Roger Davis: Most and Least favorite

[Miss_Winthrop]

Well for my part, I rather liked the Peter Bradford character and Charles Delaware Tate-old and young but couldn't stand Ned Stuart Ugh! I don't know how Lisa Richard got through it with him.  By the way, I really liked the Charles Delaware Tate storyline.  I liked him as Jeff Clark for the most part.  He showed a lot of passion for Vicki but I think she was kind of passionless. They were totally miscast as soul-mates for each other.   But as far as Roger Davis goes, I always thought he was one of the nicest looking men on DS.

[AndreDuPres]

I actually LIKE Ned Stuart, because he had a reason to be so abrasive and irritating.  Jeff Clark, on the other hand, did not.  Sure, he may have been involved in some mental institution or something, but really...I think he was given a crappy storyline with annoying dialogue, and I hate seeing him and Vicki together.  Jeff waffled about and never really accomplished anything, whereas Ned made everyone at Collinwood squirm in just a few episodes.  I especially love that scene in which Ned insists on waiting at the cottage for Chris with B & J, both of whom are extremely ill at ease and eager to get rid of him.  I like the early scenes with Dirk; it's implied that he and Beth had something going on before Quentin returned, yet that plot's quickly dropped once Laura shows up.  I really dislike those episodes:  Diana Millay is great, but those repetitive, boring let's-chant-these-made-up-incantations scenes get on my nerves, and Dirk is in a lot of them.  Dirk the vampire was semi-fun, though, and I enjoyed a little bit of Charles Delware Tate (that scene with him and "Pansy" when the blinds fall is hilarious).

[arashi]

I actually LIKE Ned Stuart, because he had a reason to be so abrasive and irritating.

Good point, I never really thought of his character in that way.

[michael c]

for me all of roger davis' characterizations on the show are variations on jeff clark thus i can never really handle them.i have never seen him in anything else but on d.s. at least he exibited limited range as an actor.

[Pansity]

Interesting variety of opinions here.  First of all let me qualify that I've never had dealings with him at a Fest.  In 2003 he was MIA (I'm told in the bar) when I went through the autograph line; thus I don't have a PERSONAL opinion on his conduct one way or another.

As to characters, I would say Peter Bradford was my favorite.  He seemed the most balanced of the RD characters.  Tate was pretty good too -- he was supposed to be a tempermental egotistical artist with a mean streak and that's what RD gave us.

Least favorite is pretty much a tie between Ned Stuart (and why oh why one wonders, was he brought back as Carolyn's husband in Return to Collinwood?) and Dirk Wilkins.  Both were pretty one note verbally abusive bullies.  If anything I would say Ned is worse, simply because in Dirk's case that sort of conduct was socially acceptable in his time.  I don't go for historical revisionism in any fiction with any time period.  You can't judge the behaviour of a fictional character by the mores of OUR time, but of the culture and standards of THEIR time.  By those standards, if Beth had gotten more serious about Dirk than the implied just casually "keeping company" with him, by Victorian standards she would have made herself a good catch.

As to Jeff Clark, he's just sort of middle range annoying.  Digging up  decaying body parts is enough to make anyone a little freaky.

[MagnusTrask]

Ms. Dreadful... I will not judge Dork* by the standards of his time; why not?  Because I judge by my personal standards, not some shifting conformist standard that I just soaked in passively and mindlessly from the "times" I happen to be living in.    The present day world doesn't measure up awfully well to me.

I do try to take context into account, though.    I judge people for doing crappy things, but judge less severely if there really was absolutely no one in a person's environment saying this or that was wrong.     In general, though, I do pass judgement on automatic conformity to standards of the "community", just to get by and get along, and be popular.

*-- A genuine Freudian typo, I guess!   (Dirk)