S01.E01: Night Zero

[90PercentGravity]

Corey Stoll was completely off my radar. Damn, he has the most stunning face. Seriously. People write sonnets about faces that beautiful.

 

I thought that was awesome. Totally and completely awesome. Not necessarily good, but AWESOME. Every scene was completely engaging. Even when it was campy and ridiculous, I was still completely enthralled.

 

I don't know if it will hold up over the long term, probably not, but it was a hell of a lot better than Under the Dome or The Leftovers.

 

I am now off to find pictures of Corey Stoll so that I can sketch that lovely face.

Edited July 15, 2014 by 90PercentGravity

[Constantinople]

Were the undead in the morgue Zombies? Vampires? Zampires? Vambies?

Regardless, when they surrounded the M.E. and attacked him, it looked like a scene out of Hair! The Zombie Apocalypse Musical!

 

Could have chopped some running time off with that scene with the wife and the counselor lady. Boy that dragged on way too long.

 

The premiere did not need to be 100 minutes long. It wasn't anywhere near that good.

They could have ended the episode when Vampire Zero attacks and kills the airport supervisor. Or they could have left out all the tiresome crap involving Ephraim's marital situation and his co-worker/ex-mistress. Or both.

 

Personally, I'm having a hard time taking anyone seriously who goes by "Eph." It sounds awful, and jarring. "Hey EPH." Ew.

Eph as a nickname is a douchebag accelerant. If someone already comes off as a bit of douchebag, as "Eph" does, then naming the character Eph makes it even worse.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Constantinople

[Omar G.]

Aw, "Vambies" is too cute.

[hannah8976]

I finished watching tonight and I have so many questions.

 

Why wasn't the pathologist wearing a hazmat suit?  

 

Is there only one CDC-trusted pathologist in the whole city of New York?

 

Why so many ways to get the virus?  With the worms, and the giant zombie tongues, and the monster, and the neck incision.  

 

A finally (again): why the hair, Corey Stoll?  WHY?!?!

 

One more: Why was the air traffic control guy killed so many different ways?  Wasn't total exsanguination enough?  Why the head smash?  Will the virus still live in a smashed-head corpse?

Edited July 15, 2014 by hannah8976

[Black Knight]

Others have already covered the extreme stupidity with messing around with a coffin of soil with no protective suits, and how that guy's body has managed to remain undiscovered for hours even though there are government/security people from various alphabet soup organizations crawling around all over the place, so here's another question I have: How did zombie girl manage to make it to her dad's house? She strolled out of the morgue with nobody seeing? I realize the pathologist was busy being eaten by vambies, but the building itself wasn't on lockdown with security all over the place? And then she walks to her dad's place? What, does he live right down the street?

[Omar G.]

She took an Uber, of course.

[beeble]

Characters are broad and overwritten, many elements in the plot are borrowed from other stories, and the antagonist (thus far) is a creepy mortician who exploits undocumented thugs behind his blue screen-shooting eyes.  

 

But it has Filch/Walder Frey  who despite keeping the vampirized heart of a loved one in a jar, is a crazy bad-ass who can magically move to the front of any airport line so I am ALL IN.

 

BTW, Zombie girl deserves an award for being able to keep her eyes open for so long while being examined as a corpse on the plane. All the other corpses got to have their eyes shut.

[DHDancer]

I knew i am not going to watch a second episode after exactly 17 minutes.  That was enough time for the show to deliver three atrocious monologues/dialogues no real person would ever give. Nothing in rest of the episode changed my mind. It was prime example of bad sci-fi writing. Good writing would be to use a fictional setting to create original characters and stories that can not be created in the realistic setting. The Strain writers are typical bad sci-fi writers who think their basic idea is so cool, they can get away with cliche characters and horrible dialogues.

Oh I cannot agree MORE with this.  Absolutely dreadful premise, dialog, etc etc.  I LOVE David Bradley but this is beyond DREK.    As a side note, can anyone explain to me this fascination with zombies??????  And to be honest, Vampires?   Recycled Buffy (only much worse IMO) and just completely stupid actions by so-called experts.  Ugh.  I'm completely done.

