The idea of having the story play out in real time was Art Wallace's concept. After he stopped actually churning out the scripts, the other writers treated time in a more fast and loose way, but also a way that seemed more natural to the viewer for whom weeks and months HAD passed since the start of it all.
My favorite time-trippy moment is that when Vicki is thrown back into 1795, it is the Fall of 1967. When she returns, "only a moment has passed" and yet the calendar reads April of 1968. Of course, it would have seemed very strange to viewers at the time if they had pretended that it was still 1967.
At some point in the 1795 storyline, she's in the gaol with Peter and saying dialogue about getting back to 1968. Years later the same thing happened with Barnabas and Julia discussing a return to 1971 at the end of the 1840 storyline. When they had left Collinwood, it had been Sept.-Oct. 1970.
G.
