Innovative Storytelling Decisions

[MagnusTrask]

Too broad a subject, maybe, but it occurred to me to bring up a couple of interesting ways DS chose to go about telling a story, and ask for any other examples others could think of....

First, the unveiling of "good" Barnabas in the first place, not as a gradual transition caused by certain life events in the 20th century, but instead by zooming us suddenly back, without warning, to 1795, where we get to see, totally unexpectedly (to viewers at the time anyway) an utterly unstained Barnabas, who then is put through an horrific series of events that really make us ache over the innocence that's ripped out of him, when the bad rubber bat finally gets him.     There's a run-on sentence for you.   Sorry.

Also, there's the example of the fact that the entire 1795 storyline is a foregone conclusion, which has to conclude with Barnabas-- who has been remade into a protagonist--  being nailed into the coffin.   We know this has to happen from the very first moment Victoria Winters appears in 1795, yet we watch fascinated anyway.   We know how it has to end and know we won't be surprised, and the monster who's destined to get it in the end we end up cheering for... but we buy the storyline and stay with it anyway.   That was a brave decision, to launch a storyline like that, and commit so much time to it.    Perhaps they knew the fascination a long, drawn-out story of inevitable, unavoidable doom can have.     There's a very black sort of romance to that, that most people may not be able to identify with.

I should add that my tapes end with BC being bitten, and only pick up in 1897 when [spoiler]Shaw is saving the kids from the fire,[/spoiler]so all the intervening events are unknown to me.     So please don't tell me the stuff inbetween.

[Patti Feinberg]

First, the unveiling of "good" Barnabas in the first place, not as a gradual transition caused by certain life events in the 20th century, but instead by zooming us suddenly back, without warning, to 1795, where we get to see, totally unexpectedly (to viewers at the time anyway) an utterly unstained Barnabas, who then is put through an horrific series of events that really make us ache over the innocence that's ripped out of him, when the bad rubber bat finally gets him.

Well....I wouldn't go so far as to say Barn was 'unstained' nor 'good'; the reason the 'rubber bat' gets him is cause he was a 'horn toad' .

I think throughout Barnabas' life, he was very self-centered and self-serving, vampirism not withstanding.

And...I believe the 'horrific series of events' HE got HIMSELF into.

Yes, I feel bad for him...but...you make your bed.....

All IMHO,

Patti

[Barnabas'sBride]

I'd have to disagree with that. Oh, he wronged Angelique for sure, but the punishment in absolutely no way fit the crime. It's sad that Angelique fell in love with him and he rejected her, but that hardly warrants over a hundred years in a chained in a coffin and all of your loved ones meeting a brutal end. What he did was wrong and was a mistake to be sure, but that one act wasn't enough to label him "bad". Just a human being who made a mistake and did a not so good thing. But that's life and it happens. I've wronged someone before, done something I shouldn't have. But I don't consider myself a bad person. It was a bad situation all the way around.

I didn't think of 1795 Barnabas as bad or good, just a three demensional human being.

With the 1795 storyline, it is a different way of storytelling, because you're basically creating a prequel. Today, there are a lot of examples of that, like the Superman television show Smallville, or the Star Wars prequels. I've always felt that the journey can be just as interesting as the destination, so those kinds of stories hold some fascination for me.

[MagnusTrask]

Perhaps it's my lack of tapes that makes me unaware of the bad that BC supposedly did to Angelique.   They were involved for a time in Martinique, it didn't work out, he broke it off....?

The current S Wars movies could be seen as a similar slide into inevitable doom... which can be very well done, but not in this case, so far.    I'd rather see any randomly chosen DS episode from back then, than either of the more recent SW movies.

[stefan]

I think throughout Barnabas' life, he was very self-centered and self-serving, vampirism not withstanding.