[Bruinsfan]

so here's another question I have: How did zombie girl manage to make it to her dad's house? She strolled out of the morgue with nobody seeing? I realize the pathologist was busy being eaten by vambies, but the building itself wasn't on lockdown with security all over the place? And then she walks to her dad's place? What, does he live right down the street?

A zombie-esque little girl riding public transportation at night without anyone paying attention to her is one of the plot points I didn't have trouble believing.

[Rhetorica]

Snip

Will the virus still live in a smashed-head corpse?

I think the CDC woman said the virus couldn't live on corpses. But that may have been on any number of other vambie shows. Edited July 15, 2014 by Rhetorica

[DrLar]

At least this show isn't on OTA TV or basic cable, so they can at least curse, and do a side boob (no such luck yet), but the gore is there. So I'm in.

 

I didn't know the lead actor but the wig was obvious, and when the rock star took his off I laughed hard and yelled at the lead actor to do the same.

[Omar G.]

There was sideboob from one of the vombies when they were attacking the coroner. It's in the screen grab with my Parasitic Worm Speaks! story.

[Portia]

I'm in, at least for now. It's stupid, but for me, enjoyably so--despite the many nonsensical elements noted above.

The story with his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her apparent live-in lover was lame, as was the outraged family members and press at the press conference.  The CDC got to the plane 3 hours ago, people!  Give them some time!  Also, the grieving dad who slapped Corey Stoll was ridiculous.  He complained that all Corey did was talk and talk and talk, but did nothing worthwhile.  Dude, they guy uttered literally 2 sentences when you hit him!  I blame lazy writing on that one.

 

That scene made me crazy, too. I wonder if he made a special trip home to retrieve that picture, or if he just carries a framed 8x10" photo of his little girl with him everywhere he goes.

 Eye grossness is like visual nails on a chalkboard, but hidden in magazines and websites.

 

At least they pulled the billboards; a jumpy person like me could cause a deadly pileup if I encountered it on the freeway. A couple of times I've nearly fallen down at my local grocery because I'm always startled by the life-size cutout of the friendly store manager, who's no looker but is free of any elements of body horror.

And why only one medical examiner for 200 people's bodies? Are they going to be doing autopsies until 2016?

I know! No assistants or anything!

 

Gotta say, I laughed gleefully when Mr. ME met his end, but I prefer to this that this was due to the nekkid monsters and not any depravity on my part.

[Jordan27]

Also, the grieving dad who slapped Corey Stoll was ridiculous.  He complained that all Corey did was talk and talk and talk, but did nothing worthwhile.  Dude, they guy uttered literally 2 sentences when you hit him!  I blame lazy writing on that one.

 

Much like the TV and movie trope of someone being wheeled into the ER with a life threatening injury with family around and they say to the doctor as he is arriving to look at the patient, "Will he make it"?   Uhhh, I don't know.  I haven't looked at him yet.

[Tippi Blevins]

I liked that the worm-vamp-zombies seemed to be aware they weren't on premium cable, and refrained from showing full-on taint as they bent over to eat that guy.

 

Did Stoneheart's entire plan hinge on Sean Astin popping up at an opportune moment? Like, if he hadn't shown up to see getaway thug's business card at just the right time, would the whole plan have gone down the crapper?

[AuntiePam]

The ME was by himself because Eph (or someone) told him to work alone -- assistants might blab. 

 

I liked it, despite the cliches, and kudos to the poster above who compared the beginning to Stoker's Dracula. 

 

Stuff I didn't like: Sean Astin asking "How did they die?" and "What happened?" several times when Eph and assistant had only been in the plane for a few minutes, a press conference in an uncontrolled area, the little girl making her way home, the bad guys' eyes clicking, the bad guys trusting a gangster to do the important work, the ME picking up the beating heart, and Eph's assistant with the stupid expository questions. 

 

I'll keep watching.  I don't expect originality anymore in vampire books and movies, but I do wish someone would film George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream. 

[Rhetorica]

Snip

but I do wish someone would film George R. R. Martin's Fevre Dream.

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that book! I wonder if it's still in print?

