Demons

[Timmoru Suzuki]

It started tonight. Supernatural show, teenage guy finds out he's desended from the Van Helsing Family and it's his heritage to kill demons that may include vampires, warewolves, gremlins and any other sort of 'in-human' character. Philip 'Gene Hunt' Glenister plays an American (Not too shabby a fake accent) who was a friend of his dads who introduces him this 'world'. There's a blind woman named after Mina Harker from Dracula who seems to have...powers.... of some sort, and this lass that's blatantly going to be the love interest.

First episode was an introduction, and McKenzie Crook from The Office was the 'Villian of the week', playing some sort of supernatural bounty hunter. His sidekick from middle-distance looked like Classic Undertaker, same hair, hat and style of clothing.

It was weak at first, seemed like a generic ITV teen drama and the theme tune is awful beyond belief, but it picked up. I was enjoying enough for mindless entertainment by the end. I'm hoping it's going to be comfortable but not essential viewing as that seems the best to hope for as it stands now, and hopefully later series will improve. It seems like an English Buffy basically (another one), but it has a fuckload of potential. Hope it continues to grow and improve. Of all ITV's attempts to capture a saturday Night "Dr. Who audience" this might come closest in the long run.

Edited January 3, 2009 by timmayy Aaron XXIV

[Farmer Reil]

Oh goodie, Reil gets to rant somewhere other than Facebook. Total, utter, complete, bollocks. Potential? Where? As what? It's like a ten year old Buffy fan had Van Helsing playing in the background while they wrote a script, gave it to an executive, who stripped it bare of any good dialogue that might've existed and added in more cheese than you'd find on a four-cheese pizza.

Then, during a scene in which the lead character (who looks annoyingly like the dude that plays Prince Arthur in Merlin) sprints melodramatically to the rescue of the resident love interest named Ruby, they actually had the cheesey balls to play Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs. I mean, come ON!

All the bad guys can be vanquished by a single shot from a gun, which conveniently can't hurt humans. Of course, there's always an exception, unfortunately the exception in Demons is not only introduced and killed in the very first episode, he's named Gladiolus and is Gareth from The Office under the very sophisticated disguise of a bit of plastic on his nose. Even the legend that is Mackenzie Crook can't pull that one off.

Then next week we're treated to Richard Wilson playing the exact same character he plays in Merlin. He probably turned up to the wrong studio, and since they hadn't bothered writing the script yet they managed to fit him in somewhere so they could say 'hey, look, it's Richard Wilson!".

Did I mention that 'Gene Hunt' managed to squeeze three 'witty' Star Wars references into the first episode based purely on the fact that Hero Boy's first name happens to be Luke?

The only reason I'm watching this is because a mate of mine from school plays a weekly bad guy in episode four. Right now, I'm not convinced this crap would survive until episode four on an American TV channel. The one thing that makes it at all watchable is Holly Grainger as Ruby, but they even managed to fuck that up by giving her lines.

It's Buffy without Joss Whedon, mixed with Van Helsing without Hugh Jackman, mixed with promising-but-ultimately-bland-BBC-Prime-Time-Fantasy-Show-#2425 without... whatever it is that makes me want to watch those shows. I'm not saying you have to be original to be interesting (though it often helps), but most shows mix yellow with blue to get a pretty green colour, or red with yellow to get purple. This show mixed red with green with puce with orange with white, and gets diarrhoea.

It's awful.

Luke Van Helsing has none of the qualities that made Buffy likeable, that made you feel for her. She had to juggle school with slaying, and often struggled with both as a result. On top of that, she never wanted to be a slayer, it was forced upon her. Luke beats the shit out of four generic bad guys without trying or any training/background in fighting at all, made fun of the fact that he had no time to revise, then passed the exam with flying colours anyway. Shit, man, I feel so bad for you. Shit, we'd better throw in some token 'I don't want this job' lines for compassion's sake. Then on top of that, Buffy had the boyfriend issues - how exactly do you date a vampire slayer? Luke has this solved for him when the girlfriend gets kidnapped by demons in the VERY FIRST SHOW, and is briefed on the situation even before that, and thus is rather in the loop to begin with.

