Moonlight

I was going to post a review of the 2nd season opener of Heroes (HRG saved the opener, but it was mainly uninteresting and had none of the bang it needed after last season's squib ending) but in the last couple of nights a war has broken out.

A war for the heavyweight champion of turgid season openers.

In the red and blue corner we have the early frontrunner, the veteran purveyor of utter mediocrity and bad acting: Smallville.

In the grey corner it is the new challenger, CBS' new vampire "thriller" Moonlight.

Smallville is known for having two episodes per season that are almost worth watching. The opener and the finale. Usually the opener involves the stunning revelation that Lana wasn't quite wooden enough to burn up in whatever fire she was in at the end of the previous season. Supermeh blows the budget for the next 22 episodes and saves the day and Lex wonders why he hasn't murdered all of these idiots. He wouldn't be crossing to the dark side, it would be a mercy slaughter.

Tom Welling cycles through all three of his facial expressions in this episode while looking like Brandon Routh's father. We get a few shots of Supergirl and Lex thinks she is an angel, yes, Lex Luthor thinks the latest blonde in town is in fact a servant of the Lord. And not Maxwell either.

Things almost happen, Clark remembers he is strong in sunlight, one person literally rises from the dead because...well, she just does and let's not talk about it, and Lana isn't dead. Again.

However, she is in a really bad green screen that is supposed to be Shanghai and she is dressed as a hooker. She wears a blonde wig she picked up from a drunk transvestite and just in case the audience has been lobotomised (again, mercy) or is watching through HD-Braille, she whips the wig off to both confirm it is she, Lana and also to audition for Pantene.

Utter dross.

But wait, you thought things couldn't get any worse but then CBS unleashes Moonlight upon an unsuspecting world.

The premise is an interesting one. A vampire lives in Los Angeles and works as a private detective in order to help the mortals who...hold on, this sounds familiar.

In fact many people have made comparisons between Moonlight and another show called Angel.

Now the similarities might seem obvious (including the blatant rip-off of editing style when changing scenes) but they are completely different shows.

Angel was good, Moonlight is bad in brobdingnagian proportions.

Alex O'Loughlin stars as Mick St. John (yes I know), a 90 year old vampire who doesn't drink fresh blood (though he does drink human blood which in of itself is...hold on, I'm thinking, silly me) and in the opening episode is trying to solve an apparent vampire-caused murder to stop anyone else suffering the same fate and to prevent the revelation that vampires exist.

O'Loughlin is a moon-faced charisma vacuum who has the edgy wit and delivery of a 50 year old arthritic UPS driver. Whereas David Boreanaz was dangerous, sexy and physically imposing even in his pie-eating phase, O'Loughlin misses every mark he aims at, his charming moments are vapid, his action scenes are fluffy.



At one point he goes to answer a door and manages to be unconvincing. Let me just repeat that for emphasis, he is unconvincing at acting out opening a door.



His line is "Yeah, yeah." in response to the door knocking. I think the writer imagined the delivery to be one of impatience and world-weary grouchiness. Instead "Yeah, yeah." said by O'Loughlin is reminiscent of alternative pop duo "They Might Be Giants".



St. John (not the baptist) comes across a ferociously inept reporter called Beth Turner, played by Sophia Myles who looks like Kate Winslet, but oddly moon-faced, which I think is where the series title came from.



She goes undercover as a college student (she takes 10 years off by wearing pigtails, not since Clouseau has a disguise worked this well) in order to trap the obviously not-guilty cult leader (played by the fellow who appeared in Buffy as Dracula just to throw the sinus-infected audience off the scent).



In Scooby Doo tradition it is of course the background character we are introduced to briefly who is the true culprit and St. John (unfortunately still not the baptist) goes into green screen action mode and the audience is amazed that even a car drive can be such a bad special effect.

I remember trying one of the early virtual reality headsets and along with the feeling of nausea from just those expensive 20 minutes, I felt sick for months after if i saw a certain Dire Straits video on MTV.



Moonlight's special effects made me remember those halcyon days.



And yet the strange spinning sensation didn't end there as St. John (also not the superb goalscorer for Liverpool in previous decades) is having Beauty and The Beast style pant-tightening thoughts for the reporter in an incredibly disturbing way.

Thanks to the power of Vaseline covered lenses and shockingly bad narration we are treated to flashbacks that reveal St. John saved Miss Turner over 20 years ago and has been keeping tabs on her since, from afar.



Yep, he wants to nail the girl he has been stalking since she was about 8 years old.



My jaw actually dropped.




To prove every cloud has a silver lining, the previously fabulous Jason Dohring who devoured the screen as Logan in Veronica Mars plays an ancient vampire who gives Mick his orders.



Do you remember a slow mo shot and "Get out of there!" being screamed at Rocky Balboa in Rocky III?



Now instead of Rocky in the ring cut to Jason Dohring in Moonlight who struggles heroically to turn swill into wine and rises above the rest of the cast by actually acting as if he has acted before.



A femme fatale was introduced but I didn't care as soon my fortitude won out and the episode came to an end.



Moonlight is quite possibly the worst first episode of a series that I have had the misfortune and bewilderment to see.

Avoid like the plague if possible, use as a straw man argument that Smallville is good if you so desire.

P.s.

Jason Dohring, please, listen to Apollo Creed, he was the Count of Monte Fisto afterall.