Blu-Ray review – The Strain (Season 2)

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews, Top Story

FX has been known for taking major risks with its programming in a way that has paved the way for a lot of high quality shows to find an audience over the past couple years. Fox proper takes calculated risks but nothing that’s genuinely edgy. That’s the downside of network television, I suppose, because a show like The Strain wouldn’t find its way onto network television as is. On FX? It’s managed to find an audience on cable television because of its edgy material and style that wouldn’t be able to fly on network television.

The Strain follows the downfall of the modern world via vampires. Starting out as a curious case of a plane that has had all but four of its passengers dead inside, the world has quickly fallen to vampirism.

The first season was about the fall of humanity. The second is about the cratering, as the fight back against the vampire hordes is on the table. It’s a curious move that takes it in a much different direction than a show like The Walking Dead, which was about humanity’s disintegration en masse because of the walkers. Vampires may have started punching but humanity hasn’t fallen; they’ve come back looking to throw hands and end the menace.

Based on a novel series of the same name, which was written after being rejected as a television series to begin with, The Strain had an uneven second season because it wasn’t as focused as the first. The first series had a strong, sustained and laser sharp focus that the second doesn’t. It meanders too often, losing focus of the overall narrative, and as a result suffers by being mediocre after such an interesting, intriguing and good first season.

This is basic EPK stuff, nothing more.

20th Century Fox presents The Strain (Season 2). Created by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan based on the novel of the same name. Starring Corey Stoll, David Bradley, Mia Maestro, Kevin Durand. Run Time: 599 minutes. Released on DVD: 8.23.2016