Parallel Time

[michael c]

another intersting thing about parallel time(apart from it being a parallel time)is that in alot of ways it seems more "normal" than real time collinwood.

apart from angelique(and barnabas when he shows up)the family doesn't seem to have been plagued by centuries of supernatural shenanigans.no vampires chained in coffins,pheonixs' on the 100 year cycle or werewolves on the prowl.since angelique had only married into the family perhaps a dozen or so years earlier(judging from daniel's age)was the collins family in this time band essentially free of curses?

the familie's finanaces seem to have been in better order here too.where as real time collinwood is rather frowsy and threadbare here it is,i believe i'm quoting someone here,"bright and flowery and well ordered".there is apparently a full staff.besides hoffman and stokes there is talk of unseen chambermaids,gardeners and cooks.interestingly this was the only time period on the show that didn't have a governess of some sort.i do wish they had explained why elizabeth and roger had been the "poor relations".those characters needed a better backstory.

i thought that the chris and amy collins characters were totally unnessesary.i wonder if they were just finishing out don briscoe and denise nickerson's contracts?

i re-watched a few episodes and i was reminded of how forced and contrived the whole barnabas and roxanne thing was.i didn't buy it for a second.i think the writer knew that the barnabas/josette thing was played out and hoped viewers would go for this.

[Joeytrom]

Collinwood is bright and cheery isn't it?

I guess Liz had a happy marriage and is probably a widow, so there is no gloom hanging over the house in that aspect.  Roger never married, thus no Laura to deal with.

Quentin and Angelique apparently were happy most of the time.

When the show returned to Real Time, they should have changed the sets somewhat and had a story to be told in regular time, at least for a year or more.  The last three stories were already told in three different time periods.  Too much time travel did hurt the show I believe.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

For me the two most interesting things about 1970PT are that the bright and cheery ambiance of Collinwood actually belies the dark and completely cheerless place it actually is, and that [spoiler]Quentin and Angelique's marriage was a nightmare - at least for him. The legend of Angelique was a complete facade which totally glossed over the conniving, malevolent and adulterous bitch that she really was. (And lets not even get into the fact that Angelique was more OCD than Martha Stewart could ever be, what with her insistence that the furniture and brick-a-brack in the drawing room (and presumably every room) never be moved even the sligtest fraction of inch from where she wanted it to be placed!  )[/spoiler]

[Raineypark]

Bwahaha....

Do you suppose Martha watched DS while she was in college?

[MagnusTrask]

Maybe one reason for doing PT was that they felt they needed a reality where all the supernatural events hadn't happened, so trhe characters would be unsuspecting.

[tragic bat]

I really liked a lot of 1970 Paralell time, and found that I did care for the characters; especailly Carolyn and Maggie; the former being so heavily emotionally scarred, and the latter just living a very sad, sad life.  Angelique, however, was a whole lot worse than her RT counterpart.  She was unhinged, and was keenly interested in torturing people (as evidenced by how she tried to make quentin call maggie back just so that she could ruin her life; RT Angelique, I'm sure, would have been just fine if Josette had gone back to Martinique.)  A lot of her story is just creepy (the fate of Dameon Edwards comes to mind); and she seemed to have intense (and intensly sexual) relationships with almost everyone.

What I really wanted to see was Hoffman fired, and Claude North given more of a story.  I personally really like Roxanne and her choice of boyfriends.  I think people at this message board seem to forget that if Barnabas had become involved with Julia, she would DIE.  He is cursed, and none of the cures for vampirism that took place (i.e. Adam, Julia's tinkering with his blood, Angelique's doppleganger) ever dealt with the issue that anyone who loves him will die.  Angelique (x4), Josette, Rachel, Kitty, Roxanne (x2,) Viki...are all dead, and Julia would die too if they had an affair. 

[Barnabas'sBride]

I personally really like Roxanne and her choice of boyfriends.  I think people at this message board seem to forget that if Barnabas had become involved with Julia, she would DIE.  . 

The problem with Roxanne for me is that she came out of nowhere and Barnabas's love for her also comes out of nowhere. I dislike them for the same reason I dislike Quentin & Amanda. No development, just BAM! Instant love. I'm not a fan of Barnabas & Julia as a couple, and they're not the reason I dislike Roxanne....but the line "Whoever loves you will die", seems ambiguous at best to me. If you go by words alone: "Whoever loves you will die", Julia should've been dead pretty early on. Sometimes I think that line simply means that Barnabas, as a vampire under the curse, will outlive anyone he loves and anyone that loves him. He will go through eternity watching family members and loved ones die because he's immortal.

MagnusTrask - I agree with most of your points on parallel time. With the constant "wiping of the slate" it gets hard to care. But it's not really about suspending my disbelief so much as it's about investing in characters and storylines. Once the show began time jumping on a consistent basis, my emotional investment decreased. Constantly having to adjust to new characters, knowing the storylines wouldn't last anyway....it starts feeling pointless.

[tragic bat]

"Whoever loves you will die", seems ambiguous at best to me. If you go by words alone: "Whoever loves you will die", Julia should've been dead pretty early on.

