A few months back I was sent the DVD Blade: House of Chthon which was the pilot episode to Blade the series. Now for the first time on DVD the whole Blade series is now available. The television show premiered in 2006 on Spike Television. However the rating were low and audience turnout was not what Spike TV expected it to be so the series was canceled after just one season. However, for those who missed it on television, the DVD contains all thirteen original episodes.
Blade: The Series is based on the Marvel character which spawned a trilogy of movies in the past ten years starring Wesley Snipes as the fanged hero. However in the series the role of Blade has been reprised by rap artist/ actor Sticky Fingaz. The series follows Blade and some new allies, one being a women named Krista Starr (Jill Wagner) whom was recently turned into a vampire by the House of Chthon. Now Blade and Krista are on the hunt to stop the evil House of Chthon from overthrowing the human race and with a new breed of vampires to take them out. Blade and Krista along with their crew are on the hunt to stop them at all costs while trying to find a way to correct the vampire virus as well.
Watching all of the episodes is a hard thing to do especially being that they are all about forty five minutes to an hour long each. So after sitting though them all I tended to forget so of the details of the earlier episodes. Each episode is wrtten differently than the others although they pretty much all come together. David S. Goyer who wrote almost all of the episodes with the help of a few other writers really does know the character of Blade very well. He also wrote the the three blade movies and directed the third and final film of the franchise. The guy is a great writer and he knows his Superheros well. He also wrote the Batman Begins and the new Batman film The Dark Knight as well. He is also slated to write and direct the Magneto film as well. So for the most part the series is written pretty well, because Blade seems to be Goyer’s baby and he knows what direction to take the character in. So the writing is for the most part pretty good. Although some of the episodes I did find at times to drag, but overall the writing pans out pretty well.
The acting is also not that bad, Jill Wanger stands out in her role as Krista Starr and gives an overall good performance throughout the series. When I saw House of Crthon I really didn’t care much for Sticky Fingaz as Blade. I though he tried to hard to be just like Wesley Snipes and didn’t bring anything to the character that Snipes didn’t. However as the series played out Sticky started to make the character his own and got better with each episode. The rest of the cast was so-so, but they were pretty much your basic vampire cast and didn’t give us any kind of credibility to really make their characters stand out. Even Neil Jackson who plays Blade nemesis Marcus Van Sciver didn’t really stand out as much as I would of liked him too. The character himself was nothing great compared to the ones in the films at least.
The overall production value is almost as good as the movies. This DVD is unrated so we get to see more blood, guts and gore, and we get some really good visuals. The set designs and locations worked well for the series and overall everything was put together quite well.
In the end, Blade: The Series is actually not half bad. It has some of the normal television issues that help separate it from the production value of a movie, but it’s actually not a half bad series. Although it only lasted one season, I think the series could of picked up more of an audience if the series were promoted more. I really had no clue about it until I was flipping though the channels one night and stumbled upon it. It’s a shame that it failed to capture and audience, but I think it’s well worth checking out on DVD especially if your were a fan of the films. The series only adds more depth to the story of Blade and his struggles to help the human race and himself against the vampires of the world.
– Horror Bob
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