Interview with a Vampire, Blade, Underworld, Angel, Buffy ... vampires are a popular subject and CBS is trying to bring a new take on that subject into our living rooms with the premiere of Moonlight. Which could have just as easily been called Sunlight, since our heroic bloodsucker can tolerate all kinds of light without even breaking a sweat (though he does get a tummy ache apparently). Do vampires sweat? Either way.

Mick St. John is our leading phlebotomy enthusiast and according to him, "being a vampire sucks," as he tells an unseen interviewer. Where, oh where is Christian Slater? This interview interlude is but a dream, however and I wonder how often this show will nod to its many predecessors over the next hour. The interview sequence provides us with loads of exposition though and in under 2 minutes we learn Mr. Mick never bites people, getting his blood fix from a "dealer" instead. He also sleeps in a freezer - not a coffin, enjoys garlic on his pizza, holy water gets him wet (uhhhm.), he likes crucifixes as much as the next guy, sunlight makes him feel sick and he can't turn into a bat. But he wishes he could. Additionally, Buffy is out of luck, because stakes don't work in this world. But flame throwers do, as does decapitation. If you can figure out how to manage that one, I suppose.

Mick also lets us know that he doesn't hunt women, children or innocents, which seems both obvious and sexist. For one, if you are the good guy, hunting innocents is usually frowned upon. Secondly, women are capable of just as many misdeeds as men. But I guess in this world, having breasts is a get out of vampire-hunt free card. Climbing out of his freezer, Mick hunkers down and injects himself with cold blood, making his teeth and creepy eyes go back to normal human looking features. Someone needs to invent an equivalent that makes the pallid skin and dark under eye circles go away after too many glasses of wine the night before. Just saying.

As one would expect, there's been a murder. Beth Turner is at the scene taping a news clip, as she is a self described "news whore",who works for a rag specializing in sleaze. All of this is equally apparent by Beth trying to angle for a "money shot" of the body. She kicks off her heels, rolls up her pants, and casually strolls across the shallow fountain the body lies in and starts taking pictures with her iPhone. A detective tells her to knock it off and the investigative team finally notices her, which speaks volumes on their ability and makes me hope that this is not the type of show that glosses over ridiculous scenarios in order to achieve a dramatic sequence. Or product placement. Popcorn logic is one this, thinking a reporter can waltz into the middle of a crime scene without notice is another. Further, would even a sleazy rag of a paper publish murder scene photos?

Beth is fed info on the victim by the detective however, wanders away and nearly bumps into Mick. She tosses an idea for her headline out at him, calling it a vampire killing and Mick tells her "vampires don't exist" before vanishing in the most unsubtle way imaginable while her back is turned. The phrase is one we will hear leave his lips a few more times in the course of the episode. But despite the repeated words we see several instances in which people readily believe that they do exist. Beth's editor wants to get quotes from scientists and ask "do they live among us" type questions, we see experts on televisions talking about how it is possible for there to be people with a genetic predisposition to digest blood (which...what? Digestion isn't a function of genetics), and the victim herself was in a social anthropology course about ancient mythologies specializing in vampire study. The class may seem far fetched to some, but I took a college course on the anthropology of science fiction, so I have no trouble buying this. We read Asimov and watched Star Wars, using The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a course guide and it was awesome.

Less awesome is the reporter and her camera man hanging out in a parking lot for hours to identify the victims car, picking it out based on the student parking decal and then apparently getting all the victim's personal info during a commercial break. Has it been that long since the writers dealt with the bass ackwards, disorganized bureaucracy that exists on the typical campus?  For all they get wrong though, they get a lot right. The gloomy goth students in the class seem believable and the professor is appropriately creepy. They also take pains to make him suspicious seeming, which of course means he is completely innocent. Hey, I have seen M. Night Shyamalan movies. I know of which I speak.

