Midnight Texas con François Arnaud

Manfred (François Arnaud) tries to help one of his new neighbors, Bobo (Dylan Bruce), clear his name by talking to the murdered victim with the help of Joe (Jason Lewis). As Manfred helps his neighbors and grows closer to Creek (Sarah Ramos), they help him - specifically, Fiji (Parisa Fitz-Henley), the resident witch who performs an exorcism to rid Manfred's home of the spirits, demonic and otherwise that haunt it. Meanwhile, the Rev (Yul Vazquez) tries to stay out of trouble while Lem (Peter Mensah) and Olivia (Arielle Kebbel) set out to stop a deadly predator before it kills again.

The best thing that can be said about “Midnight, Texas” is that its badness is at least amiable.

This is not a case of an ambitious show going awry and causing frustration as it falls well short of its lofty goals. All “Midnight, Texas” clearly wants to do is be a bargain-basement copy of “True Blood,” but it has trouble being consistently mediocre, let alone good.

It at least comes by its “True Blood” connection honestly: Like that series, it is based on a string of books by Charlaine Harris. And like the very first episodes of the HBO show, “Midnight” has trouble settling on a tone early on, veering ineptly between suspense, campy coyness and spattery horror.

Unlike the HBO show, which settled into a bats–t groove of sorts within a reasonable amount of time, “Midnight, Texas” is saddled with preposterously low-rent production values and a cast that is uneven, to use the most tactful adjective available. It’s an era of belt-tightening for many one-hour shows, and “Midnight” is a summer filler series, but even so, the lack of money spent on this effort is frankly embarrassing at times — or should be.

NBC made a seamless transition in the Monday 10 PM slot, with new supernatural drama Midnight, Texas drawing a 0.9 adults 18-49 rating and 3.6 million viewers for its premiere, on par with the Season 2 debut (and Season 2 average) in the hour for the unscripted Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge earlier this summer.