Mental Hospitals in Collinsport Are Bad (Thoughts on the Dream Curse)

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I say he's under more hypnotic control than when BC was a vampire!     Where'd the loyalty come from?  Is Willie seen as a sort of dog, who gets loyal from familiarity?

I does come across that way at times. But when Willie reappears, they go out of their way to make it clear that somehow Willie has turned things all around and believes Barn was his friend, not his master/tormentor. That had sort of begun with his amnesia after being shot - but one might also suspect Willie must have been given some great reality distorting drugs at Windcliff! 

just a vampire and former ghost and witch, and a Bride of Frankenstein and former ghost and French Revolution maniac, shootin' the breeze, hanging around a remote giant mansion, near a small town in Maine.....

Don't you love it! 

some producers are never more dangerous than when they're actively involved....

Amen to that! 

CB reacting to Barnabas getting strangled was great.

Indeed.

Willie was the worst overactor in the Dream, but I guess he saw how awful it was, and that it was up to the actors to convince people it was scary when the hospital vending machine would have been scarier.    He was trying to do the impoissible so no wonder he failed.

Now, don't you make fun of wolf-head-on-a-stick.    Though, of course, it's not half as frightening as skull-with-eyes-on-a-stick. 

[MagnusTrask]

The Dream might have been saved, with design ideas, requiring no more special effects.    I saw the green skull and thought instantly how great it could have been, to start off with that, but in the space of just a few seconds, switch to a blue-screened shot of the same skull, filling up more than the entire screen, with a black silhouetted figure from the back, that of the dreamer, very tiny at the bottom of the screen.    Perhaps the skull could be seen expanding impossibly fast, to fill the screen.     The skull would, in no time, have become twenty stories tall in relation to the dreamer.   That's scary.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

That would have been an excellent effect.    But considering that DS was pretty much inventing the technique of blue screen effects as they went along and doing things that no one had ever done before, they probably can't really be faulted too much for not coming up with something that elaborate.    Sometimes they were just lucky to pull off the simple stuff successfully. 

[MagnusTrask]

It seemed simple to me, unless you can't change the size of something onscreen.     Just zooming in or out I would think.   I wouldn't know of course.   You could use a toy for the dreamer, maybe.

[Nancy]

If this family is so rich, why are Cassandra and Elizabeth time-sharing that electric green coat?

There may have been an allocation of ugly coats - one per household.

Nancy

[Mysterious Benefactor]

If it was the same coat, I'm surprised no one has come up with what must surely be the most obvious explanation: loving sisters often share.  

[Joeytrom]

They did use a film of real bats for Mrs. Johnson's dream, they could have found film footage of a wolf for Willies.

[arashi]

Perhaps Willie suffered from Stockholm Syndrome?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

[Phil]

Sometimes completely banal things are terrifying in dreams; as such, that dog head on a stick would have freaked me out had I seen it in a dream.

[MagnusTrask]

Then it could have been a banana on a stick!

[Janet the Wicked]

Willie's not an oaf.    JK and Clarice Blackburn brought a reality to DS when everything else was leaving the ground and flying into never-never land... when the lines permitted it.    CB reacting to Barnabas getting strangled was great.    Willie was the worst overactor in the Dream, but I guess he saw how awful it was, and that it was up to the actors to convince people it was scary when the hospital vending machine would have been scarier.    He was trying to do the impoissible so no wonder he failed.

Willie is not an oaf. He is portrayed as one. As he is in the audio dramas. That bugs me.
My thoughts on the dream curse/Willie is that they gave Mr. Karlen the script and he had fun with it. I love it. I laugh my butt off every time I see it. I have a feeling JK had a ball with it.

[IluvBarnabas]

Willie wasn't handled well, but I think in 1968, no one came across well usually, except Stokes and Blair, oh, and Eve.      It's just occurred to me that during Adam, Barnabas isn't the slightest bit interesting as a character.    He's totally unecessary except that his not being there would have been conspicuous.     Willie... I'm confused as to why he becomes a big booster of Barnabas's, as soon as he's not under his control.   nothing panics Willie more than the possibility that -- oh no-- Barnabas might be in trouble!!!     I say he's under more hypnotic control than when BC was a vampire!     Where'd the loyalty come from?  Is Willie seen as a sort of dog, who gets loyal from familiarity

I agree that the Adam/Barnabas story wasn't the most exciting storyline during this time, I wouldn't go so far as to say Barnabas' presence was unnecessary or that he wasn't interesting at all during this time. He still had to fight off Cassandra/Angelique's attempts to put the curse back on him with the dream curse, he saved Julia from the clutches of vamp Tom, he himself was enslaved by Angelique the vamp. (It was very fascinating to watch Barnabas be put Willie's shoes as the slave as a vampire....not to mention it was great fun to watch).

As for Willie's sudden loyalty to Barnabas when he returns to Windcliff....I can only say there was stuff going on there that we didn't get to see. I wish the writers had shown more of their 'understanding'  because it is kind of weird to see Willie suddenly devoted to the man who had enslaved him as a vamp and let him take the rap for Maggie's kidnapping!

[MagnusTrask]

I envy you the resilience of your Barney admiration.     1968 is now recoloring my entire picture of BC.  I've moved on to the 80% or so of 1897 that I have.    BC is at his most riveting and creepiest during what I have of the Laura storyline, even while supposedly being heroic.    I think he's at his DS peak here.    Post-Laura, they throw more color into his face, he starts talking about helping people like Q selflessly, and the alarming gravity goes.   BC could have used some of that anti-hero vibe as a context for his upcoming Carl decisions.     Right now, he's making mistakes right and left, leading up to his worst mistake ever, possibly.  I now realize Barnabas never got good at problem-solving.

[arashi]

True, but he wasn't really helping Quentin selflessly, his main goal was to save David and find a cure for Chris. At that point in the storyline I don't really think B & Q liked each other all that much, they certainly didn't trust each other at all. I agree about the gravity though. Before Laura's demise there's all this talk about changing history, everyone is a threat of some sort, and there appears to be a time limit on Barnabas accomplishing his goals... after that things just kind of go INSANE and the changing history concerns fall WAY off the wayside.

[loril54]

Just by going there he changed history.  I really like to see B and J and A, working together. You don't see that to often. That is during the 1897 period. I actually think it was a little to long.  I hope that it didn't take them that long to come up the the Leviathan period.