Blood Ties was a series that aired on Lifetime in 2007, based on the Blood Books by Tanya Huff. The series was filmed as one season with 22 episodes and that’s how it aired in Canada and Europe. Here in the States, Lifetime split the series up into two seasons, with season one containing the first twelve episodes, including a two-hour pilot.
Blood Ties follows Victoria "Vicki" Nelson (Christina Cox), a Toronto PD detective who has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease (her night and peripheral vision is slowly failing). She chooses to quit the force rather than “ride a desk.” Mike Celluci (Dylan Neal) is her ex-partner/former lover and completing the love triangle is Henry Fitzroy (Kyle Schmid), who is a graphic novelist and 470-year-old vampire, not to mention the illegitimate son of Henry VIII. Rounding out the cast is Gina Holden as Coreen, Vicki’s assistant/sidekick who she hired because of her knowledge of the occult and her knowledge of what Henry is.
The first DVD release set up Vicki as a private eye, as well as the love triangle between Mike, Henry, and Vicki where Vicki and her two suitors go from friends to lovers to being estranged at times. Episodes 13 through 22, which the rest of the world saw as part of one season, were aired as season two here in the US and are the remaining episodes of the series. Episodes include the trio as well as Coreen working together and having a good amount of fighting/sexual tension on cases which include a former co-worker of Vicki’s showing up and asking them to solve his murder, rival vampires moving in on Henry’s territory, Henry’s sire showing up and causing trouble, Coreen being possessed by a demon, and more.
Blood Ties, like Moonlight, was just ahead of the current vampire boom seen on both TV and in the movies. Had either series come out six months to a year later, they still might be on the air today. At least CBS aired the entire season of Moonlight; for some reason Lifetime decided not to air the final episodes of Blood Ties and viewers had to watch them on the show's website to see the final episodes. Even author Tanya Huff couldn’t explain these actions. People began to speculate that this was the end of the series, and several months later Lifetime confirmed it by announcing the series' cancellation to the disappointment of many fans.
Article comments
1 - Sophia
I've just started watching the series on Lifetime, and love it! Here's hoping they do a Reunion Movie at some point. I think it is much better than some shows in the same genre today, and I hear it has a following around the world.
2 - Julie Zacharjak
I found this series by accident when surfing through the channels on our satellite TV her in Adelaide, SA.. I LOVED it. I fell in love with Henry straight away. It was aired as one continuous season here. I have often wondered if there was another season made, but havent found it on Australian TV.