An American TV series that followed in the continuity of the Blade Trilogy, though without any of the main cast. Kirk Jones (best known as the rapper Sticky Fingaz) replaced Wesley Snipes the role. The series was short-lived, lasting only from June to September, 2006. A total of 12 episodes.
The series follows an Iraq veteran, Krista Starr, as she learns about the Vampire Masquerade after her brother was killed. (No, not that one!) Eventually, in a bid to destroy the House of Chthon from the inside, she herself is converted into a vampire and must deal with her own hunger.
But who cares about that? We're just here for Blade!
This series also delves into the history and backstory of Blade himself, filling in the gaps the films don't explore, including introducing us to Blade's father.
Notably, the series backs off from the third movie's 'final solution' to the vampire menace, with offhand comments about how the Day Star was a mess, but was handled by the Vampire Hierarchy.
This show provides examples of:
- Adaptational Wimp: Blade's fighting skills are not as good as the movie or comic version. His physicals are also lower.
- Action Girl: Krista Starr is a prominent female character who kills her share of vampires.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: In the series finale, the vampires find Blade's hideout and storm it, forcing Blade and Shen to engage the Self-Destruct Mechanism.
- Ancestral Weapon: The House of Chthon relic is the Sword of Lord Chthon, which, for some reason, is a katana. It actually turns out to be almost useless in a fight, as it is too old to be able to stand up to modern steel.
- It doesn't help that the damn thing looks rather rusted and probably hasn't been properly maintained for several centuries.It's more of a reliquary now then anything else.
- Anti-Hero: Blade has no qualms with killing every vampire he encounters and coercing their familiars into spilling the beans by threatening serious injuries upon them. To normals, his actions would appear sociopathic.
- Asian and Nerdy: Shen to the extent of being tech savvy, but he's still a more than competent fighter.
- Badass Biker: Blade often uses a motorcycle as his primary conveyance.
- Badass Longcoat: Blade wears a black coat. It even has a hole to accommodate his sword.
- Badass Normal: Shen, who has no powers has a pretty high body count considering he goes up against vampires daily. Of note is when he kills a vampire with a remote control. He also handles Cold-Blooded Torture without giving in. While Krista helped, he still had one of his fingernails removed.
- Big Bad: Marcus Van Sciver is portrayed as the main villain of the series.
- Blood Bath: The House of Leichen has learned that, by submerging (naked) into a vat full of blood (cloned blood works just fine, considering they're Vegetarian Vampires), a vampire can enhance the connection he or she has with a fledgling. This is used by Krista to find a rogue vampire she has inadvertantly made.
- Broad Strokes: The series takes place after Blade: Trinity, but retcons the film's ending so that the Daystar virus didn't succeed in killing every vampire.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Marcus has spent centuries waiting for a chance to avenge his wife's death at Damek's hands. When he finally confronts the pureblood about it, Damek simply laughs, saying he doesn't even remember her; after all, he's a couple thousand years old and likely can't remember a hundredth of the people he's killed.
- The Cake Is a Lie: A villainous example with the Aurora Project, which is supposed to be a cure for vampire weaknesses. In fact, van Sciver is using the money to fund his own project to design a virus specifically targetted against purebloods. A partial cure does exist, but it kills the vampire within days.
- A Child Shall Lead Them: Charlotte is a vampire aristocrat, who looks to be a young girl. She is, actually, over 200 years old, thanks to pureblood vampires aging very slowly. She is a villain, though.
- Cliffhanger: The series ends with Krista in peril because Marcus van Sciver has figured out that she was infiltrating the House of Chthon for Blade, thanks to the cancellation.
- Combat Pragmatist: during a fight with an older, more powerful vampire, Krista smashes her opponent into a full-length mirror on a stand, who the gets to her feet and scoffs at Krista. Krista tells her that it was an antique, made when mirrors were still backed with silver instead of mercury, and points out the jagged edge of the piece still lodged in the other vampire's stomach. Vampires being vulnerable to silver in the Blade universe, Krista's opponent swiftly turns to ash.
- Compilation Movie: The two-part pilot episode was edited into a movie titled Blade: House of Chthon.
- Cool Shades: Blade. Word of God is that he's nigh-invincible any time he wears his shades.
- Creepy Child: Charlotte, what with being an evil vampire who still appears as a young girl because she doesn't age as quickly.
