Main cast: Giancarlo Esposito (The Vampire), Kim Feeney (Sonia Kopek), and Terence Stamp (The Host)
Director: Pierre Dalpé
A young Giancarlo Esposito is hot.
To demonstrate this and to spread the word, Fly by Night has him appearing completely naked, with his hands covering his naughty bits of course, within the first few minutes and oh my, that body-ody-ody. Okay, maybe a few squats are in order to plump up that cake a bit more, but I really appreciate the people behind this show thoughtfully giving me so much to look at so early in the episode.
Mr Esposito plays an apparently unhinged fellow dragged into a hospital, where Sonia Kopek, an acerbic war veteran is also there for her treatment of her shakey-shakey. Immediately she gets some quick vision flash of him being a shirtless vampire in tight leather pants and all.
Either she’s been reading way too many vampire romances or he’s really a stereotype of the hokey vampire made life and he’s going to sink his teeth into her, ooh…
Under different circumstances, this one would have been an interesting episode. The story is closely tied to Sonia’s PTSD and guilt, so it could have been an erotic exploration of her psyche and survivor’s guilt.
Unfortunately, Kim Feeney is sadly miscast, as there is nothing about Sonia’s demeanor and carriage to suggest that she has even a passing familiarity with anything military. As a result, the character and her trauma never feel authentic or believable.
Mr Esposito’s performance is straight out Count Blakula of exploitation movies. Let’s just say that the camera lingers on his body isn’t a lucky accident, and this episode is capitalizing on the whole sexy scary black man thing to the hilt, ahem. Not that I have any objection to this, as that body-ody-ody is fine and Mr Esposito has the charisma and swagger to make his role work in spite of the hokey leather thing the character has going for him.
The downside to this, though, is that Mr Esposito’s performance makes Ms Feeney’s appear even more monotonous and forgettable in comparison.
The episode itself suffers from trying to shoehorn a story that is probably too large for its runtime. It spends its first half building the episode up to somewhere, only to stumble and serve up a second half that feels rushed.
Due of all of its issues, this episode does the right thing by making Mr Esposito naked or near-naked throughout the entire episode. Otherwise, there will be fewer reasons to watch this thing!
