Discuss - Ep #0214

[Alondra]

I believe that was in this episode or maybe the last one? Vicki had just spent time in conversation with Barnabas at the Old House and now she was talking to Carolyn about how Barnabas knew so much about the house and how he had been able to open the door when it had stuck on her. Carolyn kept telling her it was all her imagination, or she was being too suspicious. I thought Vicki was being astute and thinking.

Alondra

[Lydia]

Yes, it was in this episode that Vicky commented to Carolyn that Barnabas was a little odd.  Barnabas behaved very weirdly in the Old House, but only Vicky saw that, not Carolyn.  After he and Vicky went over to Collinwood, where Roger and Carolyn were, he was pretty normal, so it made sense that Vicky thought he was a little strange and Carolyn didn't.

[michael c]

true,

but after the writers decide that vicki and barnabas become "friends"(at least in her estimation)she becomes unable to recognize any of his numerous glaring peculiarities.more than just that but when burke rightly points them out to her she refuses to hear it and goes so far as to threaten to call off their engagement is he persues the topic any further.

so with this one change in the direction of the storyline the entire nature of this character goes from being inquisitive and a sharp judge of character to almost pathalogically naive.

[Lydia]

I'm not so sure about this.  I haven't watched any of these episodes in nearly two years, but I don't remember Barnabas ever being so totally weird again after that scene in the Old House - correct me if I'm wrong.  Vicky tended to get split off into the Jason plot, so it seems to me she didn't see too much of Barnabas for a while.  Memories fade and their edges wear down, and after a few more encounters with Barnabas in which he seemed simply old-world-Continental as Carolyn had asserted, it would be reasonable for Vicky to feel that her first impression of Barnabas was a little bit off, and that any oddity she had observed was due to his being uncomfortable with strangers, and that he was OK after all, and his peculiarities were no big deal.

[loril54]

i just got done watching this show. Jonathan was so good talking about how the house was built.  The door scene was great.  If I didn't know any better i would have thought that Barnabas made the door stick. He didn't want Vickie to go, good or bad.  It was great how jonathan really got into charactor.

[spoiler]Do you guys know when the set was accidently thrown out and they had to build another one over the weekend?? I think Sam Hall refered to it on the DVD's interviews Also it looks like they didn't have a back story for Barnabas then. Saying Jerimiah and Josette lived in the house. Not that he was in love with Josette.[/spoiler]

[Mysterious Benefactor]

[spoiler]Also it looks like they didn't have a back story for Barnabas then. Saying Jerimiah and Josette lived in the house. Not that he was in love with Josette.[/spoiler]

They had one already. It's just that it came out in bits and pieces and, of course, it was totally different from what we would see in 1795/96.

[loril54]

so with this one change in the direction of the storyline the entire nature of this character goes from being inquisitive and a sharp judge of character to almost pathalogically naive.

I wonder if this is intended, or did they just need another Sweet Young Thing for Barnabas. I liked her when she is smart.

[michael c]

lydia,

if i may i think we are talking about two different things.

i wasn't thinking so much about how vicki's attitude towards barnabas might have softened over time had they been "real" people(which it certainly might have)but more in terms of how the writing for the character changed after a certain point.

in these very early episodes when the thought was that barnabas would function strictly in a villainous role,and for a thirteen week cycle,it's not inconceivable that vicki was meant to get wise to him at some point just as she had during the previous(laura collins)storyline.indeed she might have been threatened as part of his intended demise however...

once it became clear that barnabas was becoming a wildly popular character and his run extended they changed the writing for victoria so that she no longer had any doubts about him whatsoever...she became fond of him(thus blinded to his oddness)and it changed her character's nature.hence the dawn of the perpetually "clueless" vicki we all know and love/hate.

[loril54]

That is a great idea. The SYT came later.  But in this show Barnabas just seemed to be a little bit, strange, but then wouldn't you have been if you were in a coffin a very long time. 

[Lydia]

it's not inconceivable that vicki was meant to get wise to him at some point just as she had during the previous(laura collins)storyline.

Light dawns on Marblehead....that's a possibility that had never occurred to me - possibly because Vicky wasn't much involved in the Barnabas/Maggie story.  I had figured that the original plan was to have Maggie stake Barnabas.  But I suppose it could have happened in the way you suggested.  After David
[spoiler]saw Maggie in the Old House and thought she was Josette's ghost (love that scene)[/spoiler] he could have told Vicky about it, and Vicky could have gone to see for herself, and figured things out.  Or it could have been worked out some other way - there are always wonderful what-if possibilities on Dark Shadows.

[Lydia]

A late blooming thought on another subject:  In the beginning of the book Dracula, Jonathan Harker records his meals in his journal: "I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty."  It was clearly a prelude to the idea of having raw blood for dinner (or supper), with no need of pepper to make it red.  It seems to me that the intention was for Roger's talk of chowder, Indian pudding, and boiled dinner to be a reflection of that.