Alright here we are with my top 10 list of TV vampires. Like the Movie vampire list, this one is based soley on characters I think are cool and that I personally respond to as opposed to any sort of measureable amount of popularity of iconography.  There are also several from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. That is because I love those two shows and by nature they were chockablock with awesome vampire characters. If you don’t like it, share your list down below. Here we go…

 

10. Harmony Kendall

Getting her start as a Mean Girl lackey on Buffy the Vampire slayer, the turned Harmony ended up on Angel when the crew took over Wolfram and Heart serving as his secretary. Played to perfection by Mercedes McNabb, Harmony has a pervasive sense of cheerful cluelessness that followed her from her human life into her soulless undeath. Harmony would be great if all she brought to the table was great lines like ‘the secret ingredient is otter’ but the fact that there were more sinister goings on under the surface of her makes her a real threat. Her bubbly dim bulb persona allowed her to really fuck things up for Angel and company and that makes here better than the average vamp.

 

9. Josef Kostan

A youthful looking elder statesman, Josef served as Mick StJohn’s best friend/mentor on Moonlight a show that is a mishmash of Forever Knight and Angel but was still pretty good for the short amount of time we had it. Part of my affection for Joseph is owed to how much I like Veronica Mars alum Jason Dohring. Dohring is just as good here as he was there and he brings his dry, bemused delivery to Josef that makes him fun to watch. He is a vampire with a sense of humor and pathos while lacking any real sense of morals or ethics when it comes to humans.  His morally gray outlook and cynical world view make him and interesting character and stark counterpoint to St John who is much more virtuous and much more dull.

 

8. Mr Trick

A few of my choices come down to the performance and actor playing the character for their spot on the list but with Mr Trick that is only half the story. I am a fan of K Todd Freeman and I loved his performance but Mr Trick as a character is fun and slippery. Appearing in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mr Trick was originally the right hand of Kakistos but left his master to die when things went Buffy shaped. Trick was a modern vampire who used every bit of modern technology and convention at his disposal to survive and was slick and savvy when it came to allegiances and strategies. Falling in with the Mayor, Mr Trick generally used manipulation and control of minions to fight his battles and had his arrogance not gotten the best of him at the wrong time he could have gone on to be a much bigger threat.

 

7. Barnabas Collins

A progenitor of the modern vampire TV shows, Dark Shadows was a supernatural soap opera from 1966-1971 and ran the gamut from witches to ghosts to werewolves and everything in between. At the center (a few months into the first season anyway) was Barabas Collins played by Jonathan Frid. Barnabas was cursed with vampirism by a jealous would be lover and was not particularly fond of what he was. Spending a goodly portion of the series trying to be cured of vampirism, Barnabas explored what it meant to be something you didn’t want to be long before Interview With the Vampire made it an institution. I watched Dark Shadows with my mom when I was a kid and it always stuck with me. It enjoyed a short revival in 1991 with Ben Cross stepping in as Barnabas which I liked and, of course, resurfaced in 2012 as a Tim Burton film starring Johnny Depp which I did not like much. Regardless of the quality of subsequent remakes, Barnabas is an interesting take on the vampire myth and definitely earns his spot.

 

6. Angelus

A lot of times when you see this name pop up on lists it is with a slash and it has ‘Angel’ next to it but fuck that. Listen, I like Angel as a character just fine but once the curse kicked in and he lost his soul? It went next level. Angelus was easily one of the most devastating villains on Buffy not just because he was cruel and without remorse but just because how much it tore Buffy up to fight him. He used her love against her and dealt a staggering blow to the Scoobies in general and Giles in particular when he struck out at Jenny Calendar. Knowing all of their quirks, loves and weaknesses made Angelus an enormous threat even without the conflicted feelings they had for him and his capacity for any level of evil. I have to give it up to David Boreanaz and his ability to shift from Angel to Angelus with just the expression on his face and that served the story so well when Buffy had to make the choice to end things right as Angel’s soul came back. It was heartbreaking and impactful and even though Angel was eventually resurrected the repercussions of Angelus’s return were carried for the rest of both shows.

