With its edgy humour, eclectic soundtrack, plethora of Emerald Isle accents, bittersweet narrative and colourful characters, it’s hard not to compare this eight-part series – set in a world where everyone over the age of 18 has a superpower (everyone that is – except 25-year-old Jen) – to another crowd-pleasing coming-of-age comedy – Derry Girls.
Sure the content skews a little bit older and there’s not the same nostalgic appeal as that ‘90s-set series, but the jokes come thick and fast, the actors delivering the one-liners with aplomb.
Could one of the most acclaimed video games of all-time have spawned one of the best film and television adaptations?
While the bar is admittedly pretty low (the multiple Hitman, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil efforts are among the many disappointments), this certainly has a solid team behind it and shows plenty of promise in its first few episodes.
Created by the original hit 2013 game’s helmer Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin (whose last outing was the series that caught the world’s attention in 2019 – Chernobyl), feels like a cross between last year’s Station Eleven (there are eerie similarities between how the two pandemics start), War of the Worlds and those early exciting episodes of The Walking Dead that gave the viewer a real sense of space and place and left you feeling unnerved about what was going to happen next.