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There's a new supernatural/horror series starting on Monday and starring a fine Canadian actor. But it's so ridiculously bad it's barely worth telling you about. And then there's an excellent sort-of horror series starting later this week that you definitely need to know about. Stick with me here.

Midnight, Texas (Monday, NBC 10 p.m., Global, 9 p.m.) is a way, way too wild and crazy ride into the schlocky supernatural. Our hero, superpsychic Manfred (Canadian François Arnaud) is on the run from something or other in the company of his dead grandma. (Hey, it happens, we are supposed to believe.) He lands in the town of Midnight, Tex., home to a plethora of supernatural beings. A vampire and a witch fill him in on the local doings. There's some kind of war going on with other supernatural creatures. Animals talk, werewolves prowl and the overacting is through the roof. The special effects are used with wild abandon.

The thing is based on novels by Charlaine Harris, who also wrote True Blood. But the TV adaptation of this thing lacks the deft and imaginative touch of Alan Ball, who was in charge of True Blood and made it both formidably charged sexy and very funny. Here, Manfred starts a romance with a waitress named Creek (Sarah Ramos) but there is nothing of the eroticism of True Blood going on in this dopey mess.

Room 104 (starts Friday, HBO, 11:30 p.m.) is, on the other hand, splendid. An anthology series, it's the work of brothers Jay and Mark Duplass (Creep, Togetherness). It is incredibly simple, old-school TV. Each separate, 30-minute story is set in one room – Room 104 in a motel somewhere. It is not exactly a full-scale horror anthology, but several episodes are distinctly macabre. The first, airing Friday, called Ralphie, is a little masterpiece of contained horror.

What happens is this – a young woman, a babysitter (Melonie Diaz), arrives to watch over a small boy when his dad goes out for the evening.

At first, the boy won't leave the bathroom and when he emerges he insinuates that several personalities inhabit him. Not much happens for a while. Then things turn shockingly gruesome. The half-hour drama is so thoroughly frightening it will stick with you for ages. Another episode features a lonely woman who invites an envoy from a religious cult to her room to help her take the last steps of transcendence. In minutes, the secrets she keeps are shockingly unlocked.

A later episode called The Voyeurs is near-silent and evolves into a stunning work of ballet, as two female figures (Sarah Hay and Dendrie Taylor) enact a love affair gone terribly awry. It is one of the most visually arresting and spookily erotic things I have ever seen on TV.

The series is an amazing achievement, a testament to the power of storytelling even when confined to an extremely limited space. Room 104 is just that – a room with two beds, a small table and a bathroom. And yet, in the hands of the writers, directors and actors what is internalized in the characters inside that room becomes huge, an enormous canvas for storytelling. There isn't a single wasted second in the episodes I've seen.

In contrast, Midnight, Texas is bloated, expensively mad nonsense, a complete waste of the talent, the original material and a vast amount of technology. With all the CGI effects, it amounts to extreme overkill. It is neither scary not erotic and yet, numerous times in the much more miniature Room 104 there is the heft of uninhibited fear, love, desire and heartbreak.

The real difference, one supposes, is that Midnight, Texas is made for adolescents while Room 104 is made for adults. A stunning half-hour episode such as The Voyeurs is beyond the emotional reach of the young. The HBO series is rich and suggestive, haunting and at times harrowing. If you're looking to be emotionally moved, wait until Friday and get acquainted with it.

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