Gene Hunt, aside from looking a bit like him in certain scenes, also had zero of the qualities that made Rupert Giles such an admirable, lovable father figure. Giles was a librarian who, when pushed, could kick serious amounts of ass - but didn't like to. Mr. Hunt spends so long in this first episode slaying demons, you're left wondering why Luke is there at all. Despite constant references to 'getting too old for this', he seems to be loving it.

Buffy put some effort into their daemons and vampires. Demons can't even spell the damn word right, and classifies them as 'type 3', 'type 4', etc without bothering to enlighten us as to what it means. They also use the word 'freak' interchangeable as either an insult or a scientific term for the bad guy's race, whatever suits.

Buffy was subtle, witty, lol funny at times but serious when it needed to be. Demons seems incapable of being any of those things at all.

It's shit.

Edited January 4, 2009 by Farmer Reil

[Lord Nibbler]

I can't believe nobody took Glenister to one side and said "your accent is shit, drop it".

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Oh goodie, Reil gets to rant somewhere other than Facebook. Total, utter, complete, bollocks. Potential? Where? As what? It's like a ten year old Buffy fan had Van Helsing playing in the background while they wrote a script, gave it to an executive, who stripped it bare of any good dialogue that might've existed and added in more cheese than you'd find on a four-cheese pizza.

Then, during a scene in which the lead character (who looks annoyingly like the dude that plays Prince Arthur in Merlin) sprints melodramatically to the rescue of the resident love interest named Ruby, they actually had the cheesey balls to play Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs. I mean, come ON!

All the bad guys can be vanquished by a single shot from a gun, which conveniently can't hurt humans. Of course, there's always an exception, unfortunately the exception in Demons is not only introduced and killed in the very first episode, he's named Gladiolus and is Gareth from The Office under the very sophisticated disguise of a bit of plastic on his nose. Even the legend that is Mackenzie Crook can't pull that one off.

Then next week we're treated to Richard Wilson playing the exact same character he plays in Merlin. He probably turned up to the wrong studio, and since they hadn't bothered writing the script yet they managed to fit him in somewhere so they could say 'hey, look, it's Richard Wilson!".

Did I mention that 'Gene Hunt' managed to squeeze three 'witty' Star Wars references into the first episode based purely on the fact that Hero Boy's first name happens to be Luke?

The only reason I'm watching this is because a mate of mine from school plays a weekly bad guy in episode four. Right now, I'm not convinced this crap would survive until episode four on an American TV channel. The one thing that makes it at all watchable is Holly Grainger as Ruby, but they even managed to fuck that up by giving her lines.

It's Buffy without Joss Whedon, mixed with Van Helsing without Hugh Jackman, mixed with promising-but-ultimately-bland-BBC-Prime-Time-Fantasy-Show-#2425 without... whatever it is that makes me want to watch those shows. I'm not saying you have to be original to be interesting (though it often helps), but most shows mix yellow with blue to get a pretty green colour, or red with yellow to get purple. This show mixed red with green with puce with orange with white, and gets diarrhoea.

It's awful.

Luke Van Helsing has none of the qualities that made Buffy likeable, that made you feel for her. She had to juggle school with slaying, and often struggled with both as a result. On top of that, she never wanted to be a slayer, it was forced upon her. Luke beats the shit out of four generic bad guys without trying or any training/background in fighting at all, made fun of the fact that he had no time to revise, then passed the exam with flying colours anyway. Shit, man, I feel so bad for you. Shit, we'd better throw in some token 'I don't want this job' lines for compassion's sake. Then on top of that, Buffy had the boyfriend issues - how exactly do you date a vampire slayer? Luke has this solved for him when the girlfriend gets kidnapped by demons in the VERY FIRST SHOW, and is briefed on the situation even before that, and thus is rather in the loop to begin with.

