Nightfall (A Supernatural Drama)

[Brian Melanson]

PLOT

What if the night was alive? What if every legend of things that goes bump in the night is real? What if you were one of many to stop them all? What if you found yourself caught in the middle of a supernatural war that has been brewing since the dawn of man? For some of the citizens of Blackridge, New York… this is their fate.

Phoebe Reynolds has been a vampire since 1776. She has lived through all of the greatest moments in American History. But now she wants to settle down and live a normal life. She returns back to the town where she used to call home and enrolls in High School. There she meets two amazing people and one mysterious boy, Clark Adams. She finds herself drawn to him and finds herself falling for him. But when Phoebe and Sarah realize that history is repeating itself in Blackridge, they are caught up in the Supernatural War they thought was over.


Characters

Dove Cameron as Phoebe Reynolds

Phoebe has lived a life like any other teenage girl has.  She's fallen in love, gone to dances, oh and she's a vampire.  For over 300 years, Phoebe has been adjusting to her life style and trying to balance her past mistakes and choices while looking towards the future.  She returns back to her town in hopes of starting anew.  But when mysterious murders begin to follow a pattern from her human life, she begins to suspect that history is repeating itself and that the entire town is now in danger.  Not only does she have to worry about this great evil possibly returning, she must also try and understand why she has fallen for this boy, Clark Adams, an descendent of her first love. 


Burkely Duffield as Clark Adams
Clark had it all.  A football scholarship, two loving parents and a sister who loved him more than anything in the world.  But disaster struck when his parents were found murdered.  He turned to hiding instead of living.  But then he meets Phoebe Reynolds, a girl who actually listens and understands what he's going through.  Little does Clark know, his family has a dark history that is being kept from him and now with this dark power coming to Blackridge, he must fufill his duty to his family bloodline. But what is more important, duty... or true love? 

Taissa Farmiga as Kara Goode
Kara has lived in Blackridge her whole life.  Despite not having her father in her life and being raised by her Mother who couldn't give two craps, she has managed to stay positive.  And after meeting her now best friend Phoebe, she wants to start Senior Year off with a bang.  But not everything goes as planned for her.  She begins to see that things are not always as they seem as she begins to light fires with a scream, move things across her room and have visions of things to come.  With the aid of her Science Teacher, she begins to understand her history as a witch and how she can control it and use her powers for good. 

Ki Hong Lee as Bennett Moore
Who can't live without a little bit of a Jimmy Cricket on their shoulder.  That's what Bennett Moore is to his friends.   He is able to help guide them from right to wrong and make sure they always come out making the right choices.  As he becomes fast friends with Phoebe, he begins to discover that things are not what they seem as his friends begin lying to him and exclude him from their after school activities.  But when he discovers the truth, will he become a martyr to protect his friends? 

Amandla Stenberg as Mallory “Mal” Lowe
It's easy to say that Mal didn't have the best life. After being bounced around from foster home to foster home, she never could call a place home. That is until she came to Blackridge. After being adopted by the Henderson Family, she tried so hard to get out of old habits, but with her anger issues and dark past, she hides all the pain behind sarcasam and doing illegal things. She meets young Bradley Marks during Summer School and after learning more about him, she had feelings for him. But he broke her heart. So, now she’s taking life by the horns and trying to live. But could some old feelings get in the way?

K. J. Apa as Bradley Marks
Cocky, arrogant, and a bit of a f**kboy, Bradley Marks was your typical jock.  He was dating a cheerleader.  He has parents that take care of him.  But after almost being expelled from school, Bradley discovered that it's time for him to grow up.  That all began in Summer School where he met Mallory Lowe.  They had a fling but it all ended when he came clean that he had a girlfriend.  In the end, he lost both his girlfriend and his fling.  Now with Senior Year starting, Bradley is trying to make things up to Mal and become her friend.  But will these two former flings actually make it work as friends or will old sexual tensions flare up again? 

