He’s much older than he looks and, nowadays, he’s something of a familiar tale. He’s a vampire on a quest to restore his lost humanity; he drinks the blood of animals rather than humans; he fights against the evils that both men and monsters do; he can’t go out in sunlight, yet drives a convertible; he has a peculiar attachment to his still-evil ex-girlfriend and he, well, helps the helpless.

He is one Nick Knight – he’s immortal, can’t go out in the day, and in case you haven’t noticed it, check out his surname. What a clever, clever title!

And the cleverness doesn’t stop there!

Nick was envampirized 800 years before the start of this legendary tale by the villainous LaCroix (Nigel Bennett), a white-haired, goggle-eyed, scenery-chewing miscreant who has what can only be described as a massive crush on Nick. Having left his Dark Past behind, he leaves LaCroix as well, and when Nick persists in this unprecedented resistance to the persuasive power the kill, his jilted sire acts whinier than a bereft Bella Swan.

In the movie, Nick’s trusty confidante was coroner Dr. Jack Brittington (Robert Harper), a scientist with delusions of alchemy who was searching out a cure for Nick’s condition--or at least the right formula of hemoglobin to keep his midnight munchies in check. Here we have instead Dr. Natalie Lambert (Catherine Disher), who serves the same function but is a chick, and is therefore a potential love interest.

Also in the lists is the sultry Janette (Deborah Duchene), a confusingly-accented femme fatal with whom Nick once shared some hot vampire-on-vampire action, but whom he now considers quite beyond the pale. (And she is very, very pale.) The strangest part of their relationship is that she routinely and casually confesses to murder in the course of their everyday conversation, and police detective Nick barely bats an eye.

Oh, yes. He’s a police detective; one of Toronto’s finest! He is on the nightshift, of course, and his partner is the slightly sleazy, very self-important, and perennially henpecked Don Schanke (John Kapelos).

Ah, Schanke. What would Forever Knight have been without you?

The only cast member from the original telemovie who made his way into the show, John Kapelos is by far the best actor on the Forever Knight roster. (Though Gary Farmer, who played Season 1’s gruff Captain Stonetree, comes in a close second.) Kapelos has a quality that is both repulsive and attractive simultaneously; he’s like the fried banana and peanut butter sandwich of people. It is a mark of his worth that his character is killed off in Season 3, and well, so was the series. Schanke’s replacement, Detective Tracy Vetter (Lisa Ryder) was all very well and good (and fricking hot), but where “the Schank” brought a congenial, if sarcastic, camaraderie into Nick’s melancholy world, Vetter just brought drama. (It was mostly the heartbreakingly fun “I’m in love with a vampire who looks kind of like a roadie for Guns ‘N’ Roses” kind of drama, but still.)

Why do I so love this show? Oh, it’s hard to say. I mean, the production is hardly slick – I’m pretty sure they had better effects on DeGrassi Junior High – and there are a lot of long, long patches during which the camera catches every thrilling moment of nothing happening. In fact, none of the camera work’s up to much, nor is the editing -- Canadian productions have certainly come a long way since 1992 -- but if you can ignore the indifferent sets, dreadful Joke at the End of the Episode formula (so beloved of Original Star Trek, and never quite dispensed with here) and the frightening fashions, Forever Knight holds an enduring, dare I say immortal, appeal.

In many ways, Forever Knight is nothing more than a procedural police drama. Yes, there do seem to be a lot of co-incidental crimes (people from Nick’s 800 year past show up in Toronto -- of all places -- or his flashbacks to bygone eras help him solve the problems of the present), and his vampiric powers help him out a lot when it comes to catching the bad guys (Nick can fly, for example), but a large part of every episode is dedicated to dealing with very real, very believable, human wrongs. For a fantasy/horror series, that’s actually pretty unique.

Maybe the actors have something to do with it, too. In addition to the aforepraised Kapelos, third season star-crossed lovers Vetter and Vachon (Ben Bass) enjoyed a burning chemistry, and series stars Wyn Davies and Disher have their own peculiar allure. Wyn Davies is the possessor a very intense gaze and some wicked dimples, and Disher, as leading lady Nat, is pleasingly normal. She’s kind an everywoman in face, form and temperament (well, if every woman is an MD with a vampire for a best friend), who acts irrationally and ridiculously and yet captures Nick’s wandering, wearied fancy. Their much troubled pseudo-romance is not nearly as forbidden as, say, that of a vampire and vampire slayer, but there is enough angst involved in their dealings with each other to keep up at least a couple of seasons worth of interest.

Which brings me neatly to my next subject: Angel.

While Forever Knight may invite comparison to Buffy’s buff ex-beau, it would be an unfair one. For one thing, Forever Knight came to our screens first, and the movie on which it is based, 1989’s Nick Knight – strangely starring Rick Springfield in the title role – came (oddly enough) even earlier. (And, no, it’s not a rip off of the Ben 10 Forever Knights, either.)

Nick may actually be a worthier candidate for redemption than Angel, as well. After all, it was only the ensoulment that was visited on him as punishment that led Angel to give up the fun-filled torture and become the Dark Knight we came to know and love. Nick wants to give up his wicked, wicked ways, he wants to be human again, no restoring of his soul to factory condition necessary.

But despite coming first, despite its more righteous vampire with the more impressive tricks (did I mention the flying?), is Forever Knight a better vegetarian-vampire-seeking-redemption-while-solving-crimes television show? Of course not! (I mean, the hairstyles alone.) But while it doesn’t have the witty repartee, the flawless production, the beautiful people, or the all-pervading coolness, Forever Knight still has… well, something. There is something that makes me love it.

Schanke? All those dress shirts? Nick and Nat? Tracy and Vachon? The very… er… final ending to the series? God, tell me it’s not LaCroix!

Um… Nope, I still don’t know. The car?

  -- Rachel Hyland