Went downhill right after the pilot.

it passes the time. the general theme was fun to me. it has however many of the usual struggles. theres a lot of continuity and logical errors and the Characters often forget their own ratio they had just a few seasons ago. the child actor is like so often pretty annoying. the whole "zack cant get over his moms passing" is written very unbelievable. Edit: ok it gets terrible in the following seasons

I got hooked because of a couple of really fun characters (David Bradley's and Richard Sammel's), good creature design and a few surprisingly great flashback episodes (1930's Germany in particular). That was unfortunate as I then had to witness the subsequent decline. Every season they found a way to make the annoying characters even more annoying. They also spent three out of the four seasons setting up a mystical artefact as the key to victory, only for it to amount to nothing.

The Strain has an awesome premiere, an great first season, and a nosedive for the remainder of its life on air. In the 2nd season, Stoll loses his hairpiece, his girlfriend (Maestro) and his son (at least the original actor and likable version of the character), setting up the show to have the most despicable child ever portrayed onscreen. There are a few worthwhile moments and Durand and Sammel are good. But Fuck Zach!!!

worth a watch

eng; [the strain -- SERIE]; eine epidemie breitet sich in new york aus, natürlich werden alle infizierten zu vampiren.; (eine weitere amerikanische serie die deutsche nazis als ursache sieht und mit vampiren gleichsetzt); {Folgen: S01E01-S02E13};

Based on first season

Worth a watch. Complete series.

This show is really bad but strangely appealing, reminiscent of the kind of garbage I would stay up late to watch when I was a kid because I knew there would be some gore or boobies. You come to like the characters a lot as time goes on, especially the British hacker chick and the ratcatcher dude who is just a paint-by-numbers badass but is enormously appealing all the same. It's least interesting when it focuses on the creatures who are all interminable and look cheap as hell.

There are lots of better dark/gothic/horror shows out there.

Guilty pleasure...

Rating based on the first season.