reviewed by Charity Bishop
        

The BBC's answer to The X-Files, Ultraviolet is a six-episode collection of intense sci-fi adventures taking place in the London underground. On the eve of his best friend and police partner's wedding, Michael Colefield (Jack Davenport) receives a frantic phone call from one of their sources. The man is in terror for his life, insisting he needs to speak with Jack. He agrees to meet Michael in a gaming hall. For several months he's been trailing a suspect for the police but none of his pictures or recordings have turned up anything conclusive. Giving Jack (Stephen Moyer) the keys to his flat and promising to be back in time for their last "bachelor night," Michael reaches the gaming hall too late. His informant is murdered in cold blood... and none of the security cameras picked up his assailant. He returns to the flat to find Jack missing... and he doesn't turn up the following afternoon for his own wedding. It turns into a police investigation.

Intel turns up a Swiss bank account in Jack's name with over $25,000 dollars inside. Sources believe Jack was into money laundering and was being paid off by a private sector to turn over police information. Michael is unable to believe his friend was involved in anything devious but is forced to work with an inter-government agency to locate him. He's not quite certain what Dr. Angela March (Susannah Harker) is after, but Jack considers her dangerous. He makes contact, pleading with his friend to help him. When Michael is taking in for questioning, he learns the truth. March is part of a sub government agency working with the Catholic church to stop an organizing front of "leeches" (vampires). Their team leader and ex-priest Harman (Philip Quast) wants to recruit Michael into their ranks, but he's skeptical about their methods... and the war they believe is brewing.

With human expansion into potential for self-destruction (via nuclear war and common colds), the collective organization believes their food source will soon die out. They will go to any means to preserve their existence... pouring thousands of pounds into research toward blood disorders and providing other charity work. But a very real evil is quietly lingering behind the scenes, infiltrating their ranks. Michael will be forced to face his priorities and make a choice... to either fight for good or evil. In the meantime he encounters a series of horrific events, dangerous mishaps, and various threats. The key to the plot's survival is the intrigue surrounding vampire lore. They cannot be seen in mirrors or by cameras, nor can they converse over the phone... their voice won't transmit through electrical wires. They avoid direct sunlight, since it causes them to burst into flames with prolonged contact. They cannot reproduce and are immortal, timeless, preserved from the time of their transformation.

These facts add up to an intense, interesting series of events for our heroes to deal with. For all its coolness (and yes, this show is cool), Ultraviolet also raises some disturbing questions about humanity. There are times we empathize with the plight of the vampires, who are portrayed as a minority being systematically wiped out. The characters are well developed but not without their nuances. The plots are also difficult to follow at times and the first two episodes have primary characters that look so much alike, we can't tell various women apart at a glance. Jack Davenport in particular has the bad habit of muttering his lines -- combined with his thick accent, sometimes it makes him impossible to understand. Other British phrases will go over less-cultured American heads. For the most part this is a psychological thriller and therefore content is moderated, but nevertheless the series brings up two things in particular many audiences will find offensive.

In the third episode a woman is rescued from two attackers by a vampire. Through various investigations Dr. March discovers she is pregnant... but the baby doesn't show up on video surveillance feed. She is unknowingly bearing a vampire into the world... a child who isn't immortal but might have an allergy to sunlight. We learn it was a test tube baby and the plot develops into a look at organic fertilization. There's a lot of conversation about sperm and related activities, miscarriages, etc. March wants the woman to have an abortion and very nearly talks her into it. She visits a clinic for more information -- at this point I was ready to turn it off, but then discovered the girl running the desk at the clinic was pro-life and religious. The abortion is not carried out but is never regarded as immoral or wrong by primary characters -- life does get a push through the nurse's encouragement to consider the psychological backlash. We briefly see female upper nudity on one of the posters in the clinic. (The woman has a miscarriage because the baby can't stand being near the cross hanging around the pro-life girl's neck.)

Episode four also deals heavily with child molesters -- because a boy has attacked a local priest and killed him, the issue comes up about pedophiles. The investigation eventually leads to the home of a local abuser and the apartment of another. There's a lot of non-graphic discussions about how abominable it is. In the end they decide to blame the innocent dead priest rather than subject the boy to further publicity. The whole episode, along with the abortion issue, was unnecessary and tread on the side of bad taste. Fortunately the remaining four episodes were worthwhile. The ending in particular had a fantastic climax and I was struck by how magnificently the show portrayed evil as being deceptive, manipulative, and persuasive. At one point Harman is told by a vampire that they are the afterlife; without them, would he still believe in God? Blasphemy is spewed forth in torrents and for a time we wonder if the priest's faith has shattered, but he comes back strong -- and still on God's side. Vampires are fatally allergic to symbols of Christ, the crucifix, and priests in general.

This doesn't mean the series is great family viewing ... there's a fair share of blood and gore (gruesome neck bites, a few shots of people with blood dripping from their mouths). Offered a bag of blood for self-preservation, the vampire angrily breaks it and smears it on the double mirror. When an angry biker takes a bat to a car, the sunlight breaks through the tinted windows and casts the inward vampire into flames. Others are dispatched with the use of carbon bullets -- they're shot and explode in a fragment of light. On two separate occasions people are shown throwing up -- one a vampire who was forced to eat, and Michael after being bitten and straying too near a church. Men zip up their pants after emerging from the bathroom -- once a guy is shown standing in front of a urinal. There's also an unfortunate amount of profane language. Jesus' name is abused at least five times, Christ twice, and Michael's favorite phrase is "I don't give a sh-t!"

The show neither offended me so desperately that I'd never watch it again, nor managed to entirely captivate me from beginning to finish. Unsurprisingly the first and final episodes are the best but the miniseries also leaves off on a mild cliffhanger, leaving the door open for future installments. With so many unanswered questions, I almost hope they do show us more.