Moonlight Episode Discussion - Ep 1: NSTAV

[Fleur de Lisa]

I have no clue as to why we find vamps fascinating.
Think I will go and look at Mick pix until inspiration hits.

[PNWgal]

Have you always been attracted to vampires? What do you think is so irrisistible about them? Why are we drawn to them?

Ahem.

*adjusts soapbox*

I've been a vampire girl since I was 10. I can only speak for myself, but vampires are mysterious...scary, but in a very sensuous sort of way, and taboo. Let's face it - they fulfill every woman's fantasy of being swept off their feet because they're so intrinsically alpha.

Vampires hold the key to immortality and youth. Living forever and being forever young? Yeah, there's something I can totally get behind.

[Fleur de Lisa]

Hope you know that I was being sarcastic with my previous answer.
I know, I know, it's hard to imagine me being sarcastic.

I was never a vampire girl. Mick St. John changed all that. So, to simply answer your question, all that he is, is what fascinates me.

[librarian_7]

I've read a lot of academic theories about why vamps are so attractive to women...and my considered opinion is that they are all a load of equine byproduct, if you know what I mean.

I can remember being very scared by the idea of vampires when I was quite young...like 5-7 years old. Later, I got interested...they are taboo and sexy.

Lucky

[wpgrace]

Have you always been attracted to vampires? What do you think is so irrisistible about them? Why are we drawn to them?

Ahem.

*adjusts soapbox*

I've been a vampire girl since I was 10. I can only speak for myself, but vampires are mysterious...scary, but in a very sensuous sort of way, and taboo. Let's face it - they fulfill every woman's fantasy of being swept off their feet because they're so intrinsically alpha.

Vampires hold the key to immortality and youth. Living forever and being forever young? Yeah, there's something I can totally get behind.

That was actually nice, P...

I used to watch the old b/w vamp movies on Saturday morning before my parents woke up... not all of them were handsome... cause the movies were old and maybe they had been considered handsome in their day, but the actors didn't always look handsome to me by then...

But they were silent and mysterious and meant to be attractive and powerful and... well, perpetually cool.

And there've been some really great newer vamp movies and some amazing vamps...

But none quite like Mick. I think he reset the bar.

[GuardianAngel]

I haven't been a vampire fan for very long. I've gotten into some of the trendy vampire book series. They're dark, forbidden, dangerous, powerful and immortal. And when they look like the modern vamps like Mick and Josef, what's not to love, right?

Lisa, YOU, sarcastic. Nah, don't buy it.

[allegrita]

Wow. I spent the evening catching up on this thread.

NSTAV was the first ep I ever saw. I liked the shooting up scene, thought it was sexy and also bad...which immediately made Mick seem more interesting. I've put shooting up into my fic a couple of times because it's fascinating, and also it's such a wonderful metaphor for the addiction to blood. For the first time, a show said flat-out, Vampires are addicts. They have a jones for human blood. It's a necessity of life for them.

Blood for vampires is sooooo much more than food. That's what is so fascinating about them for me. For vampires, blood is everything. Food, life, warmth, sex, the rush and the high. Mick said it later on. Blood--it warms and thrills them. When a vampire drinks a woman's blood, she penetrates him at the same time he penetrates her. It's a mutual form of giving and receiving. So much more than just sex. No wonder the freshies line up with their arms held out invitingly!

In one of my stories I called the blood-drinking experience "blissful communion," and that's what I've always felt it is. Yeah, I've been a vampire girl for a long time. But it always bothered me that vamps were portrayed as scary devil-creatures who've lost their souls. Moonlight's vampires spoke to me in great part because their vampirism had nothing to do with their souls. This was a new concept as far as I know. In Moonlight, vampirism is a physiological phenomenon. It isn't caused by having one's soul torn out, and it doesn't mean that you are bereft of grace. It's like having a condition, like having diabetes. Something you live with. It changes you, but it doesn't make you less of a person than you were.

Now, living 400 years? That can change a person. But it's the immortality that does it; well, that and the fact that you really do have to imbibe humans blood in order to survive. That can change a person's attitude. But it's not a question of vampires being evil.

I loved that. I loved this new idea that vamps are people, not monsters... and also, that some of them don't see it that way. Mick's real tragedy to me was that he couldn't understand that being a vampire did NOT define him. He defined himself by the kind of vampire he chose to be. It was a phenomenal shift in the vampire myth, and they pulled it off beautifully...thanks in great part to Alex and Jason.

