CW gives failed vampire series some new blood

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This article was published 03/06/2010 (5946 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THESE are indeed strange days. Moonlight, a short-lived 2007 vampire series with a charis­matic lead actor, Alex O’Loughlin, is revisited in its entirety, starting tonight, on The CW.

The CW is pairing Moonlight with reruns of its out-of-the-box hit The Vampire Diaries. It’s a shrewd move, designed to keep teenyboppers and (mostly) female fans of heartthrob O’Loughlin all atwitter throughout what promises to be a long, hot summer of tepid TV.

Moonlight is a curiosity: It was a vampire thriller that failed to provide thrills, despite the undeniable charisma of its leading man. It failed to stick in an age when anything to do with vampires — from Twilight to True Blood and Vampire Diaries — latched onto the cultural spotlight like moths to the flame.

And yet. When Moonlight was finally cancelled, for the old reasons — bad ratings — the show’s (mostly) female fans bayed for blood. In the years since, O’Loughlin has attracted a cult following of vocal (mostly) female devotees: He’s the thinking woman’s Robert Pattinson.

O’Loughlin himself is about to be resurrected, in the here and now, as Steve McGarrett in the remake of Hawaii Five-0. Heaven knows whether his Moonlight following will cross over to what promises, after all, to be a fairly mundane, by-the-book cop show. Then again, it’s possible O’Loughlin’s following is so dedicated, it will follow him anywhere, even to the bright sunshine of the Aloha state.

Moonlight itself is a bit of a tough sell, because, right from the start, even the casual viewer will be able to tell it’s trying to be two things at once: a detective mystery — he’s a crime-solving vampire! — and a romantic tale about star-crossed lovers.

O’Loughlin plays Mick St. John, a private detective resigned to working nights and helping damsels in distress. Sophia Myles plays an investigative reporter who develops a dangerous and forbidden fixation on this dashing hero of the night. Sure, his personal habits take getting used to — his sleeping in a freezer, for one, and his acquiring blood from the local morgue, courtesy of a friend who works there — but what he lacks in regular-guy habits he makes up for in charm. He can get away with a lame line like, "Being a vampire sucks," for example, because he has the presence of mind to add, "It’s a bad joke, I know, but it’s the truth."

There’s another line, also from tonight’s opener: "When you live forever, the past always catches up with you." That’s a fancy-pants way of saying that eventually, all TV, even mediocre TV, lives on in reruns. Think of Moonlight as a silly diversion on a hot, lazy summer’s night. (The CW, 8 p.m.)

 

— Canwest News Service