Discuss - Ep #0837

[Watching Project]

Robservations #837

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0837

[MagnusTrask]

Louis VO.  Welcome, Julia, to 1897!  You finally figured out where the action is!  Was this promoted heavily?  Were fans unhappy with Magda?  Hard to believe.  Perhaps they hoped for a Magda/Julia scene! 

I love how the trip affects her.  She didn't just pop in and get down to business.  How this was written and acted gets across what a strange barrier had to be crossed, in order for her to come here.  This was not something that happened every day.  Laws of reality were violated, and prices had to be paid.  This is very satisfying, after time travel moments we saw earlier, such as the one where Barnabas decided he must be able to will himself back, having no reason to think he could possible do so... then he does.  Julia's trip got across time travel as being hard.  It was a phenomenon that didn't just "happen"; it followed rules, most of which are unknowns to us.

Julia's nicely aged letter from Barnabas and her clothes made the trip with her, which seems strange, considering what we find out later about her 1897 "self"... Her clothes should only exist once, though I don't know why I should find this harder to accept than she herself being in two times and places.  Maybe in the back of my mind I'm pondering her making the journey Terminator-style...  The letter certainly shouldn't have made the trip.  I would have liked a scene, though, where someone holds in her/his hands both old and new versions of the same letter...

What and where is "The Rectory"?  Another building on the estate to keep track of?  Did the Collinses once have their own minister who lived there, isn't that what a rectory is?

[DarkLady]

I'm sure Julia thinks of her clothes as part of her astral self. Good thing she's still wearing her coat, though, or she might have gotten cold lying out there on the doorstep.

Once again we get to see how brave Julia really is. And once again I wish I had seen the show when it first aired and I was desperately in need of good, strong female role models. But better late than never.

I absolutely adored Pansity's cut-out, lace-up bright blue shoes and want a pair in every color. Now.

Funny how Pansity's first impression of Julia is that she has "doom and disaster written all over her face." But Quentin is much smarter and takes the time to read the letter. He immediately goes to the Old House and springs Barnabas. He is careful to hang the keys to the cell back where he found them and comments with gleefully, It is going to be a generally disappointing evening for Edward, isn't it?

Barn tells Quentin that the Old Rectory is on Pine Road, which kind of seems off campus, at least off the estate. I doubt the Collinses would have had their own private chapel and clergyman. I can imagine them dressed up in their opulent Sunday best, riding to town in their magnificent coach and perfectly matched horses for services at the church that they surely paid for every brick of. They would sit in their own private front pew so that all the lowly townspeople could admire them (or at least pretend to) and so that they could be really sure that the poor parson wouldn't preach on annoying texts like "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."

Lovely to see how solicitously Barnabas cares for his "dear friend." But alas, it's now the morning of September 10.

[Uncle Roger]

Magnus, I don't recall Julia's time traveling being promoted at all back then. Maybe because DS was so popular it didn't need promotion?

It did seem a little odd to suddenly replace Magda with Julia. Magda was quite popular with the fans and was also Grayson's favorite character. Maybe MB or one of the Grayson scholars has more information.

[MagnusTrask]

DL, I remember the close up on Pansity's big high shoes now... they came across as a nice purple (my favorite color) on my VHS.  Nothing seemed to go together, but it was a nice, fun anarchy.

UncRog... thanks.  I think they had promotion at some point, at least.  They did for the start of 1795.  I think producers had some sort of information about what fans wanted-- fan mail I suppose.  I can see there possibly having been a clamoring to get Julia in there...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Uncle Roger is quite right that there weren't any special promo ads for 1897 like there had been for 1795. Promotion was pretty much limited to voiceovers during the closing credits of the other ABC soaps.

(Special promo ads did return, though, for the switch from 1897 to Leviathans and the switch to 1970PT (one of my absolute favorite promos ever produced for DS). In fact, the switch to Leviathans was very heavily promoted - more so than probably any other storyline.)

[MagnusTrask]

Thanks for the history, MB!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

We don't often talk about the production design of the show (and more's the pity because quite often it's absolutely wonderful), but I have to say that I've always loved how the show illustrated Julia's journey to 1897 as not just passing through the door with the hexagram on it but as passing through a series of doors:

[MagnusTrask]

Hey, I'd forgotten that...

[DarkLady]

Yet another gorgeous frame grab! Thanks as always, MB!