A confession
Jan. 1st, 2008 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charloweenThanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thucyken, I'm now hooked on Moonlight.
It's cracked-out neo-noir with vampires. Much as I hate to admit it, it's the kind of show I'd want to make if I were in the business of making shows. It's Forever Knight (guilt-ridden vampire in law enforcement, prone to angsty flashbacks about a dark-haired former lover) mixed with an even dose of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (neo-noir up the wazoo, homaging noir conventions as fast as they can stack up). There's snark, angst and vampires; what more can you ask for?
Pretty people? Okay - it's got lots of pretty people, too. Visually, it's total candy.
Plot-wise it's fairly shallow - police procedural... with vampires! omg! - but it's not striving to make grand statements about anything or be the Next Great Show. It chugs along and seems to be having fun doing what it's doing. I don't get any pretentious vibe off of it. Maybe it's because they don't really expect it to last that long or spawn a new mega-franchise, but it doesn't seem like the show is being made with all that much gravity. The weekly cases (our vamp is a PI, the girl is a reporter) are decent, but since the show is more about Mick-the-vampire and how cases keep making him cross paths with Beth-the-reporter and less about dashingly complex mysteries... the writers put their energy into the relationship stuff.
Part of the noir schtick is the liberal use of voice-overs. Mick's v/o's are delightful. They've been written to give him a dryish wit, and a combination of how they're written and how they're performed makes them sound like Darien Fawkes's v/o stuff from I-Man. They've both got the same dry, sarcastic "I've been fucked by the world and now I'm a bit of a mutant" woe-is-me thing going on. (I-Man is obviously better 'cause it's a show with, y'know, complex characterization and stuff, but still... props to Moonlight for going there.)
Its production values are really slick. It's a Joel Silver show, so it's got that Hollywood feel. The soundtrack is painfully contemporary (emo!), but that only adds to its charm. No, really!
One thing, though, that's really impressed me about Moonlight is how the episodes can work independently, but they also work as a more serialized chapter-by-chapter narrative. The first three episodes work really well together as a single arc - three mysteries, but one larger story. What I enjoyed most of all was how the world-building happened at a great pace over those three episodes, rather than trying to have it all happen in the first episode. Yes, stuff got repeated, but it worked for the characters and the plot to have it done that way. Stuff in the third episode directly pays off the very beginning of the series (almost like they planned it that way!). Very nice.
However... if I didn't know anything about the show at all, knowing the female lead (the girl Friday) is played by Sophia Myles is reason enough to watch. If I'd been paying attention enough to realize she was involved, I'd have watched the series much sooner.
Yay for vampire neo-noir! (I'm sure there's something that can be said comparing this to Angel, but I haven't seen enough Angel to comment. Vamps seem to be the only beasties in Moonlight's 'verse, though. No demons or epic mythology. Plus, people on Moonlight smile and aren't busy staving off apocalypses. It's all very grounded over in Mick's world, more noir than supernatural.)
And the scene where the vamps are reminiscing about ye olde bordellos and streetwalkers? Priceless. I'm going to pull and post that scene (and that other DW scene) because it's so worth sharing. It's a great touch that these centuries-old vampire guys are get all nostalgic when confronted with escorts' online advertisements. A really great touch. :D
thucyken, I'm now hooked on Moonlight. It's cracked-out neo-noir with vampires. Much as I hate to admit it, it's the kind of show I'd want to make if I were in the business of making shows. It's Forever Knight (guilt-ridden vampire in law enforcement, prone to angsty flashbacks about a dark-haired former lover) mixed with an even dose of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (neo-noir up the wazoo, homaging noir conventions as fast as they can stack up). There's snark, angst and vampires; what more can you ask for?
Pretty people? Okay - it's got lots of pretty people, too. Visually, it's total candy.
Plot-wise it's fairly shallow - police procedural... with vampires! omg! - but it's not striving to make grand statements about anything or be the Next Great Show. It chugs along and seems to be having fun doing what it's doing. I don't get any pretentious vibe off of it. Maybe it's because they don't really expect it to last that long or spawn a new mega-franchise, but it doesn't seem like the show is being made with all that much gravity. The weekly cases (our vamp is a PI, the girl is a reporter) are decent, but since the show is more about Mick-the-vampire and how cases keep making him cross paths with Beth-the-reporter and less about dashingly complex mysteries... the writers put their energy into the relationship stuff.
Part of the noir schtick is the liberal use of voice-overs. Mick's v/o's are delightful. They've been written to give him a dryish wit, and a combination of how they're written and how they're performed makes them sound like Darien Fawkes's v/o stuff from I-Man. They've both got the same dry, sarcastic "I've been fucked by the world and now I'm a bit of a mutant" woe-is-me thing going on. (I-Man is obviously better 'cause it's a show with, y'know, complex characterization and stuff, but still... props to Moonlight for going there.)
Its production values are really slick. It's a Joel Silver show, so it's got that Hollywood feel. The soundtrack is painfully contemporary (emo!), but that only adds to its charm. No, really!
One thing, though, that's really impressed me about Moonlight is how the episodes can work independently, but they also work as a more serialized chapter-by-chapter narrative. The first three episodes work really well together as a single arc - three mysteries, but one larger story. What I enjoyed most of all was how the world-building happened at a great pace over those three episodes, rather than trying to have it all happen in the first episode. Yes, stuff got repeated, but it worked for the characters and the plot to have it done that way. Stuff in the third episode directly pays off the very beginning of the series (almost like they planned it that way!). Very nice.
However... if I didn't know anything about the show at all, knowing the female lead (the girl Friday) is played by Sophia Myles is reason enough to watch. If I'd been paying attention enough to realize she was involved, I'd have watched the series much sooner.
Yay for vampire neo-noir! (I'm sure there's something that can be said comparing this to Angel, but I haven't seen enough Angel to comment. Vamps seem to be the only beasties in Moonlight's 'verse, though. No demons or epic mythology. Plus, people on Moonlight smile and aren't busy staving off apocalypses. It's all very grounded over in Mick's world, more noir than supernatural.)
And the scene where the vamps are reminiscing about ye olde bordellos and streetwalkers? Priceless. I'm going to pull and post that scene (and that other DW scene) because it's so worth sharing. It's a great touch that these centuries-old vampire guys are get all nostalgic when confronted with escorts' online advertisements. A really great touch. :D
