Procedurals are popular. Vampires are popular. Why not make a show which combines the two? Thus vampire detective series were born, and there are a surprisingly large number of them, including the mediocre Blood Ties (concerning an immortal bastard son of Henry VIII) and the glossy but dull CBS show Moonlight. The latter tried very hard to emulate a certain Joss Whedon hit which begins in this genre and then grows beyond it, but we'll pick that one up later on. Forever Knight is a far more conventional vampire detective show which perfected a basic formula. Nick Knight is an 800 year old vampire atoning for his murderous past on the night shift in Toronto who investigates present day (well, it aired in the 1990s) homicides which are interspersed with flashbacks from his past. A medical examiner, Natalie, knows what he is and they share the usual doomed romance, but none of his partners find out. The show is somewhat unusual in that Nick isn't impossibly attractive, like almost every other vampire in this article; as if to correct this violation of the TV vampire code, Moonlight has the exact same premise with added good-looking people. Nonetheless, Forever Knight is the better show and the best example of the vampire detective genre before Whedon changed the rules of the game.
