Discuss: '91 Series - Pilot - Part 2

[Watching Project 2]

For those who may have missed it the first time around, here's the pilot montage we created in the forum's VantageNet days to celebrate the '91 series' 10th Anniversary:

(Notice that captures are included from some of the restored scenes. And if you're watching
the DVDs, note there are captures included with the correct day-for-night filtering.)

And here are the commercial bumpers for Part 2 that give a peek at what's to come in the next act:

[video]

<a href="http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_6.swf" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_6.swf</a>

(To control the play of the video, right-click on it and use the controls.)

[/video]

[video]

<a href="http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_7.swf" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_7.swf</a>

(To control the play of the video, right-click on it and use the controls.)

[/video]

[video]

<a href="http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_8.swf" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_8.swf</a>

(To control the play of the video, right-click on it and use the controls.)

[/video]

[video]

<a href="http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_9.swf" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.dsboards.com/1991/0113_Bumper_9.swf</a>

(To control the play of the video, right-click on it and use the controls.)

[/video]

(More to come...)

[Taeylor Collins]

Hey guys.  Here I am!! Hopefully first! LOL   A little hint for those watching it on DVD.  If you will turn your contrast down a lot it will make the day for night scenes look much better.  I cannot believe they screwed that up.  I will say this though.  The DVD looks amazing. If it wasn't for the dated cars, hair and clothes it looks as if could have been shot last week in my opinion.  Very clear!

We open with a scene of the monstrous David taunting poor Victoria.  It's nice to see Carolyn reach out to Victoria.  I also like the extra footage we get on the VHS tapes that let us know Carolyn recently returned to Collinwood.  It's a shame these things were edited out. They gave us a lot more character development!!  Poor Willie!  I know he is a screw up and I hate how Roger treats him.  However, I love the sort of protectiveness Victoria seems to feel toward Willie.  I really like the music when Barnabas enters Willie's interrogation.  For some reason it seems very familiar! *WINK* *NOD* For some reason I really like the part where Barnabas says, "Come along Willie"  He almost seems like a normal nice man!   I love the romantic tension between Victoria and Barnabas at the meeting.  I really loved Sarah's character. "He's Evil!" David suggest to Victoria about Barnabas.   LOVE. THE. MUSIC!!!!  It is so haunting and sets the mood for me.  It really sounds great on Surround Sound.  PROPS to Robert Cobert for such a glorious score!! 

"It's gonna be awful!"-David LOL  JGL delivered that line superbly!!  I love the shot of David going down the winding stairs to the basement.  That is a CLASSIC Dan Curtis shot!!  I have to wonder why Barnabas or Willie didn't lock the gate that  David went through?  The coffin room is very spooky looking and from an US weekly article I have that is the BOWLING ALLEY in the Dohney Mansion.

Carolyn is a little Huss.  However, I love her comeback line to "MUSCLES"  "...Your never gonna ride 'em"  Gloria's scream reminds me of a scream or two from a past horror show!   

I absolutely love the way Julia is introduced.  "Well lets' get him on the phone!" "HER name is Julia Hoffman!" Possibly another *WINK & NOD*?  I will NEVER be able to EXPRESS to anyone how PERFECT I thought Barbara Steele was for the part of Julia Hoffman.  I feel the same way about her as I do about Joanna Going.  No one else (at that time) could have played either one.  It is cool to know Dan Curtis pulled her out of retirement to play Julia.  I would have loved to have seen BS with her hair down more because she is gorgeous with it that way.  If you have ever seen her on the DS RESSURECTED video.  She is breathtaking.  She was a gorgeous young woman and a gorgeous middle aged woman IMO.  The only thing IMO that made her dowdy was her hair constantly braided because the woman was ALWAYS painted (makeup) beautifully and had those wonderful long red nails. And was dressed to the Nines!!  But she isn't a SYT! 

I love the scene where Barney shows Victoria Josette's room.  I really hate seeing Willie getting beat to death.   Great scenes between Julia, Elizabeth, and Barnabas as Julia meets him for the first time.  I think he is acquiring some pieces for The Old House! Issac Collins is mentioned. I would have liked to have know more about him. Great SHOTS of Julia and Barnabas as they peer at one another through the Grandstaircase!!  I think Julia begins to believe something is not quite right about him!!

I love the music box.  It is gorgeous and I really enjoyed the scenes with Barnbabs and Victoria having dinner.  Love the shot of Sarah with all the fog watching Barnabas escort Victoria home.  I love the ending scenes except for how they translated to DVD.  I really enjoy Barnabas breakdown at the end!  Great ending that keep me wanting more.

I personally like the second half better and therefore will give it an A-

BTW ATT MOD.  Can I scan any articles and post them.  I have several however I wanted to make sure it was okay first.

