My Favorite Thing about 1841PT

[Julia99]

               The earrings!

and yours??? 

[Bette]

There's not much I cared for. I did like the scenes between Grayson and Karlen, especially near the end as the relationship between Julia and Kendrick evolves.

Bette

[Cassandra]

and yours??? 

 The scenery!  The PT room looks so pretty and colorful compared to the rest of the house and the other time periods.

 Other than that, I really didn't care all that much for this storyline, but I've only seen it once, so maybe viewing it a second time might change that.

Cassandra

[The Ghost of Sarah Collins]

My favorite thing of 1841 PT is Bramwell's love for Cathrine, in this storyline he is chasing her, although I understand they are two different people in Parallel Time,  I find it easy to imagine, they are Barnabas and Angelique and this time he is wanting her instead of the other way round, I find that very refreshing.   

   Sarah's

  I also love the Christmas decorations on the forum, so wintery I can almost hear the sleigh bells approaching Collinwood.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I know I'm in the minority, but there are quite a few things that I enjoy about this storyline.

One thing that's certainly high on my list is the characterization of Julia Collins. She's often depicted as a more hardened person than we're generally used to seeing on DS - at times going so far as being a first class bitch. Yes, we've seen bitches before (Samantha being the latest and perhaps even the greatest, simply because her bitchiness was a purely human frailty and in no way induced by some sort of supernatural element to her character), but there seems to be an even more hardened edge to Julia. And Grayson plays the role so well. But then, should that actually surprise anyone? 

[Gothick]

Thanks, MB, for those wonderful words about Grayson's performance as Julia Collins.  For me, Julia is *the* highlight of PT 1841.

I also agree with Bette about the scenes between Grayson and Karlen.  They are simply wonderful together!  I wish the story had ended with the two characters eloping together.

Least favorite characters--probably a 3 way tie between Catherine, Mama Josette, and Carrie!

G.

[Julia99]

I watched the scene yesterday where Julia escorted Catherine out of the house. . she does come across as a total bitch but you know . .really she just wants to spare the girl her life or sanity. . .she's really, down underneath it all, a pretty selfless lady. . .that Julia Collins, shucks!

[Philippe Cordier]

I'm one of the few who like 1841.  Briefly, the references to plague, the mystery of the room, the curse, and the lottery ... and I really liked when the secret room was discovered and what was found there deep within the Collinwood mansion.

Besides this, I felt the storyline was an appropriate ending to the series, as I've talked about in the past.

[Gerard]

I have really come to appreciate and enjoy PT1841, especially after viewing it several times.  Of course, when I first saw it during its original air in 1971, I didn't, since there was no Barnabas.  It seemed that no matter what time a story was set in, all the performers could play other characters, and make it all fun for the viewer, but there had to be Barnabas.  Now I see it differently.

Wednesday's episodes demonstrate how actually very good it really is.  There was good acting, wonderful directing, even the costumes and sets were vivid.  But the one thing that I noted was how intense the performers were in their parts.  For the first time in a long, long, long time, Jonathan Frid said his lines with such clarity and emotion, not once stumbling over them, doing a Ralph Cramden mah-mah-mah-mah trying to spit the right one out, or stalling while desperately hunting for the teleprompter.  I surmise the reason why was because Mr. Frid was given what he always wanted:  a different character.  So he went at the part with such vigor; it wasn't the same-old same-old to him.  And then there was one moment which I kept rewinding over and over again:  when Flora says about the curse:  "It would follow us......you know that."  Just the way she said those last three words with the conviction of futility and resignation.  And the whole story has such a gothic tone about it, a true gothic tone.  Such an air of - I don't know what to call it - darkness and despair hangs over that tragic family; you can just feel it.  Another one of my favorite scenes, of Melanie pounding on those cobweb covered doors, crying out in madness:  "Let me in!  Let me in!  I want to be with you!" just curdled my blood.  To me, it all has the look of a Roger Corman/Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe movie in lush color and atmospheric gloom from the '60's.

Gerard

[Connie]

I know what I enjoy about 1841 pt -----

Bramwell's hair!  It's so sexy without all the usual Vitalis in it.  I think JF looks quite handsome AND he's doing a much better job with lines, emotion, etc.

What I find rather thought-provoking about this parallel time is how Melanie can be playing a piece of music that hadn't even been written yet!  LOL  Now THAT'S magical.
Just goes to prove that the laws of physics are different in this time-band.  AND it proves that 1840 Quentin was right in his theories on time which he wrote about in his journal - that there IS no such thing as time...only space.
(He was way ahead of Einstein in this regard.)

 

[onyx_treasure]

     Connie,  I agree that Bramwell's hair looks so much nicer.  You could run your fingers through it without having to wash your hands afterwards.  However, Barnabas didn't seem like a man who would let you run your fingers through his hair.
     I am glad you mention about the music Melanie was playing.  It crossed my mind as I listened to it.  I think it sounded more appropriate for the time than say 'Joanna's theme' which sounded more like late 60's lounge music.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

What I find rather thought-provoking about this parallel time is how Melanie can be playing a piece of music that hadn't even been written yet!  LOL  Now THAT'S magical.

How do we know that it wasn't written yet?

The thing about Parallel Time is that  many things may be identical to our own band of time, but many will also be different. Who's to say when a particular piece of music was written or even by whom? (Well, unless it's specifically mentioned within the storyline itself.) And by that same token, who's to say what path fashion took in this band of time. In the past, several fans have been highly critical of Mary McKinley Hass' costumes, saying many aren't correct to the period. But the thing to keep in mind is correct to which period? Simply because they may not be correct to fashion as we know it in RT, it doesn't necessarily follow that that same evolutionary path of fashion took place in the exact same way in any band of PT. That's one of the really fun things about PT - almost anything, from the time a piece of music was written to the way fashion evolved, is up to anyone's imagination

[Midnite]

What I find rather thought-provoking about this parallel time is how Melanie can be playing a piece of music that hadn't even been written yet!  LOL  Now THAT'S magical.

Oh how funny!  I got so into the music while rewatching that scene the other day (a former mentor [and DS fan] routinely assigns an exercise of listening to Chopin's Nocturnes at least 100 times each, and in addition to helping with my poetry writing it opened up the world of classical music to me) that I completely forgot about that.  According to the timeline provided by The Chopin Foundation of the US, he didn't begin writing his final Ballade until 1841-1842.  More's the pity that it doesn't state if this is RT or PT.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

According to the timeline provided by The Chopin Foundation of the US, he didn't begin writing his final Ballade until 1841-1842.  More's the pity that it doesn't state if this is RT or PT.

I think it's almost an absolute certainty that they would be strictly referring to RT dates. 

[Connie]

How do we know that it wasn't written yet?

The thing about Parallel Time is that  many things may be identical to our own band of time, but many will also be different. Who's to say when a particular piece of music was written or even by whom?

Well, I happen to be very familiar with that particular piece.  The small snippet we hear is from a Chopin Ballade, Opus 52 No. 4.
He wrote it during the summer of 1842 and it wasn't published until 1843.     (Hey, but who's counting.)  LOL

According to the timeline provided by (URL), he didn't begin writing it until 1841-1842.  More's the pity that it doesn't state if this is RT or PT.

Wow.  Can you imagine if there really were a whole body of work written in parallel time as well??  Chopin died at such a young age that I've always wondered what wonderful stuff we could have had, had he lived longer.
(Oh, but wait.....ya never know.  His parallel counterpart might have ended up being someone like Bruno Hess or something)