Moonlight borrows from a lot of things: the opening scene is like Interview With The Vampire played for weak comedy ("Being a vampire sucks. I know that's a bad joke, but it's true."), the set up–a vampire detective in LA–sounds a lot like Angel, and the apartment of Mick St. John, Vampire P.I. (Alex O'Loughlin) looks as if it were lifted straight out of Architectural Digest. Not surprisingly, all these elements when taken together don't add up to much–just a vampire detective show that is decidedly slick, kind of stupid, and thoroughly desanguinated.
In fact, after watching Moonlight, I was left with 3 questions:
1. Was that an iPhone that the tabloid reporter proudly brandished in nearly all of her scenes? (Seriously. It wasn't so much product placement as product in a co-starring role.)
2. What is the point of making a TV show about a vampire if the vampire is so boring? Judging by this episode, one of the main characteristics of a vampire is that they remind you every two minutes or so via voiceover that they are a vampire. They also have a propensity for standing on a rooftops while their coats swing in the breeze, they drive convertibles, and can hear and smell very well. Interested yet?
3. What is the point of this show? The mystery in this episode wasn't all that mysterious; Mick St. John, Vampire P.I. is only compelling in his blandness; and everything about this show feels as if it has been done before but much, much better.
Still, Moonlight does seem to have one major purpose: to be the major conduit of vampire zingers to the network televison audience. Within the first 20 minutes they had already thrown out gems like "What is this? The 1720s?" and "How would you know? You're only 90!" (Then there was this exchange: "How do I know you're not the killer?" "Because I'm not killing you." That's technically not a vampire zinger, but dialogue like that deserves to be mentioned somewhere.) Of course, the problem with all of these lines is that they, too, feel as if they were borrowed from another source: 1001 Jokes About Vampires.
Grade: D
Stray Observations:
—I can't prove it, but I think opening scene was probably just Alex O'Loughlin's audition tape. The voice off-screen sounds an awful lot like a casting director.
—Working at a website, I can't tell you how many times my editor has said to me, "Mama needs fresh content."
—Also, you know who "mama" is, right? Tami from The Real World: Los Angeles. (Don't believe me? Picture her with shorter hair and her jaw wired shut. See?)
—Mick keeps his food in test tubes in the fridge? Blood storage is so much more interesting on Dexter.