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Ultraviolet, the Excellent TV series

sleazenation

17:24 / 29.01.06

I've been talking this show up like crazy recently, and despite being a series that only lasted one series (six episodes) back in 1998, and being quite well regarded every time it's mentioned in passing, Ultraviolet has never actually had its own thread... an error I intend to correct.

So, where to begin?

How best to describe Ultraviolet?

I'd say it's a detective show. A sort of detective, sort of spy show about vampires, it's true, but a detective/spy show first and foremost. As for the vampires, the V word is never used.

So, I guess the questions to start with are have you seen it? What did you think of it? What (and why) was your favourite episode? what didn't you like about it and where would you have liked to see it go...

over to you...

invisible_al

18:49 / 29.01.06

Best thing about it was Philip Quast, playing the ex-priest chief of whatever secret government department that they were. He was just so un-nerving, especially with the unexplained reaction that victims of the 'Leeches' had, I'm thinking of the episode set at that school *shudder*.

I also have to give it up for Idris Elba, who played Vaughan, I have never seen an episode so tense as when he was trapped in that warehouse with the coffins. Also liked the way he constantly told Mike (Jack Davenport) 'If I was a Leech you'd be dead' every so often.

It's a gem of a series, 6 episodes and not a dud amoung them, glad it never got re-made in the states like it was rumoured.

Benny the Ball

20:16 / 29.01.06

I loved this series - some simple, thoughtful little updates of vampire myths - the whole mobile phone's being a problem and the final solution idea (very much like bird flu culling or BSE culling exercises). Also, from a technical point of view the sound is excellent.

Poke it with a stick

21:17 / 29.01.06

I remember liking this show a lot and was quite surprised it never got a second series, what with the likes of Bugs and Spooks getting more than one outing.
It also gave a few ideas to other film-makers - didn't Underworld nick the idea of UV bullets?

sleazenation

21:54 / 29.01.06

It seems that a pilot for a US series was made, but never broadcast. I'd like a chance to see that if I could... does anyone know where it might be available?

Mister Six, whom all the girls

01:39 / 30.01.06

Did anyone else see the ad in this month's Marvel Comics for the Ultraviolet movie?

My balls fell right off, I swear to Grodd.

Ultraviolet

Phex: Dorset Doom

04:50 / 30.01.06

Medium size quicktime trailer here
Well, it, um, is not that much like Ultraviolet, which was low-key and intelligent and gripping whereas the new Ultraviolet RIPS OFF TEH MATRICKS!!1 (and Equilibrium: Milla Jovovich uses 'a more realistic' variant of the Gun-kata)
Her name's violet, and she's, like, ultra. Imdb doesn't mention the good Ultraviolet as an inspiration, though message board poster 'gothicimages' (not his real name) asks: 'What european comic is this based on?'.

Back to the better thing-that-has-the-same-name-as-another-thing, I don't remember the Leeches having a problem with cell-phones (it has been five years since I've seen this show), what was the deal with that?

sleazenation

07:44 / 30.01.06

Let me make this quite clear now. I. Am. Talking. About. The. Fantastic. TV. Series. Called. Ultraviolet. Not. The. Crappy. Movie. Of. The. Same. Name.

Evil Scientist

08:04 / 30.01.06

Back to the better thing-that-has-the-same-name-as-another-thing, I don't remember the Leeches having a problem with cell-phones (it has been five years since I've seen this show), what was the deal with that?

Essentially it was an extension of the "no reflection in mirrors" rule. The Leeches didn't show up on any kind of technology (CCTV, phones, etc). They used keyboard operated voice synthesisers to communicate over the phone if they had to.

Ultraviolet was a great show and well worth adding to anyone's dvd collection. It was extremely grim in places (the paedophile episode springs to mind). But I liked the re-imagining of vampires as trying to take over the world to stop the loss of their food supply by human society's environmental damage.

Much as I love the Jovovitch, I have a feeling this film will be the same impulse-zone popcorn as Resident Evil, et al.

