Rewatch: S1E01 "Dark Knight" (May 5, 1992)

Premiere time! Forever Knight launched in spring instead of the traditional fall, the first of its many airing oddities. Part of CBS's idiosyncratic "Crimetime after Primetime" line-up, FK showed its first two episodes on sequential nights, cut many minutes from the US airings compared to the Canadian (never mind the German), and took almost an entire calendar year to get through its first season.

Tonight, I rewatched both the Region 2 (German) and Region 1 (US/Canada) DVDs of S1E01 "Dark Knight." I won't do that every week of this rewatch project! But I may repeat for S1E02 "Dark Knight, the Second Chapter" next week. I find the missing footage extra irritating in DK. I've seen all the cut "Dark Knight" scenes in English on the taped-from-TV VHS tapes slowly degrading in my closet; there's no justification for leaving those scenes off the Region 1 DVDs! (Granted, "anything is better than nothing.") Other episodes, later in first season, have snippets that I've only seen on the German DVDs; the lack of those true "Eurominutes" doesn't bother me the same way.

( a few thoughts on scenes cut and kept )

What do you think? :-)

Fandom Snowflake Challenge 2016 #7

#7. Share a beloved item of canon.

In FKdom, we often talk about the episodes that "brought us across," that converted us from viewers to fans. These aren't always (or even often!) our favorite episodes in the long run, but they do always have some special combination of timing and resonance that imprints, snuggling up with our imaginations and never letting go.

Over in Marvel Comics, I can narrow it down to not just one story, but one page. Maybe even one panel. It's in Marvel Team-up Annual #5 (1982) (page 11), by Mark Gruenwald. These days, you can get it inside the compilation Thing: The Serpent Crown Affair (page 91). The Scarlet Witch and her husband, the Vision, are out at a movie theater. They're in civvies; it's date night. Suddenly, from the big screen, comes a mystic apparition of evil, a premonition of the vile artifact known as the Serpent Crown, and only Wanda can see it! Wanda heads for the lobby; Vision goes after her. Donning her costume, she explains, and promptly heads off to save the world. Vision had offered to join her, of course, but this is a job for the Scarlet Witch. She sends him back inside to enjoy the rest of the movie (and of course to come running with the rest of the Avengers if he doesn't hear from her within 24 hours).

Little-girl me fell head over heels. The Scarlet Witch has been my favorite superhero ever since. And Vision/Wanda has been my only OTP.