Nash Bridges – Superstition – review (TV Episode)

Directed by: unknown

First aired: 1999

Contains spoilers

I must admit I never really watched Nash Bridges. I had heard of it – some cop show with Don Johnson in the titular role – but never watched it. This has changed, for one episode anyway, when FX recently aired the fourth season episode “Superstition” – that seemed to have a vampire connection.

As the opening credits rolled I was struck by some of the names appearing. Cheech Marin was in this, for goodness sake, who played not one but three roles in From Dusk till Dawn. The credits showed Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, who wasn’t in this episode but plays Nash’s daughter I understand, who I knew from Vampires: Out for Blood. Then there was Yasmine (run, Yasmine, run... run like the wind) Bleeth who was, without doubt, my favourite Baywatch gal.

And vampires... ish... what struck me about the show was that it came across as off-beat and I assume that is what they were aiming for, but the attempt failed and it straddled drama and comedy uncomfortably in a way that shouted of TV for the masses. Perhaps it was only seeing one episode in isolation but, generally, it didn’t do too much for me. Anyway there are sub-stories about Joe (Cheech Marin) trying to get a car for his wife, Nash and Caitlin (Yasmine Bleeth) nearly getting it together and some cop or another walking a dog to score with the ladies. Meaningless drivel in the background... oh, and for some reason the SIU offices turn into a disco.

So Nash and Joe are driving along when a limo streaks past them pursued by a patrol car. Of course the patrol car crashes and it is up to Nash to bring the chase to a halt, not before they have seen the vampire driving it. I mean fangs, makeup on face (including red streak to imitate blood), cape etc. The Limo crashes up and the vampire legs it. Nash finds a woman, Finn (Jenny McShane), tied up in the trunk – the body of her bodyguard is in the back seat.

He has been stabbed with a replica of Vlad the Impaler’s dagger (I didn’t know they had them but according to this show over 2 million have been produced!), the neck bite marks were superficial. Finn is a singer and says she might recognise the vampire from a Goth club she used to play as her first CD was Goth... fickle thing aren’t you, when we see you singing it is a country version of Desperado. They go to the Goth club and spot the guy. Leaving Finn to fend for herself, they give chase and he tries to leap from an overpass onto a garbage truck – he misses.

His name was Damian Kenso, he had fake fangs and someone else’s blood in his stomach – “I guess that’s what happens when lawyers marry,” Joe quips – and the investigation eventually leads them to the vampire’s leader, Lothar (Matt O’Toole). Of course he denies any knowledge of Finn, but vampires are still trying to get her (more cutting with their fake English accents than with the knives they carry) and eventually she is kidnapped.

Don’t worry, Nash is there to work out what is going on. By looking at some random books, he had another cop pick up by subject matter alone, on vampirism, immortality and white witchcraft Nash has worked out that Lothar and his vampires have cobbled a cult together out of aspects of vampire lore, Celtic lore, paganism and Wicca – which makes no sense – and they have taken Finn for the Quickening (strange, he didn’t mention they were using Highlander terms...) Seems they think she is a white witch (I guess because she said so on one track off her first album) and will bleed her on a specific night (that night) to gain immortality... sheesh...

There is so much that would be offensive within this to vampire genre fans, vampyre lifestylers, Wiccans and generic pagans... were it not so much drivel. In fact the parody is so caricatured that the caricatures almost become unrecognisable. On a genre level, these might be vampyre lifestylers but there clearly is a supernatural belief, if not element. I said vampires get everywhere, they do but sometimes they shouldn’t! As a vampire piece this was exceptionally poor. 1 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.



On DVD @ Amazon US

On DVD @ Amazon UK