- Cut Short: In spite of only running for a single season, the last episode ended in a way that made it clear that more episodes were planned.
- Death of a Child:
- While the scene cuts away before we actually see her do it, Charlotte prepares to feed on an infant in "Sacrifice".
- Zig-zagged with Charlotte herself, who gets killed by Blade in the penultimate episode "Monsters" and resembles a child in spite of being centuries old.
- Designated Girl Fight: It seemed obvious from the start that Krista and Chase would come to blows.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Blade's first fight in the pilot ends with him slicing the vampire's throat, resulting in his blood splashing on the screen, forming the show's title. Not only does this depart from the films, but every other vampire death in the show has them turn to ash instantly without any blood being spilled (with the exception of the purebloods, who are killed by a virus).
- Eats Babies: In "Sacrifice", Charlotte feeds on an infant. Thankfully, the scene cuts away before we can see it happen.
- Enemy Mine: Blade is willing to stand by and watch as van Sciver kills off the purebloods and even help him, but has no intention of letting him live past this point.
- Evil Brit: Marcus van Sciver is a native Londoner, even though "van" indicates Dutch ancestry.
- Eye Scream: In order to get past the retinal scanner at the Conclave Site in the Grand Finale, Blade cuts out one of the architect's eyes. This is likely a shoutout to Wesley Snipes's (the original Blade) character in Demolition Man, who did the same thing to escape from prison.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- Chase betrays Marcus at a crucial moment.
- Blade thinks Krista has done this after she starts sleeping with van Sciver (for the record, the guy who killed her brother and doesn't hide it) although she continues to provide help to him and Shen.
- Fantastic Drug: Vampire ashes are being used as drugs. There are some unfortunate side effects, like some people eating their own fingers. The flip side? For some it gives Super-Strength and Super-Toughness.
- Fantastic Racism: The Bad Bloods were a street gang who took in Blade as a child and ended up bitten and turned by him. Although they seem to be ordinary vampires (they are not daywalkers) and hate Blade, they are shunned by the other vampires and called "mongrels". The only way for them to join a vampire house is to do something very useful, like bring in Blade. Additionally, members of the House of Leichen are Vegetarian Vampires, who view other vampires as unenlightened savages and refuse to deal with them. They also rarely allow vampires of other Houses into their safe houses and headquarters, claiming that they smell bad from drinking human blood. Chase even warns Krista to avoid buildings with Leichen sygils.
- Fingore: When Marcus has Krista torture Shen, one of the first things she does is rip out his fingernails. Also, it's not uncommon for vampire ash users to bite off their own fingers under the influence.
- A God Am I: The White Prince believes himself to be an angel.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Marcus pretty much says the trope name when calls refers to his genetically engineered Aurora virus as an atomic bomb that the other houses will have to fear.
- Groin Attack:
- Blade isn't above getting the information he needs by threatening to cause serious injury to people's crotches. In "Death Goes On", he gets a man to talk by making his groin get closer to a knife when he refuses to cooperate, while "Descent" has him get a vampire to tell him what he needs to know by threatening to use an ultraviolet light to destroy his dick, replying that he'll "get busy" when the vampire retorts that his genitals could grow back.
- Blade kicks a familiar in the crotch in the episode "Hunters".
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Gilles de Rais, a French Nobleman and Knight who fought alongside Jeanne d'Arc( Joan of Arc) was revealed to be a sadist, a pedophile, a rapist and a murderer. In the episode "Hunters", some sick twisted vampire turned the bastard into a vampire, who calls himself the White Prince, who is an independent Vampire who has made a name for himself throughout history for committing horrendous murders, and then disappearing from the mainstream whenever the lunar calendar starts a new. He has ritually scarred his face with silver, and believes that he is an angel incarnate, referring to himself as a Seraphim, and believing that he was sent here to purge the land of the wicked and monstrous. He gets his comeuppance, when Blade rips off his lower jaw during their fight and throws him out of a window and into direct sunlight.
- Hotter and Sexier: The series notably has more female nudity than the film series, especially in the uncut version that was released on DVD.
- Hypocrite: Marcus has remained devoted to the memory of his wife, who was human (as was he at the time) and determined to kill the vampire who killed her, but he expects Krista to forget about the fact he killed her human twin brother after she's turned. Honestly, he of all people should have known better.
