Well, you would love it, since it is full of gory and bizarre details. I browsed the net to see where it is available… here they say that the series, despite the success and good critics, was cancelled by HBO for its third season and Netflix quitted its broadcast, too. The only way to watch it in the UK seems to be Sky.
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We have Sky, so I’ll have a look 
thanks for finding out.
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The Strain is a fantastic show and one of the most exciting serial TV shows I have ever seen.
The design is top notch as is to be expected from a Guillermo del Toro produced project, the vampires (strigoi) are the scary monsters they are supposed to be, the characters are all consistent and likeable and the whole plot is just round and well constructed right through the end.
The show starts out as a mystery about a pandemic, but soon you see that it actually is a modern retelling of Dracula starting with the moment the empty ship (airplane) arrives at the London Harbour (JFK Airport). Then elements of the Holocaust come in that become more important as the show goes on. You have a Nazi Vampire! There are so many moments of power structures and betrayal and the theme of love and deception becomes more central over the four seasons of the show.
We have a likeable cast of characters with our Doctor, the Van Helsing type guy who is a Holocaust survior, the british hacker girl, the russian exterminator who just way cool and even more interesting figures over time.
What made me prefer this over endless shows like The Walking Dead was that it never lost its focus and had a clear goal and solution to the situation. Destroy the Master and cure the disease. Get the old book to the defeat the strain on mankind and figure out the worms that cause the vampiric disease.
I cannot recommend this show to horror fans enough, it was a thrillride throughout and I can´t remember the last time I loved a serial this much. It was just perfect and I´m little melancholic that I´m through with it now, but lucklily the conclusion was just perfect.
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I’ve never seen Cronos, but would it be advisable to watch that first? And how about reading The Strain?
I haven´t seen Cronos either(and despite being a vampire story and Del Toros directional debut there is no relation), but if you have seen Blade 2 you kinda see the style of the vampires already.
Blade 2
The Strain
I think I may read the Strain Trilogy too because I enjoyed this just so much. Maybe even the Comic Adaptation, that looks good too.
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Can you please blur these pics? Here are children in the Internet …
Why do I always get the feeling you use “children” when refering to yourself? 
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Because I am a grown-up child! 
And Trinity, too! (Incoherent plot, but let’s face it: no one watches Blade for the story…)
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I watched the first two eps of series 3 of Saul. Quite good so far. Randomly, I loved the song in the first episode - My Echo, My Shadow and I by The Ink Spots. I’ve never heard it before, but found it quite poignant.
And that whole sales scenario in the second one where Jimmy sabotages it was almost painful!
Also, as embarrassing as this is to admit, I’d been thinking the black and white bits were set in the past, until I watched a recap video on YouTube to remind myself of the last series and it pointed out it’s the future. I think I just assumed because you know, black and white… And I thought his moustache was meant to be a dated thing rather than old age thing.
So I’m having to recalibrate my brain a bit now! I’m an idiot.
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Are you watching the new season or starting from scratch?
I think she is refering to the first two of the new season.
New season.
I could share my thoughts on The Staircase which I managed to binge through a boring weekend.
What did the wikipedia research bring to light @PiecesOfKate ?
Crapoly moly. You watched all of it in a weekend? Including the newer episodes they added on? That’s 13 in total.
I’ll share thoughts tomorrow once I’m sure about how much you’ve seen. I don’t want to ruin anything!
I´ve seen all of it by now. (I also had it on in the backround while doing other stuff) Needless to say the ending was a bit dissapointing. But I´m also not sure if I saw things correctly only because his daughters were so likeable and pretty much all the people on the other side were the exact opposite.
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SPOILER ALERT! 
It’s too awkward picking out what may or may not ruin it, and I don’t want to blur the whole thing!
Good going! I think I was just surprised because I found it quite heavy. When the verdict was given I felt so sad for those girls that I cried.
Yeah. It was a shame it ended like that. And as with most unsolved crimes I hate that we’ll never know what actually happened.
It’s interesting you say that as most of the chat I’ve read around it shows people generally found them annoying. I think I’m with you though, plus I really felt for them. Whether their dad did it or not, they lost who they considered their mum and they’ve had to go through so much.
I was pretty flabbergasted when the jury found him guilty. Lestrade made that doc as a contrast to his other one about a young black guy to try and show the different outcome for a rich white guy but it didn’t really pan out like that. With all that reasonable doubt and lack of incriminating evidence I don’t think anyone expected a guilty verdict. Even the prosecution were visibly surprised!
I can’t say for sure if I think he did it or not, and I’m also conscious of being swayed by the defence-oriented doc, but I certainly don’t think there was enough to convict him.
I found the whole thing a complete insight into those kinds of trials. There’s a lot of that genre flying around at the moment but this one really showed all the time, discussion and thought that goes into one person’s defence. And the strain it puts on all those people involved. When Petersen said (something like) ‘if when I was six years old you’d told me all this would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you’ that really resonated with me.
I think my lasting feeling of the series was sadness.
What are your thoughts on the owl theory? At first it sounded plausible, but I think she would’ve gone to get Michael rather than head straight up the stairs.
That sounds a bit far fetched to me. But the whole evidence they brought up that put it in the direction of him being a serial killer (the repeated modus operandi of a wife dead at the bottom of the stairs like that case in germany) seemed also very far fetched. Everything else seemed to be purely designed to make him look like a terrible husband in general and there lots of ad hominem attacks going around, designed to influence the jury.
Only because someone is likeable or not does not have to allow to influence the outcome of a trial. That is an important take away from the Paradise Lost Trilogy about the West Memphis Three case (which I only can highly recommend).
It was interesting to see the whole rehearsal stuff beforehand, but you also have to remember that this is a rich guy having the best team and this might not be the usual prodecure for the average Joe.
In the end it really made me understand how people in the US always fear jury duty. The pressure having your hand in deciding the fate of a human life is just immense and even with all the evidence you get and the way two sides try to manipulate you, it is really hard to make up your mind.
Absolutely. That really came through.
Yeah, that’s why I think it makes such a pertinent point about the justice system. He had the best team money can afford and it was still overcome by assumption and prejudice.
Yup. I’d like to get called up one day but at the same time it could be so difficult. What a responsibility.
It would’ve been interesting to hear from the jurors, actually (not done for obvious reasons).
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