Moonlight, like a surprisingly high number of shows, mixes detectives with vampires. The lead is Mick St. John, a ninety year old vampire who works as a private investigator. In the pilot, he teams up with Beth, a woman he once saved as a child, to uncover the truth behind a series of supposed vampire attacks.
For Fans of: Kindred: The Embraced, The Dresden Files and Blood Ties
What Worked:
While it’s certainly far from original, I thought the show made good use of both its voice-overs and flashbacks. It actually reminded me a lot of the recently canceled Dresden Files in that regard.
I thought the chemistry between Mick St. John and Beth worked pretty well. Seeing as those two are the central focus of the series, that’s a good thing (though I hope the writers don’t take too long in having Beth find out about Mick’s big secret).
It was also nice to see a bit of a variation on the standard vampire mythos. In the world of Moonlight, vampires are quite a bit tougher than usual. While sunlight is a bit of an irritant, most of the standard weakness have been done away with; beheading and being burned are the only things a vampire has to fear in the Moonlight world.
What Didn’t Work:
Jason Dohring’s character, Josef, just didn’t click. It seemed like nobody was sure just how good or evil Josef should be, so he came off as rather inconsistent from scene to scene (and sometimes even line to line). Hopefully once they settle on a direction for Josef, the character will work, but for the pilot it was a definite weak spot.
The pilot didn’t really work all that well as a pilot either. It did a fine job of introducing the characters, and setting up the vampire mythos the series will be using and even gave us some motivation for Mick, but I have no idea what next week’s show will be like. I assume Mick will be working another case of some kind, but will it involve the supernatural? Or will he be dealing with more mundane, human cases? It’s hard to say. If the show will be primarily dealing with the supernatural, then they really should have had a supernatural killer here in the first episode. If the show is sticking with human crimes, than what’s the point of having any other vampires around?
Not only did the case in the pilot leave me wondering about the nature of the cases Mick will be working in the future, it also wasn’t very good. I successfully identified the killer in his very first appearance, before he even had a line. So when the big reveal happened, it wasn’t exactly a shock. Hopefully, if the show is going to continue to play up the mystery elements, it will do so more successfully in the future.
Closing Thoughts:
Moonlight has potential. The pilot seemed like it was unsure what direction it wanted to go. Hopefully now that there’s an actual series to follow up on the pilot, we’ll see some more solid direction. I’ll definitely check this show out again next week, but it’s too early to say whether the show is a keeper or not.
