Discuss - Ep #1059

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1059

[Lydia]

I've thoroughly enjoyed watching seedy, drunken, chain-smoking Tim Stokes, but deranged, vengeful Tim Stokes is doing absolutely nothing for me.  Still, this concentration on Tim, now that Angelique is dead again, has me wondering what exactly is the root of Tim's obsession with Angelique.  It's all Angelique, and Alexis is nothing, so it's not related to looks.  It's all personality, or supernatural aptitude - or what?  I keep getting tripped up by the fact that Angelique is his stepdaughter.

So Barnabas never did explain to Maggie that Hoffman wasn't Hoffman?  What on earth has Maggie been thinking, then?  Oh, never mind.  I forgot, thinking isn't Maggie's strong point.

Parallel time strikes again, giving us the dots and being too lazy to connect them for us.  We saw Julia crying (lovely performance by Grayson Hall in the secret room today, by the way), and we saw Barnabas, Roxanne, and Maggie realizing where Julia was, and the next thing we knew, they were all at Loomis House.  We didn't see Julia falling sobbing into Barnabas's arms when the secret panel was opened.  We didn't see her straightening up and looking just a bit chagrined when she realized that Barnabas was flanked by his two sweet young things.  Have the writers forgotten that this is a soap opera?  Have they forgotten that it's supposed to take everybody three days to get through a revolving secret panel?  For heaven's sake, guys, what's the hurry?  Stop and smell the deadly nightshade!

[Willie Loomis]

Re:  Tim and Angelique -- I always thought because they stressed the step-daughters angle, that Tim and Angelique were sexually involved....hence his obsession with her.   

[MagnusTrask]

Geez, I just thought Tim was promoting Ang as his superb perfect evil daughter, the pet project of his life.   Anyway, I was surprised that Thayer was managing to make bitter, retaliatory Tim work.   That's more in the next episode, though.

Barnabas to PT Maggie, in Old House: "You can stay here as long as you like."   Shouldn't she be the one saying that to him?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Anyway, I was surprised that Thayer was managing to make bitter, retaliatory Tim work.

It was once said of the late great actor John Gielgud that he was so talented an actor that he could make a dead tree stump fascinating to watch - and I've said the same of Thayer David many times. Though that's not to imply in any way that PTStokes is anything like a dead tree stump.    In fact, he's one of my favorite 1970PT characters.

Barnabas to PT Maggie, in Old House: "You can stay here as long as you like."   Shouldn't she be the one saying that to him?

It should indeed be the other way around - particularly considering that Barn was simply a guest at Loomis House and now both of the Loomises are deceased. But then that's our Barn. Once he gets his foot in the door, so to speak, he takes over everything whether he's entitled to it or not...

[Nightfall59]

Re:  Tim and Angelique -- I always thought because they stressed the step-daughters angle, that Tim and Angelique were sexually involved....hence his obsession with her.   

I also got that vibe. Maybe others did as well and that is why Tim suddenly became Angelique's "stepfather" when earlier in the storyline he was identified as her "father"?

[Lydia]

Angelique, as played by Lara Parker, didn't give me the impression that there had ever been anything sexual between her and Tim.  If there was indeed something sexual there, however, that would make it all the more interesting that, as Tim mentioned once, Tim had in some supernatural way caused Quentin to become infatuated with Angelique.

[MagnusTrask]

I had the impression that everyone but Q was infatuated with Ang but not necessarily always in a sexual way-- sometimes it was just personality.   I always thought Tim became their stepfather very early on, and he and their mother raised the two sisters.   Parents often push kids toward perceived greatness even if they don't feel much for the kids, as a substitute for immortality I guess.   He was proud of her "evil" and forceful personality, and wanted her to survive, as the mark he was making on the world.

He clearly wasn't mooning over her like others did.  They argued and criticized each other.

