SECOND SEASON COMMENTS

SECOND SEASON COMMENTS

Comments, tidbits, bloopers, and other interesting info about the episodes.

Killer Instinct

Schanke's moose pajamas were amusing and very much in character.
This season there is a much more mellow Schanke, less of the crass jerk from last season. He is a more sensitive, caring guy, but there is still a lot of the streetwise nature to him. He is still just about as cynical as ever, just not quite as crass. He is nicer when he talks about Myra. We learn quite a bit about Schanke this season.
If Nick is that close to mortality, then Natalie's program must be working.
This episode and Only the Lonely, shoot holes in the idea that vampires have perfect memories. I think they remember some things forever but others they forget, very much like mortals do.
Does Buckstar's coffee remind you of another famous name?
This is the season that a library stands in for the precinct building. The actual building is at the other end of the block from the building they use for Nick's loft exterior and right across the street from Jilly's.
Nick is supposed to live some distance from the precinct, not at the other end of the block from it. And Jilly's is not supposed to be across the street either.
As Nick's saying he went to see what was going on and the IA guy tells Nick that he did not drive his car, there's the sound of the Star Trek transporter in action.
If LaCroix is supposed to be Nick's eternal teacher, and is supposed to teach him everything there is to know about being a vampire then he failed. He has admitted at least once to omitting lessons, some of them important ones, just not mentioning that he did so to keep Nick tied to him, dependent on him.
The sunbed is something we have not heard about since the first episode Dark Knight. That's where Natalie asked him how he was coming in his tanning and he told her he was up to a whole ten minutes, causing her to joke that he was a regular George Hamilton. This is the first time we actually see him in the sunbed.
This is the first scene showing him flying since early first season.
The building Jeff lives inside was used as a warehouse/porn studio in False Witness.
No explanation was ever given for how LaCroix survived the flaming stake embedded in his chest in Dark Knight: The Second Chapter (part two). The most we are given is LaCroix's comment on being too old and powerful.
LaCroix is no longer just a ghost this season. He is there to torment Nick for his own pleasure, although he would say he was teaching Nick, doing it for Nick's own good. But it's actually just LaCroix alleviating his boredom and making him feel less miserable by making Nick more miserable than he is.
The fight scene between Nick and LaCroix where LaCroix comes at him with the clever and Nick kicks him back into the metal spikes is taken from Dark Knight: The Second Chapter where Nick and LaCroix were fighting in slaughterhouse. LaCroix had just finished listing all the ways a vampire could be killed.
Nick is being exactly what his master wants him to be during their fight
just like him. He is being the cold, ruthless predator. The perfect hunter. Nick is also winning, beating Mr. "I'm too powerful". And for a moment LaCroix fears his son.

A Fate Worse Than Death

One of the airings of this episode on the SciFi Channel has no captions for the hearing impaired.
Geraint Wyn Davies is Welsh.
Miklos, the Raven bartender, was invented by Gillian Horvath.
If it's true that every drop of blood carries a person's entire life in it, and vampires make love by drinking from one another, shouldn't Nick have known about Janette's past? Is it possible to shield your thoughts when being that intimate?
According to Janette's statement in I Will Repay about not being able to successfully bring anyone one across, it might not have given Celeste new life. According to Killer Instinct she has not been practicing those skills because she told Nick that they very rarely get to feed on humans anymore. On the other hand, in If Looks Could Kill Janette successfully brought across the Baroness.
How did Nick get the three bullets out of his own back? The ones that he gives to Natalie when she asks if he has any evidence for her. And what about his fingerprints being on them? And Natalie's, since he puts them into her hand.

