the so-called "lost swordfight scene" from FK's "Dead of Night"

[brightknightie]

As you probably know, when a copy of the script for the third-season FK episode "Dead of Night" by Michael Sadowski came into fannish hands back in the day, it contained a scene that had not appeared in the final filmed version, a flashback scene of Nick and Lacroix practicing with swords while talking.

The scene was shared via FK email lists at the time. People were eager to read what became known as "the lost swordfight scene" (although we actually know some of its lines from other, filmed scenes, and the script was rewritten over it). I personally don't love the scene for several overarching FK interpretation reasons. But, important to me, personally: one of its implied elements may possibly have influenced or converged with some of Susan G.'s thinking leading up to her never-finished (but posted to her site before she died) third Dorian-the-Archivist novel, Noble Mind.

This came up not long ago in a conversation with pj228. I said that, if I remembered correctly, the scene had been shared on the email lists. Long story short, my own personal PC is up and running again, and I am able to share that scene. Let me note, first, that this obviously is not canon, and may not be something the writer or director or actors would like to have influence our understanding of the episode or series.

It is interesting, though.


FOREVER KNIGHT #314 "Dead of Night" REV: BLUE Nov. 20/95

33 OMITTED

34 EXT - STREET - NIGHT

ON Nick, driving. Under the cop radio's occasional squawk,

LACROIX (V.O.)
Ghosts are mistakes we made. They come, not from Beyond the Pale, but rise up from our gravest doubts about ourselves.

35 RADIO STUDIO

CLOSE ON LACROIX at the mic.

LACROIX (V.O.)
Every ill-considered thing we've done is a ghost that haunts us...

36 IN THE CADDIE

CLOSE ON NICK. Descending into reverie.

LACROIX (V.O.)
...if we let it.

37 INT. - CASTLE HALL - NIGHT (THE PAST)

CLOSE: Nick and Alyssa, lip-locked. They disengage. She's breathless; Nick works her neckline down to cleavage as

ALYSSA
(whispering)
Are you happy, milord Nicholas?

NICK
As I've ever been.

ALYSSA
We will be together forever, won't we?

NICK
(pulls back)
For all eternity.

ALYSSA
(blushing bride)
Grant me leave that I might prepare for our wedding night?
(off Nick; she bows)
Milord...

Nick watches her go... and his expression sours as he hears

LACROIX (O.S.)
How romantic. May I watch?

Rack focus to Lacroix, emerging from the shadows. Nick doesn't even turn to address him: he knew Lacroix was there.

NICK
I thought you'd gone to England to collect a debt.

Lacroix looks to a rack that holds SWORDS. He picks up two, walks slowly toward Nick. Circles him.

LACROIX
(grin)
Lord Kettering had no gold with which to satisfy his outstanding obligation... so I took repayment in another, equally precious form.
(beat; smiles)
They raise such fine, healthy daughters there. You really must go sometime... oh, I'm sorry, you're "spoken for" now, aren't you?

Lacroix tosses a SWORD to Nick. Gives him a questioning look... inviting him to a sporting duel. They face off and fence as they talk. (To be staged...)

NICK
(defiant)
I know others of our kind who have relationships with mortals and take wives. There's no reason why I cannot have what I want.

LACROIX
I suppose you'll tell her the gruesome truth in due course.

NICK
She will accept me. She loves me without condition. In time, I will immortalize her.

LACROIX
You'll bring her across, will you? Imagine it, Nicholas: gone such a short time, yet I've missed so much: your whirlwind romance, your nuptials...

With an expert parry and thrust, Lacroix disarms Nick.

Nick's sword clatters to the stone floor. Lacroix presses his sword's tip into Nick's throat...

CLOSE ON LACROIX. His eyes narrow and he grows stern.

LACROIX (cont'd)
And your rapid matriculation from apprentice to master.

NICK
(angry)
I am not your slave. I'll live as I please.

Lacroix adds pressure to his sword. Presses it harder against Nick's throat to punctuate his point.

LACROIX
As you wish. Have all you want, only use care not to take too much.

Lacroix gives his sword a deft little twist. Just enough to CUT NICK... humiliate him.

OFF NICK, wounded.... we're suddenly back in

38 THE CADDIE - PRESENT

Tracy CLICKS OFF the radio.

TRACY
Sorry, Nick. That guy gets under my skin.

Comments

[ride_4ever]

How timely this post. I am currently in season two of rewatching, and I was just in the past few days pondering about the appearance of ghosts in the canon. LaCroix here saying "Ghosts are mistakes we made. They come, not from Beyond the Pale, but rise up from our gravest doubts about ourselves. Every ill-considered thing we've done is a ghost that haunts us..." fits right in with my ponderings.

Thank you kindly for sharing this!

[greerwatson]

"Ghosts are mistakes we made. They come, not from Beyond the Pale, but rise up from our gravest doubts about ourselves. Every ill-considered thing we've done is a ghost that haunts us..."

