Following an air crash hat leaves everyone dead, head of the CDC's New York-based Canary Project has been called upon to investigate. What seems to be a mere accident is a viral attack.
This is actually the calm before a terrifying storm in The Strain, which promises to reinvent our idea of vampires and make them scary again. Scary as opposed to sexy, as in "True Blood," and chillingly gruesome.
Whether you prefer your fear to be delivered as an extended psychological tease, or sudden gruesome bolts of old-fashioned lethal violence, The Strain gets the job done.
[TV] needs another vampire drama like the Germans needed extra goals [against] Brazil, but [it] is packed with so much macabre imagery and clever ideas that it doesn't feel like the resuscitation of a tired genre, but the launch of something new and fun.