Stranger Than Fiction

When Nick puts down the book after his daydream he is not as far into the book as he was when he picked it up. When he picked it up at the start of the scene, he was about halfway done and at the end he's somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way through the book.
Either they just had one fluffy pink bathrobe or it was all female characters favorite choice.
The syndicated version has no captioning.
John Kapelos does a really good Nigel Bennett as LaCroix impression in his dream sequence, as "Count Schankula".
When Grace knew what chapter and page Natalie was just by hearing the words... how many times did she read the book to know it that well?
The discussion between Christian and LaSalle, when Nick and LaCroix play the parts, was exactly like many of their discussions. And to make it even creepier replace Sophie with Natalie.
In the loft, Janette is having a really bad hair day.
Vampires do not have blood unless they have just fed. And if they do it's because they've just fed, and the blood is full of their digestive enzymes.

Forward Into the Past

This warehouse is used in a couple of episodes, False Witness being one of them.
RAF = Royal Air Force
Girl Guides are the Canadian equivalent to Girl Scouts.
The Battle of Hastings is the biggest historical error the series made. They have the wrong date for it, and the date they picked is not even close to the real date. The real date is 1066, which was over a hundred years before Nick's mortal birth date. Thus being the case, there is NO way Nick could have helped or rescued Aristotle at the Battle of Hastings.
When the Battle of Hastings error was pointed out to them (probably by fans) they put it up on their Wall of Shame.
It was nice to see Nick have a happy reunion with an old mortal friend of his. One that knows his secret.

Faithful Followers

During Nick's first cleansing, the shot of him in the sewer fending off the sunlight is from the Hunted. The shot of his arm catching fire reaching for the cross and then jumping over the fire (to rescue Magda) is from For I Have Sinned. The shot of him staking LaCroix with the flaming two by four and shoving him back to the elevator door is from Dark Knight: The Second Chapter (aka part two). The collapsing into the pew, and large cross are from For I Have Sinned. Nick vamped out in the warehouse with blood on his face is from Dark Knight: The Second Chapter. Nick nearly biting Alyce Hunter is Dark Knight. Nick dressed in modern clothes and leaning down to drain someone is from where he's bringing Richard Lambert across in I Will Repay. Alexandra was in Fatal Mistake. Nick draining the blonde ballerina was in Love You To Death.
Matthew calls Nick, Nicholas, but I used Nick to keep the present and past separate.
The tattoo scene once again illustrates how fast vampires heal. Their bodies absorb things like tattoos overnight.
If they had given it a chance, a very interesting friendship could have developed between Natalie and Janette. This is one of the few episodes where you see hints of it starting. I think both women respect each other and are jealous of each other's importance in Nick's life and heart.
John Stoneham Jr. who played Vincent Cardelli is one of the show's stuntmen.
This episode is a good look at cults without getting too religious or politically correct. It shows that even the most innocent thing can be turned into a cult, and that one must always be aware.
Natalie's right
anyone who promises you everything you want, probably wants everything you have.

Hunted

If you look at Natalie's desk at the end of scene where she is examining the gun rifling, you can see Catherine's son's glowworm toy on the desk. Someone forgot to remove it before filming the scene.
We get a glimpse into Nick's dark side. To see how the vampire reacts when hunted. And to see how much control Nick truly has to let the killer live. And it shows how deep his friendships are, that he'd save Schanke over seeking vengeance on the killer.
We learn just how open Nick is with Natalie about his past and about all aspects of vampirism.

Father's Day

Some interesting insights into the reasons Nick keeps running, and why he and Janette are not always on good terms.
We see how much Schanke loves his family and tries to be the best father and husband he can be. How much he hates missing the small, yet important moments in Jenny's life, in his family's lives.
We learn where Natalie did her internship.
The woman in the other booth wearing the headphones looks like the actress that will play Jodi, in the third season episode Blind Faith.
Even LaCroix owes favors to others. To powerful men like Don Constantine.

