SERIES PREMIERE: Almost every decade, television finds a way to reinvent and reinvigorate the vampire genre. Movies did, too, and started the ball rolling initially with 1922’s Nosferatu and 1931’s Dracula. That latter film starred Bela Lugosi as the sinister Count, an image that more or less held true until Christopher Lee introduced a more sensual vampire in 1958’s British version of Dracula. But think of what TV has done over the years, led by the 1966 daytime ABC soap opera Dark Shadows (tragically haunted vampire), the 1972 ABC telemovie The Night Stalker (modern-day monster vampire in Las Vegas), 1992’s Forever Knight (homicide detective and reluctant vampire), and, of course, 1996’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer (vampire as sexy hero) and 2008’s True Blood (vampires as either misunderstood or conspiratorial). And now, for the new century, comes The Passage, a new Fox show based on the popular novel. I’ve seen the first three episodes, and they’re certainly worth checking out. The new wrinkles this time are that a) most of the so-called vampires were created against their will as government experiments, and b) their powers include strong psychic and mind-control abilities. Mark-Paul Gosselaar stars as an agent who decides to protect a young girl (played by Saniyya Sidney, who, like former child star Gosselaar, is very good here), risking his own life in the process. The action is swift, the characters well drawn, and this new variation on the vampire mythology is welcome, and quite promising. For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.

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