Below are some screencaps!!

The last one is my favorite.  I am as in love with Barbara Steele as I am a certain other doctor who once appeared on TV.  I hope my inneundo wasn't too much.  I didn't really know exactly how to point out some thoughts without reflecting on the past!!

[Taeylor Collins]

I just noticed my favorite picture in the collage!! LOL  Love Barbara!!

[Cousin_Barnabas]

So, this half was definitely better than the first.  Once again, I must say that the direction and music of this pilot are top quality.  Both are exceptional.

This show's whole take on the vampire story is really refreshing.  The "experts" are all seemingly open to the possibility of this being a real vampire, and I like that take a lot.  It gets the story going a lot quicker, instead of holding everything up by having scenes where everyone is arguing over whether or not the vampire is real. 

I am really starting to like Barnabas as a character.  I wasn't too sure about him in the first half, but now I think I'll like him.  I love Victoria and David even more than I did in the first hour.  Both are exceptional.  I still don't like Carolyn or Roger.  Willie is just sort of annoying.  He's supposed to add comic relief, but I think he's a little over-the-top so far.  He may get better as time goes on.

There were a couple of things that bothered me.  The first thing was how they dressed Elizabeth in a couple of the scenes.  Some of her outfits just don't seem to fit the rather regal, strong lady Elizabeth seems to be.  Another thing that bothered me was the staircase leading to the basement of the Old House.  It looked so modern that it completely threw off my whole sense of immersion.  Another quibble I have with this part of the show is how I am unable to tell whether or not I am looking at Collinwood or the Old House.  They look exactly the same to me, and it's very confusing.  Another little thing that I noticed here that didn't really bother me, but I am thinking is a blooper, is Barnabas returning to look up at Victoria's window without his cane.  I can't imagine him walking all the way back to the Old House just to drop off his cane and then come back to hiss at Miss Winters' window.  It's entirely possible, but I think they just omitted his cane because of the logistics of the scene; ie: running after Sarah.  The problem there is that they made such a point in the previous scene to emphasize the cane, that Barnabas not having it a few minutes later just seems like a big oversight. 

There were two wonderful scenes in this part of the pilot.  The first was Willie's interrogation.  I thought that was a very well directed scene.  The other was Barnabas and Victoria in Josette's room.  Once again, I have to comment that the music is superb, especially Josette's Music Box theme. 

As a side note, I must say that I am watching the DVDs, and the removal of the "night" filters on the day for night scenes doesn't really bother me.  I just think of all that excess light as really bright moonlight, and since the setting for this show is really quite surreal, it works in my opinion.  My tapes of the original broadcast include the filters, and the heavy blues in those scenes always bothered me, because they made the scenes seem fake.   

My grade for this part of the pilot is an A-.  Over all, it's great.  The few problems I mentioned above don't really take away from the show itself, but the excess "sex appeal" elements written into the script do detract in my opinion.  Frankly, I'm not interested in seeing Joe and Daphne swap saliva or Carolyn tease that future victim in the bar.  Those things detract from the quality of the show, imo.  I want to see character build-up, more emphasis on the family, on Barnabas and Victoria, etc.  But, that's just me. 

[Lydia]

Funny, when I saw the portrait of Josette, my first thought was: "She looks like Carolyn."  That pout on the face in the portrait looked very much like Carolyn's pout to me.

As David, sitting in his bed, told Vicky what Sarah had told him, it seemed to me that Sarah was serving the same function for David that Barnabas was for Willie.  Willie's a bad boy and Barnabas is turning him into a good boy (well, sort of), and David's a bad boy but Sarah believes he has the potential to be a good boy.  I don't suppose that that set-up is exactly the case - but that's how it seemed at the time.

Why did Joshua Collins go to the trouble of bringing Collinwood over from England when it doesn't seem to have been a notable improvement on the very grand Old House?  And was the Old House brought over from England as well?  It certainly looks like it.  I like the arches inside the Old House, by the way.  I always like arches.

That dinner invitation from Barnabas to Vicky may have been romantic, and beautifully written too, but I didn't think much of it.  It shouldn't have been for the same night, and the dinner shouldn't have been at his house.  Too much too soon.  But Vicky had no problem with it.

Hmph.  Barnabas tells Vicky that when Josette died, it broke his ancestor's heart.  If I had been Vicky, I would have been thinking to myself, "Maybe so, but he still managed to marry and to father at least one son after that."  We know that he didn't - but Vicky doesn't know that.

Nice job by Ben Cross as Barnabas ran after Sarah - totally undignified, flailing his arms.

