DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '04 I => Topic started by: Philippe Cordier on May 30, 2004, 04:25:30 AM
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This idea occurred to me this afternoon and I jotted it down, thinking I'd post it sometime in the future. Then I logged in here and read the latest comments in the "1966" thread which basically asked the same thing or at least touched on it. Do Stefan, Luciaphil, and I have shared ESP ... or does the question arise just out of a natural progression in thought processes from earlier comments made?
In response to my comment about the "form" fitting the "style" in the later years of DS, Stefan wrote:
Even though I hear DS was original going to be cancelled I wonder IF they had kept the original "soap opera" tone the show might have lasted longer (with some modifications) and might have been easier to manage.
And Luciaphil wrote:
What always strikes me is that if they'd kept that depth going when they'd brought in the supernatural plots in a big way, the show could have gone on to be something even better than what it was
What got me thinking about this question (without having seen the above comments) was my feeling of loss this afternoon in not having DS running on TV daily anymore. There's something comforting and also stimulating about a continuing saga, unravelling in series format. Many of the great 19th century novels were written that way -- Dickens, Tolstoy's Vojna i mir (War and Peace), for example. Considering the enormous popularity of those novels at the time, and later, in our own time, of the soap opera format, it seems the 19th century writers really hit on something that tapped into people's psyches.
Then, I remembered something I had read about how some soap opera had lasted 40 years or something.
I began to wonder, somewhat wistfully, what "Dark Shadows" might have been like if it had continued running continuously into the present day. Could it have done so? It seems the series couldn't have continued that long if it had gone for more monsters etc. But perhaps if it had switched tacks a little and kept with the gothic and supernatural ... there doesn't seem a good reason why this couldn't have worked (or is there?).
Actually, the last storyline might have served well for a segue into this new format ... melodrama mixed with supernatural elements in a different time period.
Just imagine if Collinwood had continued on with us in our daily lives, with many of the same actors still on the show today -- Jonathan Frid, David Selby, Nancy Barrett, Kathryn Leigh Scott ... Those who died would have had their characters die, too.
The show could have continued with Collinwood in real time, but continued to delve into previous time periods.
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I began to wonder, somewhat wistfully, what "Dark Shadows" might have been like if it had continued running continuously into the present day. Could it have done so? It seems the series couldn't have continued that long if it had gone for more monsters etc. But perhaps if it had switched tacks a little and kept with the gothic and supernatural ... there doesn't seem a good reason why this couldn't have worked (or is there?).
I've been watching soaps for an increasingly large percentage of my life now, so I'll take a shot at Monday morning quarterbacking.
The short answer is yes, but we're talking realms of possibility, so it's always going to be yes.
There would need to have been substantial changes in how the show was put together. I know a lot of the posters here watch soaps, some of them have probably been doing it for longer than me (and perhaps more faithfully; I tend to switch shows). Most soaps follow certain rules and conventions that DS would have needed to inject into the show. This is what they would have needed to do, IMHO:
1. The pace: Months of your life cannot be going by while on the show it's still that same Tuesday, but the show can't be zipping by in light speed either. The plot has got to be understandable to new viewers without boring the existing ones.
2. New characters: I'm sorry but everybody living on one estate does not a successful serial make. The best soaps try and continually incorporate new characters with the older ones. It's a balancing act. I don't know that they ever really got the knack of it on DS with the non-Collinses. Most other soaps would have taken characters like Willie or Julia or Maggie and brought their relatives, past-lovers, etc. to town.
3. Setting: They had this going in the beginning of the show and then dropped it gradually. By the end, it was pretty much Collinwood. Even when characters went off to the Blue Whale or whatever, it was usually them and one lonely extra, which created a weird insular feeling.
4. The plot: I actually think they could have gone on a lot longer with the supernatural stuff. That was the draw. That's what made DS unique. That's what DS did best. The trick would have been to develop the supernatural plots considerably more and inject them with more of the conventional stuff of daytime drama. Heck, on AMC, they take a stupid misunderstanding and it lasts months; I watch something like Sam's death on DS, and it's over in minutes. To use a supernatural example, look at the 1840 stuff--that goes by in a lickety-split pace whether it works or not. It's like they were being directed by George Lucas: "faster, more intense."
