Just chiming in here to say that I was also surprised (to put it mildly) by Sam's claim that he and Gordon Russell somehow "gave Joan Bennett more to do" as Liz. I think what he meant was that they created a brilliant storyline for Bennett as Judith (although Naomi is a favorite character of mine, she really wasn't given all that much to do--do note, however, that Naomi's speech about the death of Sarah has to rank as one of the most poignant, quietly heartbreaking moments in the entire series). After the Jason Maguire storyline, Liz just was never written with the kind of spunk, fire, and stern New England backbone the character had shown during the first year of the series.
I also disagree with Sam about Malcolm Marmorstein. I imagine that Sam was so dumbfounded by the notion of a vampire feeding off a cow that he couldn't get beyond the plot to see the great quality of Marmorstein's scripts. To be honest, it's been a really long time since I watched Marmorstein's shows from the summer of '67 when Grayson was being introduced. I do know that Marmorstein's 1966 scripts are some of the best episodes of the series (in my not-so-humble opinion).
And for the record, Grayson *was* able to tone it down and be on camera for the end of a scene without looking like "1967's answer to Mary Pickford" or however Sam described it...
G.