Midnight Texas: season 1 – review

Director: various

First aired: 2017

Contains spoilers


This was another adaptation of a Charlaine Harris series – it is a supernatural based series (consisting of a trilogy) but unlike the Southern Vampire Mysteries this was one in which the supernaturals are hidden from view.

Of course, it does contain a vampire hence featuring the series here. But we also get a psychic, a weretiger, a fallen angel, a witch and a half-demon (amongst other main characters).

François Arnaud as Manfred

Our psychic is Manfred Bernardo (François Arnaud), primarily a medium he is the real deal though he sometimes ends up being possessed by the spirits. His grandmother Xylda (Joanne Camp) recently died and is tethered to their RV and a man she conned, Hightower (Christopher Heyerdahl, Sanctuary, Matthew Blackheart: Monster Smasher, Are You Afraid of the Dark: Tale of the Midnight Madness & Van Helsing), is after his money (and more) and so she suggests that Manfred will find sanctuary in the town of Midnight, Texas.

Peter Mensah as Lemuel

Once he gets there he discovers that the town is a place where the veil between the living and the dead is particularly thin and it is home to a variety of supernatural beings. The normal townfolk accept this – though Midnight is known in over towns for being weird and spooky. Amongst the residents he meets Lemuel (Peter Mensah, True Blood) who is our vampire. Lemuel is not a normal vampire however. He must avoid sunlight, being staked, silver (which hurts rather than kills) and is faster and stronger than a human. However his eyes are a vivid violet and this marks him out from other vampires.

feeding off emotions

In a Lemuel backstory episode, which also sees a bunch of vampires show up to overrun the town, we discover that he was a slave who escaped to find Zach (Zahn McClarnon), who turned him and allowed him to extract his revenge on the plantation owner. Years on, in Midnight, the vampires had overrun the place but Lemuel had grown tired of drinking blood. He was given a young girl to feed on by Zach – who turned out to be a young Xylda (Mia Stallard) – and she offered to take away his need for blood. Whilst he still can (and occasionally does) drink blood she used magic to make him an energy leech. Not only can he feed off emotions, his touch can (if he wants it to) kill a standard vampire.

succubus' true form

As well as the vampires, from a TMtV point of view I should also mention that the series throws in a succubus (V Nixie) – taking the form of a beautiful girl, she has a maw of teeth, seems to be more a flesh eater than an energy drinker and has a hag appearance when her glamour is gone. The series lurches towards a finale with Midnight being built over a gateway to Hell, which is due to open and Manfred being the one prophesised to close it. I understand this is somewhat different to the books but I haven’t read them.

vampires killed by Lem

This was ok, but its mistake was possibly too many characters to develop them satisfactorily, or to allow longer arcs in stories. There were some background arcs we saw developing, some clearly designed to go into further seasons, but the whole thing seemed rushed into its 10 {Edit} episodes. Consequences to actions were hinted at but not developed properly and things were resolved, in terms of the characters, too darn quickly. That said it was a passable way to while away some time, I liked the fact that there were some less usual supernaturals. 5.5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.