Above all, I think they ultimately needed to keep the human angle in all the stories. A reason people liked Barnabas was because of all the angst. A reason people were fascinated by Angelique was because all of her actions--supernatural and otherwise--were dictated by her emotions. Then there were all the secondary characters effected by the leads. Their reaction, the effects this had on them could have been included.
Don't know that DS could have gone on to be GL, but I think it could have lasted at least another 5 years.
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Nicely stated, Luciaphil.
I'd only add that the production values would have had to increase dramatically. I think the 'live to tape' would have to stop, tombstones would need to be stable, microphone booms would have to stay out of frame, squeeky camera stand wheels would need to be oiled on a regular basis, doors would need to remain shut once closed, and production assistants would need to stay out of frame, etc. And perhaps using actors with a bit more experience than they had in the past. JMHO of course.
dom
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Of course it COULD have lasted......hell, "East Enders" has been on since Victoria was Queen, hasn't it?
The show, the plots, the characters and all the performers would have changed over the years.....but it would have lasted. Because soap operas are the art form most like life itself....only with better clothes and more sex.
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it could have lasted longer if they had paced it more thoughtfully and introduced new supernatural elements more gradually or eliminated some altogether.a strange thing happened after 1795,they realized the supernatural stuff improved the show's ratings,so they threw everything out there they possibly could.vamires,werewolves,witches,frankenstein,zombies in just a couple years.after 1795,they could have gone on for months with cassandra alone,like the laura story,rather than toss in the adam/eve stuff right away.it would have created more suspense.but at the rate it went they left themselves with nowhere else to go and it burned itself out.
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That about sums it up. It's shame really. But we're all left with some golden moments anyhoo.
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Very interesting comments! I personally liked the insular feeling of DS in it's later years but wouldn't have minded an occasional sidetrack into the lives of say, Susie the waitress, or the relatives of Mr. Wells or what was going on up at the cannery. Maybe insight into the lives of the people who live and the Collinses farms. I would have liked to have seen what was going on in the lives of Roger, Laura and Burke when they were all friends before the accident. It seems like Burke may have spent a good deal of time up at Collinwood hanging out with Roger and Laura. It would be nice to have seen what was going on with Roger and Elizabeth at the time their father died and responsiblity for the Collin's estate was left to Liz. Would Carolyn have attended high school in Collinsport with Maggie and Joe or was she in a private school? The Jennings brothers and how they interacted with Joe and Maggie would've been nice. Even Dr. Lang's medical practice(?) before Barnabas. You just know that he's got a story to tell! There was just so much more that I personally would have enjoyed. But alas, it'll never be.
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Wow, Miss Winthrop, you make me long for a PT where Dark Shadows had continued to the present day. I especially like the idea of a flashback during the younger days of the characters. Uunfortunately, Barnabas have to be absent, but yes, the foolish salad days of Roger, Paul, Jason, Burke, Laura, Sam, infant Carolyn and maybe delving into the mystery of Victoria a little (Roger discovers that Elizabeth is sending money to a foundling home, why? An indiscretion of hers? Of Paul's? Or, tension between Roger and Liz because because she once more as the older sister has to clean up one of Roger's messes?). Makes the mouth water! :)
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Nelson: I have an idea that Victoria is not an indiscretion of Liz's but rather Paul or Bill. Bill Malloy made a statement while having a far away look on his face of something very traumatic that had happened 20 yrs prior which would have put that at 1946. Maybe something between Ned, Bill, Liz and Vicki's mother? What about all those years that Mrs. Johnson was carrying the torch for Bill Malloy supposedly after her husband died? What about her son Harry? He was apparently bad news! What was going on in Collinwood before Liz was born? Roger talks about being terrified as a child in Collinwood. Carolyn dealt with the terror since she was a child too. Roger was born in 1926. Sam Evans mentioned hiding Maggie up in Canada with some friends during the Barnabas scare. I get the impression that the Collinses, while still having wealth, suffererd a financial blow sometime during the 10 years that Burke was away that they hadn't recovered from. There is a connection between the Stokes and Collinses family that goes way back. Was it totally severed in the years between 1795 and 1968? I believe Prof Stokes lived in either Rockport or Lockport. PT would be good!