Angeliques own definition of love was obviously not one of restrained affection, watching from afar and hoping to one day build into true intimacy.  Therefore, the curse hasn't touched Julia, not a romantic or declarative person, as of yet.  It has touched people who engaged in the actions of love with Barnabus (the list I gave above.)  Angelique was never very interested, either, in people instantly dropping dead.  Someone who created the dream curse is clearly more interested in drama, so the curse works by ensuring the tragic fate of whoever loves Barnabus.  That is how I see it, at least.

[AndreDuPres]

I think an interesting aspect to Parallel Time that's often overlooked is Angelique's relationship with her son, Daniel.  Now, they both are in only one or two scenes together, and I would've loved to have seen more of them.  At any rate, it's difficult to see Angelique as a motherly figure--in either time period.  She's far too self-centred to be a good caregiver.  Quentin, too, is hardly in any scene with his son, and he also seems like a poor parent.  It's a shame Parallel Time never explored any of these family connections before everyone started getting killed off and the story abruptly ended.  Parallel Time could have been the start of a "normal" storyline with real, vibrant characters--I actually like the PT characters better than their real time counterparts in most cases, though I do find PT Liz rather boring and undeveloped.

[michael c]

it's true that daniel got short shrift during this storyline.

he hardly had any interaction with his mother at all.on angelique's part daniel didn't seem very high on her list of priorities either.she was focused almost entirely on quentin.this is in marked contrast to the obsessive focus of david's relationship with his mother laura during the 1966 and 1897 storylines.

like most of the main cast david henesey was filming the movie during much of parallel time but it would have been nice to see more development between daniel and his mother.

in general david's characters would get pushed to the back burner when in fact it would have been more interesting to have him in the thick of things.this certainly happened when his father was married to cassandra.they share a few scenes but essentially their relationship is not explored.during this same period david and vicki share very few scenes which is sad because they had a cool relationship(he is the reason she's at collinwood in the first place) and then alexandra leaves so there is really no closure for them.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It occurs to me that there might be a misconception as to how much the actual filming of hoDS affected the 1970PT storyline. 1970PT runs from Ep #981 through Ep #1060 - however Eps #981-#988 were taped before filming of the movie began, and the movie had wrapped production by the time Eps #1011-1060 were taped.

hoDS began its 30 day production the week of March 23, 1970 and it wrapped the week of April 27, 1970 - but during that time production of the daytime series was completely suspended from April 1-12, 1970. The only eps of the daytime series that were simultaneous taped while hoDS filmed were the 22 eps from Ep #989 through Ep #1010. So, that's only 22 eps out of an 80 eps long storyline. And, in fact, several of those 22 eps were shot out of sequence to accommodate the actors' hoDS schedules for those who were doing double-duty on both the film and the series.

[MagnusTrask]

I'll have to see those movies sometime.

It says something that after three viewings or so of PT, I can't even remember Henesy being in it.

[BuzzH]

I just didn't like it that they kept having David Selby play all of these different characters who were all named Quentin.

I agree, it would have been interesting, at LEAST w/1840 and/or 1841PT, to have DS play a DIFFERENT character.  Same goes for JF, although he DID play Bramwell.

I think that Parallel Time would have been more fun if they had done it with our Quentin going through, instead of Barnabas. This would have given Jonathan the time he needed to be in the movie.

Well, they [spoiler]chained Barnabas[/spoiler]up so that gave JF the time off he needed for HODS.

I also would have preferred that Angelique [spoiler]have used Alexis' lifeforce, instead of Roxanne's.[/spoiler]They could have used Donna W. as our time Willie's Roxanne then.

Very true, I too don't understand the introduction of Roxanne, but since they did it would have been nice to see Willie's Roxanne played by DW.  What a dilemma for Barnabas, to be in love w/his servant's fiance! 

Just got to thinking about Angelique/Alexis, and having Alexis used as the lifeforce again, it could have been interesting to have had Barnabas fall for her. At least this would have made more sense then having him fall for Roxanne.  They could have Barnabas meet Alexis, and fall in love with her. Then "Alexis" would have to pretend to be in love with him. This would explain his wanting to save the lifeforce much better.

Now THAT would have been interesting!  Barnabas falling for an Angelique look-a-like!  And the fact that JF and Lara had chem makes it all the more logical.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

[spoiler]There are some fabulous characters introduced later on ... deliiciously sleazy low-life, mad scientist/occultist Tim Stokes--Thayer David at his most magnificently seedy.  I think Thayer had some of his best scenes in all of DS during the final weeks of PT.[/spoiler]

I loved Thayer when I watched Ep #1031 today. [spoiler]By way of proving who's really in control of things, Stokes performed a ceremony to sap Angelique's life force temporarily. And then after getting her to admit he'd won the round while he sat playing chess with himself, he remarked with drunken triumph and glee, "I've been a loser for most of my life. What a joy it is to win." Such a great moment![/spoiler]

[BuzzH]

i thought that the chris and amy collins characters were totally unnessesary.i wonder if they were just finishing out don briscoe and denise nickerson's contracts?

You're probably right about this.  They are, so far at least, pretty unnecessary.  But I'm only about a 1/3 of the way through.  Had to take a break to watch Hill Street Blues-2nd Season.