[AuntiePam]

I haven't checked but after the success of Game of Thrones, all his books are probably back in print.

 

I neglected to say what I liked about The Strain:  The production values -- it looks good. 

 

What I'd like to see:  I'd like to see the gangster courier smarten up and survive, but these types are usually food, sooner rather than later. 

[Constantinople]

Did Stoneheart's entire plan hinge on Sean Astin popping up at an opportune moment? Like, if he hadn't shown up to see getaway thug's business card at just the right time, would the whole plan have gone down the crapper?

Probably had a back-up vampire flown into Newark.

[Former Nun]

A finally (again): why the hair, Corey Stoll?  WHY?!?!

 

 

Yeah, Hannah8976.  My adult son was watching this with me and I tried to explain that Corey Stoll's character was a key player on House of Cards...with sex appeal.  I think that hairpiece erased most of it.  I want to scream your question!

[RandomX]

Campy, ridiculous, creepy interrupted by cliched and nonsensical dialogue and vombies -- I'm all in on this summertime cheesefest!

[scarynikki12]

You guys have no idea how hard it is for me to not blurt out every detail from the books right now.  I won't because I don't want to spoil anyone (plus my luck is such that the producers would change all the big stuff and I'd have spoiled everyone for nothing), but I can't wait for the series to unfold and the events to happen so I finally can talk about it.  I will say that I enjoyed the pilot very much, though I won't pretend it was high quality.  Few pilots are.  This did exactly what a pilot is supposed to: set up the series.  It's the subsequent episodes that make or break a show for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the characters and story unfold on screen.  

 

I will say, and this is not a spoiler, that my favorite thing about this trilogy is that these vampires have nothing in common with the cheap Byronic ripoffs that live in Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries.  As we saw in this very episode, these are the vampires that existed in stories before Byron was born and continued to exist outside of Europe after his popularity changed their image.  These are what vampires really are: horrific monsters.  They resemble zombies because that's what vampires have been for the majority of history.  Besides, The Walking Dead is insanely popular and I gave up on it after the first shitty season.  This show at least has a story and characters I'm interested in.  Plus: Weevil!

[DrLar]

My first impression of the "vombie" attacking the plane and that smashed that guy's head it's a humanoid big worm, "it" doesn't look like the ones already out there.

 

How did the little girl just walked out of the airport and got to her home? I supposed there's no running water between the airport and that house..

[Tippi Blevins]

I just want to see a vombie scoot its butt across the floor like when a dog has worms.

[Portia]

The ME was by himself because Eph (or someone) told him to work alone -- assistants might blab. 

 

Ah, thanks - I wondered if I had missed something like that.

[bosawks]

What I can't figure out is did creepy red dress dad go all the way back to his place to get the framed picture of creepy red dress or does he always carry a framed picture of creepy red dress with him when he picks her up at the airport because, you know, stuff/vampires/zombies happens.....

[isalicat]

I loved Pacific Rim and was ready for The Strain when I heard it involved vampires...but the pilot for this series killed any interest I might have in seeing more. So, so dumb. It takes me a day or so to get to some programs so everyone has already posted quite usefully all the criticisms I have. One more: a day after seeing the program I can barely remember it (no, I'm not that old :)...not a single memorable character other than the hobbit and the old crazy guy (what an exhausted trope!). oh wells...

[JayKay]

So what if it's nonsensical with cheesy effects and stilted acting - I'm in. It can't shake apart any worse than American Horror Story and I watch the first half of every season of that crap, too. I'm a moderate del Toro fan anyway, so it's not like I'd skip it even if it were absolute garbage. I about died when the big robed creature started walking over to paint the ground with the old guy's head and I swear it wobbled like it was about to tip over. Awkward, ashamed of its appearance and angry at its elders? Must be a teenage giant worm monster.

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that book! I wonder if it's still in print?

I bought it at the grocery store brand new about 8 months ago, so it's probably everywhere.

 

I also didn't know that it was a wig. I didn't know! I had to google the guy's name just to see who everybody was talking about. Maybe it will turn out to be a puppet. Del Toro loves puppets. Or it maybe someone will stumble onto a room full of clone wigs floating in jars.