DaveBCooper

10:16 / 30.01.06

Good show, and I only realised on rewatching it recently how well it all tied up.
And unless memory serves, didn't they go all 6 episodes without saying the word 'vampire' more than two or three times ? Clever, that...

sleazenation

10:24 / 30.01.06

I don't believe they *ever* uttered the V word

"so, you know what we are dealing with?"
"No, I know what you think you are dealing with..."

I really appreciated the character focus... it was interesting reading a review of the series based on the first two or so episodes that confidently predicted some kind of sexual frisson between Mike and Angie, on the grounds that the male and female leads always have some sexual frisson... No. Not here. And there are some very good reasons why not.

Favourite characters anyone?

Would like to have seen a bit more of Harmon in the field... he was the stone cold killer who pulled the plug on one of Angie's kids remember...

Of them all Vaughn appears to be the best adapted to his new life...

e-n

11:06 / 30.01.06

I'm very hazy on this as I only saw the original TV broadcastbut didn't they refer to the V as code-6's or something like that?

The vampires couldn't be destroyed totally either, could they?
They reverted to ash and were placed in containers in a romoom saturated with UV light.

Al you had to do was spill some blood on them and they could come back, right?

I'm going to have to go and get this somewhere now.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:08 / 30.01.06

Code 5 - due to the Roman numeral for 5 being V.

Evil Scientist

11:19 / 30.01.06

My favourite line was one of the final ones.

"They've got their extermination campaign, and so do we."

That sent a chill down my back.

The vampires couldn't be destroyed totally either, could they?
They reverted to ash and were placed in containers in a romoom saturated with UV light.

Al you had to do was spill some blood on them and they could come back, right?

Absolutely bang on. Although they don't learn about the blood = resurrection trick until the final episode.

thestrongarm

16:14 / 30.01.06

I loved this. It was intelligent and atmospheric with some great story lines (The blood trials, The abortion episode).

I recommend this to anyone and you can pick it up in HMV sales and such for about seven-eight pounds.

Benny the Ball

16:39 / 30.01.06

Plus the excellent set up of locking someone in a room with a timed coffin containing a vampire as an elaborate trap to escape from was brilliant. I must watch this again, I got the DVD about two maybe three years ago, after losing a video of the series I had.

iamus

16:45 / 30.01.06

Might well do that. I only ever caught the first episode during the original broadcast and as such, I can't remember much about it other than thinking it was excellent.

Good to hear it not one of those remembering-it-better-than-it-was things. Is there a decent sense of self-containment and closure with those six episodes? It's not going to be like the harrowing experience of watching Firefly all over again is it?

iamus

16:46 / 30.01.06

Might well do that.

That's buy the DVD.

Not lock someone in a room with Vampire coffins.

Although.......

thestrongarm

17:16 / 30.01.06

There is a sense of closure, as I don't think the creators ever planned to make a second series (I remember reading an interview a few years after where the writer said that Ultraviolet was 'Too high concept' to be a continuing series).

However, it is disapointing that they didn't carry on with it. It was great

(Just remembered another good bit - the conversation between the 'priest' and the captured leech)

sleazenation

17:18 / 30.01.06

People tend to have a range of reactions to the last episode. It does provide pay-offs for the rest of the series as well as an element of closure, but everything is still pretty much up for grabs as the the end credits roll.

Mysterious Transfer Student

18:31 / 30.01.06

I worshipped this series when it appeared. It seemed to hold out such hope that the other strain of British SF - Quatermass, Doomwatch and their brand of furrow-browed very serious boffinry in the face of screaming horror - could be revived in a modern context. The lighter, more playful variety represented by Gerry Anderson, Pertwee-era Who and, at a stretch, Jerry Cornelius has been reincarnated very well in the dual form of RTDavies & David Tennant.... I just wish Ultraviolet would have made it to a second series.

