2/19 - 2/25/2022 

There’s a lot of bones to pick with season 1, which honestly shouldn’t even call itself a proper season. The season started out highly promising with its first episode, but that episode is the only thing worth bragging about because the season descends downhill after. Firstly, there were numerous stereotypes I recognized right off the bat, including the deadbeat father syndrome, plot armor, and most of the main characters somehow magically finding and grouping up with each other. 

The biggest factor contributing to season 1’s downfall has to be the lazy/awkward/terrible writing, starting with character writing. For example, Dutch—she met up with everyone and stayed with them for a good while, yet showed no hesitance on abandoning the group over a petty argument with another character. My question is, why would you even think about leaving when you know the dangers that lay outside? Other characters had no emotional depth, like Zach when he saw his vampire stepfather beheaded. One can argue the case of ‘stepfather syndrome,’ where the son does not like the stepfather. However, I would imagine there would be a least a sliver of remorse shown over the death. Zach’s acting is also terrible at times. 

Second thing is general writing. In certain scenes with foreign characters, the writers have them speaking a second language such as Spanish. During the whole Nazi concentration camp sequence, why are the characters speaking English? Do the writers know it would be more historically accurate if the characters spoke their native tongue? The writers have the power to have characters speaking a different language (i.e. Spanish) yet don’t have the characters in the concentration camp speak a foreign language? It makes no sense to me. There were also inconsistencies, like sunlight’s effect on vampires. Vasily killed a few vampires by utilizing sunlight, yet when Gus’ mother walked in sunlight, she did not immediately burn up. This is inexcusable and unforgivable because sunlight is a major plot point on how vampires are defeated, not to mention used in a plethora of other media. The sequence where Zach gets cigarettes for Nora’s mother is pointless. Firstly, why would the writers put Zach in danger when they wrote Epheraim specifically making it crystal clear for Zach not to leave the shop? Secondly, Nora’s mother would die later on, so getting her cigarettes is pointless. The whole ‘Nora’s mother acting crazy’ shtick is pretty dumb as well, and only serves as a reason for Zach to get those smokes. That whole sequence, like numerous others, was unnecessary. 

Of course there were other problems I saw, but those were the ones most glaring. I’m a sucker for infection type media, be it vampires or zombies, and I was hype to watch The Strain. However, after running it once, that hype has faded long ago and I am more disappointed and frustrated than anything. 