Disturbing DS Episodes

[Gerard]

For me, as a kid watching the original, Yaeger's assault (let's say it - he raped her) of Buffy Harrington, who was one of my favorite "B-List" characters, was very unnerving.  Of course, I didn't understand fully what had happened when I watched it, but something made my skin crawl.  When I was older and saw it again, I knew fully what had occured and that made it even creepier.  Although it was "unspoken" when it first aired, that was pretty heavy stuff for a daytime soap back then; I'm surprised the censors allowed it.  Was that the first time such a horrible thing happened on a soap?  Another DS "first?"

Also, as already mentioned, Barnabas finding the terrified and traumatized Maggie after she escaped, pulling her up by her arm as she screamed, ready to kill her, also was highly disturbing to me when I first saw it.  It still is.  I remember when Barnabas was the original fiend as he was initially suppose to be, brilliantly tempered by his anguish of being what he was.

Gerard

[michael c]

I agree gerard...


the buffy harrington character/storyline was in a general of a more "adult" sensibility than some of the more adolescent plotting. and the scene you describe, with it's undercurrents of sadomasochism, was striking in it's sexual frankness given the time and the perimeters the series had set for itself.


and the early barnabas/maggie stuff was highly disturbing in it's cruelty and sadisticness. even if we were not dealing with a "vampire", take that element out of it completely, and have it just be about a man trying to turn a defenseless woman into the image of a dead lover, through the complete eradication of her own identity, was strong stuff. that imagery was indelible for me and in later storylines when they attempted to pair the two up romantically I couldn't get past it and found it revolting.

needless to say the murder of doctor woodard was shocking in it's bleakness and profound sense of betrayal and despair. it's almost overpowering to watch.

and in a similar vein to the yeager/buffy scenes adam's strongly implied attempted sexual assault of carolyn(although, again, the word "rape" was never spelled out in specifics)was pretty stunning too.


because the supernatural stuff was so far out and, in some cases, even rather ridiculous, I've always found the incidents of more human cruelty to be more disturbing than anything else. when those scenes were well played they were quite shocking.

[IluvBarnabas]

Cyrus/Yaeger's attraction and abduction of Maggie really disturbed me. Yaeger's delusions (helped by 'Alexis') that he could make Maggie fall magically in love with him the longer he held her prisoner and the more sadistic he got with her (like forcing her to write a farewell note to Quentin by threatening to kill her hubby) was really scary, maybe because it is a scenario that could (and probably has) happen in real life.

But the fact that Cyrus started developing the same sick obsession was really frightening....he's supposed to be the 'good' one when in fact he wouldn't mind stabbing his supposed best friend Quentin in the back, (not to mention fiancée Sabrina) by acting on his attraction to Maggie.

[MagnusTrask]

They really were the same person, that's the important thing.

[Josette]

As Magnus said, they were the same person, but "good" Cyrus would never have acted upon it.