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Some thoughts on Ultraviolet (1998)
Another YouTube upload I discovered, and since it was only six episodes long, I gave it a try. After all, it has Stringer Bell and Jane Bennett hunting vampires. There was no way I didn't want to see that. And Susannah Harker was a revelation as Angie, who is so reserved and yet so destroyed, with the darkest backstory of anyone in the show. Having only seen her playing sweet Jane, it was so fascinating to watch.
Idris Elba as Vaughan was also great, but less surprising to me. There was also Philip Quast as the sardonic, scary as hell priest leading the team, who started out fairly background but whose role expanded at the end.
The first episode is somewhat dry, as it prefers to focus on Everyman Copper Michael (played by Jack Davenport, who I guess is famous from a bunch of stuff I've never seen), newly initiated into the vampire hunting life when his best friend Jack is turned. Between the show's avoidance of actual vampire discussion (the word is never used in any episode) and the requirement of setting up Michael's ordinary life before it all goes to hell, it's mostly just getting the pieces in position, but as of the second episode it turns into an extremely dark, gripping procedural with 90s conspiracy overtones.
It's also an unusual take on vampire warfare because the vampires rarely get their hands dirty, preferring to manipulate humans to do their work for them. They are organized and scientifically-minded, trying to preserve their increasingly self-destructive food supply. Meanwhile, their food supply objects to losing their status as the dominant predator of the world. It's a very cold premise, that keeps borrowing 90s headlines to lend a sense of realism to proceedings. There are definitely victims of the vampires, but they don't kill to feed, so the war is a vicious, silent struggle for dominance while regular people wander clueless, occasionally used as pawns or guinea pigs. Meanwhile, Michael looks on in horror, unsure if he's completely buying in or not, and toying with the hope of getting fired.
The writing throughout is quite subtle, and it rarely spells things out for the audience, which I appreciated a lot. Further thoughts under a cut.
Everyone in the main cast have layers of psychological trauma, which are met head-on, rather than used when needed for plot and conveniently forgotten the rest of the time. There's also a strong noir feel throughout, especially with all the torches carried in vain. Michael has an ex he uses for collecting information, and she clearly has leftover feelings for him, but he doesn't reciprocate. Instead, he makes sad puppy eyes at his best friend's fiancee, Kirsty. Kirsty loves Jack and is trying to find out what happened to him. She's the least favorite part of the show for most people, but I found her entirely sympathetic. Her tragedy is that she's in a different show than she thinks she is. The plucky Nancy Drew investigator bravely searching for answers in a suspected cover-up would be heroic in a different context. Instead, she stumbles right into disaster and causes problems, because nobody tells her the truth.
Oh, and Vaughan is in love with Angie, who is in love with her dead husband (who might not be fully dead). It's extremely believable. These people are soldiers in an invisible war, and anyone they fraternize with could be used against them. Who else would they fall for except someone on the job?
All four of the leads have really interesting dynamics with each other, tons of scars and the show continuously questions how far each of them are willing to go to win the war. Michael's ambivalence is contrasted with their knight templar attitudes, and while this is portrayed as naivety on his part, he is occasionally right when he grants the vampires more personality traits than his thoroughly broken coworkers do. He also has good instincts, and I was happy with the balance of contributions to each case. All four pull their weight in different ways and there isn't too much main character syndrome.
Eventually, it even begins to address the religious aspect of proceedings, what with a priest as a core character. There's also a lot of emphasis on grief, mortality and trauma, and certainly on the ethics and philosophy of warfare. Vampire behaviors are also frequently compared to human treatment of our own food supply. It leans into shades of gray, but not to make the vampires more sympathetic, rather humans less so, which is an... interesting choice, and very fitting of the noir aesthetic.
It did lean a little more heavily on procedural material than I expected, with the fourth episode in particular causing me to start yelling at the screen, "where are the vampires? I signed up for vampires!" while it spent way too much time on realistic crimes against children. I was right there with Michael's sullen "this sucks" expression. That's my one complaint.
