Natalie Lambert
Once Upon A Time...
There was a series of murder mystery shows that ran on CBS Late Night as "Crime Time After Prime Time." Back then, David Letterman was on NBC, after Leno. Back then, scripted television was everywhere.
Well, everywhere on network television, some cable networks, and in syndication. Mostly on network television with a small syndi market. Cable was still finding its footing with New Stuff that wasn't Showing Movies or dipping toes into reality TV (MTV was, for example, still showing music videos).
Back then, there were no streaming things because even still images broke your bandwidth with one image attached to an email. Hell, sometimes an email where the text was too long broke your bandwidth.
In these days, the internet was young, and the AOL Gateway hadn't broadened access to those outside of the government, military, and university settings. In these days, having a 2400 baud modem was "fast" when you dialed up on your phone line to send a batch of emails and pull down your new emails to read once you'd logged off.
Crime Time After Prime Time added a series in the spring of 1992.
It was a first.
It was the first Canadian cop show on a main US Network. PLENTY of shows were shot in Canada, but this one was FILMED in Toronto AND SET in Toronto. It actually SHOWED OFF the city where it was filmed. Most of the main characters were played by Canadians--most of whom had noticeable Canadian accents (or, in the main character's case, Welsh-Canadian). In fact, two of the actors playing main characters were born in the UK...long before the MAJOR British and Australian TV invasion of the mid aughts.
It was the first TV series to feature a vampire cop, trying to earn redemption (it re-made the TV movie that was one by the same writer/producer years before).
It was quite possibly the first show to be brought back for a second season over 18 months after its (first) cancellation at the end of Season 1. Over 18 months after the sets had been struck.
It was one of the first shows to go from a major network to straight syndication.
It was one of the first shows to go from straight syndication to being a first-run-on-cable series. (That was after it was cancelled following Season 2 and resurrected again...perhaps another first.)
It was one of the very first shows to bridge from offline fandom to online fandom (nearly concurrent with Highlander: The Series).
It was one of the first shows with a "Save Our Show" campaign that garnered attention by focusing on raising money for charity (in this case Pediatric AIDS). The fund-raising and specifically using Western Union to donate resulted in random Western Union operators saying, "Oh! You're one of those people calling for this thing!" I explained the premise to the curious and interested Western Union operator I talked to.
It was one of the first to involve mailing STUFF to the producers to get their attention (this was before bottles of Tabasco sauce, peanuts, bras for Bonnie Hammer...), although ours was sending children's toys (balloons, bubbles, superballs, water pistols, super soakers...) to the set to cheer up the crew when we KNEW S3 was going to be the end (there was...some hope? But we knew). The Executive Producer (I think it was Barney Cohen) got a message through to the mailing list saying that everyone was deeply touched and thanking us...but begging us to stop because, "We can't get any work done!"
It is the only show I know of where fans went to NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) to promote the series to syndicators for renewal.
The show has not aged well: it looks melodramatic and over-the-top and derivative. But it was the first TV series to use weird, steep angles with tilted cameras, dark lighting and dim ambience, moody and gothy characters who were often nihilistic (or, at the very least, self-pitying). It matters that it was first in a long line of things that now make it seem so derivative because, despite it being small and little-known, it was influential.
I still miss Natalie Lambert, Coroner to the Undead. I finally have my Natalie Mood Set back; it got broken on LJ when LJ borked ALL the image address links years ago.
So...here is my return to my love for this character, nearly 27 years after I first met her back when I was student teaching in the spring of 1992, when Forever Knight got the Tuesday night spot at 10:35 pm Central time on the Crime Time After Prime Time series (Thursday's entry was the glossy soft-core porn Silk Stalkings set in Palm Springs FL...others were Dangerous Curves, Blind Justice, and Sweating Bullets).
Enjoy my mood set with my pretty pictures of my lovely Natalie from my delightful, dated, Canadian, Vampire-Cop show. I miss her.
This entry was cross-posted at https://amilyn.dreamwidth.org/847682.html.
