This action is modeled on Aliens and movies inspired by Aliens, including del Toro’s own very good Blade II, which seems to have supplied much of this series’ comic-book-ish sensibility (it’s the kind of show where people bellow, “Silence!”) as well as its visual sense and production-design details (such as the blood-drinking tentacles that sprout from vampires’ mouths, their tips unfolding like serrated lotus flowers). Every episode includes scenes of vampires being surprised while slumbering in darkened rooms or sewer tunnels, creeping towards the humans that disturbed them, then feasting on them or getting shot, stabbed, beheaded, eviscerated, nuked with “sunlight bombs,” and otherwise eliminated. This FX series from Guillermo del Toro ( Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), novelist Chuck Hogan, and producer Carlton Cuse ( Lost) has a touch of Walking Dead syndrome: There aren’t all that many different kinds of scenes, the violent action in them is repetitive, and the characters are not deep enough to deserve careful scrutiny nor flamboyant enough to seize your attention as great midnight-movie characters might. That and its patchy storytelling make it one of the more frustrating dramas on TV. The Strain, which returns for a second round of blood-feasting this Sunday, is a silly show with grandiose and sublime passages. Left to right: Mia Maestro as Nora Martinez, Corey Stoll as Ephraim Goodweather.
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