Midnite wrote:
My biggest continuity gripe in this storyline-- the rewriting of Angelique's history. Wandering the globe since 1795 while making annual pilgrimages to Collinwood? Yet possessing knowledge of the current Collinses? Don't. Think. So. According to the story already laid out for us, girlfriend should have been in hell after Ben torched her.
I agree with this one Midnite. First you have Ben burning Angelique in the mini 1796 flashback and then her being brought back by Quentin in 1897 so during the period in between, she should not have been on the earth.
Lets face it, the plotlines changed and were inconsistent based not so much on lack of caring on the part of the powers that be, but out of necessity, dictated by what the writers and producers wanted to show, who was contractually obligated to be on the show and other matters behind the scenes. You have Angelique there because Laura Parker was under contract to appear on the series and they knew that nobody would want her to be anyone else but Angelique. The same held true with, Frid. He had to be Barnabas. Even when the story jumped to PT 1841 and Frid was another character, most people still wanted to see him as Barnabas. So what was popular with the audience also dicated less than consistent plot twists to accomodate what the fans loved to see.
1840 is relatively free of the sudden disappearances or writing out of a character for reasons aside from plot purposes. In 1795, even though Jeremiah has always been said to have outlived and buried Josette, the chararcter of Jeremiah was killed off when Anthony George left the show. In 1897, John Karlen's Carl was killed off because he was leaving the show and the same held true for Clarice Blackburn's Minerva Trask. In both cases the people playing the roles were leaving the show and the characters were written out for that reason. The one exception in 1840 is the sudden disappearance of David Henesy and his character of Tad Collins.
In all the flashbacks some of the facts presented prior to the actual flashback did change. 1840 is not the only one gulity of this kind of thing. In 1795 much of what we see disputed earlier facts about the family but was explained away near the end by showing that Joshua Collins decided to write his own version of the family's fate in that time. This excuse was used to show why the family was so different from what Vicki had always read about them being. In 1897, some minor things were different from what we knew before the flashback began, but we didn't get as much pre flashback info on the 1897 family as we had in either 1795 or 1840. 1840 aside from 1795, gives us the most pre flashback info. We know something about Gerard, Daphne, Tad and Carrie, not to mention a bit about Roxanne and we know that a playroom exists in 1840 Collinwood that doesn't seem to always exist in 1970. We are given details about others like Gabriel as well. We are also given a hint about what direction the story is leading, but when we get there that direction takes a major turn. I think that is what makes 1840 a bit disconcerting is that it takes a major and a seemingly abrupt change in direction from what you expected to see unfold there, whereas the other flashbacks seemed to be a bit more subtle in the changes made or made an effort to explain them.
Raholt