[scarynikki12]

I'm betting that the wig will go in a head shaving scene to demonstrate the world falling apart of something. Or, he just grows his hair enough that the wig is ditched and the show never acknowledges it.

[green]

A series where they battle something like what a real life pandemic would be like = scary.  What happens within the REAL CDC with misplaced smallpox/anthrax you name it stuff = really REALLY scary.  1950's cornball crap = not scary and totally boring.   If it was a send-up, maybe ... for the giggles.  Nay, not even then.

 

Lead guy is typical factory issued ego tripper flavor of the year anti-hero dummy cause writers these days are scared/clueless how to write about a decent person any more.  I thought the other CDC "hero" on that other show I've already forgotten the name of that took place somewhere near the North Pole was bad.  This guy is worse. 

 

And I thought that first CDC guy story was bad but at least if had a good villain bug I could root for.  These bad guys are just silly.  Guy that turned the dude's head into goo looked like the creature out of the cult "The Attack of the Vegetable People" from the 1950's.  Well except without the tossed salad look.  But costume was just as corny.

 

Got to be the worst series of the summer.  Total waste of time.  I shall NOT return.

 

(And will someone cast "Rudy" "Samwise" in something cool again.  Hate to see him wasting his talents in this piece of poop.  Especially as a supporting character.  Guy should have the lead in something but Hollywood is locked into herd-think that leads must be 6 foot whatever lookalike actors I can't tell apart).

Edited July 19, 2014 by green

[sadiegirl]

That scene made me crazy, too. I wonder if he made a special trip home to retrieve that picture, or if he just carries a framed 8x10" photo of his little girl with him everywhere he goes.

 

Not that it was really keeping my attention, but that totally took me out of the episode.  How in the world does he have a framed picure with him at the airport?  In what world does that make sense?  Seems like they only did it so we could have the 'touching' momment of him putting it down on the table when he got home.  Which was not touching and could have been accomplished by him just picking up a framed picture when he got home and looking at it. 

 

And yes, I did finally just watch this - has been sitting on the DVR.  I don't think I'll be back.

[Hanahope]

Why so many ways to get the virus?  With the worms, and the giant zombie tongues, and the monster, and the neck incision. 

 

One more: Why was the air traffic control guy killed so many different ways?  Wasn't total exsanguination enough?  Why the head smash?  Will the virus still live in a smashed-head corpse?

 

 

I think that the worms are what caused the neck incision.  I got the impression that big scary released all the worms and they attacked everyone almost at once.

 

I don't get, though, why the cockpit door was open, couldn't the worms just squirm underneath?

 

I think the one guy got his head smashed in to prevent him from becoming a zompire.  Not sure why though.  My first thought was he was eaten as food, because the big scary was using/infecting the plane passengers as carriers to spread the virus.  But he still needed to eat something/drink blood for food, maybe that was required in order for him to move the coffin of dirt, and for whatever reason didn't want the guy to become a zompire, so head smash.  Hopefully we'll get an explanation at some point.  It was strange that no one discovered the body.

 

I'm going to guess that like many vampire stories, they move super fast, so that's how the girl got home. 

 

I'm curious to find out how the four "survivors" are different from the others.  Are they zompires but with more functioning brains while the others are more like 'worker ants'?

[Jamoche]

A zombie-esque little girl riding public transportation at night without anyone paying attention to her is one of the plot points I didn't have trouble believing.

J from Men in Black would be the only one to suspect her.

 

Is this a bad year for summer series or what? Leftovers, Extant, now this - I haven't seen a single new show that I want to watch, and usually I'm all over this genre.

[shapeshifter]

I've had a personal taboo on watching vampire and zombie shows, but I decided to violate it because I needed a mental palate cleanser after the horror violence porn that was this week's episode of Longmire. Seriously. You've been warned.

Back to this show.

I'm guessing the wig is to give him a 19th or earlier century leading man vibe. Like pre-Die Hard.

It just occurred to me: Are the four people who survived resistant to this "vampire" virus and can provide a clue to cure? Or are they infected and are now carriers? I am thinking the latter.