This is actually a recurring theme in the series, isn't it? In Season One, when Nick sees Alexandra in "Fatal Mistake", he assumes her to be a ghost, haunting him because he killed her. Again, in "Last Act", he seems to see Erica's ghost. In the first case, of course, although the lighting invites the ghostly interpretation, Alexandra is not really dead: she's stalking him. And there is real doubt in "Last Act" whether Nick is actually seeing Erica or hallucinating her. At any rate, in both cases, the viewer can concur with LaCroix that the women are not coming from "beyond the Pale".

Of course, in Season Three things did shift more towards the unequivocally supernatural. In "Dead of Night" the ghosts are definitely real. Still, they are summoned by regret—and this time, it's not only Nick who's affected.

[havocthecat]

"The scene was shared via FK email lists at the time."

That's such a bloodless way to say it! Oh, FK fandom, how I loved you and put up with all your multivariate drama. I still love this fandom, though, and this show, its hooks are still deep in me. DAMNIT, FK. Thanks for this blast from the past.

[brightknightie]

I actually do not remember what happened on the lists around the sharing of the scene (eeep?).

It may be just the passage of decades. Or it may be that I didn't yet understand, or wasn't yet looking in the right places. I found the lists only after "The Human Factor" knocked me for a loop and sent me seeking someone to discuss it with on this new "Internet" thing, from the university computer lab. (At the time, I believed Nick had let Janette die human. I can only wonder whether I would have ever found the fandom, if I'd understood that episode differently to start...)

[havocthecat]

I had a local FK group and some smaller lists as well, and things got heated, because certain groups (and I'm not naming names because I literally do not want to restart old grudges) took extracanonical sources as authorial as proof of their OTP being supported by the PTB and therefore the same thing as canon.

I had to hear about things like that scene for hours - literal, actual hours - in person, because I was friends with someone who was obsessed with it. Which was probably better saved for someone who actually shipped her pairing? But I was there and in the fandom and didn't walk way like I really ought to have done. ETA: I wouldn't have minded it for a while, but oh my God, hours? Really? I should not have.

You know, I think one of the things I had heard about you, specifically, before I actually met you is that your TV had cut out before the ending of Human Factor and that during the discussion it took a while before it came out that you had not been able to see the full end of the episode. I'm glad that you found the fandom, though, as that means we get to be friends!

[pj1228]

Thanks for sharing this!

When I saw glimpses of the filmed scene and someone told me about it, I had always assumed it happened after Nick had killed Alyssa. I always assumed Nick would start the fight in some sort of fury because Lacroix had again omitted to teach him something essential. This is very interesting though.

I also found it interesting that here Lacroix was apparently away while Nick got married and in the final cut we see him walking by with a rose in his hand, obviously thinking of Fleur.

Here's a brief glimpse of the scene I found on YouTube.

[brightknightie]

I think that the scene you imagined would have had more to contribute plot-wise than this scene in the text that we have. Had Nick sought revenge for what happened to Alyssa, the theme of revenge would have aligned him with the present-day perpetrator, who wanted revenge for what happened to her mother.

[brightknightie]

P.S. And also with his ghosts, who mostly seem to wish for revenge on him.

[skieswideopen]

Thank you for sharing! I was on the lists at various points, but I don't remember hearing about this scene back then. It's interesting seeing it now.

[brightknightie]

I wonder whether I should try to do a "series" of posts like this? One way and another, I have accumulated some bits and bobs of cut lines and such, some of them from scripts, others from the differences between the various broadcast versions (original Canadian, original US on CBS, German).

You know this because of the Janette impact, if nothing else, of course, but: the original US on CBS episodes were the shortest of all -- so very short that they actually had "patch" scenes that are not in the longer Canadian and German versions, made to cover the plot holes where they removed whole scenes from the longer versions.

The North American DVDs today are mostly equivalent to what showed on Sci-Fi: neither as long as the original Canadian, nor as short as the original US.

[elistaire]

I didn't know about this one at all. Interesting, but it sounds very like so much other dialogue and action that I don't feel like it really brings more than so much else did. But it sounds like others see a lot deeper meaning in it than I am. Although I am sad for not having the sword visuals.

[brightknightie]

Plot-wise, I feel that the scene as it exists in the text we have was no loss to the episode.

Thematically, well, you know FK. :-D We can spend months contesting the interpretation of a single scene, and then start over contesting again, for two decades and counting. :-D

This scene has elements of themes that belong to the eternal argument over whether FK vampires can have sex with humans without killing them, and the related argument over whether FK vampires can take blood from humans without either killing them, turning them, or rendering them "zombies" (a la 3 specific episodes). The scene also appeals to the Nick/Lacroix fans in various ways, which invites other fans to point out other interpretations. And there's a layer of interpretation in which we have to juxtapose Alyssa with Fleur -- or argue away the invitation to juxtaposition. And then there are revenge elements, which are big in the present-day plot of that episode, and a core theme for Janette.

:-D I do love FK.