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Reading your response, Miss Winthrop, reminded me of the early eps of the show (which I have not seen, just read synopses) where Victoria discovers a painting of a Betty Hanscomb (sp?) that bears a strong resemblance to Victoria. As I recall, both Liz and Roger protested a bit too much that the painting didn't look like Vicki at all when Carolyn pops in and proclaims just the opposite!
Didn't the Collins' employ a butler by that name who had a daughter named Betty? Was she employed by the Collins' as well? I am wondering if Bill or Paul or even Roger may have dallied with Betty and Liz sent her and her father away to avoid scandal when Betty's condition became apparent. :o I tend to lament the storylines that just petered out (the mystery of Victoria's parentage, Adam disappearing to have plastic surgery to remove his scars and never appearing again, etc.) I guess that kind of thing happened a lot in soaps then.
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One of the reasons I don't believe that Liz is Vicki's mother is because of her strong love for Carolyn & David. If Vicki was her daughter, she would've done everything in her power to make her life (Vicki's) easier and not by just sending $50 a month for her upkeep. I think she always indulged Carolyn in expensive things. She strikes me as the type of person who is going to do the right thing if at all possible. When she thought she killed Paul, she hid herself away on the estate like a recluse because of the torment she was feeling. My guess about Betty is that she was the daughter of the butler and probably hung out at Collinwood. She got involved with Bill who was in love with Liz. When Liz rejected Bill, he sought comfort with Betty. The only fly in the ointment is that since Vicki looks so much like Betty, wouldn't Bill have noticed? The other option is that Paul was with Betty thus producing Vicki. But then, Liz would have had to have forgiven Paul and taken him as her husband despite that. Maybe she didn't know about Vicki at first but discovered the connection after she married Paul. The money for Vicki started coming in when she was about 2 years old. I gather that Vicki is two years older than Carolyn. Carolyn was an infant when Paul disappeared from the scene.
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[spoiler]Hanscombe the butler was also the man whom Roger ran down and killed in 1956 and blamed Burke for.[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]Hanscombe the butler was also the man whom Roger ran down and killed in 1956 and blamed Burke for.[/spoiler]
I don't think the Collins butler was the hit and run victim. There's a scene in which Sam and Vicki are discussing the portrait of Betty that he had painted years earlier, and he tried to remember the model's name starting with Hanson but settling on Hanscombe. Maggie overhears and says, "Hanson?" and asks something like, "Isn't that the name of the guy that Burke killed?" But Sam corrects her that it's Hanscombe, with a C, that they're talking about. I think this is the only time the pedestrian's name is mentioned, so fans have accepted that the victim's name was Hanson, or Hansen.
I think the scene was written this way to segue into a discussion about Burke's conviction.
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...If Vicki was her daughter, she would've done everything in her power to make her life (Vicki's) easier and not by just sending $50 a month for her upkeep.
That was a lot of money back then! I could have bought a bunch of stuff at the five & dime with that much money per month. But, love and comfort of a mother would have been more important then that anyway.
(http://home.pacbell.net/cbsbiz/Victoriaquill.gif)
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That certainly was a great deal of money back then! In 1966, our dentist charged two dollars to fill a tooth. Among my friends who received an allowance, the average was 25 cents a week. One girl stunned us when she revealed that her parents gave her a dollar a week - she was wealthy beyond belief in our eyes. When I was cleaning out my parents' house, I found the hospital bill for when my mother gave birth to me (that was in 1957). She was in the hospital for five days (stays that long were common back then) and the entire bill came to - are you ready for this? - 250 dollars. Fifty bucks a month sent to Vicki's foundling home would more than cover all expenses, and even pay for her college education.
Gerard
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Awhile back I had dowloaded an audio of Joan Bennett answering an interviewer's question that yes indeed she was Victoria's mother. If it's true than it would seem that for Liz, the scandal of announcing to the family that she was indeed Vicki's mother was more than she could bear. It was very bad socially back in those days to have a baby out of wedlock. It does seem strange that out of the blue, a request for Vicki to come up to Collinwood and be a tutor is made. Someone's not talking at the Foundling Home in addition to Collinwood!