Undue Process

Catherine Disher was nominated for a Gemini Award for her work in this episode. It's probably her best work, at least on Forever Knight. It shows what a good actor she truly is.
Did being a mother make it harder to do the show? Did it make her think that it could be her son? Did such thoughts give the really emotional scenes that extra power?
This episode never fails me make me sniffle by the end.
It is a good look at many different sides of Natalie that we usually do not get to see. We get to see how she handles personal tragedy, what it takes to bring out her temper. Just how good of a forensic pathologist she really is. That she will not take the easy way out, that she is honest, trustworthy, reliable. That she is truly dedicated to her job and doing the best she can. That she has yet to meet the puzzle she can resist and the one that she fails to solve.
Nick was there for her as she needed him, in the ways she needed him to be. And he was also there to protect her from herself. An example of that is his restraining her and escorting her out of the precinct. In her loft, he was there for support and just to listen, and offer a few words when he had the right ones to say. He did not give her any of the usual condolence speeches that usually do not help, or make the person feel worse. He just let her know she was not alone and that he was there for her when and how she needed him.
Schanke too showed his concern by avoiding the same speeches and by griping to Nick about the bean counter not wanting to miss the opera so he did not call Natalie. Now, she has to live with that image of Cynthia (dead) for the rest of her life.
The actual locations for the Coroner's Office and the building used as the exterior of Natalie's apartment building are about three blocks apart, easily within walking distance.
The exterior used for her apartment is the one used for many others, and is nicknamed The Apartment Building of the Damned by the fans for all the nasty stuff that happens inside it.

Bad Blood

Cedric Smith, Catherine Disher, and Nigel Bennett were all in an episode of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues together. Catherine's character was quite different from Natalie. Cedric was different from O'Neal and Nigel's character was a villain and not really LaCroix like. The episode title is Straightjacket. It was Catherine's second appearance on the series, as well as Nigel's. But it was the first time they worked on the show together.
If there seems to be extra chemistry between Natalie and O'Neal, there's a reason for it. Catherine and Cedric were Significant Others at the time. He is the father of her son (born between first and second seasons).
Since this was filmed as the fourth episode, Nick's comment on the Raven being where LaCroix had been hiding makes much more sense than it does as the ninth episode it was aired as. The last time Nick saw LaCroix after Killer Instinct was Stranger than Fiction which was both filmed as and aired as the third episode.
LaCroix apparently sprinkled the soy bean dust on the victims after Natalie finished her autopsies.
When O'Neal tells Natalie he hopes she's feeling particularly brave today, he has no idea of all the scary things she's been through since she met Nick. They would probably have him on the first plane back to Ireland.
This is at least the second time Natalie's car has been destroyed during a case. The first time was during Spin Doctor. She and Nick were in the car that time.
Bryan Renfro was one of the first season stuntmen and has been on camera in small parts in a couple of episodes.

Can't Run, Can't Hide

Richard McMillian who played Lindley was already in one episode. He was in Dying to Know You as Matthew the Pilgrim from the flashback. He was also in Black Harbour, with Geraint Wyn Davies.
LaCroix has it backwards. It is not all about Nick and his eternal struggle. But it's about LaCroix's eternal struggle to keep hold of Nick, and try to make Nick do what he wants him to, to be what he wants him to. His eternal chase after Nick.
Natalie had a good chance to study vampire ashes as she examined those from the Vietnamese vampire.
It did bring up some interesting points. Can one redeem themselves? If so how much good work does it take? What sort of good work does it take? How long does it take? Does one have to hide what they did, or does one have to admit it? If they have hidden it and it comes out, does it undo all the good they have done? There is more exploration of this in the third season episode Near Death.
Gordon Michael Woolvett who plays Kyle, the grocery delivery boy, is currently starring with Lisa Ryder (Tracy Vetter) on Andromeda.
Von Flores was in Earth: Final Conflict with Lisa Ryder, but never acted with her, as she was only in the pilot episode, and a couple of flashbacks.

