BLOOD TIES SERIES 1

Based on the series of books by Tanya Huff, this first season of American cable series BLOOD TIES charts feisty Victoria Nelson's (Christina Cox) development from short-sighted former cop to paranormal investigator extraordinaire.

The series kicks off with a 2-part pilot episode, entitled "Blood Price".

As the pilot begins, we meet Vicky as she walks home alone one night after a failed date, talking on her mobile phone to her mother. Their conversation is interrupted when she sees someone being assaulted in an alley. Vicky ends her call and races into the alley to help (not thinking to flag any of the numerous passing cars for help). The assailant vanishes, leaving behind a corpse with a gaping neck wound.

When the police eventually arrive we learn that Vicky is an ex-cop who had to leave the force due to an irreparable deterioration of her eyesight. Her former partner Mike (Dylan Neal) appears to have been close to her in more ways than one, and as a result there's a friction remaining between them when he berates her for putting her own life at risk and chasing the killer with no back-up.

But Vicky - now running her own private detection agency - disobeys Mike's demand that she leaves the investigation to him, when the demure Corrine (Gina Holden, ALIEN VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM) pays her a visit and says she was the dead guy's girlfriend. She insists that her boyfriend was slain by a vampire, and begs Vicky to take up the case for her. Reluctantly, Vicky agrees.

A coroner friend of Vicky's confirms that the body had bite marks on its neck and had been drained of blood, which certainly gets Vicky thinking. But when she dines with Mike and brings up the vampire theory, he is quick to rubbish it.

But Vicky remains convinced that she's on to something, and becomes even more so when she's rescued from a vampire attack by dashing playboy Henry (Kyle Schmid, THE COVENANT).

Henry is a well-to-do young vampire with a conscience (he lives on the minor amount of blood that he draws from his dates while shagging them, but advises them to leave before his lust drives him to hurt them).

Initially suspicious of Henry, Vicky grows to trust him as he explains how he saved her life, and wants to help her thwart a vampiric demon that has been summoned by a lowlife bar owner who wants riches and women in return for feeding the monster's bloodlust.

The pilot ends with a sceptical Mike begrudgingly acknowledging the existence of the supernatural after witnessing it first-hand, and Corrine - having almost died in a demonic ritual - blags herself a job as Vicky's assistant.

By the time episode three swings into motion, then, the four central characters have been fairly well established: Vicky - unlucky in love, headstrong, struggling to deal with her ailing eyesight, bound by reputation to become the last hope of people everywhere who are tormented by otherworldly terrors; Mike - a fairly ignorant but well-intentioned cop who still holds a flame for his former love Vicky; Corrine - the token Goth chick, surly but likeable, with an attitude that grates at first but grows more endearing as the series progresses; and Henry, the enigmatic young vampire who fancies Vicky and has suspicions about Mike.

Episode three is where the series kicks in proper, with a formula established that the following episodes all adhere to rigidly: a brief scene-setting pre-credits sequence, followed by Vicky getting straight into her latest case - people hiring her to locate missing relatives, recover prized relics or even to discover the identity of killers.

Of course, Vicky's clients are all blighted somewhat by demons of one kind or another, and as a result Vicky finds herself pitted against all manner of formidable foes: zombies, vampires, demons, killer bugs, voodoo magic and so on. It's a good job her closest allies are a super-sensory vampire, a tough cop and a, er, Goth chick then!

This 22-episode first season is admittedly formulaic fare. It doesn't offer anything we haven't already seen from US TV in the last two decades. THE X-FILES springs to mind at times, especially in the way that many episodes seem to exist as thinly-disguised rip-offs of popular horror films (THE EXORCIST, for example, in series closer "Deep Dark").

Other series' that inevitably spring to mind are BUFFY and SUPERNATURAL. The young attractive cast and slick editing accompanied by dance/rock tunes ensure of this, as does the stylishly lit exteriors and cheaply produced interior set designs. Not to mention the lame humour which occasionally hampers the script, and the unrequited love triangle that strains tenuously between Mike, Vicky and Henry. It's all very familiar territory.

However, BLOOD TIES is a grower. After three or four episodes I was ready to condemn it - and I stand by all the criticisms raised above - but, the more I watched, the more these characters grew on me and the more I began to accept the tried-and-tested formula. It ended up being that it didn't matter that I'd seen it all done before - this is a likeable addition to an arguably saturated market, and one that it would be a shame to see getting overlooked.

It may be that purists of Huff's work will moan, as they have done on some forums, that the casting doesn't reflect the characters as they appeared on the page. I'm not familiar with the source books so I am perhaps at an advantage on this front. The cast all seem agreeable enough though, and they all give competent performances that back up their rich background in TV circles. Schmid stands out in his performance as the reluctant vampire, brooding and sexy at times, and looking a little too much like goofy Matthew Lillard at others.

From a horror perspective, it must be said that BLOOD TIES is pretty harmless stuff. Bloodletting is kept to a minimum and any sex scenes are kept brief, without the inclusion of anything as offensive as nudity. This is certainly more BUFFY than it is MASTERS OF HORROR or even BLADE. FX are mainly pretty cheap-looking, and mainly of the CGI variety.

This five disc boxset includes all 22 episodes of season one. Each episode is roughly 43 minutes long and each disc is split as follows:

Disc 1 - five episodes: "Blood Price Part 1", Blood Price Part 2", the admittedly eerie voodoo vibes of "Bad Juju", "Gifted" and "Deadly Departed".

Disc 2 - five episodes: "Love Hurts", "Heart of Ice", "Heart of Fire", "Stone Cold" (about a sexy woman who seduces men, but turns out to be a gorgon whose stare transforms them into stone!), and "Necrodome".

Disc 3 - five episodes: "Post Partum", "D.O.A.", "Wild Blood", "5:55" (a series highlight) and the enjoyably daft "Norman".

Disc 4 - five episodes: the enjoyable cockroaches madness of "Bugged", "The Devil You Know", "Drawn And Quartered", "Wrapped" and "The Good The Bad And The Ugly".

Disc 5 - two episodes: "We'll Meet Again" and the aforementioned "Deep Dark", which sees Vicky get all badass and gives Holden the opportunity to play it mean when she gets possessed by a demon.

Each disc has an animated main menu allowing the option to "Play All" or select an individual episode to view. Each episode menu is static.

Although there are no scene selection menus on these discs, each episode can be remotely navigated through via 5 chapters.

Each episode is presented in non-anamorphic 1.78:1 and is treated to a sharp, bright transfer with strong colours and minimal grain. Minor ghosting is evident on infrequent occasions.

The English 2.0 audio is strong throughout all five discs.

There are no extras included on the discs.

For those who missed BLOOD TIES when it premiered on UK TV last year (late 2007) on the Living channel, Contender's boxset is a well-presented and financially viable way of catching up pronto. With fans already campaigning for a guarantee of a season 3, and purists relieved to hear that gay character Tony (who, at Huff's choice, was omitted from the series) is being lined up for his own spin-off series "Smoke", it seems that BLOOD TIES' lack of originality or bite have done little harm to it's popularity.

Worth checking out.

Review by Stuart Willis