Wow.

About six months ago or so I picked up a twin DVD set for a British miniseries called Ultraviolet. The box (well, the Daily Mail)calls the 1998 show "a dark, stylish vampire thriller for the X-Files generation."

Well ... yeah, they're right.

It's dark. Perforce, much of the action occurs at night. And nowhere does night time seem darker, more treacherous than in London.

It's stylish. The music is simple, lulling while menacing. The fx are kept to a (nice) minimum. The direction is straightforward. It's all much more sinister and suspenseful than flashy and bloody. Though there is, indeed, blood.

As to the rest -- the "v" word is never actually used, but the vampire concept has never been so nicely brought up to date. This is what vampires would be like, how they would behave, how humanity would respond to them.

It's the story of a small group of government operatives -- including the young police detective recruited in the first episode -- who are the British response to the vampire threat. That sounds really cheesy, but, in many ways, the series is not much different from a tale of a mysterious government unit fighting some sort of a terrorist movement. There's just enough v-stuff, enough pseudo-science, to give it an extra frisson of terror.

It's not Buffy, or even Angel. It's not witty. Its violence is more subtle. Its horror is more pervasive. It's darker, more threatening. The moral quandaries, the psychological conundra are deeper. And yet with just as many subplots and ongoing twists, as sophisticated a plot and a world in the course of six episodes as, frankly, either of those shows over multiple seasons.

This is good stuff, people. If you like the X-Files (not the glitzy fx eps, but the something is out there ones, if you like suspense thrillers, if you want something really dark, and really scary, and really good ... watch Ultraviolet.

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This was incredibly good stuff...

I only wish it had been picked up into a series (which they were dangling for, as you can tell by the hanging priest-ly subplot, among other telltale hooks...)

Great work by a very engaging cast... even if it did take me 10 minutes or so to start absorbing the dialects...

Veddy English.

Actually, listening to the interview on the DVD, the creator had only moderate interest in taking it any further. (It encompassed an entire "series" as far as the Brits were concerned.) Some hanging bits were left for a second series, but he recognized what he felt were the limitations of the series high concept -- and, besides, he'd underestimated the amount of time it would take to write and direct everything, so his interest in continuing was not as great as it might have been -- even if Channel 4 had been wildly enthusiastic about it.

I was really pleased with Ultraviolet, its premise, its story, its characters, and its setting... very nice stuff, slick and compelling. I recall browsing my local stores for months before I actually found a copy of the DVD set. And then I ended up getting it as a gift!

I also point out, parenthetically, that it would make a fine RPG setting ...