--which makes me ask...

• Did the writers want us to want us to wonder which of these is the case?
• Have the writers not decided yet which is the case?
• Did the writers not notice this wasn't clear?

Personally, I'm having a hard time taking anyone seriously who goes by "Eph." It sounds awful, and jarring. "Hey EPH." Ew.

Like the writers' telegraphing us about his true douchey nature?

I didn't like the setup of trouble with the wife, who is suddenly going to realize that his job is so very important, and will want him back (?). She spoke of the new boyfriend being there all the time, praised him for that, and then proceeded to ignore him and his lame attempts at shooting down her husband, all the while, focusing on the husband on her computer screen.

"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." How well they do or don't handle this plot might indicate whether or not the whole show is worth watching. Of course, airing it in summer seems to indicate somebody at some level already questioned its ability to hold an audience.

Berlin. Germans. No big deal. But the old guy is a Holocaust survivor?* Not that it's "too soon," but more like an unspoken corollary to Godwin's Law is that using old-school Nazis as the bad guys is not believable in a 21st century setting--and likely offensive on some level, especially since modern bad guys are supposed to be morally gray, not totally evil.

*But the tattooed numbers were on the wrong side of his arm, so protest over the whole premise by the makeup person?

Edited July 20, 2014 by shapeshifter

[Anela]

I also didn't know that it was a wig. I didn't know! I had to google the guy's name just to see who everybody was talking about. Maybe it will turn out to be a puppet. Del Toro loves puppets. Or it maybe someone will stumble onto a room full of clone wigs floating in jars.

 

Now I'm having Spitting Image flashbacks, to the Paul Daniels skits, where his wig would take off like an animal: http://youtu.be/V9AJi_FcfE0?t=1m36s

[millennium]

When a bad toupee is the singlemost talked-about aspect of a new pilot, you know the show's a piece of shit.

 

Who green-lights this crap?  Which studio executive?  Which network executive?   Why do they still have jobs?

 

That was nearly unbearable.   The blatant stealing from Dracula (already mentioned above), the genre blindness (a box of earth?  incisions in the neck?  missing red blood cells?  hello?), the literal blindness of characters who somehow fail to recognize carvings of grim reapers all over a coffin-like box that just came off a plane where all the passengers are mysteriously dead ...  Tired old tropes like everybody dismissing The-Old-Man-Who-Knows-The-Truth ...

 

But that's the entertainment industry, isn't it?    As long as you make a couple of well-received films early in your career, you can cruise on those fumes for years, turning out one batch of swill after another.   I'm looking at you, Guillermo del Turdo. 

[seacliffsal]

I was confused by the little girl only speaking French when her father spoke English and they seemingly live in the U.S.  Yes, it's the little things that bother me...

[FurryFury]

Wow that was really really bad. I don't think I ever have hated the lead character as fast as Eph with the horribly cliched white well-off family man angst, which I've only seen, like, 100 times. Was it really hard to make him likable and competentt? Because he wasn't.

The overall abundance of cliches and a complete lack of any interesting characters sealed the deal: I couldn't even finish the pilot. I expected much better from Del Toro.

[JBody]

Got to be the worst series of the summer.

 

That dubious honour goes to Under the Dome (two summers in a row!).

 

This was ok.  I'll probably watch another ep but I don't really dig the vampire genre all that much.  The last thing in that vein, pun totally intended, which held any interest for me was the movie 'Stakeland'. 

 

Had no idea about the wig-wearing bald dude.  I thought he looked good.  All in all some laugh-out-loud snarky lines.  Liked the kick ass old guy.  Bad stuff: cringe-worthy, court ordered counselling scenes.  Unbelievable CDC protocol.  And by that I mean, completely unrealistic.  Evil nazis (no one can ever outdo the late great Sir Laurence Olivier: "Is it safe?"). 

 

I have extremely low standards when it comes to genre shows, I'm one of the few hundreds of people who really liked Extant, but even I was rolling my eyeballs all over the place with this thing.  But I will probably watch a few more episodes when time permits. 

Edited September 30, 2014 by JBody