NICK KNIGHT (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*

NICK KNIGHT was a true rarity: an American-made pilot for a TV show that didn't get picked up in its original form, but was retooled about three years later for a roughly commensurate teleseries. This program, FOREVER KNIGHT, then ran for three seasons with almost all of the carryover characters played by different actors.

Handsome singer Rick Springfield essays the original version of Nick Knight, a guy with a secret. By day he usually hides from the sun, while at night he comes out to solve crimes as a L.A. cop while fighting the urge to prey upon human beings. For two hundred years, Nick has been a vampire who never ages, and so must continually change locations in order to avoid attracting attention (one character calls it "the Dorian Gray effect.") The spotty screenplay doesn't clarify how he goes about getting the blood he needs for survival, only that he doesn't attack random humans for his sustenance. Also going unexplained is how a man who can't easily face sunlight (though the script isn't consistent on the point) ever manages to make his way through a Los Angeles police academy. The main concern is just to put across the "high concept" of "vampire cop."

In the three years since Nick took up residence in L.A., he's made one human ally who knows his secret: police coroner Brittington, who may be Nick's source of hemoglobin, though it's not explicitly said so. Once he's become a police officer, his superiors generously allow him to work only at night because he's just so good at crime-solving, and to mostly work alone-- though this story starts out with the nocturnal loner being saddled with a comedy-relief partner named Schanke (played by the one actor who did reprise his role for FOREVER KNIGHT).

Nick, who has for the most part eschewed the bloodsucker life, is naturally concerned when the news carries reports of homeless people being killed and drained of blood, which incidents are naturally termed "vampire murders" by the news. Nick is also concerned by the murder of a guard at a local museum, from which a relic, a Mayan goblet, is stolen. The guard too is drained of blood, but from a bite, not from a throat-slash. While investigating the guard's murder, Nick encounters Alyce, a comely anthropologist (Laura Johnson), and because of their conversation Alyce begins to suspect that the apparently young fellow is a lot older than he appears.

The script doles out bits and pieces as to Nick's true history. Two hundred years ago (not the eight hundred of FOREVER KNIGHT), he was seduced into vampirism by two mentors, Lacroix (Michael Nader) and Janelle (Cec Verrell). Janelle has by coincidence set up her own bar in L.A., but Nick doesn't suspect her of the vampiric assault, though he seems to know that she's been ensconced in the city since before he arrives. Nick wants Janelle to tell him if Lacroix in in town, because he knows that the elder vampire took it hard when Nick went off on his own. The relationship of the two male vampires is described as being that of brothers, and the casting of actors Springfield and Nader, both in their early forties at the time, supports this. However, Lacroix's animosity is never as convincing as the Nick-Lacroix relationship in FOREVER KNIGHT, where Lacroix is a stern father insisting that his prodigal "son" obey his wishes.

When Nick tracks down Lacroix, the latter forswears involvement in the murder of the homeless people, but affirms that he killed the guard and stole the goblet, because he knew that the goblet could be used in a ritual to reverse vampirism. The two vamps fight and Lacroix destroys the goblet, after which Lacroix is put temporarily out of commission while Nick flees into the daylight and is forced to hide from the sun in the trunk of his car. This leads to a somewhat funny (if overlong) sequence in which Schanke takes possession of his partner's car and manages to wreck it while Nick is still in the trunk.

The solution of the serial killer mystery is tedious and is hardly worth the time it consumes. Alyce of course falls in love with Nick (she's manifestly a "Mina-type," a subdued girl whose safe life is upended by a dangerously attractive mystery man), and so she gets caught between Nick and Lacroix as they finish their battle. This conflict is muddled by Nick's attempt to avoid drinking blood, so that the enemies are not well matched. Nick still triumphs but Alyce perishes at the hands of Nick's "brother." Had NICK KNIGHT become a series, Alyce's absence would have left the hero's romantic options. Things wind up with Brittington encouraging Nick to keep looking for vampire cures. On the whole, though Springfield makes a very cool vampire cop, I don't think a series based on this premise would have proved as interesting as FOREVER KNIGHT, even though that show had its flaws as well (particularly a dependence on HIGHLANDER-like flashbacks).