a woman under the influence

[michael c]

trapped indoors during this monsoon we're having in new york i started to think about liz.

once the show goes supernatural and barnabas,julia and angelique take over the writers faced a certain challenge in dealing with the original human characters.

eventually some were killed off(burke,sam,joe).the "ingenue" characters(vicki,carolyn,maggie)could get abducted,locked up or otherwise written into some sort of "damsel in distress" type situation.roger goes away on lots of "business trips".mrs.johnson fades into the background.david is usually good for some sort of possession.

they dealt with liz in a very specific way.joan bennett as elizabeth collins stoddard was too important a "presence" to be written out or otherwise ignored.so while after a certain point they couldn't give her a blackmail or similarly "soap opera-ish" storyline they needed to find something for her to do.this usually worked itself out by putting liz under a spell or some other influence.it happens to her more than any other character.laura puts her under a spell.the "widows" put her under a spell.cassandra puts her under a spell.the leviathans put her under a spell.gerard puts her under a spell.

whenever the storyline changes or returns to the present after another time period she's sort of regular liz for a few weeks before she's put under some kind of influence which makes her act strangely.after 1967 we hardly ever see haughty,imperious liz again.

[dom]

...and it's a cryin' shame. Liz is my favorite character (well, the 'old' Liz). Thank goodness for the time-traveling storylines, where we do get to at least enjoy Joan Bennett in meatier roles. As a Liz fan, it was a comfort that in her last appearence she is back to being her old self  - in charge, and not under any spell. She came across as being very content, and I was happy about that too.

[Brandon Collins]

It seems that if we were in regular time, Liz always had something going on that made her different from her normal self. Fortunately for us, when we were in different time period, JB was always given good roles to play. I actually like her period roles better than later Liz. Early Liz is, of course, always a joy to watch.

Liz was the woman who was in charge of her home yet had lost control slowly over time, due in large part to her own paranoia. Then she became bland and was put under many spells. If you think about it, all of the other characters JB played were an extension of Liz:

Namoi was a rich character, not at all unlike Liz. Naomi was loving towards her children, and tried to set her family on the right path, but was largely opressed by her husband who couldn't be bothered with her "trifiles", which drove her to drink herself to death (among other things).

Judith was yet another extension of Liz, but instead of being the losing side of the coin, Judith was on the winning side, at first anyway. She was powerful, determined, and yes, even a bit vindictive and greedy, but what Collins isn't? She ruled her home with an iron first (much like early Liz), and made sure everything and everyone were in their place. And, just like Liz, she was brought down by a lying piece-o-crap of a man.

We also had Flora, who was perky and naive, never really grasping what was going on. Flora could probably be likened to a younger, teenage Liz, though I like to think that Liz was smart even when she was young. Flora is probably the least-like Liz out of the three character I've mentioned. Actually, Flora might be what Liz would've been (maybe not as perky and naive, but somewhere inbetween) if Liz didn't have such a rough life.

So, really, we did get treated to Liz, quite a few editions of her, and we got to explore a number of different sides of her personality through these various characters.