Dead of Night (DoN)

(Not aired yet)

Week starting January 21st, 1996

Michael Sadowski

Jon Cassar

Kari Matchett as Alyssa

The episode begins in a spooky old house. A real estate agent is showing the place to a prospective buyer. A caretaker is with them. The caretaker is sent to turn on the lights, and the real estate agent goes out to her car phone. Left alone, the buyer explores the house. Someone pushes him off the balcony of an upper-story window, and he falls to his death, impaled on an iron post.

On the scene, Nick and Tracy question the real estate agent and caretaker about the death of the buyer, Mr. Weintroff. Both say they don't know how Weintroff fell. The caretaker tells them the house is haunted. On his way upstairs, Nick hears an eerie voice call his name, and Natalie observes that he seems frightened. While standing on the balcony from which Weintroff fell, Nick sees a ghostly young woman near his car. Then Tracy sees the ghost of a child sitting in the car.

Nick and Tracy visit the owner of the house, Mr. Ogden. He has a pretty young secretary called Shirelle, who serves them all tea. (Except Nick of course, who is allergic to tea!) Ogden tells Nick and Tracy that the house is a "reverse-medium" by which ghosts appear to people who have unfinished business with their departed enemies and loved ones. Shirelle has seen ghosts there many a time, in the dead of night!

As the story unfolds Nick, Natalie and Tracy are haunted by ghosts. Natalie is visited by the ghost of her dead grandmother, who wants to know why Natalie didn't come to see her in the hospital. Tracy sees the ghost of a childhood friend who was killed by a train. She wants Tracy to come out and play - in traffic! Nick's ghost's name is Alyssa and she was his wife long ago. Apparently she died on their wedding night, after he drained her of her blood in a botched attempt to make her a vampire like himself.

Reese is impatient with Nick and Tracy because they are not solving the case. The only clue is a military service star Nick found outside the haunted house. Weintroff's partner, Jerry Scalley, is also found dead. Natalie says he had a massive heart attack, and may have been frightened to death. Nick and Tracy learn that Weintroff and Scalley knew each other as fraternity brothers while they were in college.

The hauntings continue as Nick, Natalie and Tracy are troubled by painful memories from their pasts. "Nanna" visits Natalie at the morgue again, and they forgive each other's past transgressions. Nick returns to the old house to make his peace with Alyssa. While he's there, he encounters other ghosts of his meals long past, and they proceed to chase him around the house! As he flees from them, Nick finds Mr. Ogden in one of the rooms downstairs, sitting in a chair, dead. While Nick examines Ogden, Shirelle comes out of the shadows. She admits killing Weintroff and Scalley, because they murdered her mother years ago. She also killed Mr. Ogden. But she's not about to let Nick take her into custody! Shirelle pulls out a gun, shoots him, and then leaves the house.

Tracy discovers an unsolved murder which occurred at the time Scalley and Weintroff were at college together. She returns to the old house to catch up with the ghost of her childhood friend. Reese also shows up at the house, just in time to save Nick and Tracy from Shirelle. Then Reese sees the ghost of his dead brother on the porch of the old house.

At the epilogue, Nick and Natalie are in his apartment. Natalie asks Nick who his ghost was, but he tells her only that it was someone he loved and lost long ago. Nick asks her what they should make of their experiences with ghosts. Natalie says she's going to consider the visits from her dead grandmother a religious experience. She's not about to start telling people she sees ghosts! Nick ponders what she says. Reese contemplates the picture of his dead brother, and Tracy lays a red rose on the railroad tracks where her friend was killed.

According to the costumes, the flashbacks were to Elizabethan times (or thereabouts). They tell the story of Nick's very brief marriage to Alyssa. A priest wearing a bishop's miter presided over the ceremony, but he must have left his cross at home, because Nick seemed perfectly at ease. Lacroix observed the ceremony from small distance, holding a single red rose. (Hmmm! What could he be musing about?) Poor Alyssa, she didn't last very long in Nick's care! He promised her forever, but it looks like he didn't give her even one night!

The monologue addresses the meaning of ghostly visitations. According to Lacroix, they represent regret for past mistakes, and will only trouble us if we let them. The monologue is short, but it contains several pretty good lines.

This episode was very good in terms of an interesting story line, decent flashback scenes, and good remarks from Lacroix about regrets. And it was awfully fun to watch those ghosts pursue our friends! Compared to most other episodes this one was fairly complex, both in terms of the plot and the deeper message of the story. This resulted in some loose-ends and inconsistencies especially towards the end. It seemed like there just wasn't enough time to wrap things up properly. For example, why did Reese show up at the haunted house in the end? And in the very last scene, Natalie (wrongly) observes that everyone's ghost told them what they wanted to hear. But she didn't actually know what Nick's or Tracy's ghosts said, and even if she had, her observation was really only true in her own case. Tracy's ghost never said anything except "Tracy, come with me," and what Nick's ghost said suggested that one day he will have to pay for all the killing he has done. But this was really not the point at all! The point of this episode was to show how the past haunts the present and presages the future. But they knew that didn't they? The last scene with Nick and Natalie was sad. Even though his relationship with Natalie is long standing, Nick is apparently unable to tell her the truth about certain things. This episode clearly reminds us that the story of Nick the vampire is not destined to have a happy ending. The fate of Alyssa explicitly foreshadows the events of "Last Knight." This episode also reminds us that Nick has other character flaws besides being a vampire. While he regrets his past mistakes, he seems doomed to repeat them over and over again. Oh well, none of these characters are perfect, and perhaps, that is why we love them so!

Fans of Nick will enjoy the fun the ghosts have with him. Nick and Natpackers will appreciate the tender moment between Nick and Natalie, when he very gently and hesitantly embraces her, after she tearfully tells him how she made her peace with her grandmother. I doubt either group will be pleased by the tag. Natalie is prominent in this episode and we learn more about her past, which should please her fans. We also learn a bit more about Tracy, which is good for her fans. Cousins probably will enjoy the way Lacroix gloats over Nick's failed marriage to Alyssa.

Caretaker to Tracy:	"I've got a clear conscience. No spook [is] buggin' me!"
"Nanna" to Natalie (at the morgue):	"This is such an awful place, Natasha!"
Natalie to Nick and Tracy:	"Okay, this conversation has officially gone over the deep end!"
Lacroix on the air at CERK:	"Ghosts are mistakes that we've made. They come not from beyond the pale, but rise up from our gravest doubts about ourselves."
Tracy to Nick (as she turns off the car radio):	"Sorry, Nick. That guy gets under my skin!"
Reese to Nick and Tracy:	"These guys had real flesh and blood enemies. Stop chasing ghosts, will you!"
Nick to Tracy:	"I wish they'd stop chasing us!"
Lacroix to Nick:	"I told you. Don't - take - too - much!"

Available