Entertainment

THIS SHOW BITES

JOEL Silver, who has produced some truly great things from “The Matrix” to “Veronica Mars,” as well as some truly dopey ones like “Gothika,” is veering into dopey land again with tonight’s “Moonlight.”

His new show (not to be confused with the wonderfully sophisticated classic “Moonlighting“) is of the “vampires among us” ilk, and is by turns, silly, clever, badly written, amateurish, well produced, well acted and horribly acted. Mostly, it simply sucks the life out of being a vampire. I mean, what’s the point of living 900 years if it’s all so boring?

Like a dopey guy’s version of “The Dresden Files,” the series centers on Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin), a regular guy/private eye who happens to be a vampire. His mission? To help the living avoid vampires who, by the way, don’t wear capes and do live in fabulous high-rises.

“Moonlight,” unfortunately, doesn’t trust its audience and so falls to exposition via a fake talk-show interview at the beginning, and then throughout with dialogue dully delivered by Internet investigative reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles). Turner’s job – on a Web site yet – is so important that she’s able to break and enter at will without consequence, cross police barricades at murder scenes and use a top cop as her source.

On tonight’s episode, a woman is found murdered with puncture wounds on her neck. Beth declares it a vampire-like attack. Mick knows the puncture wounds are fake. Is it the professor of Goth at the local university? This leads Beth into dark sub-basements and other ridiculous locales as well as into very sloppily-done scenes like a car crash without airbags. It also leads Beth to remember where she first met the forever-30-year-old Mick. He’s wildly attracted to her – even though she’s a weak, uninteresting character – and is agonized that an affair would ruin her life, or at least the next 500 years of it.

In one scene they break into a murder victim’s apartment separately and find a vial of blood and Beth says they’ve got to turn it over to the police. Right. What would she tell the cops? “Hi. I found this while breaking and entering the apartment which you forgot to seal off, and I thought you might like it.” At that point, the group assembled in my living room to watch began howling – and it wasn’t from fear.

There are some good things about the show, however. Particularly fun is Josef (Jason Dohring), a yuppie hedge fund manager/vampire and a real wiseass. When a pretty woman passes, Josef says to Mick, “Hungry? She’s delicious! ’82 was a good year!”

“Moonlight” is worth one more look, but if it doesn’t improve, sitting through another full hour might seem longer than eternal life.

“Moonlight”

Tonight at 9 on CBS

* 1/2