Hello and welcome to Dominik’s Little Old Purple Column, the 38th of its kind, coming to you from Nova Scotia, Canada where we have had so much freezing rain this week I am about to turn into a popsicle. Tis most frigid. Let’s warm ourselves up with a burst of theme tune, eh?
Well, it’s only January and already we have the best video game thing of the year: The TV adaptation of The Last of Us. It started on Sunday on Crave or HBO Max or Sky Atlantic or Dodgy Download depending on where you are in your life and on the planet and it was perfect.
I have to declare a bit of bias because not only is it one of my favourite games ever (albeit with what I thought was an utterly unsatisfactory ending to the sequel) but because it was filmed where I used to live. In and around Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And yes, like a sad fanboy I went down to the set. Not as often as my oldest daughter did, though. She is convinced that her bicycle helmet is going to pop up in the background of a scene at some point.
Also, there is one shot of them riding through arctic wilderness and in the background, you can see Yamnuska, one of my favourite mountains to climb anywhere in the world.
(PIC: The Last of Us. With Yamnuska just right of centre. I used to climb it with my pal Jamie who sent me the photo.)
I always thought it was interesting that they could have picked anywhere in the world to represent a post-apocalyptic hell full of mindless zombies run by a fascist dictatorship and they picked Conservative-run Calgary, where there are almost as many Trump MAGA hats as you find in Florida. So fair play to the location manager of the show. Fair play to the set designer as well. Joking aside? Downtown Calgary is really nice. The set dressers of The Last of Us have managed to make it look like an utter shithole.
Fair play as well to the writing team because it’s even better written than the opening of the game was. It’s more political. The world is built better. The scene where Ellie meets Joel for the first time is totally different from the game and works brilliantly.
Which brings me to my final point.
The fairest of fair plays has to go to the casting director because Bella Ramsay as Ellie is simply astonishing from her first 30 seconds when she is asked to count to ten and she says, “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 fuck you!”
With perfect cadence and timing. And middle finger extended on the last two syllables.
Bella Ramsay has such an incredibly unique presence; She looks like no actress ever has. She has much more presence and charisma than Ellie does in the game. The scene where she breaks the radio code is just wonderfully written and acted. She will, if there is any justice in the world, win every TV acting award going,
And the added presence of Anna Torv is wonderful.
There is no argument at all this will be the best videogame adaptation in the history of TV and the movies, the only question is will it be the best genre TV series ever?
And on that bombastic bout of superlativism that is it for the free version. The paid version this week is nearly seven times the length of this for under 4 quid a month so I would get that if you know what’s good for you and want to support my work as I’m not sure how much longer I’ll bother with the free version of this. He said. Ominously.
But here’s your theme tune again, he said, a bit more chirpily.
(BONUS PIC: Made some roast carrot, tomato and lentil soup this week. Roasted the carrots in the air fryer as well. Yes, I did too!)
Dominik's Little Old Purple Column #38 FREE TEASER