Vampires On Television

Ever since I was a kid and heard Frank Langella (Dracula 1979) say "You will be flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. You will cross land and sea to do my bidding" I have been hooked on vampires.

I love vampire books, vampire movies and vampire television shows. This page showcases some of my favorite vampire television shows. Sexy or scary, I love them all!

1996

It surprises me that this Aaron Spelling project didn't make it past eight episodes. It's not that I thought it was great it's just, looking back, Spelling seemed to have the Midas touch for young adult drama.

The series was based on a role-playing game called Vampire: the Masquerade. The Kindred is made up of clans of vampires living in modern-day San Francisco. It was a sexy soap like drama that starred Mark Frankel as the key vampire or "prince of the city" and C. Thomas Howell as a detective. The show was canceled after the untimely death of Frankel in a motorcycle accident. Howell has a very long and successful career with action/suspense B-movies.

I had been a fan of Howell since his early days as Pony Boy in the Outsiders (we were forced to read it in grade school). I guess you could say I grew up with him. Mark Frankel was a British actor and lets face it, it's hard to resist a British vampire. I wish this would air again as I'd love to see it again. I might just Zip it.

1997 to 2003

This Emmy Award winning and Golden Globe nominated vampire series is probably my all time favorite vampire television show. I think I'm one of the few people who actually loved the movie that started it all. To say that Buffy has become a cult-classic is an understatement. It has helped define the genre.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer was created Joss Whedon (also the genius behind Firefly and Angel). And while the show focuses on a female vampire killer in Sunnydale, California, it still managed to give viewers vampires to adore: Angel and later Spike. The special effects were amazing providing more than a few scary vamps and other creatures. But it was Buffy's ass-kicking abilities and her connection with her friends that drove it home for me.

Buffy was portrayed by little darling Sarah Michelle Gellar, who showed little blond girls can kick butt and still be fashionable while saving the world from the Hellmouth. At the time one of the coolest characters for me was Anthony Head who played her watcher Giles. I was totally in love with him in the early 90s for a series of romantic Taster's Choice commercials he did (see below).

1999 to 2004

Angel was the main vamp-of-love from Buffy the Vampire Slayer so it wasn't hard to follow him over to his own show three years later. Unfortunately I never got to see the whole five season series (time changes, station changes etc) but I'm hoping to finish watching it in its entirety later this year thanks to Zip rentals.

Out of Buffy's shadow, Angel is able to sink his teeth into humanity in a whole new light, Los Angeles. For comedic relief he works along side Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), who provided loads of fun on Buffy.

Angel is portrayed by David Boreanaz who makes a perfect sexy crime/demon fighting vampire and is still fighting crime as an FBI agent on another of my favorite non-vampire related shows -- Bones. It's been a while since I've seen an episode of Angel but I remember it as being darker than Buffy but it made sense as she was more of a bright and cheerful character and he was the dark and foreboding one.

2007 to 2008

Blood Ties was my first experience with a Canadian crime vampire drama. I loved this show and was so disappointed it was canceled after 22 episodes.

Kyle Schmid was an incredibly sexy 400+ year old vampire named Henry Fitzroy with a 20 something-ish appearance, He earned an income and provided a cover by being a graphic novelist artist. He teamed up with retired cop turned private investigator Vicki Nelson (Christina Cox) to hunt down supernatural perpetrators on a Toronto landscape. They had great chemistry and I enjoyed the story line.

The show was based on the Blood Books novels by Tanya Huff and was low on special effects but it really didn't need them.

2007 to 2008

I don't know what is with the trend of having vampires be private eyes but it seems to work. In this vampire romantic drama, sexy Australian actor Alex O'Loughlin plays our main vampire who works as a private eye. He meets up and falls in love with Beth (Sophia Myles--who has a Kate Winslet quality to her) an investigative reporter who he has actually been keeping an eye on since she was a child. Mick St. John is fairly young as far as vampires go, not even 100 years old.

This vampire series also takes place in Los Angeles and co-starred Jason Dohring (Veronica Mars) which was initially why I fell in love with this show. But Mick St. John really grew on me. I was devastated when it was canceled after sixteen episodes.

2008 to 2013

The first season of this British supernatural drama, with some dark comedy thrown in, is absolutely marvellous. Being Human makes three unlikely friends out of a vampire, werewolf, and a ghost. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it may clench my teeth, and occasionally it gave me the heebie-jeebies.

It stars three unknown actors to me (Lenora Crichlow, Russell Tovey and Aidan Turner) and while Mitchell is not my favorite vampire, he isn't hard to look at and broods well. But they all have perfect chemistry, it's like Three's Company meets Supernatural! This show ran for five season despite having a complete character change for the last two seasons. I was sad to see it end.

2009, ongoing

Vampire stories are never short of their triangles. Usually it's a mortal man and a vampire trying to win the heroine. In the Vampires Diaries it's two vampires, vampire brothers (one trying to be good and one who is anything but), in love with the same woman who just happens to look like the woman who sired them.

This TV show has a really young looking cast but I still love it and I didn't find it hard to get into the high school drama. There's a good storyline involving ancestral backgrounds, a hidden cult of vampire slayers, and most recently the addition of werewolves. It was easy to follow Ian Somerhalder over from LOST.

The Vampire Diaries is based on novels of the same name by L.J. Smith.

2008 to 2014

I did not have HBO for the first few seasons of True Blood and had to watch season one and two via video rentals from Zip.

I think word-of-mouth had me in love with the True Blood vampire series before I even started watching it. With the first episode I immediately fell in love with the heroine Sookie Stackhouse portrayed by Anna Paquin. I was slow to warm up to Bill the Vampire (Stephen Moyer) but he is definitely my favorite vampire on the show now. This is a bloody show with lots of sex, drugs, and violence. It is what I would call an adult vampire show; something that has been a long time in coming.

True Blood is based on novelist Charlaine Harris's series of the same name. I love the concept of a secret vampire society that makes itself public in an effort to co-habitate along side men and women. The main setting for the show is Bon Temps, Louisiana.

As soon as I saw the previews for The Gates I knew I would be watching. It turned out to be more than I expected. The story surrounds a police detective who becomes the chief of a gated community. Unbeknownst to him there are vampires, witches, werewolves, and succubus that live amongst the humans.

By far the best characters are the vampire couple with a human daughter trying to live a normal life. Claire Radcliff is portrayed by Rhona Mitra who has more than a tad experience playing a vampire (Underworld, Skinwalkers). Her husband Dylan is portrayed by Luke Mably who also makes a great vampire, both sexy and scary when he wants to be.

Another thing I like about this show is that adult and young adult characters get equal time making it appealing to a wider audience so I do not feel like I am cradle robbing.

Unfortunately, not enough people loved this show as much as I did and it was canceled after the first season -- leaving me hanging as to what happened.

Thank you for stopping by. Before you go please leave a message about one of your favorite vampire television shows... or just to say "hi".