It's probably not a good sign that while watching the first episode of Blade (Spike TV, Wednesdays, 10 p.m.), I kept rooting for the vampire bad guys to kill the grim, humorless hero. Based on the popular series of films about a vampire hunter (that's Blade) who is himself part vampire, the show follows the movies' style and storyline very closely (it helps that it was developed by David S. Goyer, who wrote all three Blade movies). Stepping in for Wesley Snipes as the title character is Kirk "Sticky" Jones, a onetime rapper (known as Sticky Fingaz) and recent cast member on FX's Iraq war drama Over There, which afforded him a much wider range of emotions.
Here all he does is glower and growl in a broad approximation of Snipes' cartoonish performances in the films. He's got barely a third as many lines as the other major characters, which means he's little more than a plot device on his own show, without even any of the minimal personality that was developed in the films. Sadly, Blade's grizzled mentor, Whistler (played in the movies by Kris Kristofferson), died in 2004's Blade: Trinity, so his only constant companion is an annoying young sidekick/tech geek, whose witty banter is all one-sided since Blade's funny bone got bit off by a vampire.
At least the vampires are more interesting. The first episode introduces Krista (Jill Wagner), who wants revenge on the local vampire clan for killing her dopey twin brother. She forges an uneasy alliance with Blade, bonding over their shared hatred for vampires and smiling. At first, Krista's just as annoying as Blade, only more talkative, but then around the middle of the episode something interesting happens: She gets turned into a vampire herself, and suddenly she's sexy and nasty and much more entertaining, not to mention a more stylish dresser.
The main vampire villain, a British-accented real-estate tycoon, and his blond female sidekick, are also delightfully evil and may be better than any of the villains in Blade's feature films. That's why I was rooting for them to win—they look like they're having so much fun and they're so good-looking. Who'd want to be like the dour Blade when you could be having hot vampire sex and drinking blood?
Of course, the bad guys can't win, but at least, since this is a TV series and they have to stick around for a while, they can't lose, either. The ultimate setup with Krista as a sort of vampire double-agent has some potential, and a show about the conflict between her serious, avenging human side and her sexy, evil vampire side could be interesting. Unfortunately, this show isn't called Krista—it's called Blade, so we'll have to tolerate Jones' Wesley Snipes impression as the main focus.
You don't exactly expect high drama from Spike TV, though, so Blade kicking vampire ass is likely to be enough for most viewers, and fans of the movies will probably be satisfied with how closely the show sticks to the precedents they set. Unlike a lot of TV shows based on movies, Blade is perfectly suited to the serial format, since its origins are in another serialized medium (comic books). The action and effects are obviously scaled down, and the setting (Detroit) is a little less glamorous, but Blade should fulfill the needs of the average action fans. Now all it needs to do is work on characterization.