Throughout the third season of AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire,” characters speak with equal parts dread, anticipation and awe of something called the “Great Transformation.” The phrase has its own meaning within Anne Rice’s lush, grandiose world of bloodsuckers and spell-casters as interpreted by creator and showrunner Rolin Jones. But it’s also a meta description of the show, which has undergone a remodel to accompany a change in perspective so total it extends to the name. “Interview With the Vampire” is (un)dead. Long live “The Vampire Lestat.”
Overhauls of established, well-liked shows are high-risk endeavors. Just this past week, HBO’s “Euphoria” ended on a sour note, having taken a high-school show and unsuccessfully reimagined it as a neo-Western. But turning “Interview With the Vampire” into a mock documentary centered on the title character (Sam Reid), who’s simply decided to become a rock star in his third century of existence, isn’t as big a leap for the series as it sounds. “Interview” has always indulged in excess and a flair for the dramatic, qualities channeled just as well by the onetime French aristocrat’s new Iggy Pop persona as they were by last season’s vampiric theater troupe. Perhaps even better: as “The Vampire Lestat” reaches new heights of operatic emotion and gleeful depravity, music starts to feel like a way to express what mere words and images cannot.
