A new prestige television series from the creator of the fantastic Chernobyl? You would think that I would be right there every Sunday evening, devouring the newest episodes.

The truth is that zombies of all stripes have worn rather thin for me, particularly the setting of the zombie apocalypse. Yes, I know that these are not technically zombies, they are not magically reanimated corpses but aggressive, disease-infected individuals. The cast looks

HBO

fantastic and there’s no doubt that the series is winning praise from both within and without of the genre communities. And yet I really am not interested in watching it. I never played the game. Games with prolonged story arcs are less appealing to me due to their intense commitment in time. I play first person shooters, never completing their ‘campaigns’ but simply enjoying the on-line matches against hyper-competent players who nearly always leave me beaten and broken.

So, it sounds like I have no relationship with TLOU, but that’s not accurate either.

Craig Mazin, the principal writer and showrunner, co-hosts a fantastic podcast on screenwriting called Scriptnotes. For Chernobyl he launched a companion podcast for the limited series to help illuminate the history and where the show explored fiction. The podcast was a success and helped promote the series and naturally HBO wanted another for The Last of Us.

So, without watching a single episode of the series, or having played the game one second, I am a devoted listener to the series’ companion podcast.

The podcast features Mazin, Druckman ho was the creative force behind the game and co-runs the series with Mazin, and the voice actor who first gave life to one the game’s and show’s principal characters, Joel. Episodes by episode they break down what happens, why they made the creative decisions that they did in staying true to the game or driving far afield from it, and expounding on, in their view, what makes foe compelling stories.

While I may not be interested in fungal zombies overrunning the world, I am thoroughly and utterly fascinated by the process by which that premise becomes so compelling to so many and the secrets of the story telling craft these men so clearly understand.