 

5. Eichorst

When it comes to the Strain, the Master is supposed to be the big bad but as far as the TV show is concerned, the really scary bad guy is Thomas Eichorst, former Nazi, current fucking asshole. He is one of the only vampires on the show to appear human while retaining his personality and the ability to speak and he uses that ability to really fuck with Abraham Setrakian who used to be a prisoner in the concentration camp where Eichorst worked. He is a very important character to the show as he grounds it in terms of a solid focal villain. It is hard to get too worried about a giant walk around muppet in a big cloak so Eichorst becomes the ersatz big bad and he does it with a wicked smile dripping with evil and contempt. His presence really saves the Strain as it gives you someone to hate aside from the effects designer that put together the Master’s costume.

 

4. Marcus Van Sciver

The main villain of the criminally short Blade: the Series, Marcus Van Sciver is a turned vampire from the House of Chthon and mirrors Deacon Frost in some ways and is radically different in others. While Van Sciver has a massive grudge against purebloods and is working from within to eradicate them, his methods are much more devious and subtle than Frost. Van Sciver is cruel and heartless toward his enemies but does business with a veneer of kindness. He is genuinely caring towards those he holds close but his ruthlessness allows him to kill anyone he needs to carry out his goals. Arguably a stronger and more successful vampire killer than Blade is, Van Sciver is not a one note villain and the cliff hanger the first season left on set up what could have been an incredible pay off had later seasons happened. It is a shame that it was cut off and we didn’t get to see more of the character and the show.

 

3. Drusilla

Tragic and batshit nuts, Drusilla is an odd duck in the Buffy mythos. Long time paramour to and sire of Spike, Drusilla is a psychic who was tortured to madness by Angelus and turned in effort to prolong her suffering into eternity. She is often childlike and cruel with off the wall dialogue that is usually as funny as it is disturbing. Drusilla was a bit of a heavy hitter in both Buffy and Angel using her psychic abilities to hypnotize, read thoughts, cause hallucinations and see the future. Drusilla eventually gave up on Spike when she felt he wasn’t evil enough but she did not stop causing problems for both the Scoobies and Angel Investigations.  Probably my favorite part about Drusilla is her non-sequitur based dialogue and Juliette Landau managed to maximize the crazy while never losing Drusilla’s overt menace. She was always fun and fun to watch but when she was around, all bets were off.

 

2. Eric Northman

My favorite character from the Southern Vampire Mysteries book series, Eric is a bit different in True Blood but he is still my favorite. The show lost me after season five and I haven’t seen the last two  at all but regardless the character is a high point.  1100 years old and of Viking origin, Eric is a straight up badass. He is fiercely loyal to his people and without mercy to his enemies. I was bummed when the season four amnesia plotline fell flat as it was one of my favorite things in the books as it juxtaposed Eric’s cold and severe nature with that of a childlike innocent but even without that he is cold and sarcastic and badass.

 

1. Spike

There is a debate amongst Buffy and Angel fans about who is better between Spike and Angel and I have to go with Spike hands down. There is really no contest for me at all here. First off all, Spike is just more fun than Angel full stop. Whereas Angel is all brooding and regret, Spike has some fun with his unlife even if his pathos catches up to him from time to time. On top of that, Spike and Angel are both eventually vampires with souls but where Angel was cursed with his and was essentially forced into being saddled with regret as a punishment, Spike chose to get his soul back and went through a fairly insane ordeal to do it. Now it can certainly be argued that Spike did not get his soul back for virtuous reasons as he was doing it for his love of Buffy but whatever. Ultimately he chose to do good and become good while he still had a demon in the driver’s seat and that makes him a stronger and better character in my book. My favorite Spike moment is also one that shows that there is more to him than just selfishness. In the season 5 episode ‘Forever’ Spike comes to pay his respects to Buffy’s mother Joyce and when challenged as to why he is there he says that she was the only one among them who were ever decent to him. He genuinely liked her and it was one of the first moments we realized that his poet’s heart still beat just a little bit. He had his ups and downs and he was certainly a bastard at times, even after his redemption arc, but he is easily my favorite TV vampire.

 

And there it is. Again these are not all of the TV vampires I like. I could probably do a whole Buffy and Angel list on its own. Once again if you want to weigh in, share your picks in the comments.