Moonlight (2007-2008)

"How do I know you're not the killer?"
"Well, because I'm not killing you."

"Vampire experts. Beautiful. Now we've got the food mouthing off about the farmers."

Mick is a friendly neighbourhood vampire who sleeps in a freezer, works as a PI and injects blood he gets from the morgue. When Beth (Sophia Myles - 'Doctor Who', 'Underworld') a reporter for a sleazy webcast show starts a rumour about a vampire serial killer on the loose, Mick gets involved. Mostly because Mick's vampire buddy Josef (Jason Dohring - 'Veronica Mars') is annoyed that their secret could be revealed. Meanwhile Beth learns of a college professor who claims to be a vampire so he can get emo college girls to sleep with him. Now Mick has to save her from one of the professor's crazy cult and they hug as Evanescence's song 'My Immortal' blares.

Good.

Comments:

• Mick has watched over Beth since she was a child. He saved her when she was abducted by Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon - 'Devor', 'Rules of Attraction', 'A Knight's Tale') his estranged wife who made him into a vampire. Mick saved Beth, killing Coraline in the process.
• Coraline is evil, you can tell because she wears the standard uplifting white nightdress all female vampires wear.
• The depiction of Mick's vampire powers are cheesy.
• The info dump at the beginning of the show is a bit much.

"People want news they read the paper. They want to find out what latest celebrity trainwreck passed out in their own vomit they read you."

A man Mick put in prison gets out after 25 years and he knows what Mick is. So Mick finds himself hunted by a pissed off ex-con with a grudge. In his desperate attempt to stop the psycho Mick inadvertently reveals to Beth what he is.

Uhhhhh.

Highlights:

• A flashback to Mick and Josef in the 1980's feeding off two skanks to the tune of Duran Duran's 'Hungry Like The Wolf'.
• Beth does a dramatic gun cock.

Comments:

• Beth acts like a moron.
• So silver is like poison to Mick?
• We meet Beth's himbo boyfriend Josh.

"Initially we thought this was a suicide."
"And now?"
"We decided it was unlikely that he chewed out his own throat before he took his leave."

A doctor tries to be a good Samaritan and is turned into a crazed vampire for his troubles. Meanwhile this causes Mick to recall how he was unwillingly turned into a vampire by his wife Coraline in 1952. This was an okay episode that explored more about the vampire world.

Highlights:

• The newly turned vampire doctor's vamp vision as he sees people's blood vessels full of blood.
• The dreamily filmed, hazy 1950's flashbacks of Coraline turning Mick into a vampire and introducing him to the joys of blood drinking.
• The Cleaners, vampires who clean up other vampires messes, putting a headless body in their van.

Comments:

• A stake in the heart won't kill these vampires.
• The doctor's wife finds her deranged husband sleeping in a fridge and doesn't run for her life.

"At some point you're gonna have to stop me."

A stupid trial witness goes on the run. Mick has to find her and her Jersey mob wife hair. Mick gets sunstroke and needs blood. Beth obliges. Mick has emo angst. Boring.

"You idiot whore bag!"

A acne ridden 16 year old boy is also a vampire and has been for nearly 200 years. He lashes out by stalking and killing prozzies. It's Mick and Beth to the rescue. Mick and the petulant teen vamp (who CANNOT act) have a fight on a rollercoaster. Okayish.

Highlight:

• Beth helps Mick locate the killer by phoning up people and putting on a fake phone sex voice. Hee.

Comments:

• That is one fast printer.
• Beth is a real bottom feeder journalist.
• Josh thinks something is going on between Mick and Beth, he's not wrong.

"When I met her she was building a pirate army."
"A pirate army?"
"Back in the day, you could do that kind of thing."

"Perpetual coolness is the vampire's curse."

Guest Starring: Holly Valance ('Prison Break')

Beth is investigating the death of a model. Mick is hunting a old vampire buddy of Josef's. It turns out they're both looking for the same woman. And that woman is Lola (Valance), an old old old vampire who has taken to murdering her own kind to turn them into a party drug called Black Crystal for humans. Beth is unable to resist sampling the drug which lets humans experience what it feels like to be a vampire. Very good. Lola was a great villain.

Highlights:

• Beth tripping on Black Crystal.
• Beth and Mick in the shower. Sizzling scene.
• The Lola/Mick fight which ends when he drowns her in silver.

Comments:

• Beth has the ID chip from the dead model's hand inserted into her own, unsanitary!
• Lola's red bustier.

"When crimes are committed by dead people, this doesn't suggest to you any kind of vampire involvement?"

"You need to take the tinfoil hat off boyo."

Mick becomes obsessed with a photographer named Morgan who is a doppelganger of his dead vampire wife Coraline. When Morgan is threatened by a vampire criminal, Mick becomes convinced the whole situation is a set-up and that Morgan is Coraline. However there are some problems with that theory, for a start Morgan is human. Meanwhile flashbacks to the 1950's show how Mick became obsessed with Coraline and her mind games. Okay.