Not given enough to do is Mick's friend Josef Konstantin, a nondescript businessman and 400 year old vampire who is anxious about the word "vampire" being bandied about in the press ("What is this? The 1720s?"). When Mick tries to blow it off, Josef tells him that since he's only 90, he's never known what it is like to be chased by a torch wielding mob. He's snide and sarcastic, offering Mick the wrist of a young women telling him "She's delicious, 1982 is a good year," which also makes me feel old. He's not the only one comparing our blood to alcohol, either. Mick's "dealer" is Guillermo, a vampire who works in the morgue and supplies him with "forties" and "six-packs" of blood, and chastises him for liking A-positive since O-positive has a better finish. He also gives Mick the hard facts of the case, telling him the victim was stabbed in the throat and bled out naturally, thus not the work of one of their kind. We see nothing else of him in the episode and Josef only shows up once more, in a scene that lacks much point, to bully Mick into making the case go away by simply killing everyone involved. Yeah, that will solve everything. But, I get it- he's the mean vampire. I will further guess that should this show last, we will witness a sudden but inevitable betrayal by him, only to find him redeemed the next season when facts are revealed that prove his actions had their own hidden merit.

Am I too cynical for television?

There are a handful of sepia flashback sequences, showing Mick taking a case to find a missing little girl 20-some years ago, which are jarring and pull my interest out the episode. There is also a weak subplot about the victim's former best friend possibly being the killer until she ends up murdered herself, but since the character is not developed at all and the subplot never delved into deeply, I didn't much care. The creepy professor is written with just enough ancient this and Egyptian that, but someone should have taken care to not have the "Made in China" brand showing in a close up shot of their 500 year old ceremonial dagger. Which is to say that when Moonlight falls on it's face, it does so in impressively embarrassing ways. Despite this, there are moments where the show is more than watchable, it's just that most of that comes at the very end.

The camera work and lighting do well to create a gritty and dramatic mood, the vampire make-up is effective -- if almost too attractive -- and the stunts are solid. In fact, the final action sequence of the show is very well shot, choreographed and performed. Alex O'Loughlin as Mick brings enough physicality to the role to make it believable. The sequence starts with him confronting the professor, who he believes is planning to hurt Beth. When he confronts the academic who teaches that vampires are people who feed off the energy of others and shows him what a real vampire is, he creates just enough menace to make me believe that someone in the scene may need to change their pants. The climax of the car chase is spectacular, featuring Mick attacking through the window as it speeds down the road and hanging on through spins and impacts before eventually tossing the driver - who is the killer and an over zealous male student in the professor's class - into a light pole.

Mick plucking Beth from the wrecked car and walking away would have made a great ending, in fact. But they pack more exposition into the hour by revealing that the little girl in the flashbacks is Beth and that he saved her from his vampire ex-wife who was hoping that a baby would solve their marriage woes. When she awakes, recognizes him and gives him a hug, it holds practically no emotional impact. I don't know these characters well enough to care about the importance of the moment. I am sure that if the flashbacks were the hazy memories of Beth given in tiny snippets over several episodes and they revealed Mick's part in her rescue at a later date, it could have carried a strong audience reaction. Instead, we get it all tossed out from moment one, along with the grand finale of him setting his ex on fire. Which will make her eventual return all that much more bewildering (no one doubts that she will show up at some point eventually, right?).

In the end, I am left with mixed feelings. I want to like this show. The actors are turning in solid performances, using good sets, locations, lighting and camera work. They aren't going for much comedy and there seem to be no other paranormal creatures lurking about, so they aren't going the Angel route. But the story reached it's denouement in a manner that I can only describe as inelegant, with clunky dialog and a complete lack of guile. I hope that now that they've given us more background info than we needed, next week will concentrate on the single story an episode needs to tell. Otherwise, I am likely to start to agree with Mick St. John. This sucks.

Comments

I so wanted to like this show. Don't know what I was expecting but nothing quite this boring. Wasn't expecting Jason Dorhing to be Logan but man, this was awful - on VM even when Logan was being a jerk it was more believable than him being this guy! What a waste.

Jane | Sep 28, 2007 8:41:29 PM | #

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It was mediocure, it had it's moments but then it didn't. I'll give it a 2nd episode shot. Remember though this episode was retooled mixed with old and new snip bits of the each scripts (guessing by the way) so it's better to say leave the judgment till episode 2.

Jeffrey | Sep 28, 2007 10:37:45 PM | #

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The episode was really uneven, and Beth's acting was *awful*. The dialogue was also very, very clumsy - her entire first scene was so poorly written that I nearly changed the channel then. It reminds me a lot of "Blood Ties" which is airing right now in Canada and which aired on Lifetime(?) in the States. The first episode was also really clunky, but after a while, the show found a rhythm that worked (that or I just got hooked on the attractive vampire ;) ). I really like Jason Dohring, so here's hoping that Moonlight finds it's own rhythm, and *fast*!

