FORKNI-L
Digest - 2 Jun 2013 to 8 Jun 2013 (#2013-79)
Sat, 8 Jun 2013
There is 1 message totaling 98 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Dark Knight...again
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Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2013 16:48:12 -0400
From: Greer Watson <gwatson2@r.......>
Subject: Dark Knight...again
I thought I'd start, not with "Dark Knight: the Rewatch", but with "Dark
Knight: Reminiscences". I didn't see the episode when it first came on.
I'd *heard* that a show about a vampire cop was supposed to be starting, but
couldn't see it in the TV Guide. (It never occurred to me to look for a
late, late show.) I only saw Forever Knight when the second season
started--though, in Canada, CTV actually started the 1994-95 season with
episodes from late in Season One, so my first episode was "Father Figure".
However, it was late in the fall by then, and I don't usually tape shows to
keep unless I'm starting from the beginning. As a result, the first time I
actually recorded a show was for time-shifting on a night when I was due to
have dinner with my mother. Fortuitously, that was "Killer Instinct",
meaning that--once CTV took the show off the air (which was after the sixth
episode of Season Two)--I only had episodes with Captain Cohen. These were
rewatched a *lot*! It was mid-summer before, persusing the TV Guide, I
realized that Forever Knight was on at midnight on a Buffalo station. That
yielded me some more of Season Two (and eventually Season Three).
There was then a year's hiatus. Oh, I envied Americans, who got the show on
Sci-Fi!
Eventually, though, Canadians also got reruns, on Showcase at first. And so
it was that I finally saw Season One, starting with "Dark Knight", and
discovered--to my surprise--that there had been yet a *first* captain, Joe
Stonetree. Not to mention a different police station! Even though I'd seen
five episodes of Season One, I hadn't taped them, and hence never rewatched
them; and my memories were of their plot, not their sets and supporting
cast.
I am sure that people who saw "Dark Knight" as their *introduction* to
Forever Knight--people who were there from the start, in other words (or saw
it as a remake of the Rick Springfield movie)--must have a very different
recollection of Season One. I often see comparisons that suggest it was a
"lighter" show back then, especially in comparison with Season Three. I
wonder what my own response might have been if "Dark Knight" had been the
first time I met Nick, and saw his interactions with Natalie, Schanke,
Lacroix, and Janette? To me, though, it came *after* LK: inevitably, all
my responses to Season One *must* be coloured by the fact that I saw it
late.
At any rate, I saw Season One as the dark one. Perhaps this is partly
visual: there are a lot of long-distance street scenes shot at night, with
lights glinting off the slick streets. Then too, the series began with the
(supposed) death of Lacroix at Nick's hands: a very violent scene,
especially when interpreted as parricide. Nick visited the Raven fairly
often; and it was introduced as a dark and dangerous nightclub filled with
vampires rather than simply a place to meet Janette. For that matter, Nick
was far from forthcoming with her: he kept secret the fact that he had, as
he believed, killed their master. And Lacroix, of course, was primarily in
flashbacks, except in "Dark Knight"; and he was a dangerous, monstrous
figure rather than having the more nuanced relationship with Nick that
emerged in the latter part of Season Two.
All of this means that Season One was a very *different* Forever Knight to
me--and "Dark Knight" was my introduction to *that*.
I was fascinated to see that, in the beginning, Nick and Schanke were
portrayed as antagonistic partners who never wanted to be assigned together.
I was also curious to discover that Nick fed the homeless and offered to let
them sleep in his garage--not something we ever saw in later episodes! His
relationships with Natalie and Janette were not dissimilar to that of later
years; and Lacroix's scheming was also familiar. But his fate was not (for
all that I knew that he would later return). His absence from the present
day made all the rest of Season One very unlike the FK I knew.
Most of all, though, as far as "Dark Knight" itself was concerned, I noticed
the bloodmobile. I'd encountered Americanisms in the show before, but never
one so blatant! The entire plot hinged on something that, from my Canadian
perspective, was utterly impossible. It was curiously jarring. (Since it
would be another couple of years before I saw the original "Nick Knight"
movie, I had no idea that it was a holdover from the original script, which
had been set in the States.)
On the other hand, the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) was very familiar
territory. Although today, one uses a different entrance that is in the new
extension, the hall where Nick came in is the one that I remember from
nigh-on annual visits in my childhood. The staircase goes round and round,
with a totem pole going up the centre. Of course, in seeing Dr. Hunter in
her office we were, nominally at least, going behind the scenes in a way
that I never got to do as a child. However, for "Dark Knight", they had
obviously filmed those scenes on location. As FK would in many later shows,
of course: it was a *Canadian* series--and, as any Canadian knows, that's
pretty rare in shows that are made for an international market.
Greer
gwatson2@r.......
http://www.foreverknight.org/FK4/
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End of FORKNI-L Digest - 2 Jun 2013 to 8 Jun 2013 (#2013-79)
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