After watching Chernobyl and this, it's obvious Craig Mazin knows how to tell a story on screen exceptionally well. But, and there's a couple big buts, I never felt any sense of connection to Joel or Ellie and I never felt immersed in the story.

Joel feels like two characters smashed into one, the strong, assertive, competent but flawed game Joel, and the weak, damaged, acceptably not masculine for today's society Joel. Similarly, Ellie changes between being an inexperienced teenager who hasn't seen death and the horrors of the post-apocalyptic world she lives in and being a strong, capable girlboss who needs to take charge and put Joel in his place. Both Joel and Ellie's personalities would fit perfectly in today's society but make no logical sense given the post-apocalyptic society the show is set in.

Add on that there was nowhere near enough time given to Joel and Ellie's relationship. I'll be the first person to say that the episode about Bill and Frank was an exceptional piece of storytelling, but both it and the Riley episode just feel like wasted time and only serve to undercut the pacing of the story. All together, instead of feeling like a surrogate father and daughter growing together over the course of a long, difficult journey, it feels like siblings on a road trip with some occasional difficulties.

Also, where are all the infected? This is, conceptually, a zombie show, but it's very easy to forget that fact when they are shown or even mentioned as rarely as they are. Gone are the infected that are a terrifying force that have driven humanity into small, fortified settlements and forcing people to make the worst choices imaginable. Now the infected are largely an inconvenience, only used to progress the plot while the focus lies almost exclusively on people.

As a whole, it just comes off as disappointing. There are so many good scenes in this show, the cinematography is excellent, most of the sets look amazing, the acting is mostly very good, and a lot of the homages to the game are fantastic. But the pacing is terrible, the characters are unbelievable and grating, and far too much is ignored to fit an entire story, plus two side-stories, into nine episodes.