It's a ridiculous attitude and it comes from the (unfortunately) evergreen idea that genre fiction is just cheap entertainment and can't have anything, even remotely, interesting to say about the world etc.

The Last thing of Us IS an action/adventure game in third person where you have to hide from enemies or face them using firearms, and most of these enemies are zombies/infected. This is not an opinion, it's literally a fact. It's also the story of Ellie and Joel traveling together, through a world that is actively trying to kill them, and becoming each other's family. People who are saying otherwise need to get off their pedestal and admit that GASP they've been loving an action videogame where zombies play a pivotal part

This is simply the plot, the relationship between Ellie and Joel is the focus. But fans downplay the zombies part a lot. The gameplay is all about shooting the infected (and sometimes human) or trying to escape from them. They are a big part of TLOU and survival is not a minor issue in the game.

And then it went downhill. My point is that HBO doesn't ALWAYS mean quality. Want another example? Lovecraft Country, one of the worst shows I've ever watched with a great potential, and, again, it was on HBO.

To sum it up: For All Mankind would have probably been the same show that it is now even if it was on HBO, there's no way to prove that it would have been improved when HBO itself dropped the ball many times in the past.

I mean, Apple made Severance, so it's not like they don't know what quality is. And HBO made Westworld, and we all know how it ended. I guess I don't need to explain further.

The other three are super popular too lol

The first season of Servant was also great tv

My opinion: the show had an interesting premise, an otherworldly music score and a beautiful scenography, but the acting was underwhelming, and the writing itself became weaker and weaker as it went on.

I have to be in the mood to watch multiseasons show: I either watch the seasons in a row or I don't watch it at all. That's why lately I've only been watching limited series while Mad Men is side-eyeing me from my plan to watch list.

Lost is much different from The Leftovers. It's more action packed and plot oriented, and less meditative, but the characters writing is still top notch and there are plenty of philosophical concepts too.

Overall I would say don't expect something too similar to The Leftovers just because they share an author: they have some aspects and themes in common, but they're completely different in terms of mood and pacing. Nevertheless, if mysteries, twists and turns are what you're looking for then Lost is an excellent choice, as those things are even more emphasized than in The Leftovers.

I stopped at episode 3 for the same reason you mentioned, but people who are watching it are saying it gets better after episode 5

I personally wasn't a fan of it. There isn't a specific reason, it's just that the characters weren't compelling enough for me and there wasn't anything that hooked me in, and there should have been since there were plenty of mysteries in it. The story definitely picks up toward the end though

I don't think adaptions from a manga (especially if compared to video games and novels) are actually that difficult when the animation studio has the time and money to do a good job. Some adaptations are nearly identical to the manga (an example: Monster). But with videogames it's different, since a completely faithful adaptation is almost impossible due to the nature of the media itself. Imagine what a nightmare it would be to adapt Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and Nier Automata isn't much easier.

As for me, there is a very major scene in episode 3 (that was also hinted at the end of episode 2) that didn't quite hit like it did in the game. When I played that part I felt somewhat shaken by what was happening, but in the anime it felt too rushed, I didn't feel many emotions in it.

The whole episode had a weird pacing, as it presents two different locations (the refuge and the desert) of the game without spending enough time with either of them. Especially the part in the desert deserved more weight and a slower pacing to create a stronger sense of immersion imo. And even in terms of animations it felt too much unpolished to me, as if they were doing the bare minimum to release the episode.

Anyway, it's a very difficult game to adapt: it's dense, there is a lot of hidden lore, it's very introspective and has a peculiar narrative structure, so I don't blame them. I'm still hoping that the following episodes will do it justice since the author of the game is part of the team.

People that have been following this project since the beginning said they've been having problems with the production. At first I didn't believe them, but episode 3 was quite clunky so I'm getting worried about the future of this anime (the game was one of my absolute favorites).

Oh, this could be interesting, but the endless series of underwhelming fantasy books adaptions taught me to not get my hopes up too much. So I'll wait for it skeptically, but I'll still wait for it.

I love The Wire, but I get what you mean. Though I think OP wasn't that aggressive about it, they just showed their appreciation for something they love. The problem are those who attack you if you dare to put other tv shows above it in your list of faves

I mean, why shouldn't it be so? Great movies remained great movies through the decades and The Wire is still not even that old when you think about it. I think it will forever be one of the greatest because it's the only TV show to do what it did: it was dense, long, complex, brutal, epic but still super realistic, which made it one of the most accurate social commentaries ever created in TV format. It's hard to replicate something like this and I'm not even that sure that writers are interested in doing it these days.

As for me, in my personal ranking of HBO tv shows, I would put it right after The Leftovers, in the second place. Both were a special experience, but The Leftovers is the tv show that resonated with me the most

I mean, The Leftovers is mostly about what happens inside those people's hearts and minds rather than what happens inside those small towns, so the small town vibe is not what makes it work. But to answer your question, they do move around a little, but I can only think of a few episodes set in a bigger city, if I recall correctly.

I think the Succession's cast would watch Succession and criticize the hell out of it for being fake while secretly liking it

Supernatural. I loved the first 5 season and I thought that season 6 was quite okay, but from season 7 the writing began to really feel iffy to me, but I still watched the next season because the showriters said that it was going to end with ten seasons, but then it turned out that they suddenly decided to make 15 seasons and I finally noped out of my Stockholm syndrome with this show.

Dark has hands down my favorite soundtrack so far. It's not only beautiful and incredibly atmospheric, but they also managed to make it fit 100% with what was going on in the scree; it's actually quite rare for the action and the soundtrack, especially when it's not instrumental, to blend so well in a TV show