greerwatson | Dark Knight...again

Back in May, there was a proposal made to the FORKNI-L mailing list by Otto Maton:

Since there are so many active users who weren't there in 1992, I was wondering: would anyone be down for watching the episodes together at the same time more or less? And then discuss them like it's 1992?

In the event, the discussion proved a bit less focused: we've simply been going through the episodes consecutively from the start, with no set schedule. Also, it looks as though I've been self-chosen to lead the thing. At any rate, we're now up to "Dance by the Light of the Moon".

Quite a few of the people on my f-list are also on FORNI-L; but I know this isn't universally true. So it occurred to me that it mightn't be a bad idea to repost my own comments here. I'll give the date of posting so that anyone who is interested to know what other people have said will be able to take a look at the next few days' list archives on Knightwind's Nook.

Here's my first post, from 8 June 2013. I've done a little editing so that, for example, italics are used rather than asterisks, and there are rather fewer exclamation marks. Also, of course, I've corrected any typos that I spotted.

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, by default of new episodes. 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, since I hadn't taped them, I had never been able to rewatch 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 seen only in flashbacks, except for "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.

There were comments from several people, especially a thread about the bloodmobile. You can find them on the archived list digests for 8-9, 9-10, and 10-11.