Discuss - Ep #0134

[Watching Project]

Robservations #134

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Pretty cool how David Ford goes from the Blue Whale set with a lit cigarette to the location shot in Essex with a lit cigarette.

And it was also nice to see that in this ep they had David dressed in the same jersey that he was wearing in the location footage. However - and we all know DC thought the audience was too dumb to even notice such things - but really - who were they kidding using location footage showing David looking from what was obviously a grouping of two windows, windows with multiple panes, no less, and then showing him looking from the single-paned and single stained glass window, no less, in his bedroom as if they're supposed to be the same window?! 

At least they might have been able to get away with it when they used the same location footage back in Ep #15 when David was supposed to be looking from the window of Vicki's bedroom, especially considering that the audience wasn't all that familiar with all the sets yet - but most certainly not when David was supposed to look from one of his own bedroom windows - windows the audience was already quite familiar with!    It's actually insulting that DC thought the audience was that unobservant and clueless...

[DarkLady]

Yeah, and don't forget Vicki's changing clothes and hairdo when she walks along the shore below Widows' Hill. And a million other instances, even without location footage, much later on.

David is so insecure about meeting his mother that he actually asks the hated Miss Winters for her advice. Better the devil you know, I suppose....

[tragic bat]

This is the most hideous, figure-unflattering dress they could have possibly chosen for Diana Millay to wear.  Honestly, if she was pregnant at the time, you'd think they would try to conceal that pregnancy instead of putting her in clingy, baggy maternity clothes that make her look so dumpy.  No wonder David was so creeped out.  Laura must really be insane to think that looked good. 

[MagnusTrask]

I wish I'd been able to save this story so that I could watch it now for the first time and comment right after.   As it is, I'm now watching this storyline slowly weeks after having watched it over the holidays very quickly, which is a strange experience.   I'd have had better comments back then.     I had the same thought about David's window though, MB.

[alwaysdavid]

David wants to see his mother, changes his mind and ends up saying that she is not his mother. Other people have commented that Laura seems changed and different.  David seems to have sense of these things. Maybe this is not his mother only someone who looks as if she were Laura.

[Lydia]

It's actually insulting that DC thought the audience was that unobservant and clueless...

But I am unobservant and clueless!  Dan Curtis had me pegged!  I didn't notice the difference in the windows!  MB, I am the perfect Dark Shadows viewer, and you are not.

This is the most hideous, figure-unflattering dress they could have possibly chosen for Diana Millay to wear.  Honestly, if she was pregnant at the time, you'd think they would try to conceal that pregnancy instead of putting her in clingy, baggy maternity clothes that make her look so dumpy.  No wonder David was so creeped out.  Laura must really be insane to think that looked good.

Elizabeth was wearing a dress that appeared (to my fashion-blind eyes, anyway) to be in the same style as Laura's dress.  And Roger appeared to have dressed up for the occasion, so my conclusion was that in December of 1966, Ohrbach's said, "This is what you wear when you want to impress your former in-laws."

Another note on clothing: David Collins knows how to tie a tie.  At age 8.  (It is 8, isn't it?)  This is what it means to be a Collins.  All other 8-year-old boys wear a clip-on tie, but Collins kids learn to tie their own ties before they learn to tie their shoelaces.

I'm having a problem with timing.  We have been told recently that Laura was institutionalized when David was five, and that he barely remembers her.  And Elizabeth says she has been trying to fill the role of mother for David since then.  Here's what we were told in episodes in the past few months: Roger, Laura, and David lived in Augusta.  Laura and David were very close, and Roger was odd man out.  David heard his parents having heated arguments in which the name Burke kept coming up.  And my impression was that it was pretty recently that Roger ran aground in Augusta (no details on how exactly he messed up) and came back to live at Collinwood doing a job that Elizabeth dreamed up for him.  Is there anyway of reconciling what we were told previously and what we're being told now?  Because, you know, I'm unobservant and clueless and I can't figure these things out for myself.

[MagnusTrask]

But I am unobservant and clueless!  Dan Curtis had me pegged!  I didn't notice the difference in the windows!  MB, I am the perfect Dark Shadows viewer, and you are not.

LOL, Lydia.

What's odd to me is that in one of these episodes, Laura said she and David would go to the cliff on Widow's Hill frequently and talk.   How long did she live at Collinwood?   Long enough for David to grow enough to be able to go for walks and have conversations about Madagascar?   

She did live at Collinsport for awhile, since it's at least implied that her supposed "crack-up" (whatever it was) happened there, because her deterioration made things hard on the family.   Yet it also happened after Roger and Laura had lived in Augusta for several years.   I suppose lots of visits to Collinwood would explain it all.

I suppose that after Laura was institutionalized, Roger hung out on his own in Augusta, blowing his inheritance on all the expensive fun to be had there (before reaching zero in the bank account and turning up at Collinwood again).   On second thought, maybe he went to Boston or New York... leaving David in Augusta with (bad) babysitters?

[alwaysdavid]

I would imagine that Roger and Laura would not have gone into town when they visited to avoid the gossip and the inferior locals explaining that the townsfolk hadn't seen her for years.