The Snowpiercer TV show slows down a thrilling train ride

Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-ho’s gripping sci-fi film, doesn’t seem like a natural fit for television. A tense post-apocalyptic story where the remnants of humanity succumb to class warfare on an endlessly running train, the movie was a finely tuned thriller that also succinctly articulated its themes. More of something isn’t always a good thing. You run the risk of diluting it, especially when the leaner medium of TV forces you to reproduce the original on a tighter budget. There are good ways to do this, but TNT’s Snowpiercer series has found probably the most mundane way to pull it off.

Ironically, the first change in Snowpiercer’s TV adaptation, despite being a television cliché, is a really good one: making its protagonist a detective....

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