Wow, that was almost physically painful.

[apocalypsos]

Verdict: Not enough NO in the world. Which is a lot coming from somebody who'll watch anything with vampires or superheroes in it.

It takes real talent to make everybody involved look like a really bad actor, particularly when you've got Sophia Myles and Jason Dohring in your cast, but ... oh, yeah, they managed it. In forty-four minutes of screentime I managed to like two things -- Jason Dohring, and Mick St. John's diagonal bookcases. I'm totally going to do that in my house when I actually get one. I mean, I didn't even like Sophia Myles and I ADORE her in everything. Also her accent slipped when she asked the killer guy for a cell phone, which made me laugh.

And oh, the lead guy. He's just wretchedly painfully bad, isn't he? He can't act, and unlike Jason Dohring he can't even manage to give his character an interesting personality, any redeemable sense of humor or creativity (that interview in his head, oh God, it was like listening to every bad line about vampirism ever crammed into a two-minute bit), or anything remotely resembling an edge. Oh, no, I drink blood and live forever and WOE, for I am a horrible evil creature and I can't get laid because the woman might hate me for being a monster! *eyeroll* Okay, first off, that's not giving any woman you've ever been interested in much fucking credit, and secondly, who do I have to kill and drain of blood to get a main vampire character who likes being a vampire? Who isn't smacking himself upside the head with the guilt of what he's done? You need to eat, stupid. The blood is in that guy. For Pete's sake, can I get a vampire who cracks jokes with the people he or she has to get blood from and puts little paper umbrellas in their blood and is smiling and happy and NOT carrying around enough personal baggage to start their own Louis Vuitton outlet? What do you think, too much to ask?

It's just so bad. And the sad thing is that there are two options here:

A.) They knew damn well about Angel and Forever Knight and kept going with the attitude that they were so fucking clever it didn't matter what they did with the mythology.

B.) No one involved in the production had ever heard of Angel or Forever Knight and really thinks they are that fucking clever. A guilt-ridden vampire detective! No one's ever done THAT before! And they certainly haven't done it well! Or on CBS!

I mean, they closed with an Evanescence song, for Christ's sake. Did somebody give them the Vampire/Goth Cliches in Entertainment Checklist? Seriously, people, you're not supposed to be encouraging them.

Comments

[chaoticasylum.livejournal.com]

And option B is a no go... one of the main guys developing it was David Greenwalt.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Urgh. Yeah, I could have sworn someone from Angel was involved but I couldn't remember who or even if I was right. In which case ... *gags*

[wtfbrain.livejournal.com]

C&P directly from greensilver's post on the subject:

David Greenwalt (aka the Angel guy) was brought in to overhaul the series and act as showrunner; he did a rewrite, and essentially got rid of every principal actor not named Alex O'Loughlin. (To be fair, this shake-up was in the works before he was brought in; he didn't initiate the process of wide-scale recasting, he just oversaw it.) The female lead, Beth, was recast; Shannon Lucio out, Sophia Myles in. Mick's sire/ex-girlfriend, Coraline, was recast; Amber Valletta out, Shannyn Sossamon in. The vampire sidekick, Josef, was recast and rewritten; Rade Serbedzija out, Jason Dohring in. The pilot itself was rewritten (in places; some elements remain untouched).

After a brief stay on the job, Greenwalt fled, citing the ever-popular "personal reasons." Chip Johannessen, whose previous work includes Dark Angel and Millenium, was brought in as the new showrunner. It's unclear how much additional retooling Johannessen did after taking over from Greenwalt, but he has a writing credit on the pilot episode, for what it's worth.

So what aired yesterday is a pilot that is, quite likely, a no-man's-land between the original concept and Greenwalt's retooled concept, and it doesn't necessarily tell us a lot about what the show from here on out might be like. Principal filming began weeks before Greenwalt's departure, so I think it's safe to assume that a lot, if not all, of the pilot is his retooled version. What Johannessen brings to the table will likely be more apparent in the second or third episode.

I'm almost tempted to give it one more episode to see if maybe the mess that was the pilot improves...

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm almost tempted to give it one more episode to see if maybe the mess that was the pilot improves...

Oh, man, I can't even bring myself to do that much. The most I can manage write now is the vague urge to go watch some FK episodes, and I never even was that much of a fan of FK.

Aaaaand now I'm thinking about just how dreadful the special effects were for FK, and how they're light-years ahead of anything in Moonlight. Like that part where Mick was driving along in his convertible with the green-screen sidewalk in the background and I said, "Aw, poor show, they couldn't even afford a truck to put the convertible on and drive it down the street!"

[wtfbrain.livejournal.com]

I know, that was the worst green screen I've seen in ages. Depending on how my week goes, I might not even watch another episode. I mean, this was worse than Big Shots, and I hated pretty much everything about it.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, I purposely avoided Big Shots and yet still managed to catch a minute or two of it. Man, if I wanted to watch a show about jerks in financial or business careers I'd watch Mad Men -- at least I know that one is both good and deep.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

Rade Serbedzija

And suddenly the name Josef Konstantin makes so much more sense.

I was watching Jason Dohring and his incredible Californianess and going, "This is a four hundred year old vampire with an Eastern European name? Seriously? Are they going to try selling me an oceanfront lot in Arizona in the next commercial break?"

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Scrabbling about in my hazy memory, if he has a script credit, that's at least a third of the script full overhauled/replaced with his work, basically a page one rewrite. Less than that and he gets a "story by" credit along with others.

If Greenwalt didn't get any sort of script or story credit, then very little of his material would still be in the script.

Then of course there's the "created by" credit, and the "developed by" credit.

I swear writing for television shortened my lifespan by twenty years.