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Awhile back I had dowloaded an audio of Joan Bennett answering an interviewer's question that yes indeed she was Victoria's mother. If it's true than it would seem that for Liz, the scandal of announcing to the family that she was indeed Vicki's mother was more than she could bear. It was very bad socially back in those days to have a baby out of wedlock. It does seem strange that out of the blue, a request for Vicki to come up to Collinwood and be a tutor is made. Someone's not talking at the Foundling Home in addition to Collinwood!
Hmmm, that makes sense. If she was a blood relative of the Collinses, then she would be part and parcel of the curse that was placed on the family, given with all the wierd things she experienced, eh?
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Awhile back I had dowloaded an audio of Joan Bennett answering an interviewer's question that yes indeed she was Victoria's mother. If it's true than it would seem that for Liz, the scandal of announcing to the family that she was indeed Vicki's mother was more than she could bear. It was very bad socially back in those days to have a baby out of wedlock. It does seem strange that out of the blue, a request for Vicki to come up to Collinwood and be a tutor is made. Someone's not talking at the Foundling Home in addition to Collinwood!
Hmmm, that makes sense. If she was a blood relative of the Collinses, then she would be part and parcel of the curse that was placed on the family, given with all the wierd things she experienced, eh?
I won't get into details here since this topic has been discussed so extensively in the past (and some would say yours truly has discussed it to death and in minutiae), but I would submit that the matter is not definitively settled, despite Joan Bennett's comments, and, I believe, never will be unless working notes by the writers involved ever come to light. Suffice to say that other scenarios have been worked out that attempt to take into account other evidence and clues suggested by some of the DS writers, such as Francis Swann. Discussions on the Victoria Winters mystery can no doubt be found in the archives. Interestingly, she could be a Collins even if Elizabeth were not her mother.
:-X
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Very true, Vlad. IIRC, Tom and Chris Jennings are blood Collinses through the Quentin branch of the family, aren't they?
I still think that Victoria, if she is not Elizabeth's daughter, could have been Roger's by the Hanscom girl. Were there ever any indications that Roger knew who Vicki was? I understand he questioned Liz bringing Vicki on, but were there any hints that the knew there was more to her than meets the eye (part from his paranoia about Burke that is)?
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Very true, Vlad. IIRC, Tom and Chris Jennings are blood Collinses through the Quentin branch of the family, aren't they?
I think that's the case, but I'm not too knowledgeable about that part of the family tree!
I still think that Victoria, if she is not Elizabeth's daughter, could have been Roger's by the Hanscom girl. Were there ever any indications that Roger knew who Vicki was? I understand he questioned Liz bringing Vicki on, but were there any hints that the knew there was more to her than meets the eye (part from his paranoia about Burke that is)?
I probably should have noted that a majority of DS fans probably support the Elizabeth as Victoria's mother idea, and, more importantly, the official position of Dan Curtis Productions today is that Elizabeth was Vicki's mother (i.e., this was the direction Mark Rainey and Elizabeth Massey received in writing their official DS novel, and I believe this was the position of the recent updated play presented at one of the recent festivals). However, not everyone agrees that this was always the intent, and the issue was never resolved on the series itself. VictoriaWinters and I, building on another viewers theory on the old VantageNet board, came up with what we thought was a plausible and intriguing scenario. I admit it was a bit complicated to the extent that I don't recall the specifics now (it was discussed in a thread that may have been called "Victoria Winter's Parentage" maybe a year ago), and Betty Hanscombe was Elizabeth's half-sister (I think), and she was Victoria's mother. Our theory did not involve Roger Collins, however. Others have their own independent theories, but I felt ours took into account more of the evidence.
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the official position of Dan Curtis Productions today is that Elizabeth was Vicki's mother (i.e., this was the direction Mark Rainey and Elizabeth Massey received in writing their official DS novel, and I believe this was the position of the recent updated play presented at one of the recent festivals). However, not everyone agrees that this was always the intent
Well, no, it wasn't the intent in the Shadows on the Wall bible - but that was written before production of the series actually began. However, it's not quite true that it wasn't the intent once DS went into production. As I've previously posted:
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Joan Bennett had commented that she was told almost from the very outset that Liz was Vicki's mother and that's how she always played their relationship, and ... DS producer Robert Costello has commented that, after they hired Alexandra Moltke and saw her resemblance to Bennett, they decided to deviate from Art Wallace's bible and make Liz Vicki's mother.
and the issue was never resolved on the series itself.
