Amy and Wolgast finalise their escape plans, Jonas Lear goes into quarantine and a new threat enters Project Noah.

In much the same way that I criticised episode 4 for throwing a lot of things into the mix but with no resolution, so too episode 5 sets a load of plates spinning… and yet we’re still in the compound and all but one of the vampires are still under lock and key. It doesn’t help that the Project Noah facility appears to have no security cameras, few guards, and the prisoners have an awful lot of freedom… but only when it serves a plot point.

I really enjoy watching this show but there are so many occasions where your intelligence is insulted by a ridiculous convenience or an inexplicable motivation. The story continues its MO of spending time in flashback, filling in the background on a protagonist, and arguably the explanation of the bad blood (ho ho!) between Lear and Fanning was long overdue.

Amy’s powers are growing at an alarming rate, from super speed to mind-reading to psychic scream, but I really could have done without the cookie-cutter government asshole who turns up this week just to shake things up. There’s also the chance that the ‘dream’ effect where a vampire secretly speaks to one of the unaffected will soon outstay its welcome – I counted four times this week.

Verdict: The Passage occupies the same space previously occupied by The Strain and Prison Break; always entertaining, but so far-fetched in the execution of the non-fantastical that the fantasy elements are the least troubling aspect. A guilty pleasure that is in danger of falling down the rabbit hole of self-parody – but I’ll hang in there for now. 5/10

Nick Joy