Demons

2009 ITV show, sitting in the Doctor Who slot for a six episode run.

The gist of the plot is that an ordinary teenager, Luke Rutherford, discovers he's the last descendant of the legendary vampire hunter, Abraham van Helsing.

Sounding like an attempt to do a British Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a male lead, the presence of Philip Glenister as gritty mentor Rupert Galvin will probably result in a lot of Memetic Mutation based on his most famous character. Oh, and let's not forget to compare it to Hex.

Having premiered on 3 January 2009, we shall see if it successfully stakes (he he) its claim to be an ITV rival to Doctor Who. Six episodes later, the consensus is: Definitely not...

The BBC decided to be a bit evil, and put the announcement of the actor to play the Eleventh Doctor up against the premiere of this show.

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This series contains examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Very clean sewers with extensive lighting systems, no less. Perhaps averted: looking at the Stacks, the Van Helsing family clearly has money, so maybe they'd have enough to fit up the catacombs properly...
• Ancestral Weapon
• Badass Longcoat: Galvin. Perhaps a bit of Pandering to the Base, as Philip Glenister's best-know character is somewhat known for his distinctive coats...
  • He also gets a spiffy fedora, in the first episode, at least.
• Blind Seer: Mina.
• Bound and Gagged: Ruby in episode one, Ruby and Galvin in episode four.
• British Brevity: The series is six episodes long. It doesn't look like it's going to get any more.
• Call Back: Dracula is canon to the series, and this is crucial to the fourth episode.
• Defensive Failure: Ruby in episode three. After begging to be allowed with a gun she completely freezes when they rescue Galvin.
• Driving Test
• Drowning Pit: In episode three.
• Elaborate Underground Base
• Fake American: Philip Glenister's character, who often seems to suffer from Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping, bless.
• Fridge Logic: Hold on. So in the last episode, did Galvin really kill Father Simeon after all?
• Genre Blindness: Luke.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: The last episode involves a bumbling medium, played by... Mrs. Doyle.
• The Hunter: Galvin, although the assumption that it's out of Revenge for the death of his wife is subverted - she was killed because he was The Hunter.
• Ordinary High School Student: Luke.
• Our Demons Are Different: For one thing, despite the show's title, they're never called demons - they're "half-lives."
• Our Vampires Are Different: To kill vampires, you need to take their DNA and electrocute it and then inject it back into them, or something.
• Parental Obliviousness: Luke's mother, though she is at least aware that something's going on.
• Secret Legacy: Luke, obviously.
• Selective Obliviousness: Luke regarding Ruby's feelings for him, though it's painfully obvious to Galvin at least.
  • "You really don't know?"
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Luke, as regards to Ruby. She obviously doesn't want this to be true.
• Shout-Out: To Star Wars in the first episode.
  • "Rupert Galvin" may be a Shout-Out to Rupert Giles.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Particularly the godawful opening theme.
• Super Breath: The villain in episode one.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Ruby.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The only reason Rupert gives for Luke to kill the non-humans is that they're a different species.
  • Made especially weird by how easily Luke accepts it and does indeed kill them, even when they *show* plenty of similarities. We're talking shooting them after leading them on that they won't. And this is a kids' show, apparently.
  • The fourth episode makes some effort to subvert this.
  • In an example very reminiscent of The Silver Chair, in the fifth episode, Luke refuses to kill Alice until she transforms into her harpy form.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Quincey is stated to be 138 years old. Yet if he's the son of Mina and Jonathan Harker, he was born after the events of Bram Stroker's Dracula (which took place in 1897) and was turned into a vampire by his mother when he was an adult, injured in WW 2. Now if the series is meant to take place in the year (2009) it was released (and there is no indication it does not), Quincey cannot be any older than 112 years old. Hell, he'd be older than his mother otherwise!
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Characters in one episode swapped to this (really, really badly) for absolutely. No. Reason. Nobody thinks this is weird, and nobody ever mentions it again. It is clearly supposed to be badass.
  • "Drop the gun or I shall smite thee, ya freak!"