The Straining

Because I am pathologically drawn to schlocky horror television, I've got Guillermo del Toro's new FX television series, The Strain, all locked into the DVR.  I watched the first episode, directed by del Toro himself, and am of two minds about it.  I liked it because it has some gruesomely scary moments, has a nice cadre of genre actors like Francis Capra (Veronica Mars), David Bradley (Broadchurch, the Harry Potter movies) and Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), and because the vampires are nasty, horrible, terrifying creatures - there's no sparkling sex appeal here.  I didn't like the boring, predictable characters and their boring, predictable dialogue ... but I also didn't much like the source material either.  I shall stick with it, however - because there's not much else on of interest these days, plus I'm hoping for lots more icky, creepy, darkly funny bits like the heart beating in time to "Sweet Caroline."  If The Strain fully embraces the scary-weird like that, it'll be worth watching.