Capital Offense

One of the reasons for the various golf and bowling references through the show is that the cast and crew do both sports, often together, especially bowling.
Yet another completely different description of Myra, what she likes and what turns her on.
One of these nights, LaCroix is feeding on mortals and blaming Nick for it is going to get Nick killed. And hopefully it will get LaCroix killed as well, and hopefully before Nick gets killed.
LaCroix asks Nick if he trusts him. What reason has LaCroix given Nick to trust him? It seems like all his actions go against that statement. There have been several visible betrayals of Nick's trust.
Apparently LaCroix forgot the "for good" aspect of their parting. And he apparently was so bored out there that being bored with Nick's company, making Nick's life a living hell is more exciting than being alone, bored and miserable.
LaCroix tells Nick to reserve his trust for his own kind. The very same people that keep betraying him. It is a wonder Nick can trust anyone, or that he is even sane. Or that he didn't walk into the sun by now.
Natalie and Schanke seem to be the only ones Nick can and does trust. They are the only friends who have yet to betray him. I am not sure if he trusts Cohen or anyone else at the precinct, but he does trust Natalie and Schanke with his life, Natalie especially. He shows his trust in her at the very end of the episode.

Amateur Night

Two stunt doubles for Nick rather than the usual one.
We get to see just how good a cop Schanke really is. How he does not crack under pressure. And will try to find a peaceful solution to even the most desperate, seemingly hopeless situation.

Beyond the Law

Lisa Ryder is in this episode as Angela Mosler, a supporter of her candidate, gets a little too involved with him and winds up dead. She would later show up in a different part, that of Tracy Vetter, homicide cop. Tracy Vetter is introduced at the start of season three.
There is a definite chemistry between Geraint Wyn Davies and Lisa Ryder in their scenes together. Which is probably one reason she was brought in as Tracy Vetter.
The flashbacks in this episode tie in with his being a Chicago police officer in Amateur Night (which was set during 1964 or 1965). But it doesn't really go with his being convicted of being a Communist/Communist supporter in 1954 Chicago, when he was an Associate Professor of Archeology, and had his picture in the Chicago Herald.
Watching Schanke's reactions as he tries to either avoid Daphne or deal with her as quickly and businesslike as he can is amusing.

The Fix

Nick wears the same shirt through the whole episode, while everyone else changes their clothes a couple of times.
The hot dog wolfing and discussion about Berman and Sykes looks like it's outside of Eaton Center. During the scene, in the background, an older guy in a suit stops and watches the filming a bit confused by what's going on. After a moment, a woman in blue walks up to him and tells him he has to keep moving. We do not hear her but her gestures tell the story.

Be My Valentine

The chat when Natalie and Nick emerge from the Observation room and talk with Schanke and Cohen is adlibbed.
The following scene was never filmed.
It is a sunny morning on February 14th. The skyline sparkles in the sunlight.
Inside Nick's loft, we can barely make out Nick sleeping. His telephone rings, the answering machine beeps, and a salesperson named Evelyn from Chelsea's leaves a message to confirm the receipt of his order, the one he left with their service that morning. The diamond bracelet is available and the matching choker can be ready by the end of the week. Nick's sleep is undisturbed by the telephone call.
Before filming the restaurant had yet to be named.
The original restaurant was supposed to be stylish, exotic and very elegant. The waiters were supposed to wear simple costumes. The seating was to be on large pillowy chairs at a low mosaic table. There were supposed to be numerous plants and artifacts filling the room, blocking Natalie's view of her dining companion until she got up close to him. Prominent among the artifacts were supposed to be long, very sharp wooden spears.
This part of the tag was either never filmed, or never shown.
Nick’s telephone rings, he sighs and picks up. It is the jeweler. Nick tells her that he has been meaning to call her. He is sorry but he has to cancel the order. He tells her that things did not work out the way he had hoped. It definitely was too bad. The jewelry was beautiful. He is sorry about it. He tells her good bye, hangs up, and looks off into the distance.
At the end the lighting in LaCroix's broadcasting booth makes the rose look either yellow green or yellow depending on the angle.
Does Natalie remember Azure? Does she ever get those memories back and hide them from Nick and especially LaCroix?

