MOONLIGHT 1.4 – "Fever"

Writer: Jill Blotevogel
Director: Fred Toye

Cast: Alex O'Loughlin (Mick St. John), Sophia Myles (Beth Turner), Jordan Belfi (Josh Lindsey), Philip Hayes (Officer Richard Colden), Haley Pullos (Mara), Navid Negahban (Amir Fayed), Vanessa Lengies (Leni Hayes), Philip Maurice Haynes (Officer Richard), David J. Lee (Officer Ken Nagawa), James C. Victor (Kempner), Erika Ringor (Officer Novak), Eduardo Ortiz (Stu Peldon), Derk Cheetwood (Kevin Branch), Martez Covington (Omar) & Mickey Maxwell (Uniformed Officer)

Josh enlists the help of Mick to find a witness to a murder, who's on the run after being targeted by the suspect's hired hitman...

"Blood is life for vamps and humans alike. It warms us and thrills us; helps
us heal. But vampires will always be jealous of the living -- like renters
versus owners. You can make your own blood. We’ve got to beg,
borrow and work it into the budget."

-- Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin)

The intriguing start promises more than Fever actually delivers, but the fourth episode of Moonlight still delivers a diverting story -- with vampire lore only taking over near the end. It's fluent and entertaining throughout, so that's reason enough to stick with it...

We open on Mick (Alex O'Loughlin) lying in a bath of ice cubes in a motel, pale and seemingly close to death, before leaping back in time 21 hours to see the circumstances behind his condition. It's an old writing trick to hook viewers, but not one that's particularly required, and the time-jumps aren't returned to as part of the format.

But anyway; a young woman called Leni Hayes (Vanessa Lengies) is under police protection at a safe house – but that doesn't stop a hitman arriving to shoot up the place, leaving the cops dead and Leni on the run.

It transpires that Leni is a secret witness who saw billionaire arms dealer Amir Fayed (Navid Negahban) killing employee Jack Toland, whom she worked for as a nanny. Beth's lawyer boyfriend Josh (Jordan Belfi) is involved with the case – which is obviously very handy for his ace reporter girlfriend, who tends to get all her stories from acquaintances and loose-tongued cops.

After hearing about the safe house fiasco and Leni's disappearance, Beth (Sophia Myles) talks Josh into getting Mick involved on the case, and Mick agrees to help. At the crime scene (which lawyer Josh seems to have a strange amount of authority over!), Mick actually does some proper detective work for once (which was nice to see) – although a few of those "psychic flashes" still pop up to help him. Is that element a hangover from producer Chip Johannessen's tenure writing-producing Millennium?

Mick leads Beth on the trail of where he thinks Leni went, finally arriving at murder victim Toland's house, where they discover she was romantically involved with her employee before his death. Mick also figures out Leni's headed to a safe place owned by Jack Toland in Victorville. He leaves quickly to find her, with Beth commenting that "we make a pretty good team".

At a roadside café in the middle of the California desert, Mick finds Leni at a vending machine, and she half-accidentally shoots him in the forearm (don't worry, it heals), before opting to trust Mick after hearing him out. Inside the café, Leni confirms that she was in love with Jack, and is carrying his baby. Mick urges her to return to L.A with him to testify against Fayed, to get justice for Jack, but she's still nervous and unsure...

Meanwhile, Beth finds out that one of the safe house cops called a cell phone paid for by Fayed, prompting Josh to issue a warrant to investigate further. A police team later storm into Fayed's luxury home and demand Fayed's goons hand over their phones.

After hearing about Mick's discovery of Leni, Josh tells Mick he's sending a police escort from Victorville to pick them up. Unfortunately, the hitman targeting Leni is somehow aware of the arrangement (that pesky leak!) and steals the Victorville cop's identity -- driving to the roadside café with the intention of killing Leni. When he arrives, Mick's preternatural skills means he recognises the hitman's scent from the safe house crime scene, and keeps him hanging around as he makes his escape with Leni through a restroom window.

