The Melting Ice
Out of all the episodes in V-War’s first season, episode 1 is arguably the strongest. If you’re not sold by this hour of drama, it’s unlikely you’ll find much enjoyment with the rest of this vampire series. Still, we begin the episode with a remote frozen outpost as a man staggers out with a gun into the cold, blistering snow. As his bones begin to crack and groan, he shoots himself in the face. At a global summit, Dr Luther delivers a speech about potential viral outbreaks if the polar ice continues to melt. Approached by a colleague afterward, Luther is told about the incident in the arctic and heads out to investigate. Alongside his friend Mikey, they arrive together and immediately notice things awry. As they head inside it gets worse. Between the blood spatters and clothes on the floor, they notice a smashed petri dish and realize they may have been exposed to something toxic. Jumping straight to quarantine back home, Mike and Luther look the worst for wear but their reflexes and sense of smell appears to be heightening. Emil however, let’s them go on the basis that it’s just a cold. Luther isn’t so sure though. Back home, Mike fantasizes about biting his girlfriend’s neck before heading out to the bar, where he experiences heightened sound and vision. Several days later, he bemoans his teeth hurting with Luther before leaving and later asking his friend to turn up at a secret address. Once there, he shows Luther a dead body and immediately begins to panic. Meanwhile a reporter called Yergen manages to hack into files online surrounding the bodies with fellow report Kaylee. Given the lack of blood in the bodies, they question what may have led to this and draw the conclusion that it may be vampire killings. While Michael heads outside and stalks another victim, Luther goes to the police and speaks to Detective Yanov regarding the murder. It turns out they already have Michael in custody and as Luther stands on the other side of the soundproof glass, they learn William Mackie may have contracted the virus too. Luther heads in to speak to his old friend but Mike realizes that his friend arrived at the station earlier with the intention of ratting him out, prompting him to exhibit his strength, fighting off numerous guards and breaking free of his restraints. As we soon learn, they’re taking him to psychiatric care. Thankfully, Kaylee breaks into the facility with surprising ease. Donning a disguise, she heads into Michael Fayne’s room and sees firsthand his face change to show monstrous vampire teeth. He breaks free from the facility and flees, as the Detective decides to let Luther go from custody for 2 hours to find his wife Jess and son. As the episode closes out, Luther heads back home with Dez only to find Jess has been turned into a vampire. After stabbing and fighting her off, she turns back into a human as police rush to the scene and arrest him. Despite a heavy dose of exposition and some janky editing, V-Wars gets off to a pretty good start. The story is interesting and the characters certainly grow into their roles as the series progresses. While I question quite why we needed 3 different intimate scenes here, the plot is interesting enough to keep you watching to find out what happens next. Of course, because of the nature of the storytelling, logic is thrown out the window here and I do question quite how Luther managed to wangle his way out of custody and into heading off alone to find his wife. Still, there’s enough here to make for an enjoyable opening episode but quite what will happen next, remains to be seen.