Comments:

• Why did Coraline have a fleur de lis tattoo?
• The 1950's Mick/Coraline story is a total rip-off of 'Body Heat', right down to Mick throwing a chair through her patio door.
• If Morgan really is Coraline as suggested by the final scene, then how is she human?

"A rainbow coalition of psychos."

"Why are you fighting when you should be begging?"

As the show's renewal hopes hang in the balance, we get this tale of how Sheppard a cult leader is executed only to rise from the grave. It seems someone turned him into a vampire before his death and now the crazy is after all those who he's pissed at. Meanwhile Beth figures out that Mick saved her when she was a child. This was a good episode.

Highlights:

• Beth tells Audrey that Mick wanted to talk to one of Sheppard's crazy followers alone as screams ring out. Blackly comic.
• The prison priest turned Sheppard into a vampire, didn't see that one coming.

"So you knew her?"
"Meet her for the first time in New York. Lincoln was president."

Beth stalks Morgan convinced she is Coraline. Meanwhile Mick asks Morgan to help him on a case involving a murderous affair. Mick and Morgan get close and she reveals that yes she is Coraline and she's human. Meanwhile Beth who has recalled her traumatic abduction stakes Coraline only for Mick to turn on her. An okay episode.

Highlights:

• Mick's jump down the massive flight of stairs.

Comments:

• More detail on how Coraline kidnapped Beth as a child to create a family with Mick is revealed.
• Coraline has kept the playroom she had for child Beth in perfect condition and she's been stalking Mick and Beth. Whackjob.
• So how is Coraline human and just how do they plan to explain Coraline getting a stake in the chest to the ER doctors?
• Coraline's fleur de lis mark on her back isn't a tattoo, it's a brand. She was a courtesan in France and was branded.

Coraline's in hospital and it soon becomes clear that despite appearing to be human, she is still a vampire. Meanwhile an old man hires a mercenary to kill Josef and he knows what Josef is. It is all down to the fact that Josef tried to turn the man's daughter in 1955 and botched it. Dull.

Highlight:

• Mick's trick with the fire escape.

Comments:

• How does Josef plan to explain being alive?
• Coraline's fangs look really fake.
• Does anyone else find Josef keeping his comatose girlfriend alive since 1955 really creepy?

Beth's boyfriend Josh is threatened by a drug lord he is prosecuting. The drug lord then has Josh kidnapped and shot full of holes. As Josh lies dying Beth begs Mick to turn Josh but Mick refuses. Josh expires in a river of blood. Beth blames Mick so Mick goes on a rampage and kills the drug lord. All in all a pretty bad day for everyone. This was an okish episode. And with renewal looking certain, we have more adventures of Mick, Beth, Josef and Coraline to look forward to.

Highlights:

• Mick smashes up the drug lord's bar and evades the bartender and his shotgun.
• Mick feeds off the drug lord and then grins with blood pouring out of his mouth, creepy.

Comments:

• Coraline and Beth have the same rare blood type.
• Mick vamps out in the middle of a police station.

"A couple of medieval vampires showed up on my roof looking for Coraline."

"King Louis XVI and various members of his extended bloodline, all vampires. There is much more to the French revolution than is written in history books."

Coraline's back and Mick learns the full truth about the 'cure' and Coraline's past. The 'cure' isn't a cure, it is only a way for a vampire to temporarily pass as human. Why? It was created because the French Revolution was actually a cover for vampire genocide. Mick gets Coraline to give him the cure before her pissed off vampire brethren take her away for punishment for her deeds. Meanwhile Beth broods over Josh and then makes goo-goo eyes at the now human Mick over Josh's coffin during his funeral service. Okay. It sets up many future plot arc with the revelation of the noble French vampire bloodline (which Mick is a part of), Mick's temporary humanity and Coraline's fate.

Highlights:

• The vampire resting in the bath-tub full of ice.

Comments:

• Coraline is a big fat liar, she wasn't a courtesan in France, she was a noblewoman who along with the rest of her vampire family made peasants into buffet meals.

Mick's human and he and Beth get busy bonding. Poor Josh probably hasn't even started decomposing yet. When Beth's boss Maureen is murdered, the snotty new DA gets involved. When Beth and Talbot (the aforementioned snotty new DA) are kidnapped by the vampire responsible, Mick realises he can't save Beth as a human. Not knowing when the cure will wear off, he begs Josef to turn him. Josef does in an extremely homoerotic scene. Beth is saved, Mick broods. Good.

Comments:

• The Mick/Josef re-vamping scene. That was one of the most homoerotic scenes I have seen in some time.
• I guess the Coraline plot is done, the actress is gone from the credits and Coraline's name isn't mentioned.
• Josef has a horrible new hairdo.
• Cute cat.
• As Josef now re-vamped Mick, I guess the whole plot of Coraline's special bloodline is dropped seeing as Mick is no longer part of her bloodline.
• The vampire make-up has changed, it's more corpse like now.