As Mick and Leni race away through the desert in a car, an attack helicopter (owned by arms dealer Fayed) flies into view and starts firing missiles at them. Mick and Leni manage to bail out to safety, with Mick rigging the car's accelerator to fool the helicopter into thinking he's still inside driving. The car is destroyed by a direct missile hit second later, and the victorious chopper returns home, believing its mission is a success

The California desert isn't the best place for a thirsty vampire to be, as Mick has previously mentioned he can cope with sunlight, but it gradually saps his energy without any intake of blood. Leni helps sickly Mick walk, thinking he's suffering from sunstroke and unaware Mick's sense of self-preservation might force him to kill her at any moment...

Josh breaks the new to Beth that Leni and Mick were killed in an attack on their car, with distraught Beth now convinced the leak to the hitman/helicopter must be coming from someone on Josh's team – as they were the only people who knew about Mick's location.

In the sweltering desert, Mick's conditioning is worsening, but Leni manages to get him inside an abandoned motel. Mick immediately settles down into a bath of cold water in a dark room, ordering Leni to bring him as much ice as she can. Lucky this place still has running water and an ice machine, huh?

Leni manages to get a signal on her cell phone and calls Beth, who's amazed to hear that her beloved vampire P.I is still alive. Beth arrives at the motel soon after -- just as Mick has turned delirious and started hallucinating about biting Leni's neck to quench his thirst. Seeing his terrible condition, she offers her blood to rejuvenate him. Mick has to reluctantly agree, and punctures her wrist with his fangs. Yeuch! Sorry, but I've always been squeamish about blood and wrists.

Back at Josh's office, he overhears a colleague talking secretly on the phone about Leni's situation, and realizes the leak to Fayed's men is coming from this traitorous co-worker. The leak gets a bruising punch for his deception, and will doubtless be facing jail time in the not-too-distant future. Josh later apologizes to Beth at home for the day's events, and mentions "we make a pretty good team". Beth squirms with guilt at his unintentional echo of the phrase she spoke to Mick earlier.

Beth goes to Mick's apartment later, but a brooding Mick doesn't answer when she knocks – now believing his vampire nature only puts her in danger, and he couldn't live with himself if any harm came to her. After both leaning on opposite sides of the door for a beat, sensing each other's presence inches away, Beth leaves...

Fever was a good episode and easily Moonlight's strongest so far. The plot surrounding Leni was initially quite involving to begin with, but it quickly became a bite clichéd, before lurching into more vampire lore to sustain itself. That said, it was at least good fun and easy-to-follow, although it would have been better if Fayed himself wasn't so heinously underwritten, and the events surrounding the murder of Toland wasn't so hazy.

I still find the use of Mick's maudlin voice-over contrived and silly, as it just shoehorns in quick (obvious) explanations, and seems hell-bent on destroying what little subtext Moonlight has to offer. The show is paying homage to the film noir tradition of a detective narrating his investigations, but it's a writer's crutch here.

Alex O'Loughlin is suitably smouldering as Mick, and he's an easy presence to watch, if never that exciting. At the moment, O'Loughlin's eye-candy for the ladies and a dependable actor, but I hope he gets the chance to stretch himself as an actor soon.

It's Sophia Myles who is noticeably improving week-to-week as Beth and, consequently, the love-story heart of Moonlight is getting better. This episode gave in to the cliché of a human offering her blood to the monster she loves, but it's such a part of vampire tradition it was easy to forgive.

In terms of guest stars, Jordan Belfi is doing god work as Josh (a genuine nice guy, who doesn't deserve to be two-timed by Beth), and Vanessa Lengies does well to bring some depth to a rudimentary girl-in-peril role as Leni.

Overall, I'm still waiting for an episode to really grip me; with Moonlight quite a safe, comfortable viewing experience. And that's fine with me. It knows its audience and is toying with the will-they/won't-they element of "MickBeth" to good effect. It helps that O'Loughlin and Myles have presence and charisma, but the show's unoriginality still stings at times. The detective, vampire and romantic genres are all littered with clichés, and Moonlight isn't really escaping them...

A few of the quirks to its vampire lore are fun (wooden stakes just paralyze) or born of necessity (sunlight doesn't kill), but the detective element is very by-the-numbers, and having a romantic aspect at the forefront could become numbing. But still, every episode of Moonlight has been an improvement on the last, so it's heading in the right direction.


11 March 2008
LivingTV, 10.00 pm