The Fire Inside

We learn more about Natalie, Schanke, Nick and Cohen's backgrounds, As well as some of their darkest fears.
We have never seen Natalie freak out this badly over anything sent to her lab for autopsy.
Schanke learns that there are worse things than facing your child's class on Career Day. Some kids do not have parents, or homes. Some entire families live on or beneath the streets.
Natalie and Nick both face their fear of fire.
Schanke sees that Career Day is not so tough after all.
It was nice of him to take Danny to his very first ball game. To show him that someone does care about him.
Danny learned that there are people who care about him, and about other people. Many are willing to help.
Geordi Johnson, the voice of the Dragon, plays Jerry Tate, a Jerry Springer type talk show host in a third season episode My Boyfriend is a Vampire.
Geordi Johnson was also a Klaus's vampire master in Dracula: the Series. Geraint Wyn Davies was Klaus. Geordi was Dracula.

Blood Money

Bernard Behrens has worked with Geraint Wyn Davies in Dracula: The Series and Ghost Mom (aka Bury Me in Niagara). In Dracula Bernard was Klaus's father, and later became his hunter after Dracula turned him into a vampire. Geraint was Klaus. In Ghost Mom/Bury Me in Niagara Geraint's character seeks his father throughout the movie, at the urging of his dead mother, and Bernard's character turns out to be his presumed dead father.
If you look closely when Schanke's walking into the bullpen after the explosion you'll see Geraint's son and daughter being led through the room by a uniformed officer and right behind them a woman carrying a toddler. That woman is Catherine Disher's nanny holding her son, Darcy. -Geraint's son was in the third season episode, Human Factor, as the son of Janette's mortal lover.
LaCroix tells Nick that material wealth is a burden, yet he is not poor or middle class himself. He has plantations and other forms of wealth. LaCroix does not want Nick to be able to leave him and take care of himself.

Partners of the Month

Nick and Schanke make a most interesting "Odd Couple"
They should've developed the friendship between Schanke and Janette more as they had some interesting chemistry, as well as finding each other interesting, if not a little odd. Their chat in the bar shows they have quite a bit in common, especially when it comes to the major loves of their lives.
I guess Schanke forgot that Nick doesn't eat, that he's on what Schanke calls a strange macrobiotic diet, or he wouldn't have been so surprised. Nick is told him before that the reason he does not eat out is that he has a lot of food allergies.
Menorah's seem to bother vampires as well as the cross. Does this mean that any religious symbol will? In a third season episode, Blackwing Nick is shocked when he touches a ceremonial Native American knife. Does this mean things like the Wiccan pentacle would affect him as well? What about Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu religious items? Would cow's blood bother him in India where cows are considered sacred?
We see Nick and Janette have crossed paths with another historical figure
Leonardo Davinchi.
When Janette offered to let Schanke out, was she actually considering bringing him across?
There's a nice reference to Janette's mortal past when she tells Schanke that she wasn't used to someone deeply loving her. Her past was revealed in A Fate Worse Than Death.
This isn't the last time we see the plaque. Schanke pulls it out of his desk in The Code and Nick pulls it out of Schanke's desk in Black Buddha.
In the shooting order, this episode comes several episodes before Be My Valentine so Nick is not cheating on Natalie by kissing Janette, but in the aired order he is, as this episode airs several episodes after Be My Valentine.

Queen of Harps

The part was originally written for Loreena McKennitt but when it came time to film, she was not available.
Gwyneth and Johanna Shea are played by the same actress.
If $310,000 is ten years salary, that means that Nick and Schanke make $31,000 a year. Since Natalie is a doctor, she probably makes around $50,000 a year.
The harp was auctioned off and is now owned by a very thrilled fan.
We get some excellent foreshadowing of the future, including Last Knight.
When you go back and look at all the episodes after having seen all 70 of them, you realize just how well all the pieces connect. All the events interrelate with each other, how things hinted at or mentioned in one episode are brought up again in another episode, sometimes several more times. It is amazing when you consider that the show was cancelled after each season and then had to be revived by viewer demand.
The two DeLabarre's are played by the same actor, one is bearded and the other is clean shaven.
Geraint Wyn Davies likes how Nick lets Natalie be his conscience in Queen of Harps.

