A relatively good story about a glimpse of light in an otherwise dark, mold-infested world. The show mainly suffers from pacing problems, the weakest of episodes being Episode 7. Surprisingly, a lot of the scenes in this show are practically shot-for-shot, line-for-line recreations of the video game, if somewhat condensed. The main deviations (aside from the lack of spores) come from episodes 3 and 7, when they deviate from Joel and Ellie's journey to focus on past events. While these moments are good on their own (at least episode 3, which gets me to cry big, incredibly manly tears every time), they do cause a major disruption in the overall story for relatively little payoff.

There are plenty of nods to the game alongside the closeness to its source material however, with plenty of references to game mechanics and including the game's original cast. It was always a small joy to find these things myself, though they were obviously lost on my mother, who watched this with me despite never having heard of the game. Still, she rather liked it (and rated it higher than I), so there's definitely plenty here for those not acquainted with the Cordyceps and clickers.