It's hard to judge Barnabas's personality as a vampire. I guess if you're a vampire it doesn't mean you're a nice person and probably, especially after being a vampire for over 100 yrs and being chained in a coffin, that's not going to improve the disposition any. Commenting on Barnabas as he was as a person (non-vampire). I don't see him as much different from many guys I've known in my life. He had an affair with the maid of a woman he was sort-of courting. It's my understanding that Josette and Barnabas were NOT engaged at that point. He decided he preferred Josette over Angelique and then proposed to Josette after they spent some time writing to each other. He decided that Angelique wasn't the one for him. But, he had sex with her, spent some wild nights apparently, and Angelique fell in love with him. It really seemed to me that this love was not reciprocated. Barnabas made some silly and insensitive choices. He didn't seem to or want to understand that Angelique cared for him and that having Angelique around while Josette and Barnie got together was ill-advised. Basically, Barnabas had poor judgment and was insensitive to the feelings of others. And he was a product of his times. I believe though, he was honest with Angelique, at least he never pretended afterwards that anything would come out of their affair. He never deserved what he got

[Barnabas'sBride]

The current S Wars movies could be seen as a similar slide into inevitable doom... which can be very well done, but not in this case, so far.    I'd rather see any randomly chosen DS episode from back then, than either of the more recent SW movies.

Oh me too. The prequels are disappointing. But that has more to do with the execution of the movies and not the storyline itself. IMO, the storyline of the fall of Anakin Skywalker is just as interesting, if not more so, than the story of his son. I think there was a wealth of potential with the prequels that just wasn't reached by Lucas. But it does compare to 1795 in the way that it shows the journey to get to the end we already know.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Basically, Barnabas had poor judgment and was insensitive to the feelings of others.

That's a very good summation, and it pretty much sums up Barn in any time period. Probably Barn's only saving grace is that he always believes that he's doing the right things for the right reasons. Not that that excuses many of his actions - it doesn't - but at least the audience, whether we agree or disagree with his rationale, always understands where he's coming from.

[MagnusTrask]

Sometimes romances don't work out.   Few things in life work out as we think they ought to.   That doesn't necessarily indicate amorality on BC's part.

All the evidence we get to see in 1795 tells us that BC is a highly conscientious man with a strong moral sense, in the best sense.    An affair out of wedlock can happen and isn't necessarily "wrong".     Going after everybody and everything around one, to make sure she gets the mate she thinks she deserves, as Angelique did, is.     Certainly the overwhelming impression I get is that BC is a highly admirable, decent human being.   It's to the writers' credit that they understood that in the real world, amongst good people, illicit affairs do take place.

[jeffreywj777]

Barnabus's relationship with Angelique is what doomed him for eternity. Normally a man from a wealthy family who engages in an affair with a servant girl can break it off anytime he likes without consequence, and I suspect that would be Barnabus's thinking at the time. But Angelique is no ordinary sevrvant girl. Her unusual powers give her the ability to manipulate situations and people to do her bidding and acheive her goals. Her wanting Barnabus to marry her is more than just for the love she has for him, but it also elevates her social status and may be the reason she engages in the affair in the first place.

So both are not without sin in this situation, not an uncommon theme in many modern day relationship. Then to top it off, Barnabus after marrying Angelique shoots her to put a stop to one of her schemes but failed "to do the job well enough" allowing Angelique an attempt at revenge. How many men would have stood a chance of escaping a situation like that unscathed? I fear we all would have been damned for eternity.

Later Cousins.

[tragic bat]

The point is not to look for who is 'good' and who is 'bad.'  It was all a very tragic situation; and that is the appeal in it.  We also need to keep in mind that Angelique only put the curse upon Barnabas in the spur of the moment when she beleived that she had just died at his hand; and when she recovered, she immediately regretted doing so.  It was Barnabas's father who had him chained in the coffin for almost two hundred years; Angelique would rather that he died than be made to suffer like that.  None of the people involved really knew what they were causing or what all of it would eventually lead to.  In this way, Julia certainly deserved Barnabas's love because she beleived she could help him heal in the aftermath of all of this and find a different way of dealing with it all; as opposed to killing him outright because he was so 'bad.' 

[Misa]

I think they showed Barnabas to have been a decent person. When Angelique shows up and wants to resume their affair, he apologizes to her. He tells her he doesn't love her. If he had been a real cad he would have told her he just used her for some fun, or her would have continued the affair.

So, I don't think he was an unfeeling bad person. Angelique was jealous and evil, I think she wanted him more because Josette had him. She always could have made Jeramiah fall in love with her if she only wanted a rich husband.

Misa