A More Permanent Hell

The riot footage used during this episode is actually footage of the Los Angeles riot.
Natalie is considering suicide is the total opposite of her going off on Nick for considering it in Last Act. She was completely opposed to taking your life, calling it the easy way out.
Could a major portion of the trouble between Nick and Natalie have been avoided if he'd told her why he refused to bring her across, instead of saying that he wouldn't?
Natalie usually handles stress much better than that. She is usually the one able to keep calm, at least on the outside. And she's usually the one calming the others down.
This is the only episode LaCroix says nice things about mortals, and does it more than once. And even shocking is that he says their immortal lives aren't worth much without mortals.
LaCroix hates what he is despite all his protests to the contrary and no where is it better shown in the loft scene and at the end where he clutches Divia's Cameo commenting that Divia was right and damning her for it.
It was interesting to see this other side, this darker side of Natalie come to the surface briefly.
It was interesting to see Janette protect Natalie from herself a few times, as a friend would. Too bad they never developed what could have been a very interesting friendship, and would give both ladies someone to talk to, especially about Nick.
Since when can this universe's vampires go through solid walls or windows without damaging the walls, windows or themselves? Natalie locks her door, the window is shut and yet Spark is behind her.
I really hope she made him clean up the mess and replace her comforter, or at least help her clean it up.
Why didn't he stay with her, especially when she was holding onto his hand so tightly as he told her it was a hoax?
Is Natalie's comment that he was right in not bringing her across the reason why he will not bring her across in Last Knight?
The fangs are sharp so the actors have to be careful not to hurt anyone, or themselves. Some admitted to having accidentally puncturing their own lip while wearing the fangs. And when bitten it hurts.

The Code

LaCroix keeps telling Nick to trust him, but in tonight's monologue he tells Nick that no one is to be trusted. Didn't he just shoot himself in the foot there?
Joseph Ziegler has acted with Geraint Wyn Davies in another series Black Harbour. Both starred in it a while after Forever Knight ended. Joseph played Len Hubbard, brother to Kit, who was married to Nick Haskell, played by Geraint. Black Harbour ran for three seasons.
According to Patrick Delahanty, his and Schanke's beat was Chinatown. This conflicts with information given in at least two first season episodes, Dark Knight and Cherry Blossoms. The second one especially, as Schanke did not seem to know about or care about the ways and customs of the residents of Chinatown, which is not how someone who spent time walking the streets there would act.

