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Kindred: The Embraced

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Kindred: The Embraced
GenreSupernatural drama Urban gothic
Created by
Starring
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes8 (1 unaired)
Production
ProducerMike Trozzo
Running time45 minutes
Production companies
Original release
NetworkFox
ReleaseApril 2 (1996-04-02) –
May 8, 1996 (1996-05-08)

Kindred: The Embraced is an American television series produced by John Leekley Productions and Spelling Television.[1] Loosely based on the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade,[1] the series premiered on Fox on April 2, 1996, and ran for seven episodes before it was canceled with one episode unaired on May 9, 1996. Scripts for two other episodes were never filmed.[1]

Synopsis

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The series initially focused on San Francisco Police Detective Frank Kohanek (C. Thomas Howell) who discovers his city is home to numerous vampires while investigating alleged mobster Julian Luna (Mark Frankel). Julian is not really a mobster, as Frank thinks; in fact, he is the Prince of the city, the ruler of five groups of vampires in the city, collectively called "the Kindred". Frank had been romantically involved with Julian's former lover, Alexandra. Before Alexandra dies as punishment for breaking the "Masquerade" she asks Julian to protect Frank as a special favor to her, which he does. The two form an odd sort of friendship as the series progresses. Julian provides Frank with insights and information regarding the vampire community as related to crimes he is investigating. Frank is able to act discreetly on Julian's behalf if needed. Further, Frank is shown to be somewhat resistant to a vampire's powers due to his past physical intimacy with a vampire.

Julian, in his role as Prince, is shown to be the only force that can stop the clans from breaking the uneasy truce that keeps them from fighting with each other. The vampires survive thanks to the "Masquerade", disguising themselves as humans, and Julian strictly enforces the laws that govern them to protect their anonymity. Any vampires who break those rules find their lives ended. Vampires are shown to slip into human society rather easily, holding a variety of jobs. The senior vampires who compose the conclave of San Francisco are depicted as wealthy heads of industry and business leaders.

Julian struggles with his romantic feelings for human reporter Caitlin Byrne (Kelly Rutherford). Further, Julian is assisted by and finds comfort in his trusted friend, Daedalus, who is the senior vampire for one of the five clans.

Characters

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Main

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Recurring

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Episodes

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No.TitleDirected byWritten byOriginal release date
1"Pilot"Peter MedakJohn LeekleyApril 2, 1996 (1996-04-02)
A police detective, Frank Kohanek, has learned that vampires exist, but doesn't realise that he's surrounded by them. The businessman whom he suspects is a mobster, Julian Luna, is the Prince of the San Francisco "Kindred" clans. Frank's girlfriend, Alexandra (Kate Vernon), is Julian's ex and also a vampire. When she reveals herself, breaking the Masquerade, her unlife is forfeit.
2"Prince of the City"Peter MedakJohn LeekleyApril 3, 1996 (1996-04-03)
The feud with the Brujah is escalating. Against Masquerade policy, Eddie Fiori has ordered the death of Boyle, an informant of Detective Kohanek. However, the vote by the ruling clan leaders is split and Eddie is not sentenced to Final Death. Julian has fallen in love with reporter Caitlin Byrne, a human who wants to do an article on him because he is wealthy, powerful, and unseen. In order to control her, Julian buys the San Francisco Times and appoints her as the editor.
3"Romeo and Juliet"Ralph HemeckerJoel BlasbergApril 10, 1996 (1996-04-10)
Cash and Sasha have become lovers and Julian grudgingly gives permission for Cash to Embrace Sasha. He's too late, however, because the Brujah clan, trying to provoke a war between clans, has already Embraced her.
4"Live Hard, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse"James L. ConwayAaron Mendelson & Paul TamasyApril 17, 1996 (1996-04-17)
Zane (Ivan Sergei), a rock star Embraced by Lillie, endangers the Masquerade, but she's having trouble admitting that he's a problem. Sasha embraces her Brujah blood.
5"The Rise and Fall of Eddie Fiori"Kenneth FinkScott Smith MillerApril 24, 1996 (1996-04-24)
Lillie is jealous of Caitlin and sends a P.I. to take photos of Julian and Caitlin together. The P.I. ends up capturing Eddie's assassination attempt on film. Frank ends up with a copy of the photos and shows them to Caitlin, so she breaks up with Julian. Lillie, meanwhile, has sided with Eddie, who is still planning to kill Julian. Heads will roll, but not the ones Eddie plans.
6"Bad Moon Rising"James L. ConwayPhyllis MurphyMay 1, 1996 (1996-05-01)
With Brujah leader Eddie Fiori gone, fights are breaking out all over San Francisco to determine which Brujah will succeed him. This is to be expected. What isn't expected is the return of the Nosferatu Goth (Skipp Sudduth). Julian ran Goth out of town years ago, but he has returned, stronger than ever. And, when he performs the ritual and drinks the blood of the human infant he has just kidnapped, he will be unbeatable.
7"Cabin in the Woods"Ralph HemeckerCurt JohnsonMay 8, 1996 (1996-05-08)
Julian hasn't been out of San Francisco in seven years. So when Caitlin asks him to go away with her for the weekend, Julian leaves Archon in charge and goes with her sans bodyguards to Manzanita Springs in Sonoma County where Caitlin has secured a secluded cabin in the woods. Unbeknown to Julian, the sole survivor of that bloodbath, a Brujah named Cameron (Titus Welliver), has reunited with the three remaining Manzanita Springs Brujah and has plans to take over Eddie's seat on the San Francisco conclave.
8"Nightstalker"John HarrisonP.K. Simonds & John Leekleyunaired
A recently Embraced and insane Kindred is making the news as a serial killer. Falling in love with human women is an issue for Julian, Cash and Daedalus.

