This photo provided by ABC shows Ioan Gruffudd in a scene from the television show, “Forever,” on the ABC Television Network. The crime drama about an immortal man. (AP Photo/ABC, K.C. Bailey)
Dr. Henry Morgan has a simple problem: for about two centuries now, he cannot die.
While one may try to summarise the show better, there really is nothing more to the essentials. At least on first glance.
Dr. Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd) is not a vampire, which pretty much puts me out of my genre a bit. However, he is still an immortal. Or rather – whenever he gets killed, he returns in a nearby body of water, stark naked, yet healthy and young as if nothing ever happened.
Unlike (most) vampires, Henry considers his way of existence a curse and constantly tries to find his way out. He does so mainly by analysing the ways people die, trying to figure out what would work for him, sometimes by trial and error. Macabre a bit? Loads, actually.
Naturally the good doctor isn’t on his own.
FOREVER – ABC’s “Forever” stars Joel David Moore as Lucas, Judd Hirsch as Abe, Ioan Gruffudd as Henry, Alana De La Garza as Detective Jo Martinez, Donnie Keshawarz as Detective Hanson and Lorraine Touissant as Lt. Joanne Reece. (ABC/Bob D’Amico)
Abe, a man somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies, is the only living man who knows Henry’s secret, due to the fact that good Henry more or less raised the man as his own son after, he was found at one of the concentration camps of WW II. Though he appears older than Dr. Morgan on the outside, his mind has stayed younger. He is the small voice at the back of his father’s head, reminding him to live life now and then – plus he has a great sense of humour.
Then there is Jo Martinez, working for the local police department. She often relies on Dr. Morgan, seeing as he works at the local morgue. With them, things often end up a bit like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, only the doctor ends up coming off like good Sherlock. Possibly a bit less arrogant and with better social skills.
Mix into that Lucas Wahl, Henry’s co-worker at the forensic medicine institute and a mysterious stranger, who not only knows about the curse but also suffers from it (allegedly for much, much longer) and you get a show that’s nice to watch and now and then rubs one of the essential questions of life right under your nose. What’s life really about? What would you do if you really had eternity at your disposal? How would you handle it if your loved ones kept toppling over dead while you simply cannot move on?
