Clan der Vampire

I have to agree with the first comment posted; that the pilot was weak and the rest of the shows were excellent. Nobody gives a damn how close it was to the game...and quite frankly, I find it offensive that someone will get all self righteous about it...but that's not why I'm posting. Great show. The story was very consuming and kept your attention. Much is to be said for that these days as a lot of shows don't keep your attention any longer than a few airings. I have to say that (unfortunately), the best shows are usually the ones that get cancelled: Kindred, Earth2, S:AAB, to name a few. The general public isn't ready to devote regular hours to a little continuity. They are more apt to tune in for the occasional 30 minutes of overused situational B.S. Anyway, great show, I sure wish there was a way to see more.

OK, maybe C. Thomas Howell is a little melodramatic, but this series was a good and (generally) well-acted modern vampire tale. I wasn't watching television, I guess, when it originally aired. But I rented it a couple of years ago and enjoyed it so much that I bought it on DVD a short time ago. The set has two DVDs and is in 5.1--pretty stripped down in terms of extras (i.e., there aren't any). Still, it's worth a look. Mark Frankel and Patrick Bauchau are excellent in their roles.

This show could've been cool if they would've stayed closer to the true World of Darkness atmosphere. Vampire: the Masquerade (which is what this is based on) is one of the darkest, most well thought out worlds on paper. FOX destroyed it! They basically said: Lets make Melrose Place, but with fangs! We'll offer Mark Rein*Hagan a lot of money to sign off on it and it will be really cool! Well, it wasn't. It could've been the next X-Files if they really would've done their homework. But...they didn't. So now we have another cheesy, half baked show about Vampires. I'm glad they cancelled it. Maybe they realized that they were ruining something really good.

This show portrays five clans of "Kindred"--vampires--living in San Francisco. Unlike most other vampire shows, however, the vampires are not seen as evil or unnatural. Julian Luna, the vampire prince, demonstrates the epic nobility of a King Arthur. The premier episode is unfortunately the low point of the series; if it wasn't so easy to get lost, I'd recommend skipping over it entirely and starting with the episode "Prince of the City." This is very much a love-it-or-hate-it kind of show; it's very loosely based on the role playing game Vampire: The Masquerade, and many players hate it for being so different from that game, but if you can watch it without expectations from Vampire (and without giving up after hearing some of the hideous dialogue in the premier episode), you'll find it one of the most compelling shows ever.

I must admit, I love vampire movies, vampire television shows, vampire books. This was no exception. This production, based on a game, was much better than I expected. Though it produced some of the most overblown television dialogue to date, it also produced intense, shocking images. It was certainly one of the most powerful television episodes I've ever seen.

If you can catch reruns of it on the tube some night, lucky you.