Gene Hunt, aside from looking a bit like him in certain scenes, also had zero of the qualities that made Rupert Giles such an admirable, lovable father figure. Giles was a librarian who, when pushed, could kick serious amounts of ass - but didn't like to. Mr. Hunt spends so long in this first episode slaying demons, you're left wondering why Luke is there at all. Despite constant references to 'getting too old for this', he seems to be loving it.

Buffy put some effort into their daemons and vampires. Demons can't even spell the damn word right, and classifies them as 'type 3', 'type 4', etc without bothering to enlighten us as to what it means. They also use the word 'freak' interchangeable as either an insult or a scientific term for the bad guy's race, whatever suits.

Buffy was subtle, witty, lol funny at times but serious when it needed to be. Demons seems incapable of being any of those things at all.

It's shit.

Not a fan, then. Some valid points, some complaining for the sake of complaining.

I have a terrible feeling that they named Holly Grainger Ruby JUST so they could use that song.

I don't actually see whay Glenister has to be American come to think of it.

Edited January 4, 2009 by timmayy Aaron XXIV

[DFF]

On the whole, I thought it started shakily but quickly warmed up. It's not going to be great but it wasn't that bad at all. My main gripe would be the shite intro music and cheap-as-fuck-look-what-I-just-knocked-up-on-my-PC-intro credits.

I was also disappointed that that they killed all of the minor villains in the episode, as Galdiolus had some potential as did 'red lips' or whatever he was called. Oh, and with regards Gladiolus surviving the first shot, I thought it could've been the wrong kind of ammo. Doesn't Luke note that the capsules come in two different colours or something? Also, couldn't it be that the pellet/capsule didn't hit Gladiolus' skin (only hitting his closes) and thus not reacting and fizzling him first time?

With regards the cast, I thought Glenister was pretty decent (accent included), the guy playing Luke was average but with no serious fault. The woman playing Harker was decent enough (and hot ). For me, the girl playing Ruby was the weakest of the lot and was disappointed that they hadn't actually killed her off.

But yeah, the episode wasn't anything great - but it wasn't anything that bad either. Perfectly acceptable post- team time TV.

Still, that was only one episode. It could easily go either way.

[Lord Nibbler]

I don't actually see whay Glenister has to be American come to think of it.

He doesn't. IIRC the character was written American (don't know why), then when Glenister came on board they told him he could play it English. He decided to play the character American because he liked the idea of a challenge. Hopefully they'll come up with an excuse for him to drop it, like Burn Notice.

[Adam]

I thought it was pretty weak tbh, and it didn't hold my interest for more than about 15 minutes. The main character doesn't seem strong enough to actually be the main character for me, and I'm talking about Luke. It seems to be more about Glenister, who I've gotta say just doesn't work in this role, I much prefer his Gene Hunt character.

Unfortunately I'll probably be watching this again next week as my Dad seems intent on watching the entire series, and there is not a lot else to do on a Saturday night where he lives.

[DFF]

I don't actually see whay Glenister has to be American come to think of it.

He doesn't. IIRC the character was written American (don't know why), then when Glenister came on board they told him he could play it English. He decided to play the character American because he liked the idea of a challenge. Hopefully they'll come up with an excuse for him to drop it, like Burn Notice.

I'm sure I heard somewhere that the character was originally meant to be Texan, but he struggled too much with the accent so they agreed to go with 'generic American'.

Either way, it's not awful. It just takes some getting used to.

Oh, and Burn Notice?

[Gabriel]

This sounds like a kids-friendly amalgamation of Supernatural, Buffy, Van Helsing and every other ghouls and goblins type tv show/movie out there.

Seriously... just watch Big Wolf on Campus.

[TKz]

Oh man, now that was a show.

[Lord Nibbler]

Burn Notice?

American show about spies. One of the main characters is supposed to be ex-IRA, but the Irish accent she did was incredibly dodgy so she dropped it in the second episode and started doing an American one. The kayfabe explanation was that an Irish accent would make her stand out in Miami.

Edited January 5, 2009 by Lord Nibbler