TV review: The Last of Us has post-apocalyptic drama but doesn't really work as a TV show
destv Nico Parker and Pedro Pascal in The Last of US.
The action in (Sky Atlantic and NOW) starts slowly, with another normal day in 2003. It’s Joel’s birthday and his daughter Sarah is making him eggs for breakfast. They’re close, we’re given enough time to care about them, which is ominous.
We’re then given a few signals that things aren’t alright. A woman shoos Sarah out of her shop; her elderly neighbour has some kind of out-of-focus seizure that Sarah doesn’t see; their dog seems worried.
And so it should be. The action starts in 2003, but before that we had been shown some smart-arse scientist, in what looked like a 1960s TV studio, telling us that mankind can’t survive a fungal infection.
So when wriggly things start coming out of Sarah’s elderly neighbour’s mouth, it’s clear that the fungal infection is with us. Unfortunately, it also means that Sarah’s neighbour is a zombie now and trying to eat her. Luckily dad Joel arrives back with his brother Tommy and kills the old woman, just in time.
is based on a video game and it shows. Within five seconds you’re in the mood for killing zombies yourself. But does it work as an epic, scary drama?
It helps that dad Joel is played by Pedro Pascal, familiar to anyone who liked on Netflix. He’s rugged and kind and a bit dodgy when he needs to be — he’s one of those actors who can can’t go wrong.
The action lurches forward to 2023, to a post-apocalyptic Boston, where the authorities (FEDRA) are fighting a rebel group called the Fireflies. At this point it felt like something written by a 12-year-old, a for the 2020s.
Spoiler alert.... but Sarah is no longer with us and Tommy is missing. Joel is doing odd jobs and dealing drugs to soldiers. The rebels have captured an angry teenage girl, Ellie, and are asking her questions off a clipboard.
At this point, I’m losing interest. The post-apocalyptic world feels like it was shot in the backyard of a movie studio. It has none of the dustiness and moody despair of . It’s odd to write this, but Pedro Pascal is no Mel Gibson.
We’re told is supposed to be a sprawling epic, but it feels like a pedestrian piece of Monday night TV — the dialogue could have been taken from off-cuts.
Joel crosses paths with Ellie and is told by the rebels that he must smuggle her out of the city. They’re horrible to each other, in the way that angry teenagers are with grisly smugglers, before they become the best of friends.
I don’t know much about video games. I hear they’re supposed to be the new story-telling, but I can’t see them replacing original story ideas, if is anything to go by.
The makers have thought that a TV show based on a video game would be enough to draw people in.
It isn’t.