[Taeylor Collins]

7/16/70

There is something very sad about watching the lights turned out and Collinwood being closed. Watching shows like Fringe, Charmed, Buffy it really shows how ahead of  it's time DS was in utilizing the whole Parallel Universe or Alternate Time Line.  Today I actually watched  Justice League and it was a story about all kinds of different earths so it's cool that a soap brought this to the light. It sometimes baffles me to think that a soap was every on daytime television that was so fearless in dealing with all these interesting storylines.  I sometimes wish I would have been around in the original run.

I love the revelations that Barnabas comes up with.  Its great hearing the happiness in his voice in learning the error he had made concerning Hoffman's clothes and Julia's!

Roxanne is quite 70S and funky and I like that we get a character that has physic powers in a present day story. [spoiler]I always felt that Sebastian was a total knock off of her with the roles just being reversed in the RT.  I didn't care for him at all but we will save that for later. [/spoiler]

The effect used with the brooch is quite effective and very cool for that time period, very inventive!

Poor Julia!  Julia lying there helplessly just makes me so sad and I found myself tearing up in my first viewing of these episodes.
“Thank God!  You’re alive!” Barnabas The characters often thank God. I realize it's an expression but I have to wonder if Barnabas believes in the Judeo Christian God or what any of the characters on the show believe in as far as God, Christ, etc.

There seems to be a great flow among the actors as they all seem to work well together. It seems at this point that DS is a well oiled machine and they get the job done which often happens after a show has been on for years.

“Clinton is cleared!” LOL Great blooper.  GH is great at playing phone conversations.

[MagnusTrask]

"Clinton is cleared"?   Someone said that?  If only it was said in 1995, it could have made sense!

I do wonder about Barnabas in relation to God.   They couldn't touch the subject because it would mean a TV show was seeming to take stands on what religious views were right.   They have the Devil though, so God's in the picture somewhere.   It seems to me that Barnabas is supposed to be a creature who is cursed and therefore cut off from salvation, or any relationship with the Almighty... not because of anything he did, but because of something done TO him by a servant of the Devil.   This is of course totally unfair, but I have no problem whatsoever with any vision of the world as being totally unfair.  

That seems to be DS's world view.   It's a dark, treacherous, unfair cosmos, and while God is out there, you're basically on your own.    It seems odd that God would allow curses that cut innocent people off from Him, but maybe some things in an infinite universe really do escape His attention.

Given all that, I always think it's good of Barnabas to keep God in mind, in a positive way, which is what I take from his references to God in conversation.   It shows an admirable lack of bitterness.

By the way, I'm not religious.   Have I said all this before?

[Taeylor Collins]

Great reply! THANKS MAGNUS!

[Lydia]

I don't think the existence of Diabolos means that God must exist as well.  There are people who believe in God but not in the Devil, so I don't see it as being any less possible that, conversely, the Devil exists but not God.  The only possible reference to God's proven existence in the Dark Shadows universe - the only one that I can think of, anyway - comes from Nicholas Blair, who wanted to create a super-race.  The implication was either that the human race was unsatisfactory because it was created by God, or else that creating a race of beings would be a a bit of one-upmanship against God.  But I don't think Nicholas confirmed that God was in the picture.  Very likely Diabolos would have punished him severely for doing so - but the fact remains that I don't remember any confirmation from Nicholas.

[Taeylor Collins]

I do recall him saying to Maggie about a certain amulet or stone or something that it was around or came before "YOUR" Christ?  So it would have been interesting if it was talked about more.  I don't know if he was confirming that Christ was around for sure or that the historical CHRIST everyone thinks was here at one time?  I hope this isn't too far off point.   Let me know if it is mods.

[MagnusTrask]

Well, all that with Blair and Adam and Eve might be that confirmation.   His new race is defined as not having been created by God (though not created by the Devil either really), meaning normal humans were.

I also like that remark of Blair's, where he just can't bring himself to utter "Christ", even though everything he's saying is a lie, so calling Jesus "Christ" would have just been one more easy misrepresentation of his true attitudes.   But he just can't do it, and even risks raising suspicions by saying to Maggie "...your Christ"!!   That's devotion... or maybe Satan hears all...

That's not a direct confirmation, but why would Blair and/or the Devil feel so threatened by the mention of Christ?

Thanks, Taeylor!