Sidequests Buff The Hero

A few sidenotes before getting into the first episode:

I let several family members know about this blog; many of them were present around the age of trauma . None of them remember this show. They remember Kung Fu, Xena, and Superman but could not recall any clues about Forever Knight. It is like a Candle Cove situation (a creepy pasta where kids remember a show vividly from their childhood but according to their parents they were watching static).

Although I am a huge fan of the show and I am keen to do my research, I will be writing this blog as an ordinary viewer with average knowledge. I will not be spending much special attention to behind the scenes trivia unless I happen to know it beforehand. There is one scene in the show that I want to ask a professional actor acquaintance of mine about before I riff on it (thank you in advance, David!) Gauging average knowledge will be difficult. I am not a contender for Jeopardy but I love European history, criminal justice, and many topics included in the show. If something is not common knowledge but I think it is, please let me know. The same goes for if I am wrong about something or there is place for debate. Nothing is more exciting than breaking down hypothetical situations through the lens of various sciences and theories, like how much consumption of communion wafers and wine would equal one Jesus.

Please do not feel stupid if you do not know something. Everyone has different experiences and learns a variety of things in life. I do not want to come off as arrogant or obnoxious. This blog is for entertainment. Mostly laughter. So start laughing. Right now. Laugh. Or I will find you.

Funny story- I received a discount on home repair due to a mutual vampire fandom. The guy who came to fix the AC unit was a horror fan and knew French. I showed him the first few minutes of the pilot episode. He wrote down the name of the show and gave me his number if I wanted him to help me learn French (I kinda do).

Have I stalled enough? Do I have to start doing real work on this blog? No, you cannot make me! It is baka!

Okay here we go...

Who's the Brains of This Operation?

By that I do not mean the show, but moving the plot along. This totally is not my way of getting out of listing all the cast and crew. Let's start with our main cast vampires:

Nicholas "Nick" Knight (played by Geraint Wyn Davies):  Our main protagonist is an eight century old vampire, which given that Davies was about 35 when the show started filming in 1992, making Nick that age in 1228, that's dead accurate. We love accuracy but do not get used to it. It will fly out the window very soon. Nick is French in origin, like the rest of the vampire trio. He has changed his identity several times in order to keep his secret, spending time around the world in a timeline that is neither humanly nor vampirely possible. Nick Knight is his newest persona living in Toronto, Ontario as a homicide detective for the 27th District of the Metropolitan Police Department.

(I turn 35 in three months and if I want to look this good, I need to drink a lot more blood.)

Janette DuCharme (played by Deborah Duchêne): I had to look up Janette's last name because if the show did say it, it was within a conversation in French. French and I do not get along. Janette was turned before Nick and has rendezvous with him in Toronto. Nick and Janette used to be lovers. I do not know if they still are a couple or that vampires are DTF all the time. One kiss from Nick can make her knees weak. I cannot blame her. As an 11 year old, I was not into guys three times my age with 80s hair. I have since turned into the slut I was born to be and dat ass. Janette owns The Raven, a nightclub for vampires and humans but the humans do not know that some of the customers are vampires? Janette is ride-or-die with other females, mortal or otherwise.

Lucien LaCroix (played by Nigel Bennett): Was I the only person who grew up pronouncing this name like "la-CROY"? This was decades before the drink came out as well. The show uses "la-CROY" and "la-CRAW". Not that it matters, because whenever someone mentions "that asshole", they are probably talking about LaCroix. If someone shoved Senator Palpatine and Caesar Romero's Joker into the Hadron Collider and then showed the leftover goo a mirror, it would stand up straight and call itself LaCroix. He sired Nick and Janette, so they are never rid of him. Nothing good ever comes from this character, which would make sense as he is the "mwahahaha" villain of the show. He demonstrates how human-like Nick is compared to his own bloodthirst and boner for chaos.

Now for our humans:

Dr. Natalie Lambert (played by Catherine Disher): Metro PD's resident medical examiner. Natalie is the only human who knows that Nick and Janette are vampires. She is helping Nick find a cure for vampirism and also protects him from their employer's suspicions. She has the hots for him because that is how television works, but that is about as media-portrayed-female as she gets. She is woman of science with a childlike curiosity. With the amount of time she spends in the field thwarting bad guys with Nick, I'm surprised she gets any work done in the morgue. But it's Canada. How many murders can there be?

Detective Don Schanke (played by John Kapelos):  He pronounces his last name "S-KANG-ki" instead of the traditional German "Sh-AWNG-kuh". There has to be a law somewhere against allowing your children to grow up with the worst pronunciation of their last name. Schanke is Nick's partner against crime (see what I did there? Es joke, laugh!). He's fat, balding, full of bad habits, and slightly sexist. Yet I cannot deny he is mostly a sweetheart who pulls his weight as a cop. He is a character you root for despite his flaws.

 These are our main five. I will introduce others as they appear in each episode.

This Is the Story of a Girl

It's the late 90s and a blonde girl, about 11 or 12 years old, browses the cable directory of her family's living room television. She reaches TNT, where the usual episodes of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Xena: Warrior Princess, and The Adventures of Superman are scheduled within the day. Between Kung Fu and Superman is a title she has never seen before, and it is starting in 15 minutes. Navigating over to it, she reads the description. The words "vampire" and "cop" grab the attention of her ADHD brain. She has to watch it.

Either that or I was looking for Night Court on demand and found this instead. I do not remember exactly.

This was my introduction to Forever Knight. I liked it, but it was competing with Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, which had back-to-back programming that I enjoyed. And my parents had to be in their room, outside, or out of the house for me to watch it.

Before I knew about the real world, I loved cop shows that were simple enough for my brain to keep up with, like COPS, Rescue 911, America's Most Wanted, Diagnosis Murder, and Bonkers (Google says it counts). And I was obsessed with vampires. So much so that my evangelical parents did not let me watch anything with vampires in it, nor talk about vampires. If I could get away with anything vampire, I was all about it.

Fast forward about two decades. Cable has become nearly obsolete. My wife and I had not had cable in 15 years. Streaming is the new cable. I'm up to my ears in British cop procedurals and murder documentaries. Occasionally I would look for the show online with no luck. This year, I found it and I wondered if it still held up to what I remember.

It's terrible, it's great, it's hilarious, and there is much thirst (all puns intended). I am still obsessed with vampires, and I still enjoy cop shows that do not take place in the United States. It makes them easier to watch. Yet this is only half of the reason why I love this show. The other half is a series of coincidences that happened right after I discovered it, my "age of trauma" (I'll try to make the sob story brief).

Trauma disorders start somewhere and mine started around this point. For me, I was not properly diagnosed until my 30s. Age regression is something that can help work through trauma, to go back to a happy place before the bad times. When the intro to the first episode started, I was instantly an adolescent again, on my parents' couch eating sour blue raspberry candy. It was soothing, safe, and reminded me of happy moments. Nick Knight is a safe male protagonist, especially for the 90s. There was less mainstream awareness of consent, rape culture, and female body autonomy 25 years ago. You could trust your drink with Nick. You could be drunk or unconscious in his presence. For a mentally healthy woman, that is reassuring. For someone with trauma and trust issues, it's captivating.

So, enjoy. May this blog break down the good, the bad, and the sexy of a silly vampire cop procedural from the early 90s. May it make you laugh, roll your eyes, and perhaps if you have seen the show before, remember this endless Forever Knight.