I have two problems with today's quote, though only one is storyline oriented. The one that isn't is this line:
"WHAT YEAR BE THIS?"
In the series, and particularly in the 1790 sequence, Barnabas speaks impeccably correct English. He would never say "What year be this?" when the correct way to ask the question would be "What year is this?"
True, Daniel incorrectly used "be" when he shouldn't have asked Vicki "Who be you?" and then introduced himself as "I be Daniel." But 1) he was a child, and 2) Vicki was quick to correct his grammar.
But the storyline problem comes with:
"YEAR? IT'S...IT'S 1991."
No it isn't. When Barnabas is released from his coffin it's 1990. Among other indications of that is that the date 1990 is listed on Daphne's plaque in the mausoleum after Barnabas has killed her. And given the fact that Barnabas has just been released from his coffin and hasn't even come across Daphne, well...
And the reasons why the '91 series actually begins in 1990 were twofold:
One is that when the series went into production in July, 1990, the original plan was for it to debut around Halloween 1990. But then NBC decided to do a huge promotional push to launch the series so they moved its debut to January 1991. (If only it had debuted in October, 1990 things might have been very different as in there wouldn't have been any Gulf War to interfere with it. But...)
The second is that the series wouldn't have to depict Collinsport during the winter if they placed 10 weeks of Barnabas' cure in the late fall and winter and decided to skip over those 10 weeks by merely referring to their passage during one of Julia's voiceovers. And one would think, given the fact that they chose to set their comics during those 10 skipped weeks of Barnabas' cure, when the creators of the comic researched the time frame of those 10 weeks, they would have realized that they took place in the late fall and the winter, and thus during the time when the transition from 1990 to 1991 took place. But apparently not... But then, as we'll see, that was hardly the only instance where they didn't think things completely through...