As I watched “Occulation,” the sixth episode of The Strain, I couldn’t help but get a feeling of déjà vu. A combination of elements from the show reminded me of a story I had recently seen. The feeling first popped up when there’s a mention of some craziness in the city that we clearly hadn’t seen yet. Then, during the eclipse in “Occulation,” there were moments where huge losses of life occurred and people nearby seemed to not care at all. This implies a lack of social media that cripples the trickle of information, which would otherwise lead to citywide panic. Beyond that, there’s Eph, who comes to the house of his ex-wife to save their child, only to be stopped by her jerk of a new love interest (and then there’s the incredibly poor dialogue that follows). That’s when it hit me:
The Strain reminds me far too much of Sharknado.
The eclipse that happens in this episode was one of the primary story points in the promotional material, and it always felt like this moment would be the big moment where the vampires could rise out of the dark and attack the masses in the daylight. Well, yeah, that happens, but it’s so underwhelming that minutes later on the street, people seem to not even remember that vampires were ripping passengers out of cars, and drinking their blood. It’s so silly, especially when the show proclaims that the town has been in a panic, when it clearly hasn’t.
Most of the plots in “Occulation” are so clunky, from Eph sort of bonding with his son over the fact that they both thought to get rid of Eph’s phone so that he couldn’t be traced, to the awful new character that is Nora’s mother. “Occulation” seems to suggest that old people are terrible. Nora’s mother is constantly whining and frustrating everyone she comes in contact with, and even Setrakian has to deal with an incredibly hostile taxi driver that warns him not to die in the backseat. Why all the hostility towards the old? No idea.