Forever Knight – season 3 – review (TV series)

Directed by: Various

First aired: 1995

Contains spoilers


For reference, Season 1 of this series is reviewed here, Season 2 of this series is reviewed here and the original pilot, Nick Knight, is reviewed here. So with linkage out of the way let us delve into Season 2 of Forever knight.

Unlike the first two seasons this season took the series into darker territory. Although there were still the cop elements many of the episodes took on a much darker and often more supernatural bent. There were also some noticeable cast changes. Janette (Deborah Duchene) left the series, for reasons unknown until a later episode when she returned and we discovered that she had, almost by accident, achieved that which Nick (Geriant Wyn Davies) hadn’t – she had become human.

The first episode saw a new temporary Captain in the form of Joe Reese (Blu Mankuma, who would go on to guest star in an episode of Blood Ties) and Nick being assigned a temporary new partner, Police Commissioner’s daughter Tracy Vetter (Lisa Ryder). Schanke and Cohen were transporting a prisoner but, during the first episode, their plane was blown up and the new characters became permanent series fixtures.

Another new character was the vampire Vachon (Ben Bass), a survivor of the downed plane. Tracy discovers what he is and he cannot wipe her memory – she is what is termed as a resistor – leading to a new dynamic in the show with Nick hiding his vampiric nature from his partner but his partner hiding her knowledge of vampires from Nick (whom she believes is mortal). This does come to a conclusion in the series finale.

Of course familiar faces return, including LaCroix (Nigel Bennett), Nick’s vampiric sire, who was given the Raven club by Janette. LaCroix’s character really grew in this episode and we began to not only understand him but also sympathise (to a degree) with him. He also took a more fulfilling and active role in certain episodes.

Natalie (Catherine Disher) also returned and her unrequited love for Nick became a central feature of the show.

We had some interesting lore aspects. We discover a person with multiple personalities, one of whom was brought over as a vampire. The docile human personality is unaware of their vampiric nature and can live life as a mortal, immune to the effects of sunlight and quite happy to munch on kettle crisps. We also discover that there is another strata of vampire society, the carouch, bottom dwellers who feed on animals. The main representative of their kind we meet is Screed (Greg Kramer), a friend of Vachon. However, the lore later is shown to be that the type of prey that a vampire takes is dependent upon the first feed – when the hunger is so strong that they will simply attack. The type of blood taken becomes the eternal preferred prey.

There is, in one episode, a virus created by a human doctor – in an attempt to cure HIV/AIDS – that is invalid for its purpose but becomes a virulent plague amongst the undead, causing maddening thirst and then death. In a strange twist it is drinking blood infected with HIV that proves to be the cure for the vampires. I should mention, again, that the show can’t make its mind up on the process of bringing a mortal over to vampirehood, and it is a shame that the lore was never consistent on an important point such as this.

There are one or two poor episodes. The tale of the guide dog bitten and accidentally brought over by a carouch was particularly silly – though the dog was certainly more menacing than anything produced in the vampire dog film Zoltan, Hound of Dracula. We also discover that Nick once had such a dog that inspired Doyle to write the Hound of the Baskervilles.

However, such poor episodes were in the minority and the season also produced some of the finer episodes. The highlight episode, for me, was one entitled “Ashes to Ashes” in which LaCroix’s mortal daughter, and his vampiric sire, Divia (Kathryn Long) returns. And a complete bundle of evil she was as well. Not only fulfilling as an insight into LaCroix but also a compelling episode – it was worth the entry fee on its own.

I really should mention the fact that one episode guest starred Geordie Johnson as a TV chat show host – in the Jerry Springer model. Johnson had worked with Geriant Wyn Davies before when he played Dracula in the kids show Dracula the Series. One episode saw a guest part for actress Diane Cary, silly really as she had already guest starred in another role in an earlier season and I guess we were meant to ignore the fact that she was suddenly another character.

This was slightly superior to the first two seasons and had it not been for the episodes that fell back on cop show stereotypes and the poorer one or two episodes, but rather maintained the level of the highlight episodes, it would have been vastly superior. I understand the show had been cancelled mid-season but fan pressure managed to bring it back to achieve a conclusion (I stand to be corrected on this) and as such it did bring Nick’s story to a conclusion in a way I won’t spoil but can say I did not see coming. I am going to go for 6.5 out of 10 for this but will say I was tempted to score that little bit higher.

The series’ imdb page is here.