TV Snark - Demons: Suckers OR Does The Title Refer To The Vampires Or The Viewers?

The fourth episode contains vampires, will this see an improvement in the show's quality?

SPOILER

No.

Okay, the events of the episode in a rather long and protracted nutshell:

Mina is seen visiting a hospital in the early 20th Century where it's revealed that she's a vampire because she has pointy teeth. Then the rest of the episode turns into a poor man's Blade as the audience is treated to a few lame attempts at vampire culture. Here is a list of the radical elements of Demons' vampires:

1. They wear lots of black and red, just like Goths (or Dennis the Menace).



2. They sleep in coffins.
3. They hang around in dark and seedy clubs that play dance music (they didn't go for the metal loving version of vampires as that's probably not mainstream culture enough for ITV).
4. They're not repelled by garlic (that particular lack of weakness has now become a cliche itself).
5. They drink red liquid that's not wine (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) out of wine glasses.
6. They operate a blood bank, just like Blade 2.

The most bizarre element of vampirism in this episode though is their lack of weaknesses. Instead of going for anything traditional the writers decided to come up with something convoluted and, well I hate to use a "no-no word" but it's retarded. Vampires are inkillable (yes, that is a made up word) apart from when they get shot with their own DNA. It's because they're already dead and well, erm, SCIENCE causes them to instantly age and die! Which is fine if you're a centuries old vampire but if you were created yesterday then the forces of good just return you to the land of the living and cure you of vampirism instead... and then kill you. So yeah, the Slayers, sorry, Smiters have to get a piece of DNA off a vampire before they can kill it. The DNA allows the Smiters to make a magic bullet to kill the vampire. Of course.

Instead of having a ghoul servant or a Renfield, the vampires have a dude called Zippy. He has a zip in his neck that you can use to unzip and decapitate him. There is no known use for this ability other than using his head for a bowling bowl in a scene designed to eat up running time.

I also found out that vampires, despite being superfast, strong and inkillable, can be knocked out with a chair. How do Smiters get into trouble fighting these guys? It must be pretty easy to grab DNA samples off them if they can be knocked out by a bit of light violence.

Anyway, the plot sees Mina reunited with a vampire called Quincy. They have a past together and it's apparent that Mina has strong feelings for Quincy. She tries to warn him away from London before Galvin and Luke kill him. It'll be tough to kill him though because vampires are level 12 and have the fearsome level drain ability.

Galvin tells Luke that Mina is a vampire and gives him a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula to read. Luke asks if he can watch the film instead because he's a member of the idiot elite (or teenagers to use modern vernacular). Ruby ends up reading the book for him even though REEDING IZ OMG REELEE BORRRING! LOLZ! Maybe this is ITV's new method for ensuring it has an audience for the next generation? "Hey kids, don't read a book! Watch quality programming like 'Demons' or 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' or '101 Ways To Eat A Hobo' or 'How Big Is Your Arse?'"

Ruby generally annoys everyone as usual but does useful things like obtaining a sample of vampire DNA and reading a book summary on Wikipedia. Unfortunately no one punches her in the face.

Mina is revealed to be Quincy's mother (not that surprising considering that Quincy was the name of the American character who was killed at the end of the original novel). She can control her vampiric urges through blood transfusion or something, it's not entirely clear but it is SCIENCE! Mina survived the events of the Dracula novel and had a son, Quincy. Quincy fought in a war (I presume World War One given the end of the 19th Century setting of the novel) and was badly injured. Mina, in a misguided effort, gave him some of her blood to heal him which turned him into a kill happy vampire.

Mina dithers about killing her murderous son but eventually decides to drink some blood and become a full vampire again so she can have a brief fight with Quincy. The fight is badly choreographed as usual and Mina doesn't defeat him. Luke turns up and shoots Quincy dead. Which was a tad anti-climactic.

For some reason Mina isn't blind when she's a vampire. This isn't explained. It's pointed out by Ruby but it isn't explained at all. Also why does Mina have psychic powers (other than the obvious plot convenience so the writers don't have to bother putting any detective work into the show)? Mina isn't an interesting character, she's a collection of attributes that don't mesh and make little sense. So far we've discovered that she's a (big breath) blind-psychic-half-vampire-original-character-from-the-book-concert-pianist-librarian. It wouldn't surprise me if she were also a werewolf or a ninja or a ninja-werewolf.

Next Episode - Luke gets a dragon for a girlfriend?