Now, I don't tend to watch 'this kind of thing as my Marvel Man will tell you. Anything cliched looking with an overly attractive, young and generic cast I tend to avoid. Throw in some 'supernatural lite' and I definitely run a mile the other way. Imagine my surprise then when I caught the pilot of Midnight, Texas and actually enjoyed it.
The storyline follows Manfred Bernardo, a psychic on the run from someone or other. That bit isn't really that important as it only serves as a plot device to get him to the town of Midnight. What is more significant is that Manfred is a 'real' psychic and he communicates with the dead on a regular basis.
To cut a expository episode short, Manfred meets the various occupants of the town. He discovers that they are far more than they seem and that he is not the only person with supernatural abilities. Queue the vampire, witch, angel and much more to add spice to the show. Each has their own dubious past and various dramatic problems which will no doubt be explored in future episodes.
The tone of the show begins in quite a sinister/dark fashion, what with Manfred being possessed by a spirit and almost attacking the person he's doing a psychic reading for. Whilst it does have plenty of jump scares, it manages to throw in plenty of humour as well. It isn't brooding, but it does have a good sense of drama about it.
The question with a pilot episode should always be: 'will I tune in for episode two?' In this case, I have set the planner already to catch the next one. I'm not suggesting it will blow your mind with greatest but it was a decent watch. Whilst that might seem a bit of a negative, if you realise that I'm more Penny Dreadful than I am Buffy The Vampire Slayer and you'll see it's high praise indeed.
Final score: 3.5/5.
