| Jaicee said: Some interesting viewership data. The following ratings are from the U.S. only and exclusively on analog television, so they exclude most viewers, it's worth noting, but having a consistent metric gives us a portrait of the trendline: Episode 1: 588,000 The only episode to see a real drop-off was the fifth (Endure and Survive), which is likely owed to it being dropped a couple days early to avoid competing with the Super Bowl. The final episode drew over a million American viewers on HBO alone, and a record of 8.2 million viewers worldwide overall across all platforms, despite competing with the Oscars (in which Pedro Pascal was among the presenters, mind you). Outside the U.S., The Last of Us is the number one most-viewed HBO Max program to date, and even in the U.S. it's second only to House of the Dragon. I'd say it's a hit. In terms of critical reception, Long, Long Time (episode 3) was the critical favorite, with the final episode, Look for the Light, getting the most divided (but still very positive) reception. Think I can understand that. Show basically tracked the game's content with the exception of Long, Long Time. I agree with TallSillhouette in that I think I marginally preferred the game's version of events where they diverged in most cases, with the exception of Long, Long Time. But I'm still very glad that both versions of this story exist. The Last of Us is by far the best TV adaptation of a video game ever as far as I'm concerned. The second season will presumably cover Part 2, but since the second game is twice as long as the original, it would therefore have to feature twice as many episodes at minimum to cover the whole game. Or they could divide it into halves, giving Ellie's chapter its own season and reserving Abby's for a third season. I'm okay with either approach; whichever gets us more of this level of care. I will say though that, selfishly, I'd also like for the Part 2 material to include some of the content that's only referenced in Ellie's diary entries in the game, like her past relationship with Cat for example, and maybe a little more background on the past relationship between Dina and Jesse. Maybe it could be in a dedicated past romance episode akin to Long, Long Time even. There's lots of material that got scrapped or reduced to journal entries in the final game because it had to be streamlined more. Here's a chance to reintegrate some of that content back into the story, methinks! |
I read somewhere that they will probably do 2 seasons, but that they will keep it the way it is in the game and not split it between Ellie and Abby. They will keep switching between them, which I think is smart, since you miss a lot of things if you only focus on one of them at a time. You also have the flashback sections with both characters, I hope they start filming this year and release the first batch of episodes in 2024. It would suck if we had to wait more than 2 years.
