By Brandon Nolta

Anybody who works in investigations or law enforcement manages to make enemies. Anybody who lives as a vampire, never aging and feeding off the blood of the living as the decades fall to dust, probably draws a few enemies just by refusing to age. Imagine the dance ticket for someone who combines the two. That’s the leaky boat Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin) finds himself in this week, as episode the second of CBS’ new supernatural series MOONLIGHT takes off.

After a quarter-century in the clink and one reporter’s crusading work, a guy by the name of Lee Jay Spaulding walks out of prison a free man, with a number of things on his mind, including putting the whammy on Mick. You see, Mick had a client that Lee Jay ended up killing, which made Mick less than thrilled. At that point, Mick decided to go all red in tooth and claw on Spaulding, but didn’t get to finish the job. Thus, Lee Jay got 25 years of time to cogitate on how to take care of vampires. Oops.

Now, having been sprung, he’s free to kill again, and more importantly, hunt down one Mick St. John. On top of this, Beth Turner (Sophia Myles) is slowly putting things together, between recent clues and her memories, and as viewers well know, only characters trapped in Idiot Plots fail to come up with four when adding two and two. Between Beth figuring things out and Lee Jay manipulating the situation, Mick’s having a piss-poor day. Or night.


Despite following in the footsteps of two renowned forebears, MOONLIGHT already shows signs of developing in a different, smarter direction. For one thing, the creators decide to not come up with increasingly belabored excuses for Mick’s behaviors, and have him simply admit his vampiric status to Beth when she’s confronted with abundant evidence. That alone is a nice change of pace.

Plus, the more we dig into Mick’s voiceovers and history, the more we see that Mick is more than just his angst over being a predator. He has pastimes he enjoys, appreciates technology, has long-term relationships with people and, while he doesn’t whistle through life like Ray Wise does on REAPER, he seems to be more human than your normal vampire gets to be. O’Loughlin manages to assay the best-adjusted vampire I’ve seen on TV, and makes him likable in the process. He’s definitely MOONLIGHT’s greatest asset, and when paired with the charming Myles as his blonde reporter sidekick, it’s likely that their chemistry can overcome even the clichéd directions CBS is virtually certain to send the show.


MOONLIGHT won’t be to everyone’s taste, and it may have made more work for itself by following the general outlines set up by its forebears, but it’s a laid-back, charming show in its first few episodes. If the characters are allowed to continue in this vein, and not forced into romantic palpitations by its corporate masters, MOONLIGHT should continue to entertain in that non-guilty way for as long as it gets to run. Then again, I’m still waiting for JERICHO to resume.