- Idiot Ball: Krista grabs it pretty hard over her mother, resulting in all her remaining close family dying. However it's very clear how she came to grab it, so the viewer still has sympathy for her at the end.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: A variation. Chase was turned by her husband Frederick, who then went Vegetarian Vampire and joined the House of Leichen. Chase refused to give up drinking human blood, and they divorced. She still resents him for abandoning her (although not for turning her).
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: After Marcus captures Shen, he wants Krista to torture him for information using her experience in Iraq. She does that after mouthing "I'm sorry", although she breaks her own finger instead of Shen's, while he yells in false pain.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Blade is, of course, armed with his signature silver katana. The House of Chthon relic is an ancient katana belonging to the founder of the House named Lord Chthon (which is strange, considering "chthon" is a Greek word meaning "earth"). Subverted in that the relic is badly maintained and made of inferior steel that can't stand up to Blade's sword.
- Last of His Kind: After the war between the House of Armaya and the rest of the vampires, Damek is the only remaining Armaya pureblood. He is later killed by van Sciver.
- Left Hanging: A real bad mistake on the producers' part as the series tries to set up season two. However Spike TV wouldn't spring for another season and what happens next is pretty much left up to imagination.
- Lesbian Vampire: Krista is engaged in blatant lesbian flirting soon after she's turned into a vampire, despite not showing any previous inclination towards girls.
- The Mole: After Marcus van Sciver forcibly turns Krista and throws her off the roof (to prevent her from ever being cured), she agrees to work with Blade from inside the House of Chthon. The finale reveals that Marcus has known the truth for awhile.
- Ms. Fanservice: Chase frequently wears provocative clothing and has no problem walking around naked in front of Marcus (naturally, we only see her from the back and from the waist up).
- Mythology Gag:
- While learning about vampires from Professor Caylo, Krista sarcastically asks if werewolves are real as well. His response?
"My colleague Marc Spector's area of expertise."- A flashback to Blade's childhood has him read a comic book of The Avengers, another Marvel Comics property.
- Never Found the Body: After Krista throws Chase down the stairwell, the body disappears and no ash is found. Marcus comments that even if the body or the ash were found, he'd still remain fearful of her for the rest of his immortal life.
- New Old Flame: Pureblood Alex had a relationship with Chase a long time ago and now wishes to resume it. Turns out it's all a trap by Marcus and Chase to test the Aurora virus against a pureblood who won't be missed.
- Our Vampires Are Different: In addition to 'infected' vampires, they can also be born that way through sexual reproduction, despite being undead, and these pureblood vampires who were never human are at the top of their society. Pureblood vampires age extremely slowly, with the childlike Charlotte being in her 200s, while the adult-looking Overlord Rusk is over 600 years old.
- Damek, the last pureblood of House Armaya; remarks that he used to be a gladiator back in the days of Ancient Rome. If that's the truth, He's well over 2,000 years old. He looks to be about in his mid to late 50s.
- It is revealed that vampires have the ability to see in the ultraviolet spectrum. They also have a psychic link to their fledglings, and that like the Reapers, they can scale across walls and ceilings on their hands, knees and feet. One of the vampires Blade fights against in the Parisian Sewers, manages to place himself the wall in a crouched position.
- Another enemy of Blade's, the White Prince also managed to use this ability to stop himself in mid-flight after Blade launched him in the air with a hard kick; latching onto a pillar.
- Pretty Little Headshots: In the pilot, when Marcus kills Krista's brother with a bullet to the head.
- Psychic Link: Apparently, a vampire's sire has a slight connection with the fledgling, which can be enhanced by a ritual involving being submerged into a vat of blood.
- Red Herring: In "Delivery", Blade is escorting his wanted prisoner to the restroom on the train. He sees a suspiscious man staring intently at him. The man moves towards him but it turns out he's switching cars. The real vampires are the stewardess and the lady who passed Blade as he was staring at the suspiscious looking man.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Father Carlyle betrays Blade to the Bad Bloods, who kill him in front of Blade.
- Scary Black Man: Blade is a (rare) heroic example. Steppin' Razor, as well as the rest of the Bad Bloods, are the more proper examples.
