Discuss - Ep #1245

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1245

FAREWELL, EVERYONE!

(Though Grayson Hall, John Karlen, Nancy Barrett, and Thayer David would go on to do NoDS, which had already started production 4 days before this ep originally aired...)

[MagnusTrask]

I have to say that DS mst be partly responsible for my feeling deep down that one ought to be able to solve his/her problems with time travel, if she/he just looks around really thoroughly for some hitherto-unnoticed time travel method.   Maybe in the kitchen cupboard.   I want to do that to make DS continue right now. 

Jonathan's choking was good in 1795.   He's done it a few more times since then, though, and it's gotten melodramatic.   Maybe it's that he wouldn't speak so clearly mid-throttle.   

I think the key to the Curse must be that Brutus can't control more than one person at a time.  That's not as romantic an explanation as one might want, but I'm being conservative here.   Unless Bramwell has Kirk-like powers of resisting control which come simply from his being the hero/star, probably control of one person can be broken by the intervention of the other person.   No wonder the previous Room guests failed.   Earlier, I kept thinking that it might work, somehow, for the whole family to spend the night in there, and maybe this is why.

So... Brutus's Amanda-construct (or actual Amanda's ghost) was supposed to go off with Brutus again, willingly.   She didn't, so the Curse was broken.   So what happened the previous times?   I doubt Brutus had Amanda inhabit Gabriel, to ask him/her, but who knows....   Maybe Collins men had no chance, and Brutus just played with them, like a cat with a mouse.   Couldn't Brutus ask Amanda's ghost anything he liked, anytime?

Roof--  Nice line from Bramwell about their possibly have helped to make Morgan as he is.   Where'd Kendrick come from?  Another door on the left, or over that bit of roof?   We should pull an Edward, and wonder if our hero is in league with the devil...   No mention of Quentin in the finale.   

Last scene!   Maybe the only specific whole scene I can point to, that I remember from childhood.   My impression was always that they shot that scene to introduce another vampire storyline, but whoops, they were canceled so suddenly at the last minute that there was no time to reshoot, so they dubbed Thayer's voice over it.   What people say here on this board make it seem that they actually had all the time they needed to write the final scene and have it conclude the show.    In that case... why the vampire bites?   Nostalgia?   I remember it being very funny to me at the time that this last-minute VO about animal bites was tacked on.   Did they actually put a joke into the last scene?

Welcome, Harris, the 2nd Footman, as portrayed by writer Gordon Russell (even though Sam Hall wrote this one)!   Keith Prentice is low in the credits.   Anyone got that particular Password show that they showed in DS's time slot so we can watch that next?

I wish I had better concluding remarks.   Farewell, everyone.

[Lydia]

Oh dear, oh dear, I did not want to watch this episode.

I noticed down in the secret file room there were arches that appeared to be taken from the mausoleum.  And the cock crowed.  Nice things to have on the last episode.  And it felt like the good old days to have people exclaiming over the puncture wounds in somebody's neck.

I think the key to the Curse must be that Brutus can't control more than one person at a time.

I agree, in part. I don't think sending more than one person in was sufficient to break the curse, and I don't know what did break the curse, except that I'm sure it wasn't Bramwell's and Catherine's love.

So... Brutus's Amanda-construct (or actual Amanda's ghost) was supposed to go off with Brutus again, willingly.   She didn't, so the Curse was broken.

I just don't believe that.  I thought Brutus must be lying when he said he still loved Amanda, because I don't think Brutus ever loved her in the first place.  She was just a trophy wife.

Here's what I want to know: when Amanda was possessing Catherine, was Melanie de-possessed, and when Amanda left Catherine, did she (Amanda, that is) go whizzing back to Melanie?  And did Melanie's head go spinning around when this was happening?

Nice line from Bramwell about their possibly have helped to make Morgan as he is.

I thought that speech as a whole was a little too blatantly self-serving.  "We've all made many mistakes, we cannot make anymore, we must go in peace!"  (According to the Robservations.)  Yup, now that Bramwell and Catherine have ruined Morgan's life, they might as well go in peace.  But if the speech was self-serving, then maybe it was characteristic of Bramwell.

I love the fact that the final bit showed just the foyer and drawing room with nobody in it.  In 2007 there was a topic:

Which Character was the "Glue" that Held the DS Together?

My answer was that it was the house that was the glue, so it was pleasing to see the ephemeral Collinses cleared out at the end so we could take one last look at Collinwood.  That reminds me of the last words of Louisa May Alcott's Jo's Boys, the second sequel to Little Women.  Here they are, slightly altered for the occasion:

"And now, having endeavoured to suit everyone by many weddings, a few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall for ever on the Collins family."

[DarkLady]

A sad day as we come to the end of the story!

I never, ever trusted Brutus when he claimed to love Amanda. It would have been too easy. I think it was some kind of ruse.

When Catherine was possessed by Amanda, Melanie was in some kind of swoon or something. She can't have returned to normal--although your idea is pretty funny, Lydia.

I love the fact that when Julia and Kendrick run out of the Locked Room, they leave the doors wide open behind them. All of Brutus's malice is brought to nothing as the light of day floods the room and exposes all his secrets.

Bramwell's (sort of) apology to Morgan: It isn't really an apology if it includes the word if. And this does. On first hearing, it does sound like an apology, but on second (etc.) hearing, it sounds more like self-defense. I think it was a lame attempt by desperate writers who knew this was The End and that they had to rush things to some kind of resolution.

Kudos to Gordon Russell as Harris, the Second Footman--surely the shortest footman in history! According to all the Anne Perry mysteries I've read, footmen were supposed to be tall and imposing. But Collinwood has always had a servant problem. 

And yes, I agree it's the Great House itself that is the glue holding the show together. Characters may come and go, occasionally leaving the house empty except for their corpses, but Collinwood endures!

[michaelhacketttodd]

I have the entire series on videotape and watch it nearly every day.  And it never fails...You always come across something you overlooked.  Dark Shadows is one of my few, fond, childhood memories.