Seeing The Old House For The First Time

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Featuring Vicki and David's first visit to the Old House -

Ep #70 (1966) - Vicki - 'You MUST be the only person that's been in here
in years.'

- in the December 12th's "Must" slideshow got me to thinking. I didn't begin to watch DS until September of 1967, so I was already quite familiar with the Old House, and a restored Old House at that, by the time I finally saw its first introduction on the show in Ep #70 when it was shown for the second time on the Sci-Fi Channel back in May of 1995, so the introduction didn't have the same impact on me as it must have had on fans who were watching in September of 1966. It struck me that I must have missed out on something that was quite exciting (especially what with the actual appearance of Josette's ghost at the end of the ep). I love the way that first visit to the Old House was done, particularly using the footage with David and Vicki that was shot at the actual location of the house. But even beyond that I love how not only was the drawing room in such disarray, instantly conveying how long the house had been abandoned, but how the sound of the wind coming in through the broken windows was heard swirling around the room. It made for an extremely atmospheric introduction, and like I said, it must have made a big impact on fans. So I'm wondering, does anyone here who was indeed watching back in September of 1966 remember what they thought when they experienced that very first trip to the Old House? Part of me definitely feels cheated, for lack of a better word, that I never got to have the same fresh experience...

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I didn’t see these particular DS episodes either until the Sci-Fi Channel first aired them back during the 1990s. They were fascinating (Sebastian Shaw’s “favorite” adjective) episodes, showing the dilapidated condition of the long-abandoned Old House.

And, it is a tribute to Willie Loomis that he was able to make so many badly needed repairs and help to return the Old House to its former glory. No doubt, Norm, Tom, Richard and Roger, the guys on “This Old House,” would be mightily impressed by Willie’s remarkable efforts to restore this grand 18th century structure! 

[McTrooper]

While I wasn’t alive for the first airing and I can’t say I remember a distinct reaction to the 1991’s dilapidated old house either  . . .  I can definitely say that similar efforts to redress sets have made a big impression. 
The Origin Dark Shadows 1995 story line impressed me even watching it on the SciFi Channel in the 2000’s.  Also impressed rewatching it more recently in the last few years.

Similarly Star Trek’s The Doomsday Machine featured a redressed Enterprise to represent a different damaged ship made an impression.  I really enjoyed that episode even though it genuinely made me think based on the title and description that it was going to be a lame episode twice in my life. 

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Speaking of “Star Trek,” I wonder if Dan Curtis and the DS writers just happened to catch the October 6, 1967 episode of “Star Trek” episode, entitled “Mirror, Mirror”? This ST episode dealt with Captain James T. Kirk and several other crew members of the Starship Enterprise being accidentally beamed over to a parallel universe (or time band), where their PT counterparts weren’t very nice at all.

Perhaps DC and his writers were “inspired” by this particular “Star Trek” episode and they just happened to come up with the concept of “Parallel Time” in 1970? 

[Philippe Cordier]

Perhaps DC and his writers were “inspired” by this particular “Star Trek” episode and they just happened to come up with the concept of “Parallel Time” in 1970?

I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I wonder if this question has been addressed on this forum sometime in the past . . . I seem to remember some discussion where someone brought up that there had been stories published in SciFi magazines about this time where the concept of parallel time was used, and it may be a case where certain ideas were just "in the air" at the time.

[Philippe Cordier]

The concept of time travel has been used in fiction forever, but parallel time probably is a newer idea.

I did some research at one time into Borges' concept of timelines branching off in alternate directions in his 1948 "The Garden of Forking Paths," a story I have been studying (in Spanish and English) since I first encountered it in college Spanish. I'm not sure if that's exactly the same idea, but it would seem to be a related concept.

On January 7, 2009, MagnusTrask posted:

"As far as Trek, in the early days it was very much based on the kinds of ideas in printed science-fiction, and yes, they thought that at least some of these inventions would happen one day.   They just had little way of knowing which ones.   They put a lot of thought into what future technology might actually be like.   That's one thing that made Trek so special.   Networks just wanted "entertainment".... "

………………………..

What I was thinking of though was a more detailed post or article that may have talked about a specific author, story, and publication.

……………………………

On September 08, 2010, MagnusTrask wrote:

"The "Many Worlds" idea of human choices actually creating splinter-realities is not something that would have been in the minds of DS writers then, or anyone making alternate-reality episodes of any other program.   The idea probably did not exist yet.    It didn't make its way into TV till the '90s.

DS confuses things a bit by referring to PT 1970 as "another time" (to sound more romantic, even though it's the same time), and this can lead to both PT1970 and RT1995 being thought of as "alternate timelines" in some vaguely similar way.   A "timeline" is the one and only way history has gone.   The thing is, with time travel you can change that one and only way history has ever gone, so that that one single course of history is a different one "now"!   

While PT is an alternate reality to ours, though, 1995 is our future.   When we see 1995, it is the one and only timeline.   Unless one wants to introduce the very alien and (I think) disruptive, modern "Many Worlds" idea that the writers didn't have in mind, Gerard might think he can safely let Barnjulia go, but he's wrong.   [spoiler]Once they (somehow) acheive all their objectives, the one and only timeline that exists changes, so that Gerard's ghost's 1995 never happened.   Not only does Gerard not proceed into an alternate 1995, 1996, etc, still in control of Collinwood as a ghost, but the 1995 we saw has never happened, not in an alternate "timeline" or in any kind of reality.

.......................................................................

Given the Borges story first published back in 1948, I don't know that I would agree entirely with MagnusTrask when he wrote:

"The "Many Worlds" idea of human choices actually creating splinter-realities is not something that would have been in the minds of DS writers then, or anyone making alternate-reality episodes of any other program. The idea probably did not exist yet.  It didn't make its way into TV till the '90s."

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Here are some quotations from the Yates translation of Borges' story:

"In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts'ui Pên, he chooses-- simultaneously--all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. . . . In the work of Ts'ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend."

and:

"He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times. This network of times which approached one another, forked, broke off, or were unaware of one another for centuries, embraces all possibilities of time. We do not exist in the majority of these times; in some you exist, and not I; in others I, and not you; in others, both of us. In the present one, which a favorable fate has granted me, you have arrived at my house; in another, while crossing the garden, you found me dead; in still another, I utter these same words, but I am a mistake, a ghost."

[Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths," translated by Donald Yates]