[Miss_Winthrop]

I have to agree that the music is fantastic! Did they really need to show Barnabas swinging his cane in the air and beating down on poor Willie over and over and over and over!  I would have gotten the message without the excessive violence.       Barbara Steele is wonderful! I find her believable as a hard working research doctor who is all professional but can still show a little bit of warmth towards her patient.  I'm still making up my mind about the Barnabas role. He's mysterious to be sure. His total coldness towards Willie is disconcerting but I like how it shows the layer's of his character.  Except for the violence thus far I rate the pilot an A-1...

[Nelson Collins]

Are we really meant to think that no one in the Collins family, even self professed family history expert Elizabeth, has never seen a picture of Josette?  Surely the one in her room at the Old House was not the only painting or drawing ever done of her?

[Midnite]

Count me as another Barbara Steele fan!  I love her first appearance emerging from the train-- a goddess in black boots!  Judging by the look that Julia and Woodard exchanged when the sheriff mentioned the teeth and red eyes of Daphne's attacker, she seems to have gone beyond being "intrigued" (when she first arrived) and knows a good deal by the end of the pilot.

I agree with Cousin Barnabas that the interrogation in the direction scene was very good.  Barnabas says there that he took the liberty of letting himself in.  That must feel satisfying for a vampire who has already been invited inside.

But I cannot stand Gloria and her "Can't you WAIT until we GET into the CAR?"  I get that a town slut was needed to take the place of the prostitute in classic vampire stories, but the former Miss Cowboy USA may have been hired more for her bod and less for her ability to fit in to a small Northeastern town.

If anyone watching the DVD wondered how Vicki knew the horse's name, it's because the VHS has the restored scene that Taeylor mentioned of Carolyn driving Vicki to the stables.  Carolyn explains that when her mother called (presumably because of David), she left the bright lights to return home, though she was just starting to get somewhere with her photography and is still doing some picture taking.  Vicki suggests that since she's there now, Carolyn might be able to go back, but Carolyn says it's hard to leave right now, and Vicki admits she might be right.  After Vicki gets out of the car, Carolyn calls out to her, "Take the chestnut mare.  Her name is Carolyn."

Tarantulas.  They're common here in Southern California, and I found a small one in my bedroom after we first moved in.  My husband returned it to the canyon behind the house.  I don't like spiders, but at least I know that tarantulas are not particularly harmful, and that you would NOT find a lot of them in Maine IF AT ALL.

I also wondered why Willie doesn't lock the gate to the basement during the day, especially with a crew of workers on the premises.

Poor Victoria Winters, but not because of David's pranks.  She is so hopelessly caught up in the romanticism of the ancestral house with its secrets, the story of the tragic woman she resembles, and her mysterious suitor.

Don't get too attached to the portrait of Josette.  

[Nelson Collins]

Don't get too attached to the portrait of Josette.   

LOL!

[RachelDrummand]

So I held back on commenting last week because I wanted to reflect on the pilot as a whole. First I'd like to address the whole Josette's portrait issue. As someone else suggested, one would think Josette had another portrait done and Liz had seen it. And this is getting a bit ahead, but look closely at Josette's portrait now. For some reason in the later eps, the portrait changes...unless you want to consider the possibility that there are two portraits that at one time hung in that room.

Characterizations: My personal favorites are Victoria Winters, Barnabas Collins, Sarah Collins, David Collins, and Julia Hoffman. I also think DC did an excellent job casting Jean Simmons as Liz. She gave the character such warmth and depth. If I had to choose one character I didn't particular care of, it would be Carolyn. Her role in all of this is a bit confusing. Why is she there and could she really be interested in Victoria? That comes across in a few scenes from the VHS. IMO, she's possible bi-sexual.

David is a little hell-raiser and I'm really suprised they didn't just drop him off in some military school (as someone else on here suggested)

Back to the plot, I adore the romance between Victoria and Barnabas. They have so much wonderful chemistry! I also am intrigued with this sub-plot of the mystery of Roger's wife (which is implied a little in the pilot). I suspect Roger's wife was a painter and painted that one painting Victoria comments on. Although they are so rich one has to wonder why they couldn't afford to just buy the original instead of having a copy. 

Barnabas' letter to Victoria always causes me to swoon, but you could have a point, Lydia. Perhaps it is too much too soon but this is Barnabas' we're talking about after all. Maybe he just felt he didn't want to waste any time in courting her.

More on this later!

~Rachel

[Midnite]

David is a little hell-raiser and I'm really suprised they didn't just drop him off in some military school (as someone else on here suggested)

Roger was all for sending David to a boarding school, but Elizabeth would have none of it.

Regarding Carolyn's seductiveness, how about her suggestion that Vicki ride "Carolyn"?

And according to DS Resurrected, Carolyn is 18.  Does that fit her "bright lights" story, and what IS the drinking age in Maine?

