Ultraviolet (TV serial)
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Ultraviolet is a 1998 British television serial written and directed by Joe Ahearne and starring Jack Davenport, Susannah Harker, Idris Elba and Philip Quast. It was produced by World Productions for Channel 4.
Only six episodes of Ultraviolet were made, however this was an intentional decision on Ahearne's part, opting not to continue despite the show's popularity. He felt it would lose its uniqueness if it was continued.
Synopsis
A modern retelling of the vampire myth, Ultraviolet revolves around a government-funded paramilitary organisation with connections to the Roman Catholic Church fighting a secret war against a worldwide vampire conspiracy.The main character, Detective Sergeant Michael Colefield, played by Davenport, is a police detective who, when his best friend Jack is killed, encounters agents of this organisation. In this first encounter they pose as officers of CIB investigating possible corruption on the part of Mike's friend. He is initially unsure of who to trust, Jack accusing his new allies of being a "death squad": the modern version of the Inquisition; the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. However, he soon finds that his old friend has been coopted into the vampire conspiracy and their plans to control the destiny of mankind.
A hallmark of the series are the scientific methods used by the organisation as they investigate a variety of cases. In this respect, as in others, the series owes a debt to The X-Files, whose paranormal investigators go about their investigations with the help of modern investigative and scientific methods. In Ultraviolet these methods allow the vampire hunters to develop modern weaponry to fend off their foes - instead of stakes, automatic handguns with carbon bullets and specialised sights that use video cameras to differentiate between vampires and humans (vampires are invisible to recording devices); instead of wreaths of garlic, gas grenades containing concentrated allicin; instead of sunlight, lamps emitting ultraviolet light. The characters note that the traditional idea of religious symbols repelling the creatures is "a matter of faith... on both sides".
To maintain a more modern and realistic feel the word "vampire" is never spoken in the series; the members of the organisation avoid the word, perhaps because of its superstitious connotations. The term "Code Five" is often substituted (a visual use of the Roman numeral V is the closest the series gets to citing the word "vampire"), as is the slang "leech".
Legacy
In 2000, the American Fox Network developed an ongoing series version of Ultraviolet, starring Eric Thal, Lisa Going and Mädchen Amick and with Idris Elba reprising his role from the British series. The American version did not however progress beyond a pilot episode, Howard Gordon, one of the producers contracted to develop the series, admitting in an interview for www.scifi.com that, "frankly we screwed it up and it just didn't come out that well."The original UK version has been screened by the Sci-Fi Channel there.
External links
- [Official Ultraviolet Homepage]
- [Action TV page about the UK version]
- [Action TV page about the US version]
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