There was a series of murder mystery shows that ran on CBS Late Night as "Crime Time After Prime Time." Back then, David Letterman was on NBC, after Leno. Back then, scripted television was everywhere.
Well, everywhere on network television, some cable networks, and in syndication. Mostly on network television with a small syndi market. Cable was still finding its footing with New Stuff that wasn't Showing Movies or dipping toes into reality TV (MTV was, for example, still showing music videos).
Back then, there were no streaming things because even still images broke your bandwidth with one image attached to an email. Hell, sometimes an email where the text was too long broke your bandwidth.
In these days, the internet was young, and the AOL Gateway hadn't broadened access to those outside of the government, military, and university settings. In these days, having a 2400 baud modem was "fast" when you dialed up on your phone line to send a batch of emails and pull down your new emails to read once you'd logged off.
Crime Time After Prime Time added a series in the spring of 1992.
It was a first.
It was the first Canadian cop show on a main US Network. PLENTY of shows were shot in Canada, but this one was FILMED in Toronto AND SET in Toronto. It actually SHOWED OFF the city where it was filmed. Most of the main characters were played by Canadians--most of whom had noticeable Canadian accents (or, in the main character's case, Welsh-Canadian). In fact, two of the actors playing main characters were born in the UK...long before the MAJOR British and Australian TV invasion of the mid aughts.
It was the first TV series to feature a vampire cop, trying to earn redemption (it re-made the TV movie that was one by the same writer/producer years before).
It was quite possibly the first show to be brought back for a second season over 18 months after its (first) cancellation at the end of Season 1. Over 18 months after the sets had been struck.
It was one of the first shows to go from a major network to straight syndication.
It was one of the first shows to go from straight syndication to being a first-run-on-cable series. (That was after it was cancelled following Season 2 and resurrected again...perhaps another first.)
It was one of the very first shows to bridge from offline fandom to online fandom (nearly concurrent with Highlander: The Series).
It was one of the first shows with a "Save Our Show" campaign that garnered attention by focusing on raising money for charity (in this case Pediatric AIDS). The fund-raising and specifically using Western Union to donate resulted in random Western Union operators saying, "Oh! You're one of those people calling for this thing!" I explained the premise to the curious and interested Western Union operator I talked to.
It was one of the first to involve mailing STUFF to the producers to get their attention (this was before bottles of Tabasco sauce, peanuts, bras for Bonnie Hammer...), although ours was sending children's toys (balloons, bubbles, superballs, water pistols, super soakers...) to the set to cheer up the crew when we KNEW S3 was going to be the end (there was...some hope? But we knew). The Executive Producer (I think it was Barney Cohen) got a message through to the mailing list saying that everyone was deeply touched and thanking us...but begging us to stop because, "We can't get any work done!"
It is the only show I know of where fans went to NATPE (National Association of Television Program Executives) to promote the series to syndicators for renewal.
The show has not aged well: it looks melodramatic and over-the-top and derivative. But it was the first TV series to use weird, steep angles with tilted cameras, dark lighting and dim ambience, moody and gothy characters who were often nihilistic (or, at the very least, self-pitying). It matters that it was first in a long line of things that now make it seem so derivative because, despite it being small and little-known, it was influential.
I still miss Natalie Lambert, Coroner to the Undead. I finally have my Natalie Mood Set back; it got broken on LJ when LJ borked ALL the image address links years ago.
So...here is my return to my love for this character, nearly 27 years after I first met her back when I was student teaching in the spring of 1992, when Forever Knight got the Tuesday night spot at 10:35 pm Central time on the Crime Time After Prime Time series (Thursday's entry was the glossy soft-core porn Silk Stalkings set in Palm Springs FL...others were Dangerous Curves, Blind Justice, and Sweating Bullets).
Enjoy my mood set with my pretty pictures of my lovely Natalie from my delightful, dated, Canadian, Vampire-Cop show. I miss her.
This entry was cross-posted at https://amilyn.dreamwidth.org/847682.html.