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

I'm almost tempted to give it one more episode to see if maybe the mess that was the pilot improves...

I might do that, but not until halfway through the season or so. I figure if it hasn't been summarily cancelled by then, maybe it will have found legs of some kind. And in the interim, it's fairly obvious that they don't credit their audience with any kind of brains, so it's not like I expect to be lost from missing critical mytharc.

[squee1123.livejournal.com]

Aw, Jason Dohring? I kind of want to YouTube search him just to see his bits (even if they won't be up for a while)

[wtfbrain.livejournal.com]

Think Logan, only less, um, emo? jerk? something like that. And not really pulling off the "oldest vampire in LA" schtick at all.

[vampychick.livejournal.com]

I'm actually willing to give it another shot, if only because pilots sometimes suck inordinate amounts of ass, and also there were some bits in the 'next time on' thingy that interested me for sheer visuals. Also, I want to see the diagonal bookcases again.

Speaking of the 'next time on' thingy, I thought the person in charge of music needed to be fired after the Evanescence nonsense. And then they bust out Celine Dion? Somebody needs to be fired, shunned, and shot.

[budclare.livejournal.com]

Also, I want to see the diagonal bookcases again.

I want to see them for the first time. I missed them. :(

[beanarie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't care how improbable and ridiculous the casting of Jason Dohring was. He kicked ass. The rest of it was just a horrible, watered down version of Forever Knight, except without Skanke or Natalie or the random moments of extreme camp. I would not stay up until 1:30 a.m. on a Sunday to watch Moonlight like I did for its predecessor. If only this piece of crap would end the same way, steadily killing off each main character until there's no one left. But all of it taking place next week.

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I didn't personally find this *horrible* but just kinda THERE.

It's Yet Another Cop/Detective show, but this guy drinks blood!

[scribewraith.livejournal.com]

we were sniggering no end at the goth's being called emo...

but i'm in the going to give it another go camp, if only for Jason Dohring. But I think it's a watch with alcohol for more fun type thing too

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Forever Knight had the worst production values I've ever seen outside the BBC. I particularly liked how they recorded the music actually inside a biscuit tin. But the Countess is a huge fan (she's waiting for a vampire who enjoys it too, but in the meantime she'll take what she can get), and there won't be any more FK, so we may end up giving this a go anyway.

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the lighting. PLEASE. Because everyone was totally either a watermelon or a smurf according to the lighting.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Blood Price, doesn't Henry like being a vampire? He's pretty cheerful about most things.

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

Henry from Blood Ties is pretty happy-go-lucky about his vampireness. And he certainly has no compunction about getting laid, either.

The show itself is... er. Watchable, if not great?

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

It jumped from "popcorn" to "holy crap!!" for me at episode 7.

And trollprincess... :: points at icon :: Not quite umbrella drinks, but this scene is pretty close. ;-D

[mayatawi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole Julian Sands thing didn't hurt at all.

[fyrdrakken]

Yeah, I just watched the first 9 eps of that over this weekend. The actor playing Henry really doesn't sell the "500-year-old Prince of Darkness" so well, but he's very very pretty and spends enough time shirtless that I'll handwave his non-acting. Especially when someone chains him up and tortures him for a bit.

[calligrafiti.livejournal.com]

I get together with several other fen to watch Doctor Who and SGA, and we decided to try Moonlight as a filler piece in the 9 pm slot.

Oh, the mocking. When "My Immortal" started playing I think we scared the neighbors.

You know who I'd like to see play a happy vamnp? John Barrowman. The manic grin and charisma and, hey, there could be the occasionally Cole Porter number between feedings.

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

May I recommend either the Jonathon Barrett books or The Vampire Files, both by PN Elrod for you? Because, srsly. They occasionally get confused or upset because they act like assholes, but there's no WOE IS ME FOR I DRINK BLOOOOODZORS!

...and it says something about how awesome I think you are that I rec her. I promised I never would after her wankery.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Nods. I wish PN Elrod would write either more Jack Fleming or Jon Barrett.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

And posted too soon. Is there PN Elrod wankery other than she hates fanfic while admiting she created Jack for a roleplaying game?

[thebratqueen.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite parts was in the flashback when he was SAVING THE GIRL from the HORRIBLE HORROR and... turned around. While holding her. So she had the best view of the woman being burned alive.

Awesome.

[tabaqui]

I saw about two minutes of this. I think. Um...didn't he inject himself with like - five cc's of blood? Straight from the 'fridge? *ouch*. So - not even drinking people down, so wherefor the angst? And, also, moving close to windows in which *lots* of sun is shining and he's practically flambe-ing before he winces, recoils, and closes the blinds. Uuuuuuuh...huh.

Yeah, don't think i'll be watching this.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

They really tossed every vampire cliche in a blender for this, didn't they? I might watch in an MST3K kind of way, but yeah. I'll wait for Blood Ties to come back to Lifetime, and maybe reread PN Elrod's Jack Fleming or Robert Frezza's Ken MacKay books for my vampire fix.

[slodwick.livejournal.com]

Hey, we tried to warn people. (http://slodwick.livejournal.com/875683.html#cutid1) ()

[jjloa.livejournal.com]

Watching that show was painful and yet sadly hilarious. There was much snark in our household. And much 'we should probably change the channel cause it's bad but I am mesmerized by the awfulness and have to see how bad it'll get'.

It would have been much better if I'd been prepared and had alcohol. The 'find the Forever Knight/Angel ripoff' drinking game would have had me totally smashed what ... 15 minutes into the show?

[sorcha-feanor.livejournal.com]

It was truly awful! Even my sister, who watches the worst crap ever, only gave it an "okay". I think I will just watch reruns of Forever Knight instead!