Forever Knight, eps 3-4
Nov. 22nd, 2025 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereKeep meaning to post. Keep failing to post. So here's a post.
I am way too used to the Kolchak/Buffy/TW monster of the week framework. This show does not appear to belong to that format? Aside from LaCroix, all of Nick's cases have been regular human crime, so the pre-credits scenes have me trying to predict vampires abroad in the land, and it's not panning out because every episode, the killer is just some guy. I guess that means there probably won't be poltergeists and chupacabras and lizard men when I hit season three.
However, it more than makes up for the lack of cheap thrills by really excellent use of theme and a willingness to dive deep into questions about meaning and the human condition with that wonderful earnestness of 90s TV, where it doesn't care if it's corny, or if the budget is shoestring, because it is using vampires to discuss what actually matters in life.
And episode 4 had Torri Higginson on a park bench. I perked up, then remembered a friend's comment warning me she tends to die in shows. Literally a second after I had this thought, the sun came up and immolated her.
However, she got flashbacks and lots of dream-ghost visitations of a self-destructive Nick. Nick is busy being Basket Case Central and spends much of these episodes abusing himself with crosses, churches and sunlight. He's like the cartoon man from the 'Take On Me' video, bashing himself into walls to try and become human through sheer aggressive rejection of his condition.
There were some really beautiful moments. I'm not super attached to the characters yet, but Nick being able to hold a cross, and telling the vampire ghost that he wants life, not death... It's really heartfelt and poetic. I'm starting to root for him.
Vampires in this show appear to be a blood-sucking variation on Immortals. They retain personality and self-control, they live until they are tired of life and some envy mortals for their ability to have children. Which begs a question Highlander could never address: What if a vampire had previous children and could keep tabs on generations of their descendents?
Speaking of Highlander, whenever I gain the emotional bandwidth to revisit that show, 'Turnabout' is going to be a trip.
I enjoy the camaraderie between Nick and Natalie. I liked how Janette decided to save Schanke based purely on him being Nick's partner, and never mentioned this to Nick. I am enjoying the flashbacks. The humor is hit and miss, but the drama is on point. Looking forward to more.
I am way too used to the Kolchak/Buffy/TW monster of the week framework. This show does not appear to belong to that format? Aside from LaCroix, all of Nick's cases have been regular human crime, so the pre-credits scenes have me trying to predict vampires abroad in the land, and it's not panning out because every episode, the killer is just some guy. I guess that means there probably won't be poltergeists and chupacabras and lizard men when I hit season three.
However, it more than makes up for the lack of cheap thrills by really excellent use of theme and a willingness to dive deep into questions about meaning and the human condition with that wonderful earnestness of 90s TV, where it doesn't care if it's corny, or if the budget is shoestring, because it is using vampires to discuss what actually matters in life.
And episode 4 had Torri Higginson on a park bench. I perked up, then remembered a friend's comment warning me she tends to die in shows. Literally a second after I had this thought, the sun came up and immolated her.
However, she got flashbacks and lots of dream-ghost visitations of a self-destructive Nick. Nick is busy being Basket Case Central and spends much of these episodes abusing himself with crosses, churches and sunlight. He's like the cartoon man from the 'Take On Me' video, bashing himself into walls to try and become human through sheer aggressive rejection of his condition.
There were some really beautiful moments. I'm not super attached to the characters yet, but Nick being able to hold a cross, and telling the vampire ghost that he wants life, not death... It's really heartfelt and poetic. I'm starting to root for him.
Vampires in this show appear to be a blood-sucking variation on Immortals. They retain personality and self-control, they live until they are tired of life and some envy mortals for their ability to have children. Which begs a question Highlander could never address: What if a vampire had previous children and could keep tabs on generations of their descendents?
Speaking of Highlander, whenever I gain the emotional bandwidth to revisit that show, 'Turnabout' is going to be a trip.
I enjoy the camaraderie between Nick and Natalie. I liked how Janette decided to save Schanke based purely on him being Nick's partner, and never mentioned this to Nick. I am enjoying the flashbacks. The humor is hit and miss, but the drama is on point. Looking forward to more.
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-27 06:14 pm (UTC)He's in such trouble. And it's not like Drusilla or Spike (putative adults, oh God, terrible thought) will back him up. The kids might, but they would. They're very forgiving.
