Morganville: The Series (TV Mini Series 2014) Poster

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7/10
Limited, but enjoyable
ihatespike25 February 2024
What you've got on your hands is basically a fan-funded webisode series that has just enough time to touch on the major characters and setup from a 15 book series called The Morganville Vampires (incidentally the best vampire series I've ever read, and you may take me at my word I've read a lot of them).

It's a little campy feeling, covers the first book in the series, and is quite brief and condensed. It helps to consider it more of an amuse-bouche than full entree; one the author herself was able to curate in line with her own vision, and with the resources she had.

I'm very glad she did, as she passed away only a few years after it debuted. Knowing her world came to life in a way she approved of, and that she got to see it, makes me happy.

The characters felt accurate, as did the locations, I loved the casting, and I love the passion that brought it all to life.

I'm more than a little baffled at the hostile comments I've seen posted about it though, as if this series personally offended them yet none of them genuinely sound like fans of the series, the genre, or any indie projects at all.

But then, I've seen the same petulant insults towards similar small productions that were most certainly doing the utmost with their resources, so I just consider the source.

If you give it a shot and you like it, I recommend the books.

If you give it a shot and you wished it were longer, more detailed, etc., I recommend the books.

If you didn't like it, perhaps it's just not for you.

If you didn't like it so hard you feel it ruined your life, be honest with yourself: you never cared in the first place. Go watch Marvel (Insert hero name here) number 900, and leave the projects that don't have king's ransom budgets alone.
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5/10
Bad writing and stereotypical characters.
bobpembrooks26 November 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Geek and Sundry was hyping this show up a lot so I figured I'd give it a go.

The writing for this show has come across as being really lackluster. The dialogue between characters often just comes across as being contrived and awkward. An example of this would be when they are dragging Michael out of the house (episode 5: Burn). While Michael is explaining the situation Clair remarks "Tell us what? that you aren't normal. That was pretty obvious when your arm dissolved." The viewer really didn't need this reminder, since it happened 30 seconds before, and especially since Claire already made a point of mentioning his arm was dissolving. It just came across as an attempt to have Claire say something even though it was unnecessary. The series is full of these bizarre writing choices.

While this is clearly fiction these characters still come across as being very one dimensional and stereotypical (Shane is frequently angry and overly dramatic for some reason, Monica is the overly dramatic stereotypical mean girl character). Some of that may be failings from the book series but if that is the case they should have been ironed out when planning for this web series began.

The plots writing also need work (for instance in the series the police apparently can just take something from your house as long as its been reported stolen, regardless of the lack of evidence regarding the accusation). Its an issue because even in a town run by vampires they still wouldn't have the legal authority to enter your place. Unless these vampires are writing laws at the state level this just isn't something that is going to practically happen. Once you start writing plots like this as an excuse for your characters to hand over an important book you open yourself up to criticisms like this. If we are to believe that this is a small town then these vampires have to be more subtle in their approach (the whole concept of one town being run openly by vampires is already pushing it).

This is just one of many examples in the series where the writing staff needs to look over the concept of Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

Overall I'm giving it a 5/10. The writing in the series could be a lot better and the acting could be better.
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1/10
Worst acting ever!
bcky-luise28 December 2018
I love these books and the writer but whoever made this show has runied it! Terrible acting!
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1/10
Waste of time and money
meganc-0871313 May 2018
Ok, I read all the books by rachel Cain. And they were pretty good. I figured they might miss some details in here or misinterpret some scenes a little. But this has to be one of the worst movies ever. It's so apparent that it's a low-budget film. The acting is so bad it hurts. The way they sped through the first episode and shoved a book full of information into it trying to create a backdrop of knowledge was horrible. I couldn't sit through the first episode. I was miserable. This is one of those adaptations where the book is definitely better.
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2/10
Absolutely terrible
thingsthatperfume13 November 2018
It's so low budget I wonder honestly why they even bothered. It's filmed like Goosebumps for a quality comparison.

This could have been fabulous - look how great the Sabrina remake has been, but this is so painful to watch I am going to have to turn it off.
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1/10
Sucks
edensmith-7535112 May 2020
Don't waste your time. Read the books instead. This Sucks.
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3/10
It's like they put the books in a blender
tams-378145 October 2020
It is low budget, and they have definitely mixed things up in the book.

I'm tempted to keep watching just to see how it plays out/if it gets better but if you do want a "polished" series, perhaps avoid
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1/10
Total flop
clairepease2 April 2019
After reading all the Morganville vampire books I was excited to watch. They failed dismally they could have had far more content involved and I was left diflated, why did they waste money making such a terrible series. Low budget or not the contents of the books weren't even followed.
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1/10
Disappointed
sarahhills21 August 2019
I loved the morganville books and when I sw the series on amazon I was very excited but boy was I disappointed.
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2/10
Dear God this is terrible
lilyloo-7980721 March 2021
Loved the books, why oh why didn't they get actors that can actually act!? Cinematography is also awful and the music is terrible. This could have been so good with decent actors, producers and directors. This is just dire.
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