Oh--and my favorite scenes? Well, they had me at "Ouch." The interview was OK, but it didn't grab me. The freezer? Hmm...that was really nifty. Shooting up? I've already said that it caught my attention and that it's sexy and bad. But it was Beth whacking him over the head with a vase, and Mick saying "Ouch," that did it for me.

And the "I can smell her on you" thing? Be. Still. My. Heart. *THUD* Soooooooo sexy and intense!!

Then we saw the vulnerability. The cradling of Beth as he took her away from the car. Watching over her till she woke up. Talking her down from her "fantasy" (haha) that she "remembered" him saving her when she was little, or that she'd seen the knife coming out of his body.

And then the hug. The voiceover. Oh... yeah, they had me good. And I had been determined not to like that show.

[wpgrace]

Well done Alle! I totally buy your "why vamps are alluring" premise.

I will add that i did think it amazingly cool that they tried to explain the vampire thing in scientific terms... why the coffins of old... now the freezers... why the difficulty with sunlight... photography vs. digital photography, silver in the emulsion (tho don't really get that, but who gives a rat's ***...

Just so cool because, since the original vampire stories centuries ago, we've used science to explain and understand and demystify so many things formerly sunk in superstition... so wouldn't vamps do the same?

[GuardianAngel]

Besides the great looking characters and good acting, what got me about ML was the idea of vampires living among us and us not being aware. You'd think it couldn't work but the way they do it, it could. Hmmmm......


Mick goes home and has a visitor waiting for him.



From the verbal play between these two we learn a lot. Josef doesn't care for Mick's bagged blood - he refers to it as nonfat soy vegan blood. And makes a snarky remark about Mick not having any 'freshies' around. Our rich, old vamp is in rare form during this scene and we get some of his best snarks.



Josef is there because vampires have made the news and he's not happy.



They discuss the case, what Mick has learned so far. They discuss Beth. Josef is surprised Mick knows her and wants him to get her to stop reporting about vampires. Mick's taken aback and asks if Josef means he should kill her. Josef responds that he meant for Mick to ask her but 'fielder's choice'.



Mick fills Josef in on what he's found. The murderer is not a vampire, it's a human crime. Josef wants to know why Mick hasn't elliminated the suspect. Mick says there is more than one. Josef doesn't see the problem except for Mick's soft spot for the mortal ones.

Josef takes his leave, none to happy. Mick reminds him they're on the same side and that he is Josef's only friend who doesn't like him only for his money. We also get Josef's awesome quip: Vampire Solidarity Rah Rah Rah.

[Fleur de Lisa]

This scene is where I went: who is this guy playing Josef and why haven't I seen him before? The interplay and chemistry between Mick and Josef was phenomenal. I dare say their chemistry flowed smoother than even Mick and Beth's. They played off of each other so well. Though I am not a Josef gal, in the sense that I find him hot, I am a Josef gal in the arena of loving his verbosity!

[coco]

GA this is one of my favourite scenes. The Mick/Josef conversation was fantastic and the Josef snark was brilliant. You got a real sense of their friendship from that conversation alone. Two very different vamps but close friendship none the less.

[wpgrace]

This scene is where I went: who is this guy playing Josef and why haven't I seen him before? The interplay and chemistry between Mick and Josef was phenomenal. I dare say their chemistry flowed smoother than even Mick and Beth's. They played off of each other so well. Though I am not a Josef gal, in the sense that I find him hot, I am a Josef gal in the arena of loving his verbosity!

ITA Fleur...

And btw, isn't Mick wearing just the best jacket ever in this scene???

[Fleur de Lisa]

This is how bad it all is in a nutshell:
When I watched that scene the other evening (you remember me mentioning that right, grace?)

I friggin' thought of you as soon as I saw him stroll across the screen wearing that jacket! Immediately I thought: there's that jacket that grace loves.

Wrong on so many levels....

[wpgrace]

This is how bad it all is in a nutshell:
When I watched that scene the other evening (you remember me mentioning that right, grace?)

I friggin' thought of you as soon as I saw him stroll across the screen wearing that jacket! Immediately I thought: there's that jacket that grace loves.

Wrong on so many levels....

Oh did you recently watch Moonlight?

And that jacket is NEVER wrong.

[coco]

This is how bad it all is in a nutshell:
When I watched that scene the other evening (you remember me mentioning that right, grace?)

I friggin' thought of you as soon as I saw him stroll across the screen wearing that jacket! Immediately I thought: there's that jacket that grace loves.

Wrong on so many levels....

Oh did you recently watch Moonlight?

And that jacket is NEVER wrong.

That happened to me too. Grace and her love of Mick's jackets has taken over us all