Maika Monroe as Vanessa Vanderwood
Meet the Devil herself, so to speak.  She owns Blackridge High and thinks she is about ready to run the town.  For a girl with high goals, she truly believes she is an immortal goddess.  But losing her boyfriend to him cheating on her with another girl is not something she likes.  But she's ready to get her groove back and take over yet again.  But as bad things begin to happen, she finds herself caught up in the mess. 

with Rahul Kohli as Micah Fell
Micah always had a passion for nature.  Since he was a boy, he always dreamed of being connected to it in a greater way.  Good thing he comes from a long line of witches.  As years went by, he found himself controlling his magic.  But when he meets Kara Goode, he takes it upon himself to help teach her how to control her magic like he did and fully embrace what is means to be a witch.  There is more to him than meets to eye, could everything he's doing be for a greater motive? 

Jenna Coleman as Sarah O’Connell
Being a governess for over 500 years has it's up and downs, but Sarah has taken it upon herself to help train future girls and boys to live life to their fullest.  During her time in America, she takes in young Phoebe Reynolds and teaches her not only how to live life to the fullest and live it safely, but how to be a vampire and not a killer.  Now she is using her long life and skills to become the new Detective and figure out how to stop the murders from happening.  But with a long life, comes secrets that she is trying to keep buried.  And now with a dark power returning to Blackridge, her secrets are on the verge of being exposed. 

and Teressa Liane as Evelyn Reynold
She always cared for her sister. Evelyn and Phoebe were always attached at the hip, known to the village as the Reynolds Sisters. But when they are both turned into Vampires, they tried to live their life as true vampires. But after a big mistake, Evelyn went away for a while. Then when someone brings her back to Blackridge and promises her revenge on her baby sister, she is on a mission to break a powerful spell. Can she be redeemed or is Evelyn too far gone?

Episodes

1x01: Into the Darkness 

THE SERIES PREMIERE — It’s the first day back at school and Phoebe Reynolds is ready to give her immortal life purpose by going to High School again. As she tries to get through the day, she comes in contact with young Clark Adams, a boy in Blackridge who is struggling moving on after the death of his parents. As these two teens begin to discover they are not so different people, murders rock the town of Blackridge and everyone is beginning to wonder if their town is safe. An old group of Hunters come back into order to keep the dark secrets of Blackridge hidden.
PILOT: [x]

 

1x02: With Every Sun Rise 

AND THEN THE SUN CAME UP — Phoebe and Clark get back to their normal as Clark tries out for the football team and asks Phoebe out on a date. Kara begins to wonder why new teacher, Micah Fell, knows about her family history. Meanwhile, Evelyn sets her next plan into action and it puts Vanessa at risk. Bradley tries to fix old wounds with Mal. Finally, Sarah joins the Blackridge Police.

1x03: Love Thy Family 

HELLO LITTLE SISTER — Clark and Phoebe attempt their date night as Evelyn finally reveals herself to Phoebe. Meanwhile, Evelyn puts her next phase of her plan into motion resulting in another life being lost. Kara discovers that there is more to the supernatural world than witches. Finally, Sarah discovers what Chloe’s intentions truly are.

1x04: Who You Are 

1x05: You and I, Forevermore
1x06: The Tale of Two Sisters
1x07: The Killer Within
1x08: As the World Turns
1x09: Here Lies The Darkness
1x10: One Day of Normalcy

[guyrjames]

Pitch looks awesome!! I remember being interested in the old pitch so I am definitely looking forward to a pilot. This is right up my alley. Good job!

[Brian Melanson]

UPDATE: May 14th 2017: New Graphics, Pilot Added.

[Brian Melanson]

UPDATE: 8/26/17
- NEW PILOT UPDATED

[Brady Brown]

REVIEW: "Into the Darkness"

So, Nightfall definitely had a lot of tropes and stereotypes it needed to shy away from, especially because of shows like The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, even sometimes Buffy, and I think it managed to honor some of those cliches in a really clever way; however, it definitely did succumb to some of them. I think that the pilot did everything it needed to do, though, it terms of setting up characters, relationships, and plot points to propel the season forward. That being said, I thought "Into the Darkness" was a fun, briskly paced, and just unique enough to differentiate itself among the myriad of vampire fiction in media today.

