Vicky's Dream had me spellbound today. The lead-up to it was good, with both Vicky and Barnabas expressing despair. Then all the way through it Vicky knew what the outcome was to be, so that the terror of the Dream was not from anything inside it but from the knowledge, even while she was dreaming, that this was just a means to an end. Jonathan Frid did the silly poem beautifully, and all through the dream I felt terribly sorry for Vicky in her hopelessness. And when she woke up, she knew that, unlike with other nightmares, the horror had not finished but was rather just starting. A job very well done.
Frid made an interesting Beckoner. He looked sympathetic to Vicky as he waved her through the door, but then he closed the door quite sharply and decisively.
Willie's a prize, isn't he? He's so sure that he's got something going with Maggie, and he's all ready to let Joe die so that he won't have any competition. It was mean of Barnabas to threaten to tell the police that Willie had a motive for murdering Joe - but Willie sure asked for it.
And then on the other hand there's Julia, suggesting that she and Barnabas go away together, and desperately hoping, no doubt, that in time Barnabas would come to love her - and Barnabas won't go away, because "You know how I feel about Vicky." Poor Julia isn't allowed to have the sort of illusion that Willie cherishes.
If Barnabas understood that his freedom from the vampire curse depended on Adam staying alive, and if he had the option of returning in time to the point just before the Experiment took place and canceling it...would he choose to do that, knowing that Sam Evans is dead because of Adam, and that Joe could easily have died because of Adam? I'm inclined to say, "No, he wouldn't" - but I'm not sure.
