That's just how he sounds - he has an asshole voice

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023 

#6 : The Last Of Us

Too poignant to please zombie-loving viewers, too full of murderous fungus monsters for your average prestige drama, The Last of Us was a totally idiosyncratic creation. That it managed to find a huge worldwide audience is testament to what an incredible piece of TV it was (not to mention the best video game adaptation ever). The tale of ex-construction worker Joel escorting medical miracle Ellie across a pandemic-ravaged US was so heart-in-the-mouth tense that at times it was almost too much to watch. And yet watch people did. You know it’s an excellent apocalypse show when the most impressive achievements are the relationships at its heart: from the understated beauty of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) burgeoning father/daughter-esque relationship to Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett’s poignant episode about love in the end times. Gorgeous, soul-stirring television.

It's fair to say that video game adaptations don't generally have an amazing track record on either film or TV (although I did like Arcane and Halo has got some good write-ups recently) but The Last Of Us has a reputation as one of the better written video games, so hopes were high that this would be better than unbelievably bad.  And it had Pedro Pascal in it, so people were bound to love it anyway (although it's bizarre how his popularity soared after he was in a show that made him wear a mask all the time).  So I was looking forward to this and had the added advantage of not having played the game, so I didn't know how it ended.

And it really works well because it doesn't attempt to feel like a video game - the first episode sets up the pandemic and then after that we follow Joel and Ellie through the universe, ostensibly towards a target but the episodes don't allow themselves to get too hung up on that and we take quite a few diversions off the main path and also include plenty of flashbacks to give us some additional background.  And The Guardian is quite correct when it says the relationships are key to its success - the range and the humanity on display here is impressive.

And OMG, episode 3 (as The Guardian put it, "Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett’s poignant episode") is SOOOO good - in terms of single episodes it was easily the best thing on telly in the year (and there were some pretty strong contenders).  It was a surprise because they pretty much step away from the monsters and the characters they've taken time setting up in the first two episodes and they take a completely different tone - at first I was wondering if I'd missed some episodes by mistake.  But it was so, so, so good - I had something in my eye quite a few times during it. 

All the episodes work well as single stories, but I'm also going to call out episode 5 where they meet Henry (Lamar Johnson - West from The Next Step, if you have teenage daughters) and Sam (an impressive Keivonn Montreal Woodard) and the final episode where it manages to wrap things up pretty nicely (but not so much that there won't be another season, obviously!)

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal make a great pairing - they both go on quite the journey throughout the season and they portray their changing relationship and motivations well.  Most other people in this only get an episode or two to make an impression, but a lot of them take full advantage of their opportunity.  Obviously Nick, Murray, Lamar and Keivonn all made an impression on me but I should also mention Anna Torv (it's always nice to see her), Melanie Lynskey (she's bad-ass in this), Storm Reid (who plays one of Ellie's friends in a flashback episode) and Scott Shepherd (chilling in his not-as-nice-as-he-looks role).  It's also nice they found minor roles for Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson who voiced Joel and Ellie in the video game and I was also charmed to stumble across Elaine Miles who used to be the receptionist in Northern Exposure, which took me back BIG time!!!

So it's well written, well acted and also beautifully shot with some absolutely glorious landscape on display and fewer monsters than you might expect, but the monster scenes are also well done and it does a good line in claustrophobia when required.  And the giraffe is an unexpected appearance as well - and apparently it was real!

I can quite imagine that people heard about this and went "monsters in a video game - no thanks", but both elements are really not the focus here and it's much more about relationships and humanity and it's really well done and very much worth catching up with if you missed it.  For me, it's probably my favourite thing of last year so far (and definitely in a close top three with The Bear and Happy Valley) - it's on Sky if you've missed it.

#5 - Entertaining nonsense
#7 - Stands out from a crowded pack