Moonlight and Blood Ties ...

[fajrdrako]

Thanksgiving: my first of two turkey dinners. The food was fairly traditional and fully delicious - turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce and gravy, cole slaw, peas, rice, creamed corn, and dessert was pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Delicious pie, bought at a bakery on Bank St. I'd never been to before. I don't recall its name, but it's worth going back to. I liked it as much as the pumpkin pies I make from scratch.

For entertainment, we watched a TV-series vampire double bill: the pilot episode of Moonlight and the episode of Blood Ties that aired tonight, "Heart of Ice".

Just griping yesterday I was griping about how I don't like vampires much and I seem to find them in the popular media everywhere I look. Comics currently are concentrating more on zombies - another supernatural creature I don't much like - but vampires are everywhere else.¹

I liked both shows, though both seemed like typical low-key TV entertainment, with predictable plots and characters with a certain charm. What I loved most about Moonlight was Alex O'Laughlin, who is excellent, and Jason Dohring, whom I adored as Logan in Veronica Mars and (so far) love no less here. It seems a rather similar role: the wild rich brat of the vampire crowd, as contrasted to being the wild rich brat of the Neptune, California high school crowd. What I didn't like was the role of Sophia Myles as Beth Turner, mostly because I don't much like Sophia Myles. But maaseru remarked that she resembled Hayden Panettiere (Claire on Heroes) and since I've come to love Claire, I might come to love, like or tolerate Beth. If I watch again.

I particularly liked the narrative sequences where Mick St. John is giving an interview.

The best thing about Blood Ties was Christina Cox as Vicki Nelson. She is terrific. Kyle Schmid as Henry Fitzroy was fine too, in a fairly standard good-vampire sort of way, and I loved the connection with Henry VIII. All the other characters were reasonably uninteresting. Dylan Neal as Mike Celluci was simply annoying.

After that we sort of half-watched Desperate Housewives, a show I can't stand, but we all wanted to see Nathan Fillion. He was only on for a minute at the end (no, it wasn't worth it) but it was at least fun to see him for that brief and shining moment.

~ ~ ~

¹ I used to love vampire stories, back with Interview With a Vampire and Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula, but the charm wore off long ago, especially in the romance genre. I do love stories about non-vampiric Immortals, especially the great Immortals like Methos and Captain Jack Harkness. But you've probably noticed that already.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I liked Moonlight much better when it was called Forever Knight and the characters had a couple of functioning brain cells apiece.

I liked the original Forever Knight pilot, if I remember correctly, but they changed the lead and I didn't like the actor in the role after that - Geraint Wynne Davies? - and why do I remember the name of an actor I didn't like in a show I didn't watch?

Both vampire shows suffer from what I call "television blandness" - which is not to say that all TV is bland, but most of it is not memorable.

there should be a moratorium on vampire shows for the next 10 years or so

I would allow one vampire series in each of several genres - TV, comics, movies, books - maybe even subdividing books into mysteries, horror, fantasy and romance. But no more than one! And I would reserve the right not to watch or read it.