A few quick as possible comments - and the only reason they're going to be that way is because to get into the issues deeply would really be off topic for this particular topic (but it might be fun to see them discussed more fully in a topic of their own).
Personally, I was always into the Barnabas/Josette relationship. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because it seemed to have a depth that many of the other romantic pairings on the show didn't. Though at the same time I have to say that that depth came mostly from Barnabas' own feelings about it. I can't say that when the relationship itself was actually seen in the 1795/76 storyline that it actually lived up to the hype, as it were, for me. However, strictly from Barnabas' perspective, I always rooted for Barnabas to get his Josette. Hell, I would have even been happy had hoDS ended with Barn making Maggie Josette. (But alas...) And I really look forward to the take the Depp/DS film is going to bring to it.
As for Roxanne, I actually enjoyed Barnabas' relationships with all the versions of her - there was a freshness about them. Did they have the same weight as his perceived relationship with Josette? Well, no. But it wasn't really a competition. It was meant to take the show and Barnabas in a new direction and that's exactly what it did. So, I suppose mission accomplished. That all being said, though, when I brought up Roxanne, I never meant that she should be compared to Josette or Josette's place in the show. It was just to emphasize that once the vocal portion of the audience who had decided that Josette had run her course won out with the DS PTB, Barnabas did indeed move on to someone else, and even when out of necessity Josette came up in a plot, she was quickly dispatched.
And as far as DS canon goes, we can't really pick and choose what we feel is canon and what isn't. If it was on the show, it was canon. There's no getting around that, no matter how much we may personally dislike what happened. (If I could wipe out what I disliked, Jeb and Carolyn's marriage to him would not exist. But he did and it did, and I have no choice but to accept those facts.
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350 days 0 hours 48 minutes 38 seconds until the day the Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS is released(ET)!!