Forever – Season 1 Complete

I just finished watching the Season Finale of Forever and I have to say that overall I’m pretty impressed with the show. For those that aren’t familiar with the series, it goes a little something like this:

Henry Morgan is a NY Medical Examiner with a vast knowledge on multiple subjects. On the surface, this is a well written crime drama that uses actual thinking rather than relying on ridiculous computer hacks, like converting a blurry image, shot at night, from a traffic camera a mile away which all of sudden looks crystal clear, to solve crimes. It has many elements from the Sherlock Holmes novels such as identifying poisons from their smell, a painting being moved, footprints in the carpet, the subtle remnants of perfume in the room and other minor clues that are left behind.

But apart from that, Henry Morgan is apparently immortal. During an altercation where he puts another’s life above his own, he is struck down by a bullet, but lives to tell the tale. From that point, he has died hundreds of times, always coming back in one piece. So the reason he’s in the medical field, he knows a little something about death.

We also have Henry living with his son, a boy he rescued during the war who is old enough to be his grandfather. So besides the interesting crime stories, we have observations on what it’s like to live and love and what it means to die.

Henry struggles with the "curse" of outliving all the people he loves. His great loves have passed away while he has stayed young. And at some point, he will have to deal with the death of his son. How can he make the most of his life when those around him will pass away?

But if there is one, there is surely another. And on the other end we have Adam, a man who has lived even longer than Henry, but the ravages of time and man have taken a different toll on him.

It’s an interesting dilemma. What would it mean to live forever or at least for a thousand years? Immortality has been presented in Frankenstein and Dracula, but those always come with a terrible price. But what if the price was simply outliving everyone? You could walk in the daylight and live a normal life, it just wouldn’t end.

Of course, it would have been much easier to mask such a condition hundreds of years ago. Back in the 1800s all had you had to do was walk 50 miles down the road and you were in another world. There were no records to follow you, no picture IDs to confirm your identity. It would be relatively easy to start over. But not so much today. Even if you were in the know and could get the birth certificate, what about all the digital records people have access to now? People get suspicious if you don’t have something on Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere. And what about a hundred years from now? What would it take to hid the inability to age and then sneak off to another place where you could start anew?

The idea of living for a hundred of thousand years sounds fascinating. All the things you would see and experience. All the places you could go and all the knowledge you could take in. But what of the downside we see in Forever. Does endless life lead to madness? Would outliving everyone you know push you away from love and companionship? Would you be able to trust someone with that secret? As we see in the show, when Henry reveals his secret he is put into a mental institution. And would you be able to survive in a digital world where everything you do is tracked?

I think we all say we wish we had more time, but what if that’s all you had? Where would you end up? What would you do? And then once you’ve travelled and read, what next? And what jobs would you have? I suppose you would have to keep switching so people didn’t discover you. I suppose there is always the life of Robinson Crusoe, but that’s not really living is it?

Other Articles of Interest:

• What lies in store if you live Forever?
• Forever – Interesting stories and an interesting look at life
• 666 Park Avenue – Episode 3
• Dracula – Season 1
• Da Vinici’s Demons – Season 2 Finale
• The Dead Files – Evil in Erieville – S01E01
• Ghost Adventures – The Copper Queen Hotel and The Oliver House – S06E03
• 666 Park Avenue
• Sleepy Hollow – Season 1
• Ghost Stalkers – Whisperers Estate – S01E01