Forever Knight. Episode 15. "Dying For Fame" Rock Star
A true mixed bag. The music is fantastic, the visuals are stylish, the storytelling is clever and the mood is relentlessly melancholy but the story is embarrassingly simplistic and the ending is contrived and badly explained.
It's a story about a rock star and it's got some great music in it. 'Fan Kill' is okay, but 'Dark Side Of The Glass' is terrific. Most renditions of these songs, and several other scenes, are presented to the viewer as stylish montages. The idea/concept of Nick wandering empty streets gazing at real life on various television screens reoccurs a few times and it's an inspired idea. Very strong.
For reasons that are not immediately clear to me, the script draws a parallel between Nick's life and the life of the (unhappy) rock star. On paper it seems like a stretch, but on screen the visual parallels are relentless and - again - it's an inspired idea and incredibly successful. In many ways, since the script is weak, the episode is driven by the imagery and the viewer keeps watching, and is entertained by, these two people in different worlds living exactly the same life.
It's hard to feel any real sympathy for the unhappy singer (Tracey Cook) but that doesn't stop us feeling sorry for Nick (as usual) or believing that he would identify with her situation. He's a compassionate guy, is our Nick, even if the girl-of-the-week this week is a bit of spoiled moaner.
Sadly, the episode is let down by it's script. The supposed controversy surrounding 'Rebecca' is too silly to be taken seriously, with an awful vox pop by 'The Rock Channel' being close to unwatchable, and the idea that Schanke is hopelessly out of the step is so obvious that they really shouldn't have gone there. It's a laugh-free zone.
The ending of the story is terrible. Two major characters (a deranged fan, and the real killer) enter the story at the very end and nothing about either one of them is explained. A couple of throwaway lines is not enough. And the b-plot part of things is also left a bit murky, with 'Rebecca' apparently letting everyone think she is dead and going off to lead the life of a wandering, singing hitchhiker. Or something. It's all very poetic, and the execution of it onscreen looks fantastic, but I'd rather have an ending that makes some sort of sense.
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Forever Knight. Episode 15. "Dying For Fame"