Release

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Broadcast

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The series premiered on Fox on April 2, 1996.[2] New episodes aired weekly until May 9, 1996, after which the series was canceled and no additional episodes produced.

Home media

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All eight episodes were released in a two volume DVD set on August 21, 2001.[3] On August 5, 2013, it was announced that The Complete Series, packaged with the Book of Nod role-playing game supplement, would be released on October 22.[4]

The 2013 release in addition to the Book of Nod supplement included:

  • An Extended version of the Pilot episode.
  • Deleted scenes for Nightstalker, Romeo and Juliet and Cabin in the Woods.
  • Recaps.
  • Audio commentary for Prince of the City, Romeo and Juliet, Bad Moon Rising and Cabin in the Woods.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Origins of the Kindred, a documentary about the Tabletop game.
  • Daedalus: Last Will and Testament, The Saga Continues... a video diary with Daedalus (reprised by Jeff Kober) to Abel, set after the events of the show.
  • The Kindred Chronicles -- Part One: Genesis and Part Two: Crafting a Myth, a documentary about the making of the show with interviews with some of the cast and crew. [5]
  • A letter called the "Kindred Requiem" which is a message from the show's creator included in the box set:

"I cannot tell you the naked fear I feel, putting down these words for once and all.. We are the Mnemosyne, the Memory = Seekers. Specifically, we have been commanded to search for the Book, the tome of all Kindred lore, which is a collection of writings by Caine, his childe and his grandchilde... written in the land of Nod, east of Eden..."

Thus begins the preface to the Book of Nod, written by one Aristotle deLaurent, who claims to have traveled the world for hundreds of years, seeking out the truth, searching for the fragments of the mystical and frighteningly powerful sacred "Bible" of the Kindred. This was his life's quest, his journey, and that of his entire bloodline, his Clan: to find the far flung pieces of this ancient text - the holy grail of the Kindred - the written words of their Creator Caine, and to publish them for the first time. But the Book of Nod was meant for the eyes of the Kindred only.

For the Clans of the Kindred, the Book of Nod is a mythical text, taken from tales told over and over, for thousands of years. But few believed it really existed. It seemed impossible that any story or text, even fragments, could have survived since the earliest man, since Caine, the one cast out of Paradise for murdering his brother, Abel. But here it is, as fragmentary and kaleidoscopic as the Christian Bible, the Hindu texts of the Mahabharata and Bhagavad Gita, the Chinese Tao and I Ching, the Muslin Koran, and the Gilgamesh Epic of Mesopotamia. We are still discovering the pieces of our own sacred tests - witness the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of Judas - and so it is for the Kindred.

The Book of Nod tells us that since the dawn of man, Kindred and humans evolved side by side, with humans as the Kindred prey. They were the Evil, the thing we feared in the night. Or did we invent them, and their myths, and call them the "Other", along with witches and demons, to explain things we feared in ourselves, and our terror of the big questions in the infinite cosmos of dark matter that cannot be comprehended.

