The Last of Us: Is this the best-ever TV series based on a video game?

stuff.co.nz:

REVIEW: 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 and Resident Evil efforts among the many disappointments), The Last of Us (which is now available to stream on Neon and debuts on SoHo tonight, Monday, January 16 at 8.30pm) 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), this feels like a cross between last year’s Station Eleven (there are eerie similarities between how the two pandemics start), Spielberg’s 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.

* Quantum Leap: Sky finally debuts much anticipated reboot of beloved '90s series * Alaska Daily: Hilary Swank shines in new Disney+ series from the director of Spotlight * Netflix's That '90s Show, Neon's The Last of Us, Disney+'s Alaska Daily among January's must-see TV

Rather than a traditional virus, The Last of Us’ “zombie plague” is caused by a cordyceps (fungal) infection. As a chilling 1968-set prologue involving the television appearance of an epidemiologist suggests, some fungi have the power to possess minds to help them reproduce, but human bodies were always too warm for them to survive in. But, if the world were to get slightly warmer, then – maybe – they just might adapt. And unlike viruses, there would be no treatments, no vaccines, no preventatives, no