The war has begun.
V Wars is an action Horror Vampire Fiction television series based on the eponymous novels and comics series by Jonathan Maberry. The series stars Ian Somerhalder, Adrian Holmes, Laura Vandervoort, Jacky Lai, Kyle Breitkopf, Peter Outerbridge, Kimberly-Sue Murray and Sydney Meyer.
It follows the story of the physician-scientist Dr. Luther Swann (Somerhalder) and his best friend Michael Fayne (Holmes) as they face the evolving crisis of a deadly outbreak that fractures society into opposing factions, potentially escalating to a future war between humans and vampires. The outbreak is caused by a combination of climate change and an ancient virus that turns humans into vampires.
In the conflict, the vampire faction called Blood Nation is opposed by the elements of the government such as Calix Niklos (Outerbridge) who plots with anti-Blood senator Smythe (Ted Atherton).
It premiered on Netflix on December 5, 2019. They announced that the show will not see another season due to mediocre reviews/ratings.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Not even two years after Far Cry 5, Greg Bryk once again plays a hammy homicidal lunatic who thinks he's doing god's work.
- Actual Pacifist: Doctor Swann doesn't want to hurt anyone and continually looks for a means to save both humans as well as vampires. He abandons this at the end due to the evils committed by the latter.
- Aerith and Bob: The entire cast has mundane names, with one exception: Calix Niklos. Jergen lampshades it when he comes across the guy the first time.
- Anyone Can Die: The show kills off an average of one established character per episode, often very suddenly. Gets a bit less pronounced near the end of Season 1.
- Apocalypse How: Calix introduces the vampire virus to 30 million people, making 15 million or so vampires that will now war directly with humanity.
- Big Bad: Michael Fayne is believed to be this but he's A Lighter Shade of Black who doesn't want to hurt people when he's in his right mind. He's replaced by Calix Niklos at the end of the season. On the human side, Senator Smythe and his attack dog General May drive most of the conflict.
- Big Good: Senator Sasha Giroux is the driving force behind all attempts at solving the vampire crisis peacefully, most often with the support of the FBI.
- Cliffhanger: Season 1 ends with Calix Niklos as the new leader of the Bloods, Michael allegedly executed, Danika maybe dead via shotgun blast to the face courtesy of her sister Mila, Senator Giroux in military custody, Dez held hostage by Niklos, and finally Luther and Mila teaming up to rescue Dez after a three-month Time Skip, with Luther now toting an assault rifle to show he's done playing nice.
- The Dragon: Ava quickly becomes Michael's lieutenant once they start organizing the Bloods. She almost graduates to Dragon Ascendant when the Bloods rebel against Michael's leadership, but she actually just shifts her allegiance to Calix Niklos instead.
- Face–Heel Turn: Kind of. Calix Niklos was always an enormous scumbag but he turns from serving humanity to becoming a vampire supremacist as soon as he's infected, which he had done to himself deliberately.
- Fantastic Racism: Humans in the government swiftly start thinking of vampires as monsters to be destroyed (see Villain Has a Point) but the vampires don't help their case by starting to think of humans as nothing more than food to be devoured.
- The Bloods already seem to have developed a mild disdain for their Verdulak cousins after only a few weeks of existence due to considering them lazy parasites.
- Final Solution: The government's plan for the infected if they can't be cured.
- General Ripper: General May wants nothing more than to kill every single Blood on the planet.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: Mere inches away from being Evil Versus Evil on the extreme ends, neither humans nor the Bloods can claim any moral high ground in this conflict. On one side we have a new species of apex predators that need (and all too often enjoy) to kill humans to sustain themselves (and only humans; animals don't cut it). On the other side we have humans doing what humans have always done since time immemorial: kill and destroy everything we don't understand or don't want to share our world with. There are lots of good people on both sides, too, but their efforts to solve the crisis peacefully usually fail to accomplish anything meaningful in the face of the War Hawks clamoring for each others' blood.
- Guilt-Free Extermination War: Averted. The war between the humans and the vampires would be this in most series but a heavy emphasis is placed on the fact the latter are still people despite their Horror Hunger.
- Hope Spot: Just as it seems that the vampire crisis has a chance to be brought to a peaceful conclusion, tens of thousands of Bloods are killed painfully when the synthetic blood they've been given turns out to be poisoned. Unsurprisingly, the hawkish Bloods immediately reignite the conflict, and it's all but confirmed that they were the ones to poison the stuff in the first place.