In time, the humans overwhelmed the Earth, and the wheel of fate turned. Because they cannot reproduce by the billions, as we have done, the Kindred were forced to hide in plain sight, using the Masquerade, and expanded their Clans by Embracing humans, making them Kindred by the taking and changing of their blood. Still the work goes on, by both humans and Kindred, to assemble their history and myths, so that we humans and the Clans of the Kindred might know the answers to the great questions: who are we and where have we come from... what is our role and duty... and most importantly, where are we going after this life? Joseph Campbell wrote, "myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths." The origin stories of the Kindred and those of humans are a kind of shared dream, in which our common lives are transcended.

The myths contained within the Book of Nod were the inspiration of the creation of this television series, KINDRED: THE EMBRACED. The Kindred mythology seems to have some answers, for they are living in an existence beyond what we call "life". Like us humans, the Kindred are on a journey of discovery, a quest for Knowledge, the ancient clans such as the Nosferatu, have been the protectors and the repositories of this Knowledge, so immense in it's implications, that possession of any fragment would be a chilling fear. The sire of Aristotle deLaurent, and the sire before him, were driven mad by this quest and the possession of the Truth. This madness, (or is it a horrifying clarity), awaits all Kindred who come too close to the power of Caine. And most fearsome of all, as we learn from Daedalus, they await the horrors of the Gehenna, when the Antediluvians will awaken to consume their young... a final death without peace. Is this myth much different than the demon haunted world we humans live in?

I'm pleased that the Book of Nod is included in this DVD Collection of KINDRED: THE EMBRACED. It was seminal to my work and inspiring to me during this time I created this series, especially in the way it revealed the Kindred to be much like us... in their myths, their history, their devices and their fate. In fact, the Kindred seemed to me to be more human than humans, more passionate, more loyal, more intuitive and full of life... in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact they are not alive, at least in the limited way we think of that word.

Like our sacred texts, the Book of Nod is a journey and a quest that is not finished, not complete in any sense. It is a living and powerful collection of fate and desire that in many ways are a doppelganger to our own turmoil of life and death.

When storytellers tell myths about our deepest fears and desires, we all come closer to understanding them, and this is the power of the Book of Nod, and the Kindred worldview that it describes. It is a mirror, held to the humanity in us, so that we can view ourselves to what we really are... not the image we wish to project to and outside world we believe is ours and we believe is knowable, safe, and where we are in control. The Book of Nod offers us that image on the other side of the glass, the one we can't see but which sees into us, into the darker truth, the desires that drive us, the fierceness of life and a vision of something beyond.

The Kindred's highest evolution is the transcendence of Golconda, when they are released from the urges of the Beast and find a much prayed for final peace. in the writing of KINDRED: THE EMBRACED I realized that we are much like the "other" than we would like to admit. It's even possible that we and the Kindred are one in the same.

John Leekley.

Reception

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Sci Fi Weekly's Kathie Huddleston called Kindred: The Embraced a "cross between The Godfather and Melrose Place" that held promise, but was very confusing to viewers with the five vampire clans and a particularly confusing pilot episode.[clarification needed] While she felt the character of Frank appeared "to be pulled straight out of a bad cop film", she praised the character of Julian as a "multifaceted character who's both good and evil".[2] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly also compared the series to The Godfather "soaked in blood", calling it "knottily mystifying". Like Huddleston, he disliked the character of Frank, wishing he'd been killed by a vampire early in the series, while praising "the elegant, intelligent prince" Julian.[6]

Reviews

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Bittner, Drew (September 1996). ""Kindred" cancelled". Inquest. No. 17. p. 21.
  2. ^ a b Huddleston, Kathie (March 25, 1996). "On Screen: Backlash: Oblivion 2, Kindred: The Embraced". Sci Fi Weekly. Vol. 2, no. 17. Archived from the original on September 19, 2008. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  3. ^ "Kindred the Embraced - The Complete Vampire Collection". Amazon. August 21, 2001. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  4. ^ Lambert, David. "Kindred: The Embraced - Finalized High-Res Package Art, Inside and Out, for 'The Complete Series'". TVshowsonDVD.com. Archived from the original on December 16, 2013.
  5. ^ "DVD Talk review of the 2013 Box Set".
  6. ^ Tucker, Ken (April 5, 1996). "TV Review: Dark Victories". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 23, 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  7. ^ "Pyramid: Pyramid Pick: Kindred: The Embraced".
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