I do not write stories.   Or, more precisely (for these are not, after all, documentaries), I do not write prose fiction, either long or short form.

Probably, you are going to call what I write "scripts".

At any rate, those of my friends who have read them call them that.   It is a term with which people are familiar; and there is no doubt that, superficially, what I write certainly resembles a full script.   However, the full script of a one-hour television drama is about fifty to sixty pages long.   What I write runs more than twice that.  Most episodes of Season IV are 115 to 120 pages long, give or take a bit.

These are not scripts.

So I think perhaps I should explain what you are actually getting in these twenty-two episodes, so that you won't be surprised.

When I started to write Forever Knight, I was writing something similar to a regular full TV script.   A bit idiosyncratic, maybe; but every writer has idiosyncrasies.
        Dialogue was no problem.   I just put the characters on the set, gave them a nudge, and copied down what they said - though after writing it all down, I found it a good idea to go back and tighten everything up a bit.   People in real life digress; they do in mental conversations, too.   Not to mention the number of "Ummm"s, "Well"s, and "You know"s that creep in.   If you think there are a lot of those in what you read, you have no idea how many got cut out in revision.
        The trouble was the staging.   I wanted accuracy.   So I kept trying to see in my head what would be going on on the screen.   After a while, I realized that I was surprisingly ignorant of the details of the sets.   I was pretty sure, for example, that there was a coffee machine in the squad room; but I had no idea where it was relative to Nick's desk.   The more I tried to visualize the scenes clearly in my head, the more I was frustrated.
        I decided, therefore, to spend time going through the taped episodes, scene by scene, in order to work out exactly what the sets had looked like, piecing them together like jigsaw puzzles from the background.   After I'd gone through a couple of episodes, I started to think it would be impossible; but gradually things started to shape up.   It took me only eight episodes to pin down Natalie's office; but I had to go through thirty before I got all the bits of the squad room down.   There always seemed to be some angles that didn't get filmed.   That coffee machine was particularly elusive.

When I finally had the layout of the sets down, I rewrote the scripts I had already done, putting in great detail on camera angles, editing close-ups, adding inserts, and so on.   Most dialogue has a note about the tone of voice; facial expressions are sometimes described; and there are many petty details of the actors' shifting movements.   Admittedly, I have my limitations in the visual department.   As a rule, I provide only fairly general descriptions of guest actors' physical appearance, new sets and locations, and historical costumes.   And I can't put in the more technical cinematographic stuff - lighting, lenses, that sort of thing.   I don't know enough about it.   Except for really obvious stuff (such as having a scene lit by the headlights of a car), I've had to leave out the technicalities of filming.   But I've put in every detail I can.
       The end result is not a script. Rather it is a transcription.   Not the usual sort of transcription, which merely notes the dialogue using a format that is more compressed than a full script.   It is a transcription of everything that one would be seeing when watching the episode on TV.
        To put it another way, it is a transcription of what I was seeing when I "ran" the episode in my head.
        In fact, when I started in 1996, I wrote episodes higgledy-piggledy, sometimes writing the Prologue and Act One, sometimes starting in the middle with the most vivid scenes; but, in either case, filling in the more boring bits only at the very end, when I had to.   But, except for pre-written continuity scenes, most of the more recently written episodes have been written from start to finish, almost as if I really were "watching" the show.

To me this is a more satisfying format than a script.   Scripts, after all, are an unfinished art form.   They are written for the pre-production stage of filming; and that means that much of the creative process takes place later.   Sets are dressed; so are actors. Guest stars are hired; bit parts are cast.   Most obviously, the director and actors add their interpretation during filming.   In post-production all is assembled, effects are added, the show is scored.  Only when everyone is done can the show be aired.   Only then do we - the viewers, the fans - get our turn.
        And that is what I want.   The done deal.   The finished product.
        I want to be able to see the show.   I don't want to read a mere script.   Nor, with apologies to all the wonderful fan writers out there, do I really, deep down, want to read the story of the script.   For, let's face it, the better the story is as prose, the less it is like an episode of the show.   I enjoy a good piece of prose; but it is an addition to the show - on the side, so to speak - not a substitute.   The show itself is inimitable.

I have tried to simulate, as best I can in a non-visual medium, the effect of actually watching an episode.   It is not a script.   It is a transcription, as you watch, of what you see and what you hear.
        Actually, it's a very easy format to write.   You see it; you hear it; you write it down.   The basic idea is to put in everything - except the music!

So, besides this petty piece of life history, what else can I tell you?

This is a twenty-two episode season, like those in the first and third years of the real Forever Knight.   Each episode has five acts, with a prologue ("teaser") and epilogue ("tag").   You can, if you like, assume that there are opening credits run after the prologue and closing credits after the epilogue; but I haven't bothered to put them in.   Nor have I put in commercials.   Purists among you should, however, feel free to put the transcription aside for the requisite time and go to the bathroom, if you feel the need.
        As a general rule, I follow the internal structure familiar to everyone who has seen the show:   the story almost always opens with the commission of the crime to be investigated; and the first act tends to open with the detectives at the murder scene.   And, of course, virtually every episode has a flashback to the past of one or more of the vampires in the series.