The TV adaptation of The Last Of Us is going to be a huge project, and rightly so. The two games in the series so far have been both critically acclaimed and have enjoyed huge commercial success. The Last Of Us 2 has received more Game of the Year awards than any other game ever. There's a tremendous amount of pressure on those trying to turn it into a TV show for that show to be great, hence the big names attached and the eye-watering budget for each episode.
It's going to take more than recognizable faces and millions of dollars to make sure HBO's The Last Of Us isn't just another show about the end of the world, though. The Walking Dead has proved that, eventually, people will stop tuning in just to see humans trying to survive as they fend off endless hordes of zombies. The Last Of Us needs to be more than that. More than the endless stream of zombie movies and TV shows already out there. The games always have been – but can the show match them?
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If you have played the games, then you may feel like that's an inevitability. Naughty Dog hasn't just found a new angle from which to approach a fictional zombie apocalypse. If anything, the undead element is a side show in The Last Of Us. The main thread is the story surrounding its survivors. Joel and Ellie to begin with, but also Tommy, Dina, Jesse, and so many others.
All of that translating into TV show isn't a given, however. Take The Walking Dead once again. Back when it premiered, that show was all about the characters, with the zombies merely a threatening presence around their intimate lives. Back then, we all hoped the main cast had finally found a safe place to hold up for the long term when they settled inside a prison. If I had to put my finger on the exact moment that feeling of hope, of actually caring, disappeared, I would point to Negan knocking it out Glenn's skull with a baseball bat – that's certainly the last time I last felt something while watching the show.
As for The Last Of Us, its first season, which will run for ten episodes, might well be safe. While not confirmed, it's assumed that first season will follow the events of the first game. With an intricate and in-depth story to tell covering Joel and Ellie's trip across the country, it's hard to imagine HBO will need any filler. There's certainly filler to be used, with massive gaps between seasons in-game that aren't covered, but presumably nothing much of note happens.
That's exactly where The Walking Dead has gone wrong. If there are periods during these people's lives where nothing of interest is going on, don't show it. The trouble is, when you have 20+ episodes a season to fill, avoiding filler is pretty much impossible. The Last Of Us only getting ten eisodes, and each of those episodes reportedly receieving an eight-figure budget, we can probably rest assured that it won't make the same mistakes right off the bat.
Unless season one is an unmitigated disaster, which is hard to imagine at this point, there will almost definitely be a season two. The risk of becoming too much like The Walking Dead will be increased. If millions tune in to the first season, HBO could well up the episode count for the second. While there is a lot more to cover in the second game, there's also a lot more potential for filler. Five years have passed between games one and two, of which players only get to see via specifc flashbacks. There's no need to cover that entire half a decade in detail, and hopefully the show's creators will realize that.
While it might be a long time before we see it take shape, the Last Of Us TV show is taking shape. The crown for best post-apocalyptic show is there for the taking, and the best chance The Last Of Us has at claiming it is by being nothing like the show that currently wears it.
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