Curiouser and Curiouser

To the mortals, the whammy is indistinguishable from a face to face showdown.
It is a look at how the show could have been had the casting been different. Had the show used the Wonderland reality as the real thing from the start… it would have been very different.
Maybe if the first time we see the alternate universe Janette, she wasn't yelling down to Nick or loudly asking him questions, the baby wouldn't have woken up. Of course, that would mess up the plot as written. She hurries back upstairs to see to the baby. Nick looks up at the ceiling unable to believe what he is hearing, or what is happening.
Janette is holding the baby like a doll, or something she does not know how to hold. When asked about it Deb Duchene told her audience that she did not realize it at the time, and laughed, embarrassed by it. She told her audience that there was supposed to be a real baby but it took longer to get to that shot than they thought it would. Later, when they went into the trailer that night, the mother and her baby were gone.
There's a very small, very colorful child's jacket on Nick's coat rack, as well as magnetic letters on the fridge.
Lewis Carroll allusions in the episode:
(With thanks to all those who helped me with the ones I had missed.)
1. The episode title
2. Walrus & cat masks on the Raven robbers
3. A blonde female vampire in the Raven looks very Alice-like
4. The ugly, colorful, plastic caterpillar Nick steps on
5. Bunny girls in background at the precinct station
6. Man in madhatter's tophat in background at the precinct station
7. ...and another man in blue silk cape and sparkly tophat.
8. I.A. investigator's name is Carol Lewis
9. ...and behind her, the wall's measuring marks go up to 7 ft.
10. LaCroix drinking tea & standing on the chessboard
11. Man w/oversized cards at the Raven's bar
12. Nick's fridge has a walrus magnet on it (really a manatee??)
13. ...and another, too-small-to-make-out white magnet. A cat or rabbit?
14. Fridge also contains a baby bottle with juice (The drink me Alice reference?)
15. ...and a cake with one piece cut out (The eat me Alice reference?)
16. ...and are those OYSTERS in the jars under the meat-keeper?
17. The loft has a club-shaped mirror (but it is always there)
18. ...and a Humpty-Dumpty inflatable toy
19. ...and a baby mobile with dodos (& flamingos?)
20. ...and a stuffed unicorn (see 'Through the Looking Glass' ch. 7)
21. ...and a crying baby (comment that he only does it to annoy him Alice reference)
22. ...also a March Hare in a blue band costume on a table
23. ...and a white rabbit (with tophat) on another table under the mirror
24. In the sound lab: Schanke has a pocket watch
25. ...and the sound tech's name is Alicia Carpenter
26. Schanke sarcastic comment on pigs flying.
27. Amanda's bartender wears a Raven jacket with a white queen on it
28. Natalie has a Wonderland character chess set
29. ...and a painting that looks a lot like Alice over her mantel
30. ...and maybe a stained glass Cheshire cat (barely visible)
31. Nick keeps commenting that everything was wrong. So did Alice.
32. Amanda commenting Nick was mad as a hatter.
33. The knife (the Vorpal blade)
34. Janette falls asleep next to a teapot and a piece of cake
35. The dragon over Nick's fireplace is now a rabbit
36. ...and the other carvings look like Tweedledee & Tweedledum
37. LaCroix recites several Carroll poems
38. Tipsy Amanda comments that she should have eaten something.
39. Does Janette's cold corned beef hash = the Duchess' pepper soup?
40. Ambulance drivers (cut from final version) were Tweedledee & Tweedledum
41. Schanke's description of the Raven crowd as a kinky wake. (A Mad Tea Party?)
42. Amanda blows smoke in Nick's eyes (as the Caterpillar did to Alice)
43. Egg-shaped sculpture on Nat's mantel
44. ...as well as small spherically-pruned plants (the rose bushes?)
45. Amanda says there's no such thing as vampires: the unicorn thinks Alice is "fabulous" (as in mythical)
46. Janette's dress at the Raven has hearts on it
47. The lighting everywhere (even in Nick's fridge) is flamingo pink (maybe not a direct Alice reference, but a cool dream-effect)
48. Nick puts his hand to the mirror, just as Alice did
49. Are LaCroix's buttons on the white tunic Alice characters & objects?
50. Are references to the lake equal to Alice's pool of tears?
51. Is Nick's suddenly "growing up" to be a father = Alice growing taller?
52. The King tells Alice that there's nothing like eating hay when faint, while Natalie tells Nick that there's nothing like single malt Scotch.
53. The camera spins round and round Nick and Janette at the loft. The sheep tells Alice that turn around and around like that make him feel giddy.
54. LaCroix's face floats on Nick's TV screen like the Cheshire cat's
55. Nick's IA grilling parallels Alice's trial (The off with her head command/surrender your badge order.)
56. And in the end, Nick falls (back) 'through the looking glass.'
57. The characters are also parallels:
  - Nick = Alice
  - Schanke = The White Rabbit
  - Janette = The Duchess/The Dormouse/The White Queen?
  - Amanda = The Red Queen
  - Natalie = The Queen of Hearts
  - LaCroix = Jabberwock/Cheshire Cat/White Knight/Mad Hatter?

