Forgotten Television: Kindred The Embraced

San Francisco Police Detective Frank Kohanek (C. Thomas Howell) is investigating alleged mobster Julian Luna (Mark Frankel) while also dating Julian’s ex-girlfriend Alexandra (Kate Vernon).  What Frank doesn’t know is that Julian and Alexandra are vampires and Frank isn’t a mobster, but the “Prince” of the city.  The ruler for all the vampire clans within San Francisco which collectively is known as the Kindred.  The clans are Ventrue led by Archon Raine the previous Prince (Patrick Bauchau); Brujah led by Eddie Fiori (Brian Thompson) who longs to be the Prince; Nosferatu led by Daedalus (Jeff Kober); Toreador led by Lillie Langtry (Stacy haiduk) and Gangrel led by Cash (Channon Roe) who becomes Julians head of security and enforcer.  The “Prince” is there to keep the peace and enforce the vampiric laws to make sure a clan war does not take place.  One of the primary rules is to not break the “Masquerade” the act of disguising themselves as humans.  No one is allowed to reveal themselves and if they break this cardinal rule, they are sentenced to death. Eddie is working secretly to kill Julian and to manipulate Frank into helping him.  But Frank and Julian form an uneasy friendship with Julian providing information about the vampire community as they relate to the crimes Frank is investigating.  Julian begins to fall in love with Caitlin Byrne (Kelly Rutherford) a human journalist, which makes Lillie jealous as she has feelings for Julian.

Kindred: The Embraced is an American television series based on a role-playing game called Vampire: The Masquerade. The series ran on Fox from April 2, 1996 to May 9 of that same year.  Seven episodes were aired before it was cancelled with one episode remaining unseen and two scripts for episodes having been completed but never filmed.  The critics called the series a cross between “The Godfather and Melrose Place” and liked the character of Julian as a “multifaceted character who’s both good and evil”.  Most critics disliked the character of Frank, believing he was clichéd and “pulled straight out of a bad cop film”.  In September of 1996, after the show had been cancelled, the critically praised leading actor Mark Frankel was killed in an auto accident. All eight episodes were released on DVD with some extended scenes in the pilot.

This was not a bad series and has found a kind of cult following.  The source material is rich and complex in mythology and lore and contains many sects and clans of vampires that were not mentioned or shown in the series, but had it continued would have been interesting to see how much of the game would influence the show.  The pilot episode was convoluted and confusing and didn’t offer enough exposition into the universe the show takes place in.  The audience has to work too hard to piece together what is happening.  Leaving some things to the imagination or vague on purpose for future exploration is fine, but enough information needs to be given so that the people watching don’t feel lost and unfortunately, the pilot spends too much time on Frank and not enough on building the world these characters exist in.  In addition, the scripted dialogue often felt forced and disingenuous and, in some cases, quite abrupt with no smooth transitions or graceful lead ins.  I felt that possibly the writers were trying to give the series an almost poetic feel, but there it is very difficult to make poetry feel real and genuine and unfortunately this series failed in that respect.  The actors all did a good job and the characters they built were interesting with the shows overall plot being a fascinating combination of organized crime drama and soap opera just with vampires instead of mobsters.  It is unfortunate that the pilot was too confusing to really pull in an audience and make them want to see more.