The whole point of the story is the bonding of Joel and Ellie, but that never happens. As a result, major parts of the story have no impact. Worse yet, Ellie is unlikeable and seems to suffer from a brain disease that turns off the part of her brain that feels fear. Whether she's about to be eaten or being shot at, you can count on her showing little to no emotion at all.

Joel is a pushover and is constantly being controlled by Ellie. The show tries to cram in the scene of him demanding that she follow his orders, but that never actualizes into action. Only in the very last episode does Ellie seem to become human, and acts like someone of her age and sex would do in that situation. In all the previous episodes she is clearly as fictional character. Exhibiting behavior and emotions that are completely at odds with what a real life equivalent would do.

The cinematography ranges from bad to ok. They decided to go the handheld route, where every static shot has an irritating amount of handheld shake. Why did they do that? Maybe god knows. There's also an overabundant use of wide angle lenses, and also wide angle shots to show the world around them. This sounds like a good thing in theory, but there's a reason why tighter focal lengths are usually used in film. In this case focusing too much on the background made it lose its magic. Seeing cities covered in grass is interesting for a few seconds and then it loses its appeal. In a show like this you're supposed to use a wide angle shot at the very start of a scene, to give context to the surroundings, and then use tighter angles that focus on the characters.

The show has two pointless filler episodes that add nothing to the story and only exist to fulfill Neil Druckmann's need to virtue signal. Episode 3 and 7. The episodes aren't just pointless and boring, but they also take away screen time that could have been spent on creating a relationship between Joel and Ellie.

There is a severe lack of zombies in this zombie apocalypse (Cordyceps, but let's call em zombies). It takes a big brain to decide that almost no emphasis should be placed on the very thing that has plunged the character's world into global mass death and chaos. Why would the audience want to see zombies when they specifically choose to tune into a zombie show? That just doesn't make sense ;)

Also, let's take a moment to appreciate the fact that Joel decides that taking a single bolt action rifle (with no scope) with him is better than taking one (or several) semi-automatic rifles with him. Truly a big brain move.