I Suspect Julia Fans Will Agree

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Catching up on some past tweets I missed and I suspect a lot of Julia fans will agree with this one:

brianmtaylor Brian Taylor
Julia Hoffman: greatest argument for women in science. #DarkShadows
15 Jun

   Well, even if she did botch a few things here and there. But with the supernatural involved, she most certainly couldn't be blamed completely, if at all in most cases.  

[Heather]

Hi MB ,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear this and your explanation of her character on the show. Julia wasn't perfect and had some flaws, but she was one gutsy broad and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

[Gothick]

Nice to see that.  I've actually seen notes from various female fans over the years who said they got the idea as girls that they could grow up and become doctors or scientists as a result of seeing Julia on DS.

Even if she did goof now and then (I still cringe whenever that scene plays when she pronounces Liz dead--knowing the woman is prone to catatonic disorder and still not waiting to rush her to the hospital for tests).  Nobody does it like Julia!

G.

[michael c]

i think there are those who would certainly question the good doctor's ethics, like maggie evans for instance, or her competency, like the many, many people who went to her hospital and didn't receive any beneficial treatment and never got better...

still she had gusto and wore moss green tweed like nobody's business.

[Uncle Roger]

Loved her offering to give poor Sabrina a sedative when the girl was just barely functional.

[Gothick]

I always thought people in the production unit were having a bit of fun with Julia and her "Dr Feelgood" way with certain drugs in that scene where Julia offers to give a near-hysterical Carolyn Hawkes a sedative and Carolyn screams "I don't WANT a sedative, I want JEB!!!"

That was the same period that gave us Carolyn declaiming as the Collins family motto the deathless words:  "Hypocrisy above all."  Good times.

G.

[Heather]

LOL, G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Unfortunately for Maggie, in Julia's estimation the greater good of science outweighed the case of one woman. Almost all fictional doctors seem to think that way. (Who knows what it's like in real life?  ) And as for Windcliff, I often wonder if anyone ever stays there long enough to be cured because more of the patients we know about are either released prematurely or they seem to escape and are never sent back. Windcliff really needed to institute a good outpatient treatment program. 

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I've always enjoyed the episode in which we see poor Willie Loomis immediately after being shot by Sheriff Paterson's deputies, and barely clinging onto life under that oxygen tent in his hospital room, and we then see the cool-in-the-clutch and irrepressible Dr. Julia Hoffman, calmly puffing away on a cigarette right next to Willie's hospital bed!

(I'm surprised that Willie did not go up as the bodacious Bathia Mapes did on Dark Shadows!)

[Miss_Winthrop]

Perhaps Dan C, in an attempt at austerity, had Dr H take her cigarette break in front of the cameras, all in the name of saving money of course.

[michael c]

more than anything i think wyndcliff ended up serving as a depository for characters/actors taking time off or leaving the series whom the writers didn't want to permanently kill off...

doing summer stock? wyndcliff! joining your husband in paris? wyndcliff! taking a part on "the secret storm"? wyndcliff!

barnabas and willie both took restcures at wyndcliff...i wonder what jonathan frid and john karlen were up to in real life that necessitated their characters' time outs?

[Sandor]

It seemed rare for Jonathan Frid to get much time off from the show. Even when he was sent off to Wyndecliff in the fall of '68 following Angelique's shenanigans, Barnabas was only off the canvas for 8 shows (2 weeks). He got a longer vacation from the series during the 1897 storyline (most of September '69), and in an interview he mentioned getting to go to Europe during the series' run - maybe this was when he flew abroad without his bat wings.
John Karlen went over to "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing" on CBS while Willie did his stint at Wyndecliff in '67-'68. Karlen's character was short-lived on the other soap, but Willie was MIA from the Collinwood action from late September 1967 until May 1, 1968, when back he came - to taunt a captive Adam with a chicken leg.

Julia may not have been a by-the-book doctor, but she sure never took any time off for herself, or at least by choice. She could have attributed her bad medical choices to lack of relaxation and rest (and lust).