In a word, the WB pilot was AWESOME! In my humble opinion WAY better than the entire '91 series, which I frankly hated and was more than glad to see get cancelled (in fact, I think when I read in the paper NBC had cancelled it I did a jig of glee). But anyway, this new version had better casting than the '91 series (Alec Newman as Barnabas was *inspired*, he is MUCH hotter than boring, unsexy Ben Cross!) I liked that Vickie had connected brain cells that were actually capable of cognizant thought processes and that Willie had a girlfriend (he was HOTT too!). I like that they didn't re-hash HODS as the '91 show did (I swear I think NBC ripped off line by line the HODS script!).
But back to the casting, the new actors were ALL better than the '91 series, with two exceptions. Blair Brown as Liz?? Um, no, doesn't work for me! Don't get me wrong, I *like* BB, but she doesn't have the class to pull off Liz the way Joan and Jean did. They needed someone more like those two to play Liz. The other problem I had was w/Julia. Since when is an attractive Asian chick the right person to play Julia, who in my opinion should be played by a man in drag, LOL! Let's face it, Grayson was mannish, which is why, I'm sure, there are so many men dressing up as her at the Festival's costume gala!
I personally think the contrast between an attractive Vickie (who of course caught Barnabas' eye) and an unattractive Julia is necessary in any recreation of the classic original. I mean really, do we honestly think Barnabas WOULDN'T be attracted to this new Julia? Not unless he'd been dead for 200 years, oh, wait..............!
The only other things that I think should have been redone is they needed to eliminate about 80% of the RED they had in the background of every scene! It was a bit much. Having it when Barnabas is first introduced at Collinwood was okay, but can it after that. They also should have had Angelique not scream repeatedly at Vickie at the very end, that was cartoonish and corny. One scream would have sufficed I think. Anyway, it's too bad the WB passed on this show as I would have welcomed this one more warmly than I did the '91 series. The fact that they now admit they screwed up makes you wonder why they don't call DCP and buy back the property, or is that not a realistice idea? Given all the other "out there" shows on the tube today (Charmed, Medium, Ghost Whisperer and Invasion) it no doubt would be warmly received not only from us DS fans, but newbies as well.