REVIEW #197 Resident Evil (Season 1)

Resident Evil follows Jade Wesker fourteen years after a deadly virus transformed the world as we know it. But the infected are the last of Jade’s concerns, her past with Umbrella, her father and the fate of her sister Billy, all begin to catch up to her as she tries to make it back to her family. 

Resident Evil was definitely one of my most anticipated shows for 2022, I’m a huge fan of the franchise and the original premise for the eight part series certainly peaked my interest. Unfortunately it didn’t quite live up to my high expectations but nonetheless I still enjoyed it and it has a lot going for itself. Season one starts off a little slow but around the third episode the pace really picks up and the plot starts to unfold nicely. The cast doesn’t necessarily include any major names but I think most of the ensemble performed really well, especially the actresses who portrayed the young Jade and Billy Wesker, I was really impressed with them (Tamara Smart and Sienna Agudong). I wasn’t keen on how they were portraying Albert Wesker at the start, obviously Wesker is no longer a white, blonde man which is absolutely fine but those beginning episodes showed a man with a completely contrasting personality to the character we witnessed in the games. However, to my relief, that is explained later in the show and there is one specific scene where Lance Reddick looks so badass in the traditional Wesker outfit. Without giving much else away, Resident Evil does pay respect to the Wesker from the games and it even mentions his tragic end with the volcano, which was a nice touch! There is actually many Easter eggs from the games but my favourite was probably the way they subtly included a typewriter save room and even had a musical score to match, what a dose of nostalgia that was. The storyline was split across two timelines, 2022 and 2036, with the latter being a dystopian apocalyptic world after the mass outbreak and the first being set in a normal, civilised Umbrella community. I really liked that layout and the creators done a brilliant job with the transitions between the two. It still leaves a huge time gap to explain, which I assume will be tackled in season two but the small section of the story we do get was gripping and actually really shocking. There was a couple of moments where I had my hands on my head in disbelief and that’s a sign the show is doing well! The cinematography for the most part was good, the CGI was a little questionable but that’s to be expected with the shows budget only being around the £25million mark, so I have to respect the fact they were bold enough to include some of the iconic boss monsters we battled in the games. The zombies certainly take a backseat in this story, it’s not necessarily a bad thing but it’s best to know that going in. There was a lot of speculation on whether this series would be canon to the main storyline and it certainly seems like it to me, there is a lot of talk about the original Racoon City Incident, it mentions Weskers death in the volcano and it has many Easter eggs from the central plot. But they were clever enough to set the show years after the games so that they could, for the most part, avoid the usual hate about not being faithful to source material. It’s new territory and for sure it’s just finding it’s feet but nonetheless it’s a solid enough start and the foundations are there to build a great show. I would definitely recommend giving it a go, if the popularity is there then I’m sure the budget will increase season upon season and that will help deal with many of the initial faults. 

Overall (6/10)

Thanks for reading.

Callan