- Shoutout: In order to get into the Conclave Site, Blade has to bypass the security, which requires retinal identification for a biometric scanner. Blade ends up removing one of the architect's eyes in order to do so. Simon Phoenix, another one of Wesley Snipes's character roles, did the same thing in Demolition Man.
- Sidekick: Shen's job is mostly logistics and weaponry, but he is also more than capable of handling himself.
- Suddenly Speaking: Charlotte's bodyguard Thorne is silent for most of the series, but has some dialogue in the episode "Monsters", demanding to hear Blade scream before Blade kills him.
- Sunglasses at Night: Due to his light sensitivity, Blade wears sunglasses nearly around the clock.
- Technical Pacifist: The House of Leichen vampires have sworn off killing humans for food, preferring to drink cloned blood. They believe killing is wrong and that it pollutes vampires. They also claim that non-Leichen vampires smell of meat.
- Timeshifted Actor: Adrian Glynn McMorran plays a younger Whistler in a flashback to his and Blade's first meeting.
- Token Good Cops: Most FBI agents and police detectives in are either working for the vampires or buying into The Masquerade, but Agent Collins diligently investigates vampires' crimes, with a handful of other agents and police detective Gibbs helping him out.
- Vegetarian Vampire: The House of Leichen only drinks cloned blood, believing that killing to feed pollutes vampires. The other vampire houses consider them weird and try to avoid dealing with them. Chase's ex-husband has joined the House of Leichen, and she dumped him for it.
- After being turned, Krista is warned by Chase not to go into any of the vampire safehouses marked with the glyph of the House of Leichen, implying a hostile relationship. It's likely that Chase simply didn't want Krista (a freshly-turned vampire who still has reservations about drinking human blood) to join them. It's also possible that they would turn her away, even with daylight approaching, resulting in Krista's death.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Marcus van Sciver is a scheming Big Bad whom the city of Detroit adores. He is a patron of the arts and spearheads the efforts to restore the culture of the city.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We find out nearly all of Marcus's past via flashback including his beloved wife's rape and murder by vampire mobster Damek, who then leaves Marcus to be tortured by a Native American tribe. But we never find out how Marcus was turned. It wasn't Damek, who would have recognised him through the sire-turned bond, and Marcus kills him with a tomahawk. Was this a gift from a member of that Native American tribe, a vampire who turned him? If so, how did Marcus come to join the House of Cthon? Did Marcus somehow escape the tribe, taking the tomahawk as a trophy, and seek out a vampire of Cthon to turn him later?
- Wicked Cultured: Marcus van Sciver is known throughout Detroit as a patron of the arts and a proponent for the city's cultural revival, while at the same time being a bloodsucking mastermind and a vicious murderer. He also enjoys dining in expensive restaurants, despite the food having no nutritional value to him.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Krista and Blade conspire to have Krista earn Marcus's trust by showing up with a rare artifact. As they know there's no way Marcus will believe Krista got away from Blade unscathed, Krista actually has him cut off her lower arm and destroy her eye to sell it.
- You Are Already Dead: Krista is attacked by a vampire sent by Charlotte. She throws the vampire into a mirror, breaking it. The vampire gets up and prepares to attack again, only for Krista to point to the vampire's gut, where a piece of the silver mirror is sticking out. A second later, the vampire is ash.
- You Have Failed Me: Played with. When van Sciver meets Tucket Moffet, an architect remodeling the Conclave building, the latter regrettably tells him about delays with the work. Marcus seems amiable, then violently snaps Moffet's assistant's neck and warns Moffet to not fail him again. During their next meeting, after the work is finished, van Sciver apologizes for his actions, but Moffet is simply glad it wasn't his neck.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- Detective Brian Boone is a familiar of Marcus's. When van Sciver finds out that Boone has been feeding his feral vampires hookers, he decides to have Boone be Krista's first kill. Boone survives, though, and is turned instead.
- Subverted with Tucker Moffet, an architect who is hired by van Sciver to remodel the Conclave building. When Marcus meets with him to give him his reward, there is a tiny pause where the audience thinks he will kill the architect (since Marcus has already killed Moffet's associate during their first meeting). In fact, Marcus gives him a familiar girl for his pleasure.
- Of course, he could be dead now, since Blade got a hold of him and forcibly removed his eye for the biometric scanner inside of the Conclave Site.
