The Passage is a single season series, which consists of ten episodes, that originally aired on Fox based on Justin Cronin’s vampire trilogy in which the first book had the same title. I read the first book a long time ago, but I don’t exactly remember that book detailing the events of the series except for the last scene, which wasn’t a problem for me because I assumed that it may have borrowed elements from the other two books, which I have yet to read. I wasn’t such a huge fan of the first book so I wouldn’t mind any departure from the source material. The series follows the people involved with Project Noah, human and vampire. Scientists find a vampire, whom they call virals if there are more than one, think that it could be a possible cure for diseases if they could get rid of the pesky side effects and decide to experiment on death row inmates and one orphan. The main protagonist is Amy Bellafonte, played by Saniyya Sidney, who is probably the best part of the show and occasionally narrates.
For The Passage to truly work, it needed to find a balance between developing compelling three dimensional characters that we wanted to follow for multiple seasons and mayhem and destruction in the form of a sensational vampire apocalypse, but the series never gave us either. The series made us wait until the last two episodes for things to go bananas, and we mostly hear about it, not see it. I don’t watch vampire series to hear about how dangerous they are.
The main problem for me was that the characters were generally dumb, and it waited too long to really use the vampires. A good show creates plausible premises that will obviously go wrong, but sound like a good idea at the time. For instance, when the scientists “discover” the first vampire, if the people who are holding him know that he is dangerous, then why do they open the cage and just let him out? Why are they keeping it? The real answer is that they need another person to be infected so more can get infected, but I need a credible answer other than we want vampires; however the show never fully surrenders to that impulse. The story mimics Arrow, Lost and other shows by having the first eight episodes toggle back and forth between the present and the past to learn more about each character except for most of the characters, it isn’t really character development as much as plot development. There is no emotional journey that fundamentally changes them as people, just circumstances that show us how they ended up in a horror tv series.
Amy is the smartest character on The Passage, and even she exits the sunny outdoors to go in a dark building to escape a vampire. She would never do that. The series never could decide how to kill the virals and never bothered to at least throw us a line to explain how they could survive a little sunlight or what made the bullets special enough to kill them in certain circumstances and not others. There were so many escape plans that abruptly get abandoned.
The Passage was not a top tier show, but if you’re really into vampires, it can be entertaining if you simply accept that there isn’t much difference between the vampires and human beings. The virals retain their human personality and have no supernatural knowledge that makes them convincingly pretend to be superior to human beings. There are some Biblical God references, but ultimately they go nowhere and possibly should have been eliminated entirely. They feel like a dangling thread at worst, or at best, an afterthought, which was disappointing for me, but not a dealbreaker.
As much as I adore Sidney as Amy and want more black actors in everything, The Passage could have been better if they adopted a ripped from headlines approach to the story. Currently tons of children are being snatched at our southern border, separated from their parents then disappear in the system. It would have been more credible for the story to reinvent the protagonist as an undocumented child. What a difference a few years make from the novel to the television series. If they decided to keep her black, then I wish that racism as a motive could have been referenced since the US has a rich history of experimenting on black women and reaping the benefits: James Marion Sims’ gynecological experiments, the systematic sterilization of black women including Fannie Lou Hamer without their consent, Henrietta Lacks. Instead the series pulls punches and deliberately casts a black woman as the head of the science department and uses a black woman guard to eliminate any implication of racism. The best horror uses current events to add texture and create tension, but the series never goes there while simultaneously explicitly calling the scientists the real monsters. It was a missed opportunity. I think that the real challenge was making the doctors sympathetic and evil, but the show refused to do it. Dr. Pet was a great character to have, and we needed more variations on him. Sorry a reference to a travel ban is too little, too late. I did appreciate my bonus judgment day.
Instead This Is Us seems to be the real inspiration of The Passage. The central relationship is between Amy and her captor turned change of heart, self-appointed foster dad, Agent Brad Wolgast, played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. While I don’t think that he is the most famous actor in the series, he may be the most popular among American mainstream audiences, and I did find their relationship effective and heartwarming. My biracial heart loved seeing a white man do a little black girl’s hair because I wouldn’t know what that looks like in real life, but I came for vampires. When we finally get his backstory, his ex-wife handles it too smoothly. I need her to talk to Foggy in Season 3 of Daredevil after Karen shares a secret with him. I would actually argue that Lost and The 100’s Henry Ian Cusick deserves that title (please tell me that Cusick didn’t voluntarily leave The 100 for this show), and I was shocked when indie actor James Le Gros appeared in a central supporting role.
After Amy and The Agent, the best storyline in The Passage involves Shauna Babcock’s entire story arch. I didn’t think that Carter’s backstory entirely worked, but I know that McKinley Belcher III is a good actor because when he roars and has no lines, he evokes so much pathos that I would love to see him in a better role. Jason Fuchs deserves a special shout out as Grey because he is always sympathetic while simultaneously bringing a sense of dread.
Fanning never felt compelling as a human being or the big bad except from Elizabeth’s point of view. It would have been great if the story started from her being in the fog, feeling relief as if we just witnessed a miracle then show that Fanning wasn’t to be trusted as we dissolve his telepathic image with his real image and start Amy’s narration. The betrayal would have been a terrific gut punch. The Martinez storyline worked for me though I completely predicted it.
The Passage is a pleasurable diversion that you can give your complete attention to or multitask during, but it is network television without the fortitude to really go there. It isn’t a big commitment.