by Suzi George

Created on: May 28, 2009

I was recently in a group of people that put forth much effort in trying to save a show called "Blood Ties". It was a television show that first aired on Lifetime in March of 2008. The series was based on a set of books written by Tanya Huff called "The Blood" books. The basis of the show was an ex-cop named Victoria "Vicki" Nelson was forced off of the police force due to a degenerative eye condition that would eventually cause her to go blind. Vicki decides to become a private investigator and in the process of investigating a case, she meets Henry Fitzroy, a vampire. He is 450 years old and just happens to be the bastard son of Henry VII, Duke of Richmond. The real Henry's son died at seventeen of tuberculosis but the books explain that as a cover story. Vicki's ex-partner on the police force is Detective Michael (Mike) Celluci who just happens to be her ex-lover as well.

Vicki accepts that Henry is a vampire and when she has to tell Mike, he's less accepting but agrees it's true. Mike despises Henry as he can tell Vicki has a thing for him. The romantic love triangle portion of the show was electric. The actors portraying the characters gave the show life. This show was not a normal vampire genre type of show. It was well written, exciting, funny, dramatic and just overall interesting. The fans set aside their, at first, Sunday nights then later Friday nights for Fitzroy Friday as we called it. They filmed twenty two episodes and split them into two seasons. However, the show was not renewed as the head of programming did not like vampire shows. At the time, Moonlight was huge but it was also cancelled. When we feared it was going to be cancelled, we began to plot. The network put the last two episodes on line only which basically sucked and not in a good vampire kind of way!

The first thing we did was a letter writing and post card campaign even going so far as to having picture post cards made up. Thousands upon thousands were sent in. The next thing or rather simultaneously, we sent in used eyeglasses for the Lion's Club. This was done because Vicki's character has Retinosa Pigmentosa and it was also considered a worthy cause whether we got our show back or not. The biggest thing we did was collect three thousand dollars for an ad we placed in Variety magazine.

Despite our best efforts and they were intense, there was no one to pick up the show although it was blogged about and even mentioned in TV guide. Sadly, this is one of those shows that was gone too soon only to be replaced by reality crap. Sadly, our wonderful romantic show was replaced by "How to Look Good Naked."

This shows, for just one show, what length fans will go to in trying to save a show. We were very FANatic!

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