The Passage novels by Justin Cronin have a depth to them that I have rarely found in many book of the same genre. In fact I think that the first 250 pages of the first book are some of the best writing I have ever encountered, nuanced and with an imposing sense of dread. The first episode of the Fox adaptation, by contrast, abandons all this for a "by the numbers" vampire tale. Familiar tropes, clumsy writing, poor visual effects. Equally disappointing are the totally unnecessary revisions to cast and characters which I can only assume were as a result of pandering to perceived quotas for gender and ethic diversity (there are already plenty of strong, positive characters of both genders and different races in the novels). The Passage deserved a large production (a la "Game of Thrones") approach or a multi movie deal. What it got was Saturday afternoon cable filler - appalling.
Update - In the interest of objectivity I watched all 10 episodes. If I had not read the books I would have rated it a 4 or 5 star out of 10. The problem with the show, however, is not that it is different from the books but that every 'creative' decision taken has rendered the story a weaker version of the written one. The revisions to character and plot have been taken to serve a commercial model, based on Fox's audience, revenue stream and the cable format. They have not been taken to serve the story. Everything that made the novels so compelling has been watered down or removed entirely until what remains is indistinguishable from any other cable series...
Review of The Passage