On the other hand, there's the final episode, which does all the right things, giving benched characters a chance to do something badass, giving clueless characters important information, raising the stakes and offering a final twist that actually makes a lot of character sense and is darkly amusing. In other words, it ends just when it's really getting good.
So now I have another cancelled show to admire.
Idris Elba as Vaughan was also great, but less surprising to me. There was also Philip Quast as the sardonic, scary as hell priest leading the team, who started out fairly background but whose role expanded at the end.
The first episode is somewhat dry, as it prefers to focus on Everyman Copper Michael (played by Jack Davenport, who I guess is famous from a bunch of stuff I've never seen), newly initiated into the vampire hunting life when his best friend Jack is turned. Between the show's avoidance of actual vampire discussion (the word is never used in any episode) and the requirement of setting up Michael's ordinary life before it all goes to hell, it's mostly just getting the pieces in position, but as of the second episode it turns into an extremely dark, gripping procedural with 90s conspiracy overtones.
It's also an unusual take on vampire warfare because the vampires rarely get their hands dirty, preferring to manipulate humans to do their work for them. They are organized and scientifically-minded, trying to preserve their increasingly self-destructive food supply. Meanwhile, their food supply objects to losing their status as the dominant predator of the world. It's a very cold premise, that keeps borrowing 90s headlines to lend a sense of realism to proceedings. There are definitely victims of the vampires, but they don't kill to feed, so the war is a vicious, silent struggle for dominance while regular people wander clueless, occasionally used as pawns or guinea pigs. Meanwhile, Michael looks on in horror, unsure if he's completely buying in or not, and toying with the hope of getting fired.
The writing throughout is quite subtle, and it rarely spells things out for the audience, which I appreciated a lot. Further thoughts under a cut.
Everyone in the main cast have layers of psychological trauma, which are met head-on, rather than used when needed for plot and conveniently forgotten the rest of the time. There's also a strong noir feel throughout, especially with all the torches carried in vain. Michael has an ex he uses for collecting information, and she clearly has leftover feelings for him, but he doesn't reciprocate. Instead, he makes sad puppy eyes at his best friend's fiancee, Kirsty. Kirsty loves Jack and is trying to find out what happened to him. She's the least favorite part of the show for most people, but I found her entirely sympathetic. Her tragedy is that she's in a different show than she thinks she is. The plucky Nancy Drew investigator bravely searching for answers in a suspected cover-up would be heroic in a different context. Instead, she stumbles right into disaster and causes problems, because nobody tells her the truth.
Oh, and Vaughan is in love with Angie, who is in love with her dead husband (who might not be fully dead). It's extremely believable. These people are soldiers in an invisible war, and anyone they fraternize with could be used against them. Who else would they fall for except someone on the job?
All four of the leads have really interesting dynamics with each other, tons of scars and the show continuously questions how far each of them are willing to go to win the war. Michael's ambivalence is contrasted with their knight templar attitudes, and while this is portrayed as naivety on his part, he is occasionally right when he grants the vampires more personality traits than his thoroughly broken coworkers do. He also has good instincts, and I was happy with the balance of contributions to each case. All four pull their weight in different ways and there isn't too much main character syndrome.
Eventually, it even begins to address the religious aspect of proceedings, what with a priest as a core character. There's also a lot of emphasis on grief, mortality and trauma, and certainly on the ethics and philosophy of warfare. Vampire behaviors are also frequently compared to human treatment of our own food supply. It leans into shades of gray, but not to make the vampires more sympathetic, rather humans less so, which is an... interesting choice, and very fitting of the noir aesthetic.
It did lean a little more heavily on procedural material than I expected, with the fourth episode in particular causing me to start yelling at the screen, "where are the vampires? I signed up for vampires!" while it spent way too much time on realistic crimes against children. I was right there with Michael's sullen "this sucks" expression. That's my one complaint.
On the other hand, there's the final episode, which does all the right things, giving benched characters a chance to do something badass, giving clueless characters important information, raising the stakes and offering a final twist that actually makes a lot of character sense and is darkly amusing. In other words, it ends just when it's really getting good.
So now I have another cancelled show to admire.