But as I've also said, the great thing about fandom is that it's possible to debate and deconstruct all the unresolved questions on DS. And we should never refrain from engaging in debate simply because it seems as if a lingering question was resolved in a way other than during the course of the show (like Bennett and Costello's comments). Unless there's an explicit and definitive answer to a question in the actual episodes, then an issue is and always will be up for debate. ;)
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A lot of the scenes, especially in 1966, only make emotional sense if Liz is really Vicki's Mother. For one thing, from the beginning, Vicki gets away with stuff that NOBODY else at Collinwood, not even David, can manage to do.
I also think that Liz's traumatised emotional reaction to Vicki's ultimate fate can only be explained if the reality is that Vicki was her firstborn.
G.
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What ever was intended at any point of the production, in my opinion there can be no doubt regarding Joan Bennet's portrayal. Liz's interactions with Vicki are that perfect combination of joy and anguish that exemplify most mother-daughter relationships.....intensified by the fact that only Liz knows it.
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The thing that bothers me about it is that Liz left her in a cardboard box on a door step. What did she do, ring the doorbell and run? Another thing to think about is that about the time that Vicki was 2 yrs old the money started arriving at the Foudling Home. The timing for that was about the same time that the whole Paul Stoddard thing blew up. Paul was planning on sneaking out with the family jewels as it were. Since Liz prevented it, maybe she had a change of heart and the guilt truly set in so she decides to send money for her older daughter at the same time she saves her younger daughter's inheritance. We only know from Vicki that she was left on the doorstep in a cardboard box. Maybe the circumstances of her arrival at the FH were very different than what she had been told. I believe in those days, parental rights were far superior to those of children and there might have been a gag order at the FH to not divulge information. Nowadays children's rights to know who their parents are is much stronger.
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just my two-cents,but i thought vicki was the daughter of betty hanscome and perhaps paul stoddard.i just can't imagine liz sending her own child away to be raised in a orphanage.by sending for vicki perhaps she was trying to "do right" by her missing husband.btw,at the fest last year i bought a copy of the photo that the portait of b.hanscome was copied from.the dealer told me it was a publicity still of alexandra c.1966.
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I can't see a young woman in Liz Collins' predicament giving birth in secret and then driving to the foundling hospital herself. She was the daughter of an important family. She would have been attended by a physician who took the baby away at once, and older women of the family would have been aware of the birth and protected Liz from the prying of other family members. They probably refused to tell her anything about where the baby was and she determined to find out for herself, and then began sending money, probably not realising that a large lump sum had accompanied the child in the first place. Not that the child would have learned any of this while she was growing up there. Eventually Liz would have been the only surviving family member who knew what had happened and she decided to take the secret to her grave for fear of loosing the love and respect of both daughters.
End of fairy tale!! ;)
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I'd like to chime in on the original intent of this thread, but first comment on the "Hanscomb the Butler" myth (as it would most likely seem to be).
It was never established that there really was a butler named Hanscomb, and in fact it's unlikely there was not. When Victoria discovered an old payroll ledger in the East Wing with the name "B. Hanscomb" entered into it, she took it to Elizabeth's lawyer, Richard Garner, to see if perhaps "B. Hanscomb" was the same Betty Hanscomb who appeared in Sam's portrait. Richard told her that the Collins family once had a butler named Hanscomb, but after Vicki left Richard quickly placed a call to Elizabeth to warn her that Vicki had been snooping around, but not to worry because "He took care of it."
Now, if there was really a butler named Hanscomb then Richard simply told Vicki the truth and took care of nothing. Therefore he must have made up the story as a cover. Elizabeth, thus tipped off, warned Roger to back up her story if Vicki mentioned Betty Hanscomb. Roger did not remember there ever being a butler named Hanscomb, nor did Sam Evans.
