The Passage clings to the inherent intrigue of its source material: the spectre of the undead, fascination with apocalyptic scenarios, attractive actors staring at each other, the natural instinct to figure out intentionally withheld information. But as Brad and Amy’s father-daughter bond develops on the road and the captive vampires flex their creepy strength at Project Noah, this plan goes predictably off the rails. They dispatch Special Agent Brad Wolgast (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) under supervision of his former friend Clark Richards (Vincent Piazza, voice deeper than any character development on the show) to fetch a child no one will miss: 10-year-old orphan Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney), the show’s occasional narrator.

The scientists, led by Dr Jonas Lear (Henry Ian Cusick) and Dr Major Nichole Sykes (Caroline Chikezie), have been testing strains on death row inmates, but they need a child brain (it has more neurons, or something) to eliminate the vampire side effects. Like the book, it begins in roughly the present day anticipating a disastrous flu pandemic in the United States, scientists at the secret Project Noah in Colorado pin their hopes on a virus that cures humans of disease, but also turns them into catatonic, blood-sucking monsters intolerant of light.

The passage novel