September 27, 2007 (Rocky Mountain News / Mike Pearson) -- When I was a kid I used to rush home from elementary school every afternoon to watch my favorite TV show. Batman? Superman? The Lone Ranger? Nope: Dark Shadows, the gothic soap opera whose star (Jonathan Frid) just happened to be a vampire.

How far we've come since those days in the '60s, when vampires were charming and deadly. There was no middle ground, no nice ghoul ethic, no Anne Rice romanticizing the undead.

Which brings us to CBS' new vampire series, Moonlight. It's about as far from Barnabas Collins as you can get.

Alex O'Laughlin stars as Mick St. John, a 90-year-old vampire (he still looks 30, the age at which he was bitten), who works as a private detective in Los Angeles.

Mick is a decent guy, his bloodsucker tendencies notwithstanding. Indeed, he doesn't attack humans; he has a "hook up" at the local morgue who sells him plasma.

His decency extends to wanting to help humans, which manifests itself in Friday's premiere, with Mick tracking down the killer of two young women who died from puncture wounds to their necks. Naturally, the tabloid press screams about vampires. And naturally Mick's vampire cohorts - urbane creatures who drink blood from wine glasses - want this scandal hushed up. They ask Mick to take care of it. They've been framed, but by whom?

Mick does, of course, teaming with Internet reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles) to unmask a cult at the local university run by a professor consumed with vampire mythology. That includes sleeping with his students.

There's also a lot of back story to be woven in: How Mick was turned into a creature of the night by the woman he loved. How his first job involved rescuing a young child who grew up to become - gasp! - an Internet reporter. How Mick can actually exist in sunlight, but not for very long.

Moonlight tries to shake off several vampire clichés. For example, our hero doesn't fly; he drives a car. He sleeps in a freezer, not a coffin. He's got fangs and those eyes that go all catlike on his victims, but mostly he tries to soar under the radar.

It's a novel approach, but it doesn't make for the most exciting drama. In the first episode, action takes a backseat to chatter. Not until the final 20 minutes do we get a chance to see Mick in action. We need more.

Do viewers want their vampires to be nice? I doubt it. They can be gentlemen and cosmopolitan, but at some point they need to be ferocious. Otherwise, why not make the Pillsbury doughboy a private eye?

It remains to be seen where Moonlight will take us. Given all his pining for physical affection in the premiere, it's a good bet Mick will fall hard for Beth as the series continues. Let's also hope he does a better job of exercising his calling as a lean, mean, fanged machine.