Television Review

The Last of Us: Season One

After a global pandemic destroys civilisation, a hardened survivor takes charge of a 14-year-old girl who may be humanity’s last hope.

Video games don’t translate well to live-action. That statement’s become accepted wisdom because the failures (Street Fighter, Super Mario Bros.) are more notorious than the successes (Sonic the Hedgehog, Castlevania). But with signs audience’s love affair with comic-book adaptations is starting to wane, perhaps the next wellspring for Hollywood is games already intended to feel cinematic.

The Last of Us was a best-selling 2013 video game from Naughty Dog that played like an interactive post-apocalyptic movie. And while it was heavily inspired by various sci-i and zombie horror films, the game had enough of a unique vibe and interesting lore to pique the interest of film studios. A proposed feature film got stuck in development for many years, with Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) once close to directing, until HBO ushered the project to television instead…