Sometimes, I find the darndest shows in the darndest places. Who knew that Lifetime had created “Blood Ties”?
It’s a new TV series based on Tanya Huff’s “Blood” series of novels, featuring Vicki Nelson, a former Toronto cop turned PI, and her ride into the realm of the supernatural when Henry Fitzroy, a 450-year-old vampire, teams up with her to stop a killer who’s summoned a demon that’s wreaking havoc on the city.
Starring Christina Cox and Kyle Schmid, the pilot airs (aired?) tonight, March 11, and will continue as a weekly series, airing Sunday nights at 10pm. The pilot is scheduled to rerun later tonight, and the first hour of the pilot movie is also available as a free download at iTunes.
I enjoyed these books when I first read them years ago, and I think it’s cool that it’s now a TV series, and that pretty soon we’ll be seeing Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series on HBO as a new Alan Ball production.
Can we ever have too many vampires on TV at the same time? I’m willing to find out.
I downloaded it off itunes and about 10 minutes later deleted it off my hard drive.
It was quite well done. The 2 hour pilot was basically the first novel of the series, and they did a better job of translating the characters and world, than the Dresden Files did over on Sci-Fi.
That’s harsh, fred! 10 minutes isn’t enough time for anything to get going! 🙂
Kevin, I’m hoping that when we finally see the Dresden Files episode “Storm Front”, a lot of the missing pieces might fall into place. That was supposed to be the first episode and we don’t see it until next week? Who’s bright idea was that, because we saw how well that worked for “Firefly”.
But I did like the pilot and will continue to check the series out… I wonder if the romantic angles in the story were what drew Lifetime to turn it to television.
I rather liked this show, I’m surprised to admit. I haven’t seen anything that makes me think “Wow, this is new!” It seems like a standard sexy vampire story, but since Angel is over, maybe I’m having a dearth of sexy vampires in my life and that’s why I watched it. The effects were definitely cable-tv material, but I think I can deal. I’m hoping they do something that really impresses me, though.
I, too, am more than willing to give it a chance because I loved those books so much. I wonder how close they’re going to stick to the books for some of the stories, and what new things they’re going to bring to fit with the episodic nature of the medium.
The only change that I noticed was Henry’s occupation… graphic novelist for the show, romance writer in the series. I may watch it again and see if anything else sticks out.
Does that count as a substantive change?
It seemed like an interesting detail to me to have him be a graphic novelist. I dunno, the idea of a vampire drawing comics just seemed really geeky, which made me like him more.
No, it’s not a change that matters in the least… I just thought it was interesting that they made that change, to combine Henry’s interest in art with his career as a romance novelist, and have him drawing comics.
It’s a neat way to update the character, but I also wonder if any of that was inspired by Isaac from “Heroes” 🙂
Blood Ties was pretty good. I did a review of it on my blog. It was kinda weird, for those two hours it didn’t seem like I was watching Lifetime. Kinda.
Well, episode 2 has aired, and I still consider the show watchable. A little bit of cheese, but enjoyable, which is actually what I thought of Stargate SG1 for the longest time, so I guess it’s a good place for a show to start.
I hope Dylan Neal isn’t always the foil, though. That’s going to get old.
Tell you wat. I’ll add this to my On-Demand queue IF, and only if, it’s anything like Christ-Anne’s Sanguisuga, the only vampire book I’ve ever really liked.
If you haven’t read this one, you ought to get it and review it for Dragon Page.
Blood ties is so sweet