With the writer's strike dragging on indefinitely and a lot of our favorite shows going into hiatus, I've taken the time to go back and give a look at some of the shows that I might have missed during the first airing. One of these is Moonlight.

I have to admit, I've been reluctant to give Moonlight a shot. In the early 90's, I was a fan of Forever Knight. So when I heard about CBS's newest Vampire Cop show, my first thought was that The Eye was recycling old Crimetime After Primetime premises and that Dark Justice would be next.

Superficially Moonlight sounds like Forever Knight. There is the vampire detective, the innocent blonde female lead, the older, wiser vampire friend-slash-mentor, and the brunette femme fatal who is responsible for the hero's vampire state.

However, I'm happy to say that is where the similarities end. In the first episode, There's No Such Thing As Vampires, Moonlight makes it clear from the initial scene that this is not your daddy's vampire cop show, and the vampires are not your classic horror vampires.

To begin with, Mick St. John sleeps in a freezer. He likes garlic on his pizza and sunlight makes him only moderately sick.

We find this out through a trippy, meet-the-vampire-style talk show dream sequence. From there we see Mick arise from cold storage to greet the night with a film noir-style voice over and a murder to solve: a local college student drained of blood with two puncture wounds to her neck.

Moonlight seems to borrow tropes more from the noir genre than from classic vampire fiction. From his private detective job to his working-stiff-just-trying-to-get-by attitude, Mick has more in common with classic CBS detectives Magnum PI and Mike Hammer than Nick Knight.

There are no waistcoats or ruffled poet shirts. Nor do the vampires stand around striking tragic poses and bemoaning their fate. They actually act more human than some of the humans on the show: businessmen and private detectives and coroners. All quietly going about their business and blending in. While the humans, by contrast, are constantly making spectacles of themselves: from the Internet reporter to the Gothic “energy vampire” college professor/cult leader and all his multi-pierced, pale, black-wearing female devotees.

The good: One good thing the show has going for it is the seeming normality of the vampires. If vampires existed, I would like to think that they would be more concerned about where the next paycheck is coming from rather than spending their time staring moodily into the candlelight and contemplating the state of their eternally damned souls.

Another good point is the relationship between Mick and the female lead, Beth Turner. The scene where Mick first sees Beth, walking through a fountain with her shoes off and her pants rolled up in freezing-weather is striking. And their first meeting is definitely meet-cute.

The bad: One big negative for me was the soundtrack. If the whole point to an episode is to establish that these vampires aren't Goth!vampires, then highlighting the dramatic moment with music from Evanescence isn't the best way to get that point across.

Another negative was that the plot was a little predictable. From the moment I saw the actual murderer, I had him pegged as such.

The cheesy: The flying vampire effects aren't that great. And the scenes of Mick driving in his car are obviously shot on a green screen. Come on, CBS, if the CW with their minuscule budget can afford to make Supergirl look good while flying on Smallville and do the same for the brothers Winchester when they're driving around in their Impala, on Supernatural then you can spend a little extra cash for the CGI to do the same. You're a major network, for crying out loud!

The conclusion: While I found the first episode to be a little weak, it had some genuinely good moments in it. The acting is strong and seeing Alias alum Kevin Weisman in a Marshall-type role as Beth's cameraman gave me an extra little happy. And that alone is enough for me to go watch episode two.