- Horror Hunger: Everyone infected with the Predator Gene gains one of these and desires to feed on the blood of the living.
- Hunter of Their Own Kind: Mila Dubov not only refuses to feed on humans after being turned by her sister, but actually starts hunting down other Bloods instead.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Mila already had a strained relationship with her sister Danika due to the latter's egotism. After Danika turns into a Verdulak and proceeds to feed on Mila as her first victim, turning her too, Mila's opinion of Danika switches from loving but resentful to cold hatred. It (probably) ends in her blowing Dani's head off with a shotgun blast at point-blank range near the end of Season 1.
- The Immune: Technically, half of all the population is this due to not having the Predator gene. Desmond Swann becomes this at the end.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Mila Dubov turns out to be one when she hooks up with female cop Elysse.
- Non-Malicious Monster: A large percentage of the Bloods population doesn't want to hurt people to feed, getting by on donated blood from clinics or willing friends and family members instead. Some like Mila even actively hunt down their violent cousins to protect humans. Unfortunately, these violent Bloods dominate the news and the national mindset about vampires, so the benevolent ones tend to get lumped in with the psychos anyway.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: It takes quite some time before the term "vampire" is used non-sarcastically for the first time to describe those turned by the prion. Interestingly, it's almost immediately replaced by the self-chosen term "Bloods", so you'll still be hearing it only sparingly.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They're humans infected with a prehistoric prion
that was released from the arctic permafrost due to global warming. The prion also requires the infected to carry a special gene, NH47, to actually turn into a Blood, which means you have a 50% chance to get through the infection unscathed. Once turned, Bloods experience the usual Horror Hunger for human blood, can't eat or digest normal food any longer, and gain Super-Senses, Super-Strength, a potent Healing Factor and a limited increase to their speed and reflexes while on the hunt. They're no more affected by sunlight than normal humans, but on the flipside they're also not that much harder to kill with anything that would kill a human, too, so no need for crosses, staking, silver bullets and the like. Bloods are also divided into two distinct strains. Regular Bloods are animalistic hunters with More Teeth than the Osmond Family that inevitably kill their victims due to the way they feed. Verdulaks on the other hand look more like classical vampires with their typical elongated fangs only; their non-fatal bite injects the victim with a narcotic, highly addictive toxin that acts much like heroin, leaving them docile and craving for more, so Verdulaks tend to gather a stable of willing cattle instead of hunting prey like the predatory Bloods. - Paranoia Fuel: The prion is this In-Universe. It spreads incredibly fast through pretty much any vector there is, and the bloodthirsty creatures it creates are visually indistinguishable from normal humans until they're seconds away from ripping your throat out. Anyone could be a Blood, which makes finding a way to identify them a high priority for heroes and villains alike.
- Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: Middle of the road. The infected have a Horror Hunger that turns them against their own loved ones but they regain their rationality once they've fed. On the other hand, many of them seem all too willing to turn on their fellow humans.
- Space Whale Aesop: Don't let global warming continue or you'll release a frozen plague that turns people into vampires.
- Took a Level in Badass: Doctor Swann is repeatedly forced to do this despite being a Actual Pacifist.
- The Vamp: A somewhat literal example with Danika as she uses her sex appeal to keep humans as blood addicted slaves while also serving as The Corruptor to Michael.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: The government wishes to round up all the infected into internment camps until a cure is found or for extermination. Lots of human beings also start doing this to vampires even before they start becoming a threat.
- Vegetarian Vampire:
- Doctor Swann plans to use synthetic blood to make these. It almost works until it's poisoned by the Bloods.
- Mila outright refuses to feed on humans and seems to find the blood packs she uses to sustain herself so disgusting she nearly throws up every time she's forced to drink one. Unsurprisingly, she's among the first to apply for the synthetic substitute mentioned above.
- Vigilante Man: There're tons of trigger-happy vigilantes running amok once the vampire situation goes public, making them almost as dangerous as the Bloods when they start shooting people more or less indiscriminately on the mere suspicion that they might be Bloods.
- Villain Has a Point: Rounding up all the infected citizens is actually a sensible measure since they're cursed with a Horror Hunger and have Super-Strength.
- Zombie Apocalypse: A vampire variant of such begins at the end of the first season.