Anyone who became a fan of Idris Elba on the strength of this show could do zirself a favour and start watching The Wire, in which he plays the superbly malign, corporate-aspirant drug lord Stringer Bell, and about which we have an enthusiastic, if not too informative for newcomers, thread here.

sleazenation

19:15 / 30.01.06

So, was there anything about this show that really disappointed people?

Evil Scientist

07:31 / 31.01.06

Well, I felt like banging my head against the wall everytime Davenport's character went off pining after his ex-partner's fiance instead of settling down with his much cooler super-spy lady-friend. But aside from that...

Not in the Face

07:51 / 31.01.06

So, was there anything about this show that really disappointed people?

Spoilerish

At the end of the series when Devenport's ex-copper-not-really-friend-now-code-5 was bought back from dust, he regenerates wearing the same clothes that he was dusted in. It was really jarring given the efforts the series took to be as low key and unmagical as possible in presenting the vamps to then have such a nonsensical and modesty preserving regeneration.

Other than that it was great.

sleazenation

07:53 / 31.01.06

Doesn't that also go with the complaint that vampire's clothes should appear in mirrors etc...

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

17:30 / 31.01.06

Hmm. Thanks for the advice, folks. Got this on my list for my next set of DVD orders, alongside Immortel and the awful, but humorous, '90s remake movie of "The Avengers".

As for clothes not appearing in mirrors, I think clothes are considered to be "part" of the vampire. Its the same excuse for why an old blanket covered Seline just fine in Underworld 2...but all her black, totally opaque leather clothes began to scald and burn away the second sunlight touched them while they were on her.

David Batty

17:33 / 31.01.06

Didn't the paedophile storyline attract considerable criticism because it strongly associated paedophilia with homosexuality? It's so long since I saw the programme it's hard to recall what raised this complaint - but I vaguely remember cottaging being involved.

sleazenation

21:29 / 31.01.06

I don't think there was any cottaging, but one of the paedophiles first meets the boy he is grooming to be his victim in a public toilet in a park... and the show is constantly playinging up the threat to the boy...

I never really got the impression that they were trying to equate homosexuality with paedophilia, but it's a perfect excuse to go away and rewatch that one again...

sleazenation

21:47 / 31.01.06

But, yeah, I missed this when it first came out back in 1998 - I was living in Canada back then. So I don't know much about any controversy surrounding that episode - anyone else remember anything at the time...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:11 / 02.02.06

Sorry to break the cardinal Barbelith rule and not read a thread before posting (wanted to avoid non-flagged spoilers, y'see), but I just thought I'd say I've downloaded the series and am two episodes in. (I think I only saw about three or four first time round). It's much cheesier than I'd remembered- but a hell of a lot less cheesy than I THOUGHT it was going to be on a second viewing, if that makes any sense. It's still very very good indeed.

I'll return to this thread when I've watched the other four. Oh yes I will.

Think I'll watch another now, actually...

doglikesparky

07:56 / 05.03.06

As sleaze said upthread..

Let me make this quite clear now. I. Am. Talking. About. The. Fantastic. TV. Series. Called. Ultraviolet. Not. The. Crappy. Movie. Of. The. Same. Name.

I really don't think the movie has anything at all to do with the TV series.

sleazenation

08:30 / 05.03.06

Yes, as far as i'm aware, Ultraviolet: the TV series,has nothing whatsopever to do with the film. Also, the TV series in question wasn't a BBC production, it was an independant production shown by Channel 4...

Triumvir

14:49 / 05.03.06

Well, now I have an undeniable urge to go to amazon and buy the superb TV series, and go to the theater and see the god-awful movie.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

02:04 / 07.03.06

Ok, now I AM watching the actual series.

Damn this is good TV. I'm only about 1 episode and 3/4s of the way in, but I'm really enjoying it.

Love the mirror panels on their guns. Nice bit of thought put in there.

Not much else to say right now. I'll probably have something real smart to say once I've watched more.

Thanks for turning me onto this, folks. I really appreciate it.

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