Zing’s assessment of season one of The Last of Us

The TV series produced by HBO ended up making a much bigger “hole in the world” than many probably expected from it. Since its viewership broke the absolute majority of records (only the later seasons of the original Game of Thrones remained unbeaten), it is impossible to argue that the popularity of the series was only ensured by the community of fans of the original game (and their loved ones). For something to reach such numbers, it must have universal appeal to the completely ignorant as well as the insiders. And that’s exactly what was confirmed.

#TheLastofUs became the most watched series on #HBOMax across Europe 🍄 Thanks for watching it with us 💜 pic.twitter.com/VfuZCWH9iK

— HBO Max Czech Republic and Slovakia (@hbomaxczsk) March 14, 2023

But in addition, one more very important thing was confirmed: despite some screamers “leaving” and damning the series during its course (for example, after the third episode), the numbers again speak clearly: viewership during the first season clearly increased with each episode. This will only happen to extremely high-quality series that interest the majority of people sufficiently. In the end, it is not money that we primarily pay for in the modern digital world: it is our own time. And the ever-increasing, record-breaking numbers of viewers decided to devote their time to this particular series, which indisputably confirmed its quality.

Final episode

Similar to the entire series, the final, ninth episode didn’t mess with anything too much. After a brand new opening scene (we’ll get back to it in the next paragraph), she very quickly served up all the key events of the story’s finale, from the giraffe sequence to the operating room. It was very interesting to see that the further the creators progressed in the story, the more they were afraid to risk anything – towards the end, all scenes, including shots, cuts or even the tones of the actors’ speech, were practically identical to the game template. In a way, this can be understood, however, the original statements of the film crew about how they did not want the actors to study the game template and only copy it, how they wanted to introduce new elements made possible by the new medium into the entire work, and so on, seem somewhat disingenuous. But the problem is that the whole thing seemed more like cut-out movie passages from the game glued together than like the smooth journey we went through in the game template.

But the brand new scene at the beginning of the episode, where we were introduced to Ellie’s real mother and the quirky, obviously very important circumstances of her birth, also left mixed impressions. While this is a very interesting passage from a story point of view and a useful addition to the history of the characters, from the point of view of the viewing experience the same, sad thought kept coming to the fore during those minutes: the actress Ashley Johnson showed much more much more believable emotions in this role in a few minutes and much more stronger charisma than actress Bella Ramsey in the entire nine episodes of the series. Unfortunately, thanks to this, I once again realized how sorry I am that the creators did not find a slightly more expressive representative for the main female role of the entire series.

Great series for non-gamers

However, both of the criticisms described above (the brevity of the series and the controversial casting of the main role) can only be fully realized by someone who has experienced the masterfully dosed and unforgettably played pilgrimage with Joel and Ellie from the game model, which of course forces him to compare. So, what I already wrote in my impressions of the first episode was confirmed – by far the best experience of this series was the original, brand new viewers who eagerly awaited every twist. TLOU’s story is extraordinary, among other things, in how well it works not only with fundamental human qualities or values, but also in how it effectively doses feelings of happiness and loss, evoking strong emotional reactions in the audience. As could be seen on social media or heard from our own loved ones who do not know the video games, Joel and Ellie’s story had a very strong effect on them, as strongly as it did on us in the game model.

Video games still haven’t reached the stage where their characters can look and act comparable to real people – at least not visually. Therefore, when it comes to the strongest possible presentation of human nuances, the live-action film (or series) still has the upper hand over the game medium, which was also confirmed during some episodes of the series. Both Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are absolutely amazing in some scenes and look much better than the digital models of the characters in the game art. Unfortunately, there are also a number of scenes where it doesn’t work so well, and most importantly: even more scenes where it simply works too differently. It is a great pity that when the creators of the series took such care to copy many key scenes absurdly precisely, one for one according to the original, they did not take more care to cast more similar (not only in appearance) actors in the key roles.

So, although I respect the narrative or the success of the series and I really enjoyed some of its passages and extras, as a fan of the original game, I can’t shake the impression that it lacked something. Perhaps it would be better if the creators of the game and the filmmakers teamed up to create brand new characters and story, set in the world of The Last of Us, rather than trying to copy the existing ones. So for now Arcane continues to be the best use of the gaming license in a TV series, working equally well with connoisseurs and newcomers alike.