MeadeIndeed

I'm not trying to stir anything up or use hyperbole, out of all the reviews I've read they either give the show a low or middling score because of the child actor who is brought in during Season 2 but is otherwise a "great show", or it's a masterpiece.

I watched this at release in 2014 and followed the entire series, I'm now starting to re-watch it in 2025 because I just finished re-reading the first book - yes, believe it or not, this is based on a series of 3 novels written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

No other reviews seem to mention this, at least not any of the dozens I read through.

You know what's coming next - "this isn't as good as the books" and I have to stand by that. Even though the writing in the books can be a little heavy-handed and detailed almost to a fault they do a great job at building the tension and slowly feeding you information. The books don't treat you like a toddler.

The TV show, however... not only do they spoil the entire concept of the series within the first 20 minutes and introduce things that aren't even brought up until the end of the first book in the very first episode, they also treat you like a brainless buffoon who has to be told everything.

I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to completely butcher the books either - especially since Guillermo and Chuck seem to have been pretty involved, frankly, it feels like there were a lot of meddling from studio executives.

To make a long story short - no, this isn't a "good" show, it isn't a "masterpiece" but it also isn't the worst trash out there and especially not due to some bad kid actor. Some child actors are bad, sometimes it's an issue with the director... get over it.

This TV adaptation is mediocre and it also takes a piss on the books its based on.

If you truly want to experience The Strain - read the books. Don't waste your time watching this slop.

I quite recently watched the original movie this one is based on - "Ikiru" from 1952 directed by Akira Kurosawa, as I up until last year had never seen any of his films - and I am not at all ashamed to say that I only lasted 20 minutes before turning this off.

As with most western remakes, in comparison to its original, "Living" is flat, boring, uninspired and derivative.

Things have been added, others stripped away, there's needless exposition, entire emotional heart-wrenching scenes removed while severe bouts of telling-not-showing has replaced them.

Again - yes, I did only watch 20 minutes of this - but that's all it took for me to realize this was slop in comparison to Kurosawa's original.

The only positive thing I can say about it is that it's at least not as bad as the remake of Oldboy (which was a complete butchering) and that I realized early that it would be more of the same remake-tripe that I've come to expect so I didn't end up wasting much of my life on it.

Watch "Ikiru" instead, even if you have to see it dubbed because you're too lazy to read subtitles. Trust me, it's a far better way to spend the finite time you have on this Earth.

I frankly do not know where to begin with this, the fact that Netflix debased themselves to the point of letting this man have a platform to spread his pseudoscience and hatred for academia or that the works of Hancock make baseless claims rooted in nazism and scientific racism.

First time I stumbled upon Hancock was on YouTube, through a "lecture" he held at some event or other. It was about the pyramids at Giza and how they, according to him, line up with certain stars and so on. The man was charming and the topic engaging enough for me to be drawn in... but unlike most, when the "reveal" comes along and he began to talk about an "early globe-spanning civilization" and then in his next breath says "Atlantis" - all of my red flags went up at once.

Next thing I did was to research Graham's background, finding out that he isn't an academic, that his books are based on nothing and his theories harken back to the nazi idea of a "master race" that "uplifted" all the coloured people that seemed to have developed grand civilizations or monuments.

I can't be the only person who has noticed how neither the Greeks, Romans or any other western culture had to be "uplifted" by Atlanteans. Not to mention that the "cataclysm" he and others speak about, that "big meteor" that "struck Earth 13,000 yrs ago" is nowhere to be found. There isn't a single crater on the planet from that time period big enough to have the impact they describe.

Obviously, there is no love lost between me and this man. I am someone who values reason, evidence-based science, history, archaeology and the scientific method and what Graham Hancock does for a living, spits in the face of the entire scientific community.

This "documentary" is a sham, built on unfounded misinfomation and deliberate lies by a charlatan who wants nothing more than for you to go out and buy his books to make him richer.

Unlike the academics this man hates so much, none of them do it for profit, unlike Hancock. That alone should be a huge red flag.

I also do not subscribe to the idea that it's "just entertainment" because obviously, people BELIEVE the things he says and he's doing actual damage to mankind by spewing this nonsense. So, no, I do not at all agree with anyone who thinks that this somehow absolves this man and Netflix from criticism.

It deserves nothing more than a 1/10, I'd give it 0 if it was an option.

Shame on Hancock and Netflix for putting out this garbage.