Anyway, in regards to this topic thread and could DS have continued to today, I'd have to say that in order for it to have done so it probably would have needed to be less of a success than it was. The show crossed over from soap to fad and that spelled its death. Fads burn out quickly. They would have needed to keep the show more traditional, even with supernatural elements, and figure out a way for it to work no matter who left the show since Jonathan Frid/Barnabas was the main draw and would no doubt have left at some time. In hindsight they might have been better off if Barnabas had been killed off after his initial 13 weeks as originally planned instead of installing him as the permanent superhero, thus relying solely on his presence for continued success and survival. DS might not have become the fad it did, but could have continued to build on its early success and prove itself with reliable, continued quality of writing and acting.
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just two more cents...when d.s.began vicki was about 20 years old and liz was in her mid-to-late 50's.so liz would not have been some confused "girl" who couldn't handle the situation at the time vicki was born.she would have been well into her 30's and probably found a better way to deal with it than send the baby to a foundling home. :P
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Dr. Lang: I had totally forgotten about that call from Garner to Liz after Vicki left his office. So I'm understanding what you're saying is that while Richard didn't tell a lie to Vicki he basically didn't give her all the information and Liz's secret was safe? So doesn't that right there really prove the Collins family connection? Liz really wanted Vicki's investigation stopped at that point. She led her right into a dead end. At what point would Liz have revealed herself? I hate not ever knowing the answer to that one!
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So I'm understanding what you're saying is that while Richard didn't tell a lie to Vicki he basically didn't give her all the information and Liz's secret was safe?
No, I'm saying her told her a lie. She asked him who B. Hanscomb was and he replied B. Hanscomb was a butler who worked for the Collins family. He then turned around and proudly reported to Liz that he "took care of" Vicki's snooping. But if there was really a butler named Hanscomb, what exactly did he "take care of" if he told her the truth? Regardless of whether or not he had other information he witheld, he would have given Vicki a new lead, and therefore not in a position to tell Elizabeth he had "taken care of it." The only possible conclusion is that there was no butler named Hanscomb, and B. Hanscomb in the payroll ledger was in fact Betty Hanscomb, being paid by the Collins family for something we don't know about and never will.
All further speculation is just that - speculation. However, it seems pretty obvious the story about there being a butler named Hanscomb was a fabrication.
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I'd like to chime in on the original intent of this thread, but first comment on the "Hanscomb the Butler" myth (as it would most likely seem to be).
It was never established that there really was a butler named Hanscomb, and in fact it's unlikely there was not. When Victoria discovered an old payroll ledger in the East Wing with the name "B. Hanscomb" entered into it, she took it to Elizabeth's lawyer, Richard Garner, to see if perhaps "B. Hanscomb" was the same Betty Hanscomb who appeared in Sam's portrait. Richard told her that the Collins family once had a butler named Hanscomb, but after Vicki left Richard quickly placed a call to Elizabeth to warn her that Vicki had been snooping around, but not to worry because "He took care of it."
Now, if there was really a butler named Hanscomb then Richard simply told Vicki the truth and took care of nothing. Therefore he must have made up the story as a cover.
What if "he took care of it" meant that he didn't tell her the whole truth about the Hanscomb/Collins connection? I don't think it necessarily means that what he did tell her wasn't the truth.
Elizabeth, thus tipped off, warned Roger to back up her story if Vicki mentioned Betty Hanscomb. Roger did not remember there ever being a butler named Hanscomb, nor did Sam Evans.
But to be fair, Roger didn't remember Betty either. And at the time Sam said that he didn't know a butler named Hansomb, he also admitted that he never mingled with the "natives"-- the ancestors who settled in the area 200 years before-- and so he knows little about what went on at Collinwood.
There's also a scene in which Liz tells Roger about the butler named Hanscomb who had a daughter/niece named Betty. Why would she bother to tell him that much and then refuse to say why she wants to mislead Vicki about her resemblance to Betty? If the part about the butler was a lie, why not tell Roger nothing from the start?
The following appeared while I was typing: (Love the new feature that alerts you to a new post. You click preview and the new message shows up below.)
But if there was really a butler named Hanscomb, what exactly did he "take care of" if he told her the truth? Regardless of whether or not he had other information he witheld, he would have given Vicki a new lead, and therefore not in a position to tell Elizabeth he had "taken care of it." The only possible conclusion is that there was no butler named Hanscomb, and B. Hanscomb in the payroll ledger was in fact Betty Hanscomb, being paid by the Collins family for something we don't know about and never will.
