like me you may be pleasantly surprised.

A few scenes of activity split by LOTS of boring dialogue between characters so two-dimensional that it is hard to relate to them. The personal interaction relates to previous, unknown events which do little to add to the storyline.

Scenes filmed are very dark, even those shot outdoors. Unnecessarily irritating. The jumping from suggested location to another creates a discontinuity which shouldn't exist.

I forced myself to watch all episodes. Instead of saying "wow, that was great" I was left thinking that something was lacking and I felt unfulfilled as an audience. I hope there isn't going to be a follow-up series.

I heard a few bad things before watching. I don't agree with them.

Having seen three episodes so far, it seems to be a good show. Of course, there are five more episodes to go. We will see if they change my mind.

What's good so far is the build up of suspense. You get the idea that there is something up pretty fast, but you are kept clueless about the details. Some think it's a bit long-winded, but I like the pace of the first three episodes.

They saved money and kept the action/disaster scenes a bit short, but I don't mind that too much.

I read the book when it came out, almost 20 years ago. I don't remember much, so I don't mind that there are differences.

The Bad: stiff and badly written dialogues, awkward voice acting, annoying accents that aren't even cliché like a lot of things in this adaption

The Good: an intriguing story about a biological/environmental threat and how to deal with it (different than your standard zombie apocalypse show) with the right amount of nerdiness to my liking.

The portrayal of the story's philosophical/spiritual aspects was executed too cautiously, imho and deserves more focus.

By the way: I hereby offer my services as voice acting coach for (German) actors.

Years of experience and a fine ear for subtleties. ;-)

A bit derivative and formulaic, it doesn't really scream top of the line. But, at the same time, there is no nonsense. And viewers are not treated like idiots, as is the case in most productions of this level. Big thanks to the producers for that. Of course, here and there the screenwriting "heavy handedness" forces a naive or illogical "drama", but, for the most part, 90% of what is shown makes sense.

A refreshingly thoughtful and consistent TV product whose current IMDB rating doesn't reflect its true value and one were "why on earth is this character doing what he's doing" hallmark of bad and cheap TV will not pop up every now and than and spoil the overall experience.