Near Death

Shooting was disturbed whenever a train passed over the tracks next to the studio.
Was the first scene shot outside the studio? Was that the train that disrupted shooting? Did they have to ignore it this time and shout over it? Did they choose to?
Natalie gets to use her medical knowledge somewhere other than the morgue or a crime scene and talk with other doctors.
Dr. Naomi Ross is played by Amanda Tapping, who later plays Dr. Samantha Carter, a scientist/physicist on Stargate: SG-1.
There is a movie called Flatline which is about four young doctors, one of them being female, who experiment with near death experiences by purposely inducing cardiac flatlining. Although I have not seen the movie, I heard that they too had more disturbing visions each time they did it.
They reused a clip of LaCroix bringing Janette across in A Fate Worse Than Death as she's telling Nick what it was like for her.
The maggots really were crawling on Geraint, with the chest piece between him and them. They had to be careful and keep them away from his eyes, nose and mouth. The maggots felt gross.

Baby, Baby

As we will later learn as we meet LaCroix's master, and learn about his master's master, that obedience to one's master is not a trait of that family line. Every child down the line disobeys its master.
We get another indication from Nick that he would like a family some day.
Janette's lines about how every new vampire is a victim, seduced into vampirism by something, yet is ignorant of the consequences fits into Nick's coming across. It doesn't fit into Janette's nearly as much as LaCroix told her more than he told Nick, but still didn't tell her the whole picture. In other episodes such as Fever the flashback shows that free consent is needed, but in that one the person about to be brought across seems to know a little more about what's going to happen to them than others have. Richard Lambert and Nick were the two that were told the least about what was going to happen.
The scenes showing the friendship between Natalie and Schanke are wonderful.
The parallels between Nick's independence from LaCroix and Serena's from Nick are interesting. The main difference is that Nick let her go when she wanted to leave. He did not chase her through the centuries tormenting her, trying to keep her by his side, and his alone.
Serena did not go through the intense First Hunger that all vampires go through upon waking. The one where they will take the first person they see, friend, enemy, lover… Nick went through it as did Janette.
LaCroix fingering the burnt spot on the door was a nice touch. LaCroix remembers Nick staking him with the flaming 2x4, even if there is no flashback from Dark Knight: The Second Chapter illustrating it.
It was a little unclear what Serena wanted. From her words to Nick, it did sound like she wanted to become a vampire.
First LaCroix wants Nick to run back to him, and when he does, he grows annoyed with him for doing so.
The two times I've been to the CN Tower, once around 1996 and the other last summer (2001) there was no chain link fence anywhere around the Tower.
Filming at the Tower was done higher up than the tourists are allowed to go. The actors and crew were up where the television and radio antennas are. It was a windy night, and at one point it got so windy that they had to stop filming and go back to the studio to finish the scene.
Could Serena be the reason why Nick refuses to bring Natalie across? Could it be that he does not want to repeat that mistake?

Close Call

When Schanke was talking to the people Nick knew best, why did he not talk to Natalie? She should have been the very first person he talked to. She's Nick's doctor, best friend, and he thinks they are more than friends. Why did he not talk to her about it at all? All he did was rant and vent his own feelings and frustrations. He did not ask her any of the hard questions he was going to ask about Nick. No thinking of Natalie when the book said that vampires recruit from among their mortal friends.
Some of the flashbacks Schanke has he could not possibly have seen because he was not right there then.
It would have been fun and interesting if they would developed the relationship/friendship between Schanke and Janette a bit more. They seemed to like each other and enjoyed talking with each other, once the initial ice was broken.
It does not seem likely that Nick actually keeps an autographed picture of LaCroix in his desk.
Schanke mentioning Nick using the blood to thicken his oils is a nice bit of continuity with Killer Instinct. Crazy Love
This episode was filmed before Be My Valentine but aired after it. Nick and Natalie were not romantically involved when Crazy Love was filmed, so when Nick and Janette were together, he was not cheating on Natalie.
This is a rather interesting look into what makes a vampire the killing machine that it is. Why it desires and needs the blood so much. A serious look into the vampire psyche.
I think Natalie suspects that things are not as good as he tells her. It is probably one of the reasons she asked him if he no longer has those feelings and urges. She wanted to see his reaction as well as hear his answer.

SEASON 1 | SEASON 3

Episode Guide Home Page

Main Page