Despite its rocky road to a spot on tonight's TV schedule, there's some good news about CBS's new vampire show.

"Moonlight" isn't bad. And it shows some promise.

But ... there are some awfully big "buts" that go along with that. And all of this requires a bit of a history lesson.

"Moonlight," which stars Alex O'Loughlin as vampire/private investigator Mick St. John, was picked up by CBS back in May, despite the fact that a full pilot episode had not been completed. What the network had was a "presentation" — an incomplete, somewhat disjointed series of scenes that executive producer Joel Silver described as "26 minutes of stuff put together with a kind of packing tissue."

But ... after the show was picked up, creators Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson were replaced as show-runners by David Greenwalt, who co-created and executive produced the vampire/private detective series "Angel." (Koslow and Munson retain credits as executive producer and co-executive producer, respectively.)

Greenwalt made some major changes to the still-unfinished pilot and replaced every member of the cast except O'Loughlin. Koslow and Munson are credited with the script for the premiere (8 p.m. tonight, Ch. 2) but Greenwalt's fingerprints are all over it.

And Greenwalt wrote the script for Episode 2, which is better than Episode 1.

But ... shortly after production began, Greenwalt bowed out of "Moonlight," citing personal and health reasons. So the fact that the second episode is better than first tells us, well, pretty much absolutely nothing.

CBS and Silver brought in Chip Johannessen as the new show-running executive producer. His credits include writing/producing stints on "Beverly Hills, 90210," "Millennium," "Dark Angel," "Empire" and "Surface," none of which really inspires a lot of confidence.

At any rate, Mick St. John is a good-looking, charismatic vampire who's also a good guy. Yes, he's got to drink blood. But, no, he doesn't go around biting people in the neck.

Unless they happen to be really bad people.

Sixty years ago, Mick discovered on his wedding night that his wife, Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon) was a vampire when she turned him into one, too. Now she's his ex-wife, and they don't get along. At all.

He is, however, drawn to online reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles) when they run into each other at a murder scene. And, it turns out, Mick and Beth have a history together.

Mick's best friend is a fellow vampire, Josef (Jason Dohring), a hedge-fund trader who is wickedly funny, tough and determined that he and the rest of the undead keep their existence a secret.

It's not great, but it is intriguing.

But as to where "Moon-light" is going after the first couple of episodes, your guess is as good as mine.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com