Saturday, September 24, 2011

Bad Endings Bite

Spoiler Alert and Bad Ending Warning: Forever Knight's ending, well, bites!

Sweet Goth has just spent some serious time watching the 1990's three season series Forever Knight, a television series produced in Canada. It took awhile before I adjusted to the 1990's hair and clothing (and on a side note, the producers might have varied both the hairstyles and clothing of the female mainstays), and adjusting to the glowy green vampire eyes, but the story-lines mostly were good enough that those could be shuddered at, but ignored.

What I can't ignore, and really resent, is when writers and producers are so desperate to end the series that they have the characters break character. (Oh, and the constant injections of the past clips as filler is also resented, but really.) The viewers have watched though 69 episodes, they have invested in the characters as they have behaved throughout all those episodes. So Nick, is anguished at being a vampire -- 800 years of "oh, damn, I'm eternal?" -- but he is trying really hard to not drink human. His friend Natalie, a Medical Examiner, is helping him in his search to become human. Over the course of the series, we have found he's brought several people "across." But when the time comes to split with his best bud and creator LaCroix because LaCroix declares it is time, Nick promises his non-girlfriend girlfriend Natalie to bring her "over" because he doesn't want to leave her behind. And instead of bringing her "across," he kills her? Why? Was she somehow chained to the city of Toronto and unable to leave the border? Could she not have traveled with them as a human? And then LaCroix who has been established as being a totally amoral and selfishly vicious alpha, kills his son because Nick wants him to. Again, why? Nothing in the character has established him as willing to kill his son.

Yes, I'm upset. I sat through 70 repetitions of the theme blurb "... endless, forever night." (Endless IS forever -- chose ONE and stick with it!) I deserved a more coherent ending.