Dying for Fame (DFF)

Tod eines Rockstars

Week starting November 8th, 1992

Shelly Goldstein

Jon Cassar

Tracey Cook as Rebecca & Richard Eden as Artie

The episode opens with clips from a violent music video, 'Fan Kill', by Rebecca, a sexy rock star, in which she kills her fans. It's actually a teenager watching it in a hotel room. He's sleeping with apparently Rebecca (you just see her from the back, and identify her by her large, frizzy hair). She kills him.

The next day, Rebecca doesn't show up for a concert, so her manager has a backup singer, Wendy, stand in. He tells another singer, Bree, to check Rebecca's hotel room, and get her over there; he doesn't care if she's drunk of dead, get her over.

Schanke is called in early by Stonetree. He watches 'Fan Kill', and comments that Rebecca is scantily dressed. A music video news piece comes on, saying that Rebecca is kicking off her tour in Toronto. They interview different people about it, and some express outrage about the violence in her music videos. A fan says maybe she should die, but he'll watch her anyway. Stonetree claims she's in trouble and she needs security, and Schanke replies it's harmless, a hype to attract sales. However, because of the commotion surrounding the tour, Schanke and Nick have to work the day shift anyway, and cover for those doing Rebecca's security.

Nick wakes up from a nightmare covered with blood. Rebecca wakes up to the phone ringing with a hangover. Schanke calls Nick to get over there. Bree calls Rebecca and tells her to get over there. Rebecca sees the guy in her bed and tells him to leave. He doesn't respond, but she doesn't care. Nick broods with his bottle of blood; Rebecca does the same with her bottle of wine.

Nick drives over to the precinct during the day, while Rebecca drives to the stadium. However, Nick is covered head to toe with black clothing, wool, a hat, sunglasses, a trenchcoat, gloves, etc., and calls Schanke out to drive, while Rebecca, also dressed in black, makes her way to the stadium. Rebecca's manager tells her she has to perform; they'll just have her lip-synch.

A body was found in a hotel; it's the person killed in the teaser, Billy Conway. It's Rebecca's room, rented under a pseudonym.

Rebecca's concert starts. She fires a gun at her audience, while Nick and Schanke arrive. Rebecca's manager, Artie Benson, introduces himself. Nick tells Artie that a body was found in her hotel room. Shocked, Artie says they can interview after her song. Rebecca sings a dark, brooding song, "The Dark Side of the Glass" (available on the Forever Knight Soundtrack), about being an outcast. Nick identifies with her song and has a fantasy.

After the concert, Nick and Schanke interrogate Rebecca. She claims to know nothing about the murder. She's also fairly uncooperative. The knife that killed Billy Conway is Rebecca's stage knife- and *only* her stage knife, she claims. She asserts she was too hung over to remember anything last night. Schanke thinks she's lying. Nick thinks she's right, that she was too drunk. Despite Nick's assertions, Rebecca confesses.

Going to the precinct later, a bald man stops Nick, and gives him an envelope filled with polaroids of a woman with long white hair, addressed to 'Whoever's in charge'. Stonetree brushes it off as irrelevant. When Schanke is leaving the precinct, but sees Rebecca's fans in the front, and comments it's like Woodstock. Nick implies he was there, and Schanke laughs it off. This triggers another Nick-fantasy.

Waking up from his fantasy, Nick studies the pictures again, then examines Rebecca's wardrobe- the same clothes from the polaroid are in her closet, including the wig. He calls Schanke, and tells him to date the polaroids, since they take a long time to develop and could give Rebecca an alibi. Schanke doesn't think it will prove anything, but Nick still thinks she's innocent.

Nick talks to Rebecca in jail. When asked about her music, Rebecca says she couldn't destroy her image if she tried. Artie appears to bring her back, but Rebecca seems unhappy about being released. The theme of being released from jail makes Nick have another fantasy.

The man who gave Nick the polaroids sees that she was released. He has a shrine to her in his room, and loads a gun, prepared to kill her. The man enters the concert hall, and sneaks his gun in.

Stonetree says they have to start all over again. On the music channel, a woman mentions a letter was sent to 'Whoever's in charge' promising to vindicate her fans. Nick remembers the phrase from the polaroids, and realizes Rebecca is in danger.

Rebecca is sitting alone in the dressing room, when Wendy comes in. They talk for a moment, and the viewer is given the opportunity to realize that Wendy is a possible suspect, because she looks a lot like Rebecca.

Nick whammies a bouncer to get backstage. Schanke is wearing a leisure suit and having fun in the concert ambiance. Someone comments that Wendy's missing.

The bald man watches Rebecca onstage. Nick looks at the audience and sees the man, and remembers him. He stops him, but not in time; he gets off a round and Rebecca falls to the ground.

In the morgue, Nick tells Natalie to delay the presentation of Rebecca's body- say they need to run more tests, just make sure the public doesn't see her body. Natalie reluctantly agrees, and they throw the sheet over her corpse.

Later, Nick is brooding while "The Dark Side of the Glass" is playing in the background. He watches a thunderstorm as he remembers his fantasies. He drives over to the concert hall. He enters the dressing room and hears Rebecca's heartbeat. He opens a cabinet, finding Rebecca bound and gagged. She tells him Wendy attacked her.

