Discuss - Ep #0293

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #293

[Lydia]

When Barnabas tell Willie that he has no plans to harm Vicky, what does he mean?  Does he mean that making her into a vampire wouldn't be harming her because surely everybody would be happy to have spiky bangs through all eternity?  Or is that he's putting his vampirical plans on hold on the off-chance that Dr. Hoffman may succeed in curing him?  Or is he just saying anything to shut Willie up?

Burke is back to being his old unpleasant self.  I wish the writers would give Barnabas a more worthy opponent.  But apparently the fact that Burke isn't a vampire is supposed to be enough to tip the balance in his favor.

[MagnusTrask]

Burke is a chisel-jawed man's man, who's made nervous by any display of imagination over hard-headed, boring pragmatism.    Of course he's the hero.    Considering that everything on TV was a few years behind social reality, Burke was the perfect TV hero for 1967... or maybe 1957.

[loril54]

The line that Willie said to Barnabas about lonliness was fantastic, a perfect come back. Burke should have picked up that Vickie liked the gallantry.

Burke looks like Uncle J, also is romancing Vickie the Josette replacement = Barnabas hates him.

Barnabas and Burke were dueling with words, I bet the Barnabas hoped that it would be swords. Dead mens eyey, Barnabas could say now! If Barnabas doesn't watch out he will trip himself up.

JF did great today, totally in character, very empirious, giveing commands and wanting them to be kept.

I loved the starting picture of Barnabas by the casket. Geeat. Great for wall paper and screen print.

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[michael c]

Burke is a chisel-jawed man's man, who's made nervous by any display of imagination over hard-headed, boring pragmatism.    Of course he's the hero.    Considering that everything on TV was a few years behind social reality, Burke was the perfect TV hero for 1967... or maybe 1957.

it's funny how quickly the set-up changed on the show.

here burke is being described as a "hero" when just scant months earlier he served as the show's arch villian.
bedding carolyn,putting the moves on roger's wife,trying to destroy the collins family and in general creating headaches for everyone on collinsport.

suddenly he's the "hero".

it's also interesting that this fundamental change in the character's purpose coincided almost to the episode with the change in actors from mitch ryan to anthony george.i'll forever wonder if the entire direction that the show went into would have turned out completely different if mr.ryan had not left abruptly when he did.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say he became the hero that early, but they definitely began to mellow Burke after the hit-and-run accident storyline was resolved - so it seems likely they were planning for a change in direction with Burke before Anthony George was cast. But George's arrival most definitely pushed it full steam ahead.

What would have been fascinating to see would have been if Barn had been killed off as planned and Burke had stuck around to further evolve - particularly as the hero. Would he have remained completely opposed to and disbelieving of anything supernatural? Or would he have come to accept it and not only be involved in it but to embrace it?

[MagnusTrask]

Burke, perpetual dupe, I say.    But then, if they were willing to rehabilitate him in that way, they wouldn't have hestitated to do the same for Barnabas, a much better character... which they did... but then we couldn't have counted on them to know that could we?    Mr. Rugged and Down-to-Earth was usually seen as the ideal hero, until the public would knock sense into producers' heads.

I've never seen pre-Barnabas, so I don't know Mitch.   The list for me is growing of all the implausible moral about-faces throughout DS, in both directions.

[EmeraldRose]

I loved the sparring match between Barnabas and Burke - and Vicki was clueless!    It's interesting how characters on soap operas often start out as villians and then, over time, become good guys - like Burke did, and Barnabas will.

I'm with Burke, though, I like creature comforts.  Central heating and electricity are essentials!  Barnabas sure didn't get the message from Burke that three's a crowd!  

----- Sally -----

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's interesting how characters on soap operas often start out as villians and then, over time, become good guys - like Burke did, and Barnabas will.

Well, as we've mentioned before, it's pretty hard to consider that Barnabas ever became a "good guy" in the truest sense of the term. He did do occasional good things whenever it fit in with his agenda. But good guys tend to not act as vigilantes who dole out "justice" on their own - they allow the suitable authorities to handle it.    And they definitely don't go around killing people simply to protect their own deep, dark, secrets...

And say what one will about Burke's tactics when he first appeared on DS - but he never approached anywhere near the scale of villainy that Barn did. In comparison to Barn, Burke could almost be considered a straight arrow throughout! 

[loril54]

But can you imagine Julia  and Barnabas saying what really happened out Collinwood.  Julia and Barnabas would have  had their own private rooms at Wyndcliff. I would have loved to hear the stories that they told. That is called fancy talking and dancing.

[MagnusTrask]

Well, as we've mentioned before, it's pretty hard to consider that Barnabas ever became a "good guy" in the truest sense of the term. He did do occasional good things whenever it fit in with his agenda. But good guys tend to not act as vigilantes who dole out "justice" on their own - they allow the suitable authorities to handle it.    And they definitely don't go around killing people simply to protect their own deep, dark, secrets...

I think most people who like DS do consider him a 'good guy', so it's not that difficult.    Many started months or years into BC's part of the story and so never saw the worst of him.    My image is changing for the first time watching 1968 and his questionable invisible "transformation".

TV is filled with examples of good guys doling out justice on a freelance basis, ignoring authority, often even being targets of authority themselves.    Partly this is because reality teaches us not to just trust legal authority to do the right thing, despite the respectable suburban sensibilities many of us were raised with.    That's what the 60s ended up being about to a large extent.    

[Mysterious Benefactor]

We can most certainly say Barn became an anti-hero, which is typically defined as a character performing acts which might be deemed "heroic" (at least in scale and daring), but using methods, manners, or intentions that may not be so - but which are, in fact, often underhanded or deceitful. But, I'm sorry, anyone who might consider Barn widely synonymous with the classic/truest idea of the good guy/hero has some oddly twisted values.    That distinction may come across to some as semantics, but it really isn't. The good guy/hero is not underhanded or deceitful (or, heaven forbid, murderous). And one doesn't have to go all the way back to Barn's initial story to find that all those qualities were still well within him. And truthfully, as I've said before, the fact that they were is what makes him so interesting...

[MagnusTrask]

I agree, and I see Barnabas very differently now after having seen 1968 twice, but I was just talking about the narrower issue of always trusting the law, police and courts to handle right and wrong, and guilt and innocence.   

[loril54]

If Barnabas, Julia, or the Collins told the truth. They would  have a family cell at Wyndcliff.