Anyway. The Scooby Gang was too young to realize they shouldn't take Faith's bravado as anything other real. And Giles was too busy trying to fake being a functional human being (grief, man, I do think Jenny was the one for him) to look too deep at anything, and then Angel came back, and here's Faith being so sassy and brunette and just the teenager he'd imagined Jenny would be, only a Slayer and capable of surviving Angelus, and she's obviously taking care of herself just fine.( And Joyce was probably dealing with the fallout of just realizing her daughter was the Slayer, and had died, and - honestly poor Joyce. She just wanted a normal life. And it wasn't up to her to take in a strange girl from Boston. I do think it was more on Giles. The, uh. The Watcher.)
Then Giles got fired from the Watchers for daring to choose his Slayer over his duty - and oh if only he'd done that before, maybe Jenny would be alive and also maybe he wouldn't have to deal with that insufferable prat, Wesley. (Poor Wes.)
Hard agree on Fred being sneaky and genius and 100% able to influence Illyria from the inside. (There's some very interesting parallels in SG-1 that I deeply want to discuss here, but have to wait until you've seen those episodes.) And honestly, people make mistakes! They could have not realized that Fred would still be there! And it's a thing that should be written.
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-28 02:33 pm (UTC)Unless she was too hands-on and just staked Angel rather than leaving him in a sunrise deathtrap. That might have soured things a little bit.
Thoroughly enjoying your description of Giles' heartrendingly sad inner life without Jenny. Poor, poor Rupert...
And on the Fred topic:
The main people who co-signed the cult's assertion that Fred was gone were the two vampires, which makes sense. Angel and Spike can't help relying on their vampire senses, and on how that form of dying works (plus they are fairly beaten down and pessimistic by that point in time).
I do like to picture Spike being the first one to suspect Fred isn't as gone as they all thought, citing the poetry of the thing. Angel would be very snippy about this hypothesis, telling him to come back when he's got actual evidence (because it's Spike making the argument, and because Angel feels so hopeless by this point in time).
Oh, and Fred being a genius about dimensional physics, she would help Illyria regain her power of dimension-hopping, which would lead to an epic quest through the realms of the dead (because if this show was already a Greek tragedy, riffing on Orpheus fits right in). The dimension where W&H employees go, teaming up with Gunn (whom the Senior Partners foolishly weaponized with all the demon laws ever, and I refuse to believe he can't use that against them) and probably both Lilah and Lindsey, to find a way to break the permanent contracts of all the dead employees and release them to their individually deserved afterlives.
Wesley, however, had a preexisting date with a bespoke Powers That Be hell dimension, for his major role in the Tro-Clon prophecy (Lilah pretty much spelled this out for him when she gave him the Dante book in that one episode), so they still have to track him down after rescuing Gunn.
(Okay, that bit of theorizing got away from me).
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-28 03:33 pm (UTC)And I think if Faith was called in place of Kendra, with that little bit of destiny-based hopscotch going on, if Faith'd had Diana (the possibly-book-based name of her Watcher, possibly offhandedly-canon-named, I don't remember anymore, but I'm running with it), her original Watcher, things might have been very different. She was less used to obeying orders and wouldn't have necessarily fallen for Dru's hypnosis quite so easily as Kendra would have. For want of a nail indeed.
Poor Giles. I do think he's harder on himself than anybody else, but uh. He's had it rough.
As to your "bit of theorizing," I don't know, that sounds like a pretty banger start to an outline to me! I would crave that fic and I know several people who would drop to bended knee to shriek in joy to read that.
I'm uh. Just saying. I know you have a few fics-in-progress, but if there's something I can do to help make this happen, I'm there for that too.
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-29 12:05 pm (UTC)When I first started writing fic, I fretted slightly, because it was a lot of fun and I'd be sad when I finished my one (1) idea and would have nothing left to write and would have to find another hobby.
Yeah.
At least I'm close to finishing one of my current WIPs! Can almost see the checkered flag waving...
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-29 03:19 pm (UTC)When I first started writing fic, I fretted slightly, because it was a lot of fun and I'd be sad when I finished my one (1) idea and would have nothing left to write and would have to find another hobby.
Oh. Oh, what a thought. I-- I see people commenting about this occasionally and it's kind of funny, isn't it?
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-29 05:24 pm (UTC)Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-29 11:16 pm (UTC)Well. If you wanted a non-fic-writing future. Which you don't.
Re: Hi, it's me, I'm the friend.
Date: 2025-11-30 01:27 pm (UTC)