This review is based on Season 1, and I haven't played the video game. The general plot involves a weary middle-aged man and a young girl bonding on a quest in post-apocalyptic America. The first few episodes contain a lot of post-apocalyptic excitement. The first episode showing the world unraveling from a contagious fungus is excellent, and the second episode is almost unbearably tense as the heroes barely evade the horrifying fungal creatures. And then something goes wrong. Perhaps the writers ran out of good filmable source material. In a nine-episode series, there's two entirely superfluous episodes, one involving a love story between two men and a flashback episode involving the girl. Both episodes seem oddly out of place and do nothing to advance the plot. Also, as the pair works their way west into less populated areas, the threat comes from other humans, and the fungal creatures barely seem to be a danger at all.

The two travelers gradually form a quasi-father/daughter relationship, but some of the editorial choices are odd. By far the most compelling character in the show is the older man, well-acted by Pedro Pascal, who feels his age and begins to doubt his competence as the pair makes their way west. But the show focuses more heavily on the young woman who, while she's strong-willed and intelligent, hasn't lived long enough to be all that interesting. Imagine a version of "True Grit" where the focus is not on the aging gunfighter but on the girl he's trying to protect.

The show looks good and the early episodes have moments of intense excitement, but there are several easily skippable episodes, and the latter episodes move slowly at times. The ending is a disappointing anti-climax. Overall, if you like this sort of science fiction, I think this is a qualified thumbs up.