Chelsea | Sep 29, 2007 6:11:38 AM | #

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To think they canceled "Close To Home" for this piece of TV garbage is outrageous to say the least. I, for one, will not be watching this. I also think "Numbers" may suffer in the ratings without "Close To Home" as a lead-in.

Brandy | Sep 29, 2007 6:40:29 AM | #

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the Beth kidnap reveal should have been much later in the season, not 45 minutes into the 1st episode.

Chelsea's "blood ties" comparison was accurate. that's a pretty good show--coming back to lifetime in october (i think?)

nitish | Sep 29, 2007 7:10:05 AM | #

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just bring back Angle!

fatinah | Sep 29, 2007 7:19:40 AM | #

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Ouch, tough room.

I actually enjoyed it. It was like a lot of pilots that spend the hour setting the scene, and I would expect the next few episodes to be better - but overall it was good.

Calico | Sep 29, 2007 7:47:34 AM | #

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Well, what can I say? This show was messy, I wanted to like it (right away) and I think its got potential but we'll see...

Here is what I think:

FIRST, "is the killer ... an over zealous male student in the professor's class..." or is he the T.A.? Are these terms the same, because if it is I'm feeling stupid.

SECOND, Jason D. was sad (even as Logan in VM he was pathetic), replace! him!, or maybe he was suppose to act superficial because he's got everything - wealth, power and lust? Not convincing! Replace him!

THIRD, the vampire (main character) is HOT, even with that ugly silver contacts when he scared the pseudo-vampire proffesor.. I mean, could they have choosen a more uglier color that makes the eye looks popped out? The teeth slowly disappearing after he injected that blood from the begining of the scene was a cool special effect. He's got my vote for acting too. Hot and cool vampire.

LAST, the female lead character, is it just me or does she look a bit like Kate Winslet, perhaps a few years younger with blonde hair? I could not help but think of Titanic when she was walking bare feet wet (especially with Mick's voice over of "icy cold water @ 2 in the morning...") because of the fountain and trying to capture the victim's photo with her iPhone.

OVERALL, this is B- for me, because the female lead actor could not hold me long enough to say that was good acting. And if I had seen the "made in China" label as Jessica Paff mentioned it would be worse. However, I will still tune in this Friday night and take it from there.

xoxo

Crissy | Sep 29, 2007 9:44:57 AM | #

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Sorry I can't help it I want to compare this show to Angel. Using that show as the scale for this one and I agree with Mick "this sucks"! The only time this show came alive for me is when James D. was on the screen. Even he seemed to be iPhoning it in. No TiVo season pass for this one I'm afraid.

Craig C. | Sep 29, 2007 12:48:02 PM | #

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First off, I loved it. If I have anything bad to say it is that I was a tad disappointed that the first episode consisted mainly of what we had already seen in the trailers ..and what we may have already known from local spoiler boards.

With that said, I think it still beats many of the new shows offered this season. Alex O'Loughlin is not only handsome, he can act too. And yes I JD was portraying his character to be just that.. strong, decisive and rich. The mind and experience of a four-hundred year old stuck in a 30 year old body.

For those who are being very quick to nix the very first episode or to judge it poorly.. they can always go back to feasting on the onslaught of [i]reality /game /let's see how stupid people really can be[/i] shows that have been jammed down our throats.

Leave the campy, scifi romance and fantasy to those of us who enjoy it.

JerseyGirl | Sep 29, 2007 12:54:27 PM | #

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omg, i loved it, im serious, i dont know wut is wrong w/ yall, but this is the best show ive seen in a long time, i laughed, i cried, i sat @ the edge of the couch wondering wut was gonna happnen, this show has everything in it, give it another chance b4 yall call it horrible, b/c the previews 4 the next 1 look even better, & is it just me, or is that dude the cutest 90 yr old vampire youve ever seen, even IF the show did suck, id watch it just b/c he's in it, but anywayz, i LOVED it!!!!

