The Dresden Files: Bad Blood

technomancer writes, Vamps and Wardens and Thid Eye, oh my! Bianca, a vampire from Harry’s past, comes to him for help when she thinks the High Council is trying to kill her.

I have to say I’m not happy with the apparent lack of distinguishing features between the Vampire Courts, but otherwise a pretty good episode. To be more specific Red Court vampires are supposed to have saliva that has an effect similar to heroin and Black Court vampires are supposed to be very corpse-like. Other than that complaint on book to screen translation, a good episode.

11 replies on “The Dresden Files: Bad Blood”

  1. Not Bad at all
    Well, I’ve never read the books, but I can’t imagine what they could have done to the black court vamp to make him MORE coprse-like while still being able to fit into the "mundane" world. Are BC vamps unable to pass as humans in the books?

    And if the red court have some opiate-like affect, it seems reasonable that they (at least the older ones) would have some sort of control over it’s application. Clearly she would not have drugged Harry if she had the choice, and it’s reasonable that she WOULD have the choice, so nothing seems to conflict IMHO.

    As somebody who is "comming in clean" to this universe, I was very pleased with this ep. It even spelled out more clearly that the hocky-stick is his wizzard’s staff without "hitting us over the head with it" so to speak, with a for-the-stupid-masses naration or forced-in dialogue explaination. – I like producers that don’t assume I’m stupid.

    Overall I’m quite pleased with how this series is developing and I consider it well worth my time to watch.

    +

    • Re: Not Bad at all
      Overall I was pleased with the episode as well. In the books Black Court vampires don’t fit into the real world. Think Nosferatu. It doesn’t bother me if they got rid of the Red Court opiate saliva, I just want them to maintain the clear physical distinctions between the Courts (I won’t spoiler anything more about the Red Court as I understand you see a bit more in an upcoming episode).

      The only thing I found really disspointing was when Bianca killed the Black Court vampire by breaknig his neck/bashing his head into a table. That was completely lame, as Black Court are Brahm Stoker Dracula style vampires, ie stake through the heard beheading etc to kill.

      Realistically I’m picking nits, as I’m enjoying the show a lot. There are just some things they could have done a better job translating from the books that IMHO would make it a better show.

      • Re: Not Bad at all


        Realistically I’m picking nits, as I’m enjoying the show a lot. There are just some things they could have done a better job translating from the books that IMHO would make it a better show.

        Like I said, I’m comming in clean, so that being the case, here’s my take in that;
        They have been hitting pretty hard the notion that magical beings shield/conceil from the public that magic exists. They have mentioned it as a basic function of one of the reoccuring characters, and they have shown powerful characters (who could supposedly do whatever they want) going out of their way to follow that tennant. Now to put a pointie-eared, squintie-eyed, scrunched-nosed, old-school vampire on the screen so early in the series might (probably would) hamper the "buy-in" of the new viewers. – Same as the drumbstick wand and hocky-staff.

        Why they changed a VW to a jeep however is beyond me, unless it’s as simple as corporate product placement handed down from the studio.

        – but that’s just my $0.02

        • Re: Not Bad at all


          Realistically I’m picking nits, as I’m enjoying the show a lot. There are just some things they could have done a better job translating from the books that IMHO would make it a better show.

          Why they changed a VW to a jeep however is beyond me, unless it’s as simple as corporate product placement handed down from the studio.

          Actually the vehicle change is one of the things I agree with. They did it for two reasons:

          1) They couldn’t fit camera equipment in the bug for in-vehicle shots.
          2) In the books the bug is a good gag becuase it only gets mentioned occasionally, but in the series you’re stuck seeing it everytime Harry drives somewhere.

          A jeep was picked because the reasoning for the bug in the books was that they run forever and have almost no high-tech components (it’s been implied in the series but is more obvious in the books that Harry tends to make electronics around him fry when under stress/excited, thus the 9 million candles in his apartment). The jeep matches the same criteria while eliminating the gag component and giving more room for camera gear.

    • Re: Books?

      What book series did this come from?

      It’s a series of books by Jim Butcher. I’d try linking to them at Barnes & Noble (work blocks Amazon for me) but I don’t know if he’s done non-Dresden books and so couldn’t identify easily which are which if he has. Me, I’m waiting until at least this first season is over (or on hiatus) before giving the books a try because I like being a blank slate in this regard. :)

      Anyhoo, just enter his name at your bookseller of choice, or head over to your local bookstore – I noticed a prominent display in the SciFi/Fantasy area at Barnes & Noble the last time I stopped in.

    • Re: Books?

      What book series did this come from?

      The series is The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. He is also doing a fantasy series called Codex Alera and has a Spiderman novel out as well.

      The Dresden Files in order:
      Storm Front
      Fool Moon
      Grave Peril
      Summer Knight
      Death Masks
      Blood Rites
      Dead Beat
      Proven Guilty
      White Night, the next book, comes out on 4/3/07

      The books come up on Amazon if you search for Dresden Files.

  2. Love this show!
    It is the third in my 3 favorite shows on television: Heroes, Battlestar and Dresden Files. I hope this signifies the beginning of a trend back to television worth watching. There is already far too many "reality" shows and "judge" shows.

    I really like the drumstick wand and hockystick staff. Very irreverent without being goofy. The writing and acting is very good. I fully expect this show to keep going.

    • Re: Love this show!
      I agree. I came into this show knowing nothing about it, expecting nothing, and it’s my #3 show, as well. I just wish we could see the pilot that hasn’t been aired yet. Supposedly a chopped up version will be aired on March 4, but I want to see the whole thing, darn it!

    • Re: Love this show!
      My understanding is it’s pulling ratings similar to Battlestar, so hopefully it gets picked up for another season and a dvd release. I’m TiVo’ing the episodes and archiving them on my comp just in case though ;-)

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