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Several weeks ago, spurred by a discussion of the HBO series The Wire I decided that I wanted to rewatch and earlier television series with Idris Elba Ultraviolet.

Starring Jack Davenport, that many people will recognize as Norrington from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the series follows Detective Inspector Mike Colefield (Davenport) who upon investigating the disappearance of his best friend that night before that friend’s wedding stumbles into the knowledge that vampires are real, and that a secret organization has been fighting them for centuries. Teamed up with a war veteran Vaughn Rice (Idris Elba), a physician Angela Marsh (Susannah Harker) and a former priest Pearse Harman (Philip Quast) Mike tries to uncover what really happened to his best friend, dodge the determined prying of the jilted fiancé, and help the organization discover what grad scheme the vampires have sudden launched.

My sweetie-wife originally exposed me to this series as she had the program on VHS tapes. Much of the vampire lore has been jettisoned. While the vampires are immortal, ageless, and possess fantastic strength and speed, they do not have the ability to enthrall, assume animal or gaseous forms but remain invisible to mirrors and all form of electronic imagery and recording.

While the series is far from perfect, the fiancé character is far too annoying and Mike’s attraction to her indicates to me that this marriage would have been in serious troubles without vampiric intervention, it is quite enjoyable and a nice take on ‘modern vampire hunting.’ These undead creates are not the romantic seducing lovers of modern fantasy but intelligent deadly predators. The entire story is told in six self-contained episodes. They can currently be streamed on Tubi for free. (You just have to endure the bloodsucking of adverts.)