Kamen Rider Kiva (2008-09)

Blade: The Series (2006)

Blade's feature-length pilot was written by David S. Goyer and Geoff Johns. Goyer was the man responsible/to blame for writing all three of the films, so it made sense to have him script the series beginnings, too. He set it sometime after the events of the shitfest that was Blade: Trinity (2004). Johns is a veteran comic book writer who’d worked on Smallville, so he was no stranger to the crossing of mediums. What they delivered was a smouldering turd, using the same tired clichés we've seen countless times before. But if you watch the pilot and then stop you’ll get the wrong impression of the series as a whole. There’s one other really shitty episode, but the remainder of the series is very different. Sometime around episode three or four things get good, and when events grow more complicated for the characters things get really good.

The biggest problem is Blade himself. Kirk Jones casts an effective silhouette but falls flat when he tries to be menacing. Worse still, he has problems enunciating. I had to pull up subtitles frequently on every episode just to hear what the hell he was mumbling. I'm a fan of foreign cinema, so subtitles don’t faze me, but they really shouldn't have been necessary.

The other characters are better. Blade’s tech-savvy accomplice Shen fills the Whistler role admirably and is occasionally the voice of Blade's conscience.

The vampires have concerns other than the Daywalker. Internal division between the 12 Houses, bitter rivalries and cold ambitions keep them from uniting.

A third factor (a woman) stops things being simply Blade vs Vamps repeatedly; it adds a level of danger and subterfuge that teeters on a very shaky line.

I thoroughly enjoyed the short run the series had, more so than any of the films, and am sad that it was cancelled after just one season. Geoff Johns has been quoted as saying that the reason for it ending was due to rising production costs for the small Spike TV network, not because of viewing figures.

13 fully uncut episodes, approx 40-45 minutes each.

3½ fake tattoos out of 5

True Blood: Season 1 (2008)

Based on the novels by Charlaine Harris, True Blood opens into a world where the legendary monsters known as vampires no longer lurk in the shadows. Instead their race as a whole has decided to come out of the coffin, so to speak, and as they put it "mainstream" as members of society. What the show is really about is the effect this has on the rest of the world, specifically the Louisiana town of Bon Temps, the main setting for the show and the home of one special lil' waitress, Sookie Stackhouse.

Anna Paquin fits snugly into the role of this beautiful spitfire with a cross to bear. Sookie not only waits on the patrons of Merlotte's Bar & Grill but hears all their dirty little thoughts too. Her telepathic powers have made her an inevitable pariah but once she crosses paths with Bon Temps' first vampire, shit really hits the fan.

Brooding Stephen Moyer plays Bill, the dignified and cultured bloodsucker whose entrance causes quite a splash in the mud puddle of Bon Temps. One unfortunate ripple is a series of murders committed on women who have been known to associate themselves with vampires. The main suspect turns out to be Sookie's clueless man-slut of a brother Jason whose problems only start there.

The vampires portrayed in True Blood are designed to be set apart from any other representation as their fangs protract like a rattlesnake's and as they move faster than the human eye can see, we are treated to some pretty lacking sfx. And in a reality where these creatures exist it's fun to think of what else may be possible but sometimes the fantasy element is pushed a little too far. The somewhat stereotypical characters are generally fun to watch and likable if you exclude Sookie's abrasive best friend Tara and her overly dramatic and unpleasant drunk of a mother.

Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) has created a distinctive series full of potential and while season 1 may not live up to it all the time, it is still a formidable first stab at the vampire genre.

Buyer's Guide:
Available in both DVD and Blu Ray box sets including episodes 1-12

3 vampire chunks in Sookie's cleavage out of 5

Kindred: The Embraced (1996)

Kindred could've been great if it hadn't been cancelled midway through its first season. It's loosely based on the RPG Vampire: The Masquerade, which is something I have no firsthand experience of.

It follows the safe and successful route of having a human form an uneasy alliance with a non-human, but it places them in a dark Noir environment. It eschews the usual gothic overtones that vampire shows usually have in favour of a more realistic, mafia style. It reminded me of Copolla’s Godfather (1972) in many ways; the main bad guy, Julian Luna, even looks like Part III's Andy Garcia.

Julian is the "prince" of the city; he oversees the five vampire clans, known collectively as the Kindred. Each of the Kindred have a different agenda and work secretly behind the scenes to attain it, but there are laws in place that govern how much they can do alone. Those same laws are designed to protect and sustain their anonymity so the humans don't begin to hunt their kind. That hiding in the open is known as the Masquerade. The five vampire clans can cause it to get a little confusing, but it gave the show a lot of scope for future story lines.

The biggest failing is SF Police Detective Frank Kohanek, the main good guy; his acting is forced and melodramatic. Mercifully, he isn't always the main focus of each episode and as it gets deeper into clan politics he's featured even less.

When Frank isn't in it, it gets good. It's still flawed, I've yet to see a first season of anything that isn't, but it gets more right than it gets wrong.

The characters (except for the aforementioned Frank), the city, and the Masquerade are all believable. If you want some vamp action that's not targeted at teens and deals with adult themes it's worth watching. Sadly, it was shelved after 8 episodes, so we'll never know how it would've played out.

8 episodes, approx 45 mins each (the first episode is longer).

3½ tears of blood out of 5