Beth b. | Sep 29, 2007 1:22:25 PM | #

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Yah, I really liked it!! I think it is one of the better new shows out there!! Still miss Close To Home tho--should of been around for at least one more season!! Hope it makes it!! The one I wasn't that crazy about so far is Bionic Women--prob wont watch it next week!! The one I thought I wouldn't like & did was Cane--it really surprised me!! No blogs on that one yet!! Why?? Or did I just miss it??

Michele | Sep 29, 2007 1:31:55 PM | #

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I don't know what's wrong with you all! I loved it! Can't wait for next week.

Lisa | Sep 29, 2007 2:45:36 PM | #

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I was pleasantly surprised with 'Moonlight', as a former fan of 'Forever Night' w/Gerant Wyn Davies...this show kinda has the premise to that. When I saw that Ron Koslov was part of the creative team (he did 'Beauty and The Beast' w/Ron Perlman...a fantastic series), I thought...oh boy! It's in a good time-slot, after 'Ghost Whisperer', and I like the vampire subtleties. I hope they can keep up w/the good story-lines, cause it has a good chance. I hope they can 'tightened up' some aspects before the 'suits' in power decide...'oh, didn't score such-in-such rating last week, let's pull it', which has been true w/some good series in the past that didn't get a CHANCE to develop. All in all, way to go 'Moonlight', love the credits and title too.

Chris | Sep 29, 2007 4:26:51 PM | #

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I liked it alot too, ya'll. I got the whole hug thing.. He is like her protector, in the shadows, lurking, but in a good way. I loved the hug. It was sweet. Gonna watch until its over.

ScullysProtege | Sep 29, 2007 4:48:01 PM | #

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In regard to Moonlight, they only put this show on the air because women like romantic vampire stories--hence the casting of the overly pumped-up and shirtless Fabio look-a-like for the lead: It was simply about demographics. CBS/Viacom was looking for a show to compliment "The Ghost Whisperer"...while hoping to not only hold onto its female audience...but to attract a strong male audience to the show...thus strengthening the CBS Friday Night Line-Up.

In the end, it had nothing to do with creativity...or trying to make a good show...rather, it was all about the demographics from top to bottom--nothing wrong with that, but just not original. When this show fails, I expect CBS will try out a show about serial killers, as that genre, strangely enough, is very big with women, in regard to book sales...and that should translate nicely to tv ratings. Anyway...if CBS wants it, I've got an idea for such a series. But you can contact me via the email address which I'm logging into this web site with.

MetalWater | Sep 29, 2007 4:57:32 PM | #

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This is definetely a show for the crowd that likes romance. Otherwise there is no substance, no acting, no drama to this show other then the tried and true will the Vampire get the girl? Here's to hoping that they find out soon so we can be put out of our misery or next week when they find out that the ratings will tank. This will be the third or fourth casualty of the new TV season.

Banter | Sep 29, 2007 6:21:31 PM | #

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Yeah I see the females apparently love this show and it should win an Emmy as there so excited. I mean this show was so jumbled I don't know how you could even judge so soon. The fact of the matter is it airs Fridays and it might last. I'll stop by for episode 2 only to see if this show can get out of it's own way. If it does then maybe I'll watch if they keep it.

John | Sep 29, 2007 8:56:37 PM | #

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This was the first new show that I really liked after turning off Bionic Woman halfway through and being disappointed by Chuck, Journeyman and Reaper. The PI genre is always nice and adding a supernatural angle helps for this show.

And Angel was mostly about kicking butt, not solving crimes. Give the characters on Moonlight a few episodes to evolve and see what happens.

proffate | Sep 30, 2007 5:52:38 AM | #

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I found the episode to be extremely predictable. As soon as the flashback happened with the little girl, I immediately knew it had to be the reporter when she was a little girl. Of course, it also helped that she mentioned more than once that Mick looked familiar to her.

I think they need to lose the scenes where Mick is driving his car. It looked so ridiculously fake. Of course, if he's a vampire who can move with lightning speed, why does he even need a car to begin with? Toward the end, where he knew that Beth was in danger, why didn't he just fly over to where she was instead of taking the car?

I'm not sure if I'll tune in for episode 2. If I'm home and there's nothing else on, I may tune in. But it's not appointment TV for me.

Alex O'Loughlin is rather gorgeous, though.

