Moonlight: Mick Vamps Out

One thing I understand is those bloodsucking night hunters (heck, after writing so many novels about them, I ought to). But until recently, I did not have much love for Moonlight vampire Mick St. John. But the writers strike has a way of making marginal series far more interesting and I’ve been paying closer attention to this series of late (what else is there to pay attention to when I’m ready for an hour that doesn’t involve looking at a computer monitor?) and the timing is right because this series just keeps getting better.

Beth has gone from being a whiny hanger-on to displaying some real emotion as she tries to balance her attraction for Mick with her relationship with Josh (easier now that he’s dead but not “undead”). And the episode when Josh exited the show via a body bag revealed Mick’s bloodthirsty side. Yes, vampires DO understand vengeance, and Mick did a fine job showing it. But the highpoint of the episode was Mick “vamping out” to get information from a suspect in Josh’s killing, all the time with his back to the one-way glass through which the police were watching. Kudos to the series writers for that one, though I wonder if they’d thought of it if the suspect wasn’t a superstitious Latin American.

But there are these haunting inconsistencies. If vampires are lone hunters and can’t “work” another vamp’s territory, why is Josef still around? Is it only male and female vampires so condemned? We need some consistency here. Plus, who’s hunting? I think they are all shopping at the same butcher shop as Angel was. This “unrequited love” theme, which seems ubiquitous in vampire series, is getting stale. To be fair, it’s the way of saying this life is really lousy, while fans everywhere know it would be really cool.

This week, we’ll see the season finale of Moonlight and also of Blood Ties and there are still rumors about the HBO series True Blood (starring Anna Paquin and produced by Alan Ball of Six Feet Under) though it’s not on the HBO schedule yet.

All in all, a good time to be a vamp fan.