Television Review: Blade: The Series
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that since this series (which is based
on the movies starring Wesley Snipes) is all about hunting down
vampires, it can get pretty violent. Even when the hero isn't
swinging his sword, shooting his special garlic gun, flinging
silver knives, or blasting away with silver bullets, there's an
undercurrent of malice. The vampires are portrayed as elegant
but amoral and cast a looming sense of malevolence over every
scene. Even the hero approaches his work with a sense of grim
fatalism and doesn't exactly inspire the same kind of buoyant
optimism as other superheroes. It's sometimes gory, more than a
little creepy, and just the right kind of show to give little
kids very bad dreams.
Families can talk about whether it's worthwhile to trade away
your soul and your place among humanity in exchange for
superhuman powers, eternal life, and a never-ending need to
kill other people. Though the vampires are clearly monsters,
they live among people, often as respected members of society,
and there are aspects of this existence that might be
considered appealing. But the series also makes it very clear
that there are some major tradeoffs to the life of a
bloodsucker, not the least of which is the complete loss of any
sense of right and wrong. What else are the vampires giving
up?
BLADE, the half-human, half-vampire hero of this thoughtful action drama, is caught between worlds. He refuses to join the world of vampires, amoral creatures that see people as nothing more than a source of food. But he'll never fit into the world of humans, who are peacefully oblivious to the bloodsuckers living among them. Indeed, Blade (Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" Jones) has dedicated his life to hunting down and killing vampires, preferably with a well-used samurai sword. Blade is aided in his campaign by Shen (Nelson Lee) -- a human weaponry expert who's always figuring out new ways to convert silver, garlic, and sunlight into vampire-killing gadgets -- and Krista Starr (Jill Wagner), an army veteran who's sworn to avenge her twin brother, who was killed by deviously evil vampire Marcus Van Sciver (Neil Jackson).
Blade isn't for the squeamish, and it's definitely not for younger viewers. There's plenty of blood, a good amount of gore, and lots of fight scenes. But the violence serves to advance the plot and really isn't the main focus of the show -- that honor falls to Blade's constant identity struggle and ongoing mission to save the oblivious humans from the lurking vampire underworld.
Buffy the Vampire SlayerHex
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