Cult Culture: Code V
Ultraviolet. In 1998, this British series carefully carved
out a toehold in cult TV, but failed to gather enough fans to justify a
second run. Since then, the creepy and off beat tale of a
religiously-funded, above the law, Vampire extermination squad has
gathered enough new fans to justify the 2005 Milla Jovavich vehicle of
the same name. Since the upcoming Hollywood version of Ultraviolet
is nothing like the original, I feel it’s my duty to bring to light the
obscure series that will be left by the wayside in favor of a dizzy
two-hour uber-Buffy fest starring everyone’s favorite scantily clad, well-armed waif.
Ultraviolet opens with down on his luck cop Michael Colefield,
played by Michael Davenport who went on from vampire hunter to take the
lead in Coupling and land on the map as the snooty Brit in Pirates of the Caribbean.
His quest to solve the mystery of his partner’s disappearance gets him
drummed off the force and lands him in “Section T,” a branch of the
government that answers to no Earthly law. Headed by the dour
Father Pearse Hobson, played by the excellent Philip Quast (who had
about two minutes of purest comedy on Police Squad! back in 1984) and
staffed by an elite team of gun toting maniacs, Section T exists for
one purpose: To hunt down and destroy a sub-culture of
vampires. It’s all out war between the church and this community
of bloodsuckers. Davenport is the cop with a conscious, Quast the
driven holy man who has that defrocked from the church sort of feeling
about him, Susannah Harker is the strait-laced doctor and Idris Elba
(from TV’s The Wire) is the hard-nosed ex special forces guy and token black man.
The vampires, meanwhile, aren’t your usual cup of blood.
Of the vampire genre, there are very few movies or shows that treat
them a little bit differently…a little bit more Human. There is
only one that successfully avoids calling them vampires at all –
Whitley Strieber’s The Hunger, which has gone from novel to movie to TV show over the last couple of decades. In The Hunger,
the term “vampire” never came up in conversation or description, and
the nature of the “vampires” was so far from the stereotype it was
refreshing and powerful and is a must read/watch no matter how bad the
writing is. Ultraviolet avoids the term, as well, though it seems a bit more forced. Ultraviolet‘s
vampires are a bit more traditional in that they bite your neck and
can’t take a stake through the heart (though Section T uses carbon
bullets from fancy guns). InThe Hunger, you could just call them serial killers who live for quite a while. In Ultraviolet,
they’re immortal bloodsuckers who burst into flame when the sun hits
them. So trying not to say the dreaded V-word for six episodes
sort of hangs in the air.
The upcoming movie goes ahead and gets it over with – “a story about
vampires in the near future.” In the show, they’re “leeches” or
“Class Fives.” Five as in the roman numeral – “V.”
Ho-ho. Amazing what you can do with that script when you spend
all night in the pub.
What sets the Ultraviolet vamps apart from the stereotype is
that they have a mission. It’s nothing magical. No special
amulets or long lost master vampires. Their quest is to
exterminate Humanity and create a world of eternal darkness thanks to
greenhouse gasses and nuclear winter. In preparation for this,
they are researching a way to make artificial blood (this idea, by the
way, is stolen from Matheson’s “I Am Legend.”). To do this,
they have set out to gather the world’s leading scientists into their
fold, “just like the American’s did with the Manhattan Project.”
These are the dark servants of evil, but they have a very modern
mission, a very human approach to it and a cunning way of working into
our heroes heads. To work for Section T is to lose your life,
eventually. Your loved ones are targets, your friends,
everyone. You must cut yourself off from the world and devote
yourself to the fanatical war against inhuman monsters who…when you get
down to it, aren’t all that inhuman after all. Ultraviolet is a terrorism parable, but it’s not really in your face, so don’t worry about it.
Unlike many of these one-hit-wonder Brit shows, it’s a little unstable
in the six episode run. I’ve maintained that the abbreviated
series style that the Brits have done is what makes their great hits
great. Take our favorite darling, The Office. Now,
if that were a 22 episode series, you’d want to shit in the lungs of
the writers. But as a quick snap, that brief 12 episode run, it’s
brilliant. That’s a dying custom over on that funny little
island, because they need to have normal-length series to sell to
American TV.
In the case of Ultraviolet, I’ll go back on my theory:
It’s dying to be a regular series. The problems are clear.
These four, complicated characters, this war between a supernatural
race of immortals and a troubled little outfit of Crusaders, Michael
Davenport’s past life, past loves, and internal struggle with his new
position: A lawman in a lawless world. It desperately needed more
time. You barely get settled with the characters before the
series is finished…and dead. Never to return.
All of those wonderful little unexplored touches are long gone as far
as the movie is concerned. Here’s the new plot: It’s the
late 21st century. Genetically modified humans have
“vampire-like” traits giving them super human abilities. A civil
war breaks out between normals and mutants. In the middle is an
“infected” woman – Milla Jovavich. Her name is Violet and she
must protect a young boy who has been marked for death by the US
government.
Hey, stop me when it sounds really horrible, okay?
I don’t know when the film is due. It says “in 2005.” But,
before it’s all the rage, get the series into you. It’s six hours
on DVD. It’s out there, but it’s tough to find. Netflix has
chosen not to carry it as part of their ongoing vampire bias (hey,
where’s Forever Knight?) and I’ve yet to see it for rent.
I have it, of course, and three blank CDR’s along with a postage paid
return envelope will get it to your doorstep. PM me on that
one. Or, if you really want to be proactive, and you’re a Netflix
addict, nag the fuck out of them. Go here: http://www.netflix.com/ContactUs and select “Title Request.” Tell them to get Ultraviolet and the Forever Knight discs. If you do it once a week, they’ll lose their minds and add them to the catalog.