Later, Rebecca leaves the Caddy during the day. Artie, meeting with Rebecca's record company, says to notify everyone close to her she's alive, then tell the public she's dead. The publisher's protest, saying she's their biggest seller. Her publicist says she been immortalized in 'death', and that her value as an assassinated dead singer will go up, since she was bound to fade out in any case; 'dying young' will insure her fame. He calls it 'the Elvis syndrome', and that she will live forever.

Nick is in the hallway again, and looks at a monitor. It shows Rebecca hitchhiking to somewhere unknown, to start her life anew without her rock star past. She looks at Nick from inside the screen and smiles at him. Nick smiles back at her. Joyous that she's been released from her past, he throws his arms in the air in celebration.

Instead of flashbacks, Nick has fantasies about his vampirism, triggered by encounters with Rebecca, her music, and the past. All of the fantasies are depressing except his final, uplifting one.

In the first one (presumably filmed for Feeding the Beast) and which wakes him up in synchrony with Rebecca, he and Natalie are at a diner. He orders fries. When he puts the ketchup on, it's actually blood. When he tries to tell Nat, she's disappeared. He looks around, and everyone's eating stuff with blood on it. A waitress gives him coffee, which is actually blood; the waitress is Janette (listen to Janette's truck stop waitress accent!). Lacroix, a soda jerk with blood around his mouth (yet another memorable moment), tells him it's what he really wants.

The second fantasy is during Rebecca's concert, triggered by her singing "The Dark Side of the Glass". Nick envisions himself in a hallway filled with television monitors on the other side of glass walls. Each one shows happy mortals playing, eating, and in love. They look at him, scared, and the monitors turn off. Nick becomes sad when he looks at them, before returning back to the concert.

In the third one, spurred by Schanke's mention of Woodstock, Nick and Lacroix are playing a rock concert. Lacroix says Nick can't escape his fans. Nick, dressed in leather, is on the stage playing guitar (presumably LC plays the drums, or maybe he's the leader singer.) Nick vamps out, and the fans boo at him. Nick is hurt and confused. The woman in the polaroid's in the crowd; her appearance causes him to find Rebecca's costume.

The fourth one takes place in Rebecca's jail, after a reluctant Rebecca leaves the cell. Lacroix is dressed as a policeman, and Nick is the prisoner. Lacroix teases Nick with the keys, asking him if he really wants to be released from his jail; it's a bad, bad world out there. Nick says he does. Laughing, Lacroix vamps out and says there is no release for him.

The fifth one ends the episode on a positive note. Rebecca is hitchhiking, and sees Nick. She smiles happily at him, and Nick smiles back.

This is one of my favorite first season episodes for many reasons. The concert and fantasy scenes are well directed, and Fred Mollin and Lori Yates' musical talents are well used. Including "The Dark Side on the Glass" on the FK CD was a great idea.

There are few episodes in which 'Nick wins', especially after the first season, with Lacroix's return. But this is one in which he does. Rebecca is trapped in her own gilded cage; the comparison is made in the third fantasy, after Rebecca leaves the jail; Nick sees himself as the prisoner, with Lacroix as his keeper. At the end of the episode, with Wendy's death in Rebecca's place, Rebecca has been released from her life, no matter how glamorous. It's still lonely and she's unhappy. By driving Rebecca into the country and letting her have a new life, Nick is also giving himself in a way a second chance. I, however, found the bit where Nick brooded after Wendy's death to be rather sad; I didn't realize it was Wendy, though, which probably contributed to it.

This episode has the classic line, "What time is it, what day is it, what century is it?", which has been repeated by more than one fan in times of confusion.

And for all of you fans who appreciate what immortality does for physical appearances, screen grabs of Nick and LC in Nick's fantasy rocker sequence are available over various places on the net. :)

There is little fault in this episode, which I consider to be one of the best of the first season. Even as a Cousin. :)

This will definitely appeal to Knighties for the reasons stated in the critique. And as also stated, the Knighties and Nunkies Anonymous (fans of Lacroix as warm and fuzzy; an offshoot of Cousins) will definitely appreciate the Leather Scene. :)

The other factions won't get much out of their character; Natalie delivers only a few lines (Nick's fantasy, the crime scene, and the morgue), not many Ravens will appreciate Janette in light pink as a waitress, and definitely no one will agree with Schanke's musical tastes. (Unless you're an avid 8-track fan, that is).

Stonetree & Schanke:	Stonetree: "You can see what the problem is." Schanke: "Raging adolescent hormones?"
Nick:	"You've got no idea what it's like to have lived almost 800 years and not tasted a french fry. Pass me the ketchup."
Nick:	"What time is it, what day is it, what century is it?"
Schanke & Nick:	Schanke: "Nice outfit. Don't you think you're overreacting to this ozone thing a little bit?" Nick: "Not really. *Drive*."
Schanke:	"I dreamed of being up there with them; John, Paul, George, and Schanke."
Schanke & Nick:	Schanke: "What do you think it's like up there?" Nick: "Lonely."
Nick & Schanke:	Nick: "Woodstock." Schanke: "Yeah, Woodstock. You were there? Yeah right, in macramé diapers, and Janis Joplin sang you a lullaby!" Nick: "Actually, I was with the Grateful Dead."
Stonetree & Schanke:	Stonetree: "Ready for the Neil Diamond CD in my office?" Schanke: "No, no, no, that's okay, I'm fine. That's for emergencies only."
Artie:	"Rebecca will never end... we are talking a deal that will last for eternity."

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