[RachelDrummand]

Ewww good point about the horse. I have both the tapes and the dvds and always prefer to watch the tapes since it doesn't leave anything out. I didn't realize Carolyn was supposed to be 18 in this....that means if they are related, Victoria is the older sister. I always envisioned Carolyn around the same age....25 or so.

[Nelson Collins]

Watched the vhs this morning.  Wow, Carolyn again comes across as almost as predatory as Barnabas, especially when (as mentioned upthread) she suggests Vicki ride the horse named Carolyn!! 

Strangely enough, I find that Going and Fyfe have more of a chemistry than Going and Cross.  Willie now is meek and pitiable, but his scenes with Vicki scream for the inclusion of the missing scene of them in the pick up on her first night, where they first connected.  I like how Vicki sticks up for him.  In his way, he's just as much a recalcitrant child as David, and it shows her talent to be able to get on boths good side.  Speaking of David, while he's still cool toward her, he certainly has warmed to her quite considerably.

Roger is a dick and I don't like him right now, maybe he feels justified treating Willie the way he does but still   

Never mind, the basement being open to anyone who anyone who passes by, WTF is up with a friggin' SKYLIGHT shining down on Barnabas' coffin?!?!?!?!?!

Was that bar scene at the Blue Whale?  And "You talk kinda funny."? Surely even the town slut has a TV and has heard people from England talk?

Woof!  Man on man vampire action!  On screen!  At last! 

I like Julia a lot. She's very cool and classy.

I am not surprised Elizabeth knows the Doctor but I am surprised she is on a first name basis with Woodard.

Does Joe ever shave??

I can't decide about Barnabas' behavior toward Vicki, he lingers a little too long in kissing her hand and my gut instinct is that he's kind of creepy in an oily lounge lizard kind of way.

I have to admit when Barnabas was talking about Josette and said "an accident!"  I immediately thought of a similar in the Rocky Horror Picture Show and even repeated aloud "An accident!" 

The portrait of Josette like the portrait of Barnabas, looks very much out of the time it was supposed to have been painted.  She looks too free and voluptuous and frankly a bit wanton, beyond which I think even the French of the time would venture.

Surely if the victim had been floating in the surf for any length of time.  the bloodstains around the neck wound would have washed away long since.....

Okay, am I the only on who thought the idea of moving Daphne to a downstairs room (providing her assailant easier access) an incredibly bad idea?

I agree that the romance seems to be going way too quickly, and find it odd that Barnabas would invite Vicki to dinner.  I mean, what's he going to say when she comments that he's not eaten anything?  Will Vicki just simper when he says her beauty has robbed him of his appetite? 

Poor Barnabas, I love how helpless and pathetic he becomes when he espies Sarah, unfortunately, the mood was broken but the overacted "I CANNOT HELP MYSELF!  MYSELF! Myself... myself....."  It would have been much more effective if it had been played more subtly, but one cannot fault the actor for that, but the director.

Overall, better than part 1 and the two together are better as a whole.

[Taeylor Collins]

Wow, Carolyn again comes across as almost as predatory as Barnabas, especially when (as mentioned upthread) she suggests Vicki ride the horse named Carolyn!!

I wish so much that I could find  the article or interview I read with Barbara Blackburn.  She played Carolyn almost in bisexual way she said.  Can anyone back this up?? 

Was that bar scene at the Blue Whale?

I thought it was called Logans something!

Woof!  Man on man vampire action!  On screen!  At last!

I didn't really care much for this one.  There is one in the '91 comics that is HOT!  And the paintings look so real it is very very sexy!!  I didn't find the Muscles bite all that sexy.

I am not surprised Elizabeth knows the Doctor but I am surprised she is on a first name basis with Woodard.

Collinsport is a small town right?  I would think it weird if Elizabeth didn't know "MOST" everyone by name considering her family built the town and she has lived there all her life.

Does Joe ever shave??

I think it fits with the fisherman thing.  PLUS!  GOOD GOD.  Micheal is ONE hunk of a man!  I love his stubble and his hairy chest!! YUMMY!  If I were Daphne I would be kissing him every chance I got!!

and find it odd that Barnabas would invite Vicki to dinner.  I mean, what's he going to say when she comments that he's not eaten anything?  Will Vicki just simper when he says her beauty has robbed him of his appetite?

In the Dark Shadows world maybe vampires can eat?? The rules aren't always the same in all vampire lore.  I know Angel could eat food it just didn't bring him any pleasure.

BTW...Nelson I am not picking at your post alone.  I hope you don't feel that way.  I enjoyed it!!

[Taeylor Collins]

And according to DS Resurrected, Carolyn is 18.

Is there a way to quote two posts at a time??   Is DS Resurrected the gospel?  After all it is a Pom Press book.  BTW...Midnite I am so glad you share my love for Barbara Steele! GODDESS INDEED!