Ultraviolet (1998)

Dark forces are at large in the city in this drama series about modern vampires, starring Jack Davenport

The premise of Ultraviolet is that vampires do exist and that a secret organisation backed by government funds – the CIB – not only tracks their movements, but spends a lot of time helping convert them to ashes. Ashes which are then stored in a high-security containment facility because it's a well-known fact that vampires can resurrect. The CIB (unlike, say, Buffy) uses high-tech equipment, so someone's obviously spent some time working out how to bring vampires and vampire-fighting up-to-date. Carbon bullets, guns incorporating cameras and mirror sights, vampire bites that can only be seen through ultraviolet light... these are all updates on popular vampire mythology.

The CIB is made up of the traditional stereotypes of vampire hunting: a priest (Fr Pearse Harman - Philip Quast), an ex-soldier (Vaughan Rice - Idris Elba), and a scientist – in this case a haematology specialist (Dr Angela March - Susannah Harker). The three members of the team are dedicated and experienced, cold and clinically hardened to the killing that permeates their daily existence. The newest addition of the team, a cop (Michael Coleman – Jack Davenport) forced to kill his best friend after the latter becomes a vampire, is the character whose development we follow through the series.

'When a human dies, the soul dies too. We are the source of all religion. We are the afterlife. There is nothing else...'