I'll start off with talking about our protagonist—Phoebe. She works, and is probably the strongest character in the pilot. Her characteristics are distinct; she's strong, and she's got a great willpower driving her forward. My favorite scenes were definitely the ones where she was fighting her bloodlust. Without even knowing what kind of character she is, it showed us that she was having an internal conflict that, while not (hopefully) blood related, most can relate to. I also like that we're seeing her vampire perspective rather than the main character being an outsider trying to understand this world. She also had a great relationship with Sarah, and I think it's an interesting dynamic to be played; her not being her actual aunt but her former governess was a nice twist, and definitely stemmed away from a similarity of TVD.

Clark also worked pretty well as the male lead. His character is a bit more cliched than Phoebe's (brooding teenage boy with a troubled past and no parents), but he was likable and had good distinctions. He's very caring but also protective of himself, and I think those are some great qualities to run with in terms of fleshing him out. As far as his relationship with Phoebe goes, I think it's being rushed. I know you wrote several times in the episode that "it's just a friendship right now" but that's not something we can visualize. Seeing Phoebe and Clark holding hands and resting on to one another doesn't read as what it was written as, so my suggestion would be to write things we can visualize. It worked when you had things like "she's thinking about blah blah," or "she's fighting this and this" because those are tactics that can be played. Anyway, I think, considering they've known each other for (correct me if I'm wrong) a day, their dynamic seemed forced. I absolutely loved their scenes at the party and at the end of the episode, and I think the romance-y-stuff-masquerading-as-friends-stuff could have been cut. I think it's much more interesting for them to start strictly as friends, and to see a friendship build rather than have them already best buddies by the episodes end and seeing a romance grow. Speaking of which, watch the Romeo & Juliet stuff. It's an interesting parallel you're trying to make, but it started to become in your face and over the top, so more subtly would make it stronger.

As far as the other characters, they were fine. No one really stood out except for Courtney, who had the strongest personality of the bunch. I have a gripe with how Mal, Bradley, and Vanessa were portrayed, though. I think this whole "love triangle" thing came off very cliche and forced, and I don't understand why Bradley was portrayed as someone we should be rooting for when, at least the way I interpreted as, he was pulling along and manipulating both Mal and Vanessa, who are some reason mad at each other and still want to be with Bradley? I didn't like it at all. I understand Vanessa is the bitchy character and Mal is the weirdo but that doesn't mean they have to automatically be at each other's throats. As I mentioned before, when the pilot went against cliches, it worked really well (ie. Clark and Phoebe's first touch). It would have been much more interesting to see Mal and Vanessa work through the fact that Bradley treated them both horribly as opposed to them both finding comfort in him.

My main issues in the pilot comes from the dialogue. A lot of it is flooded with exposition. It's always a balance of show-don't-tell. We can figure out that Bradley did something shitty to both Vanessa and Mal without them screaming "you cheated on me!" to him in every scene. Anything that feels like it's explaining something to the audience is what I'm referring to. I think actually saying your dialogue and figuring out if someone you were talking to would actually say that is something that's helped me a lot. Some of the dialogue was also incredibly over-dramatic, specifically the Mal/Bradley/Vanessa stuff. It's just really over the top, and it's hard to imagine teenagers talking like this. I think it works well with Phoebe considering she's over 200 years old, but it doesn't work for the mortals.

Issues aside, this was a pretty solid pilot. It had a couple of good twists thrown in there, and Phoebe is a really strong lead character. I think re-examining some of the dialogue and relationship drama would really improve this episode and episodes moving forward. Let the audience try and figure some things out without it being spelled out to us, because it's 100% more interesting that way. But yeah, nice first start, and it left me wanting to know what was going to happen next, which is exactly what a pilot is supposed to do.