It's a fascinating possibility, but I don't think it's the only one. We know that Liz got rid of all the servants 18 years before. And the other Garner brother passed on, so to whom would Vicki go for answers? I think withholding information from Vicki was sufficient because he knew that what he had offered was a dead end. And since the Collins family members were his clients, he probably couldn't have told her more even if he'd wanted to.
All further speculation is just that - speculation. However, it seems pretty obvious the story about there being a butler named Hanscomb was a fabrication.
I'm still not convinced that it was. ;)
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Hmmm, that makes sense. If she was a blood relative of the Collinses, then she would be part and parcel of the curse that was placed on the family, given with all the wierd things she experienced, eh?
It does seem like Vicki had some sort of esp going for herself. I remember when Barnabas was dying in the woods and he's calling for Vicki. She feels it. In fact, a lot of people connected in some way with the Collinses feel it. For instance, Dr. Hoffman feels or hears Josette crying in the basement. Another example of a Collins connection is little Amy Jennings. This kid was feeling it a lot! Someone once called her a 'Moon Child'. Can any one describe what that means?
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Another example of a Collins connection is little Amy Jennings. This kid was feeling it a lot! Someone once called her a 'Moon Child'. Can any one describe what that means?
Well, one meaning is that she's a Cancer...Astrologically speaking, that is. ;)
I'm sure there's more to it than that, though - LOL. Among other things, the moon reference is ironic in and of itself....considering her family's history, and the Collins connection, etc. The moon, perhaps, intensified her psychic aura. ;)
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I just wanted to make a correction to something I wrote earlier. It was Cassandra Blair (not VictoriaWinters) and I who developed a scenario (inspired by the now-unknown Bob on the VantageNet forum) regarding Victoria Winters. Our theory was that Victoria was the daughter of Paul Stoddard and Betty Hanscomb. Betty was actually Elizabeth and Roger's (younger) half-sister, who had been fathered out of wedlock by their father, Jamison Collins. Victoria, then, was a Collins and was Elizabeth's niece. An earlier version of our theory had Victoria as the daughter of Betty Hanscomb (daughter of the butler) and Jamison Collins, and hence she was Roger's and Liz's sister.
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this is a bit of-topic, but with all this talk about liz and roger's parentage and/or offspring i thought about their mother.does anyone know anything about her?was she ever mentioned on the show?
also, i've always heard that the idea that vicki might be liz's daughter did not even come up until the show was being cast.when alexandra showed up for her audition it was noted how strongly she resembled joan bennett.but it was not part of the original plotting.
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Liz and Roger's mother was mentioned twice on DS, though never by name.
The first time is when Liz is going to marry Jason and she shows Vicky a family heirloom her mother gave her.
The second time is during the summer of 1970 when Liz needs to know the hour of the day she was born. She mentions to someone that her father was away when she was born and her mother wrote to him the details about her birth.
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What ever Richard Garner 'took care of' at his office was enough to satisfy Liz. Richard turned around and assigned Vicki to his son Frank knowing that there were no loose ends to get in the way in Bangor and nothing would be stumbled upon accidently. Also, a nice way for the writers to set up the potential romance between Vicki and Frank.
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What ever Richard Garner 'took care of' at his office was enough to satisfy Liz. Richard turned around and assigned Vicki to his son Frank knowing that there were no loose ends to get in the way in Bangor and nothing would be stumbled upon accidently. Also, a nice way for the writers to set up the potential romance between Vicki and Frank.
and what became of mr. frank garner?during the laura collins story he helped vicki find clues to the mystery surrounding laura.in one ep. he accompanies joe and dr.guthrie to eagle hill cemetery to dig up the graves of laura's ancestors.they discover the bodies have disapeared.then frank does his own disapearing act.after this ep. the character is never seen again. ::)
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I believe I read it here on this board once that the Frank/Vicki romance ended up not going anywhere because Conard Fowkes (Frank) had to leave the show. I rather liked him and his wry sense of humor. Some thought he was boring (after Mitch Ryan) but I think he was the kind of young man most moms would want for their daughters. I don't think he ever even kissed Vicki before he left.