Talamasca will feed that hunger for more of what Interview and Mayfair conjured up, while distinctly living in its own corner of the universe.

The mysteries are solidly built so the audience doesn’t get ahead of the many surprises. Of the three series, Talamasca: The Secret Order earns second best of the bunch because of its ease of entry, the excellent work of Denton, McGovern and Fichtner, and by fleshing out the concept of the Talamasca with Guy as a beguiling navigator of its secrets.

It’s not perfect — and no one should come into this expecting another Interview — but there’s plenty to sink your teeth into while you’re waiting for the next round of vampire drama.

Overall, there's plenty here that's worth sinking your teeth into, even if you might be left a little hungry for more by the end.

Talamasca: The New Order is entertaining enough for fans of Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe to get their fill, but we’re not sure if the story hangs together well enough for newbies.

The twists and turns and red herrings and dropped subplots do lead, eventually, to a pretty good finale, with a grand reveal that’s everything you hope one will be — elegant yet surprising, linking together several seemingly disparate threads while shaking up the board in ways that could pay off in seasons to come. It’s just that by then, even that feels like too little, too late. With plenty of plot potential but too few characters actually worth giving a damn about, Talamasca fails to conjure any lasting magic.

Pitched as a thriller, it's low on excitement, not least because it struggles to inspire much investment in its central mystery.