The Passage Season 1 Review

 

Season 1

Episode Guide

Pilot – | Review Score = 3/5
You Owe Me A Unicorn – | Review Score = 3/5
That Never Should Have Happened to You – | Review Score = 3/5
Whose Blood Is That? – | Review Score = 4/5
How You Gonna Outrun the End of the World? – | Review Score = 3.5/5
I Want to Know What You Taste Like – | Review Score = 4/5
You Are Like the Sun – | Review Score = 3.5/5
You Are Not That Girl Anymore – | Review Score = 4/5
Stay in the Light – | Review Score = 4.5/5
Last Lesson – | Review Score = 4.5/5

 

 

Based on the popular book trilogy of the same name, The Passage is an action-driven vampire story with a bite. Split across 10 episodes, there’s a consistency to The Passage, building up its characters in the claustrophobic confines of a military building before exploding in a climactic battle at the end. As this spills outside, the season finishes with many question marks hanging over the show’s future and one big cliffhanger for us to chew over.

Set in a parallel modern-day setting, the story begins with two scientists, Jonas and Fanning, exploring a cave. After being bitten by a strange creature, Fanning slowly evolves into something much more sinister and with it, a host of other infected beings join him. This then grounds the story to a secret laboratory as Jonas and a host of military personnel try to manufacture a vaccine for this virus in secret. In order to administer the vaccine and get this to work, the hopes of many rest on the shoulders of a young girl called Amy who could just hold the key to everything.

From here, the story then twists and turns through various episodes that work twofold; advancing the storyline and fleshing out the various characters. At the heart of The Passage are the characters and in particular, the relationship between a rogue agent called Brad and the young girl he’s tasked with abducting, Amy. From these two protagonists stem multiple other characters whom we learn more about across this first season.

For the most part, The Passage does a great job keeping things moving at a swift pace. Most of the episodes are chock full of dramatic tension or action with the final 2 episodes in particular erupting with a flurry of well-paced action set pieces.

Along with some solid pacing, The Passage peppers in numerous flashbacks and visions courtesy of Fanning’s newfound abilities to invade people’s minds. The orange hue that glows during these segments does a great job reinforcing they’re dream sequences and the transition from orange to cold, grey-blues are beautifully realized here.

Some of the camera work is quite good too, with a couple of tracking shots late on doing a decent job building up the tension during these action sequences. It is worth noting that The Passage uses some pretty odd choice of music throughout its opening 3 or 4 episodes. Hearing Fleetwood Mac while vampires hungrily gobble up a troth full of blood feels tonally off but thankfully the later episodes do rectify this with much better choice of music.

Having said all that, The Passage is a highly enjoyable action drama. Although a few of its episodes do drag on a little longer and the music choices are a little odd early on, for the most part this has been a thoroughly enjoyable watch over the past few months. Given I haven’t read the books, it’s difficult to know how this stacks up by comparison but the show itself is well paced with a progressive storyline that explodes into action at the end. 

With the future still uncertain over this one but another two books left to cover, the future does look bright for this vampire thriller. Still, what we’re given is enough to chew over regardless of if it’s renewed or not, making for a really enjoyable show to watch.

 


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  • Verdict - 7.5/10
    7.5/10
7.5/10

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