Linda | Oct 1, 2007 5:22:08 AM | #

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Sorry, but I have to agree with the reviewer that "Moonlight" just didn't add anything new to the TV vampire genre. I take it that some or most of the people here were fans of "Angel". Now that was a show that knew how to mix horror with humor! ;-)

This episode was entirely predictable, especially if you watch any "Law & Order" (the first guy suspected is NEVER the actual culprit). The dialogue was clunky, and I didn't think that this pilot needed so much exposition. As other comments have said: leave some mystery for subsequent episodes.

The actors did the best that they could with the terrible script. Yes, Sophia Myles has always reminded me of a younger Kate Winslet (at times I could hear her British accent slip out). I didn't like the twist that Mick seems to have fallen in love with the little girl in the flashback scenes (like he was watching and waiting for her to become legal age--YUCK!). :-(

I'm better off watching my Angel DVDs. Next Friday, I'll be tuning in to "Friday Night Lights"!

Paige | Oct 1, 2007 8:18:03 AM | #

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I am a fan of Angel, Buffy, Lestat (Queen of the Damned - NOT Tom Cruise), Underworld. It seems like folks are being really critical. After all the bashing of it, I thought it would be so so. I watched, and was pleasantly surprised. Clearly there was a lot of info upfront, but that should cool off. Both main characters were really good. The girl was in the first Underworld movie. I hope it sticks around, and people give it a shot before cancelling it before it has a chance to come into it's own.

Robin | Oct 1, 2007 10:08:22 AM | #

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It's no Angel but thats ok. I loved it. He makes me melt.....

Karen | Oct 1, 2007 10:36:26 AM | #

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I'm a vampire story fan from way back. I asked for a copy of Stoker's Dracula for one of my birthdays and from there I moved on to Rice's vampires, etc. I understand that vampire characters change depending upon the author and the time they're created, but I found the vampires in Moonlight too highly sanitized.

Mick doesn't bite or drink blood? He INJECTS it? Those vampires that do drink blood and/or bite work in morgues or worry about being discovered by humans? Holy water and crucifixes don't faze them? Neither does the sun? They don't die by getting staked and the lead vampire character sleeps in a freezer?

Seriously, what kind of vampires are these?

I could understand these changes if the writers were offering something else that was unique and enlightening, but from what I saw in the pilot, Moonlight is basically adding a bit of bankable supernatural dust on top of a pretty standard tv detective drama featuring a stereotypically stoic PI with a past. Although it's better than most of the reality show crap we keep seeing every season, this is only marginally the case.

And I agree that the won't-hunt innocents-childern-women statement was pure stupid, sexist tripe. If I believed that the writers gave Mick that line to indicate his 90+ year antiquity and dream state, I could have let it slide, but I doubt they thought about it that much.

For all that, though, I will watch the second episode. The lead actors are appealing and good actors. My only beef with them, really, is that they're English and Australian. I can't help but wonder why we need foreign actors to portray American characters when we have so many American actors in LA looking for tv work. Weren't they convincing enough to play Americans? Strange.

I'm too much of a vampire story fan not to tune in again. But I'm hoping that plotlines in subsequent episodes will show some creativity and justify why the show delves into the realm of vampire lore to begin with. If it ain't broke, don't fix it ... or try to make it something that it's not.

Berlin | Oct 1, 2007 12:37:34 PM | #

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I have been watching it the whole season, and truthfully it actually makes more sense of vampirism in a real world. Murders draw attention so they shun on killing people indisciminately. The show goes more towards vampirism as in the novels " The Necroscope" where vampirism is a disease or a parastie with the byproduct of enhanced life through symbiosis with the diseasse or parasite.
I like it better than the mystical vampire movies. So I hope it keeps on.

bigdaddy | Dec 14, 2007 10:03:45 PM | #

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this is the best show on tv.sence csi serease.please dont take it off.us older people need something to watch.and his looks help.

llewellen a | May 10, 2008 9:33:34 AM | #

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please dont take this off tv.this is the best show sence csi. and his looks dont hurt the show .we older people need something to watch were at home so much.

llewellen a | May 10, 2008 9:37:04 AM | #

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nina should be fired for cancelling moonlight, great show and great acting. one of
the best shows on television
we don't want reality. we want
something different.that was
moonlight. some other network
should pick it up, usa, tnt, scfi.

tinker | Aug 12, 2008 2:58:27 PM | #

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