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Forever Knight
Season One DVD review
Review
by : Trey
Stone
I want
to ask, how many Buffy fans are out there? Angel? Well, do
you realize that Angelus isn't the first vampire in fiction
to struggle with his "curse", to try to seek redemption, by
using his powers for the cause of good? Before them was Forever
Knight.
Meet Nick
Knight (Gerraint Wyn-Davies), a roughly seven hundred year
old vampire, who started out as a Crusading Knight in the
Middle Ages. He met a woman he just had to have. He had her,
but it cost him his soul. He was a good man who lived a bad
life for a very long time. But something happened to cause
the good in him to reawaken. Since then, he has been on that
quest.
The present
day finds him working the night shift as a homicide detective
for the Toronto Police Department. A lovely forensic scientist
named Natalie (Catherine Disher) has befriended him, and wants
to try to use the scientific method to make him human again.
A humorous angle and down to earth view is provided by his
partner, Detective Donald Schanke (John Kapelos). The woman
who seduced him is still with him, the vampire proprietoress
Janette, owner of the vampire haunted nightclub, The Raven.
And finally, Nick's sire, Lucien LaCroix (Nigel Bennette)
the vampire who made him, floats in and out of the picture,
tormenting him, yet sometimes helping.
Atmospheric,
dark, deep, romantic, Forever Knight is generally a quieter,
more reflective tale than Buffy and Angel. It's vampires aren't
just monsters. They are complicated creatures with human origins,
yet are decidedly not human. Some of them hold onto their
humanity. Some of them reject it. But, it's still there, one
way or another.
The first
season of Forever Knight, collected, is now available on DVD.
Bonus:
Troy's Additional Eric Barker-style notes:
1. Forever
Knight is itself descended from a pilot movie made a few
years prior, called Nick Knight. It starred Rick Springfield
in the title role.
2. In
the vampire-seeking redemption sweepstakes, Nick is preceeding
by Andrew Bennett of I, Vampire, an incredibly popular
DC Comics serial from the House of Mystery series;
it debuted in 1981. There's also an entertaining series of
books by Fred Saberhagen depicting Dracula as a misunderstood
hero (staring with The Dracula Tapes); also, Drac has
a less-than-evil role in Roger Zelazney's superb and hilarious
A Night in the Lonesome October.
Trey
Stone fights for freedom wherever there's trouble. Play Breaker
and contact him here.
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