1840 ben stokes question

[Lydia]

At least 1968 didn't F with established facts as 1840 did.

1795 did that too, but people rarely complain about it.  I complain because I think the original pre-time-travel story was more interesting.  1795 was very well done, but it changes everything.

I don't like 1840 much, but it's not the lack of continuity that gets me; it's other things.  The percentage of truly unlikable characters is too high.  Gerard, whom I find terrifically interesting, gets shunted aside.  And Barnabas and Julia should have done things right and traveled back to 1692!  Of course a trip to 1692 would inevitably have messed up continuity even further, but nobody really cares about that if the story is good enough - as was demonstrated with the 1795 storyline.

[Joeytrom]

One of the problems with 1840 is that there are way too many unlikable characters, especially among the Collins family.  Unlike 1795 or 1897, there aren't really any Collins family members to root for other then Quentin.  Flora isn't seen to much and isn't even part of the main family. 

They didn't have to make both Collins wives, Edith and Samantha, unlikable.  Edith could have been a matronly character as she was supposed to continue on to 1897.  Perhaps have her husband off camera and away like their children were and have Gabriel be single. 

[David]

I still wanna know how three certain deaths in 1840 affected 1897 and the modern dress stories!
And yes, Edith was not the same character in 1840 as in 1897.

[tragic bat]

[spoiler]Ben's death certainly was disgusting, but that's horror for you.   Judah taking control of Ben to decapitate him seems horrific to me,[/spoiler] and just what Judah would want to do, not ludicrous.

The ludicrous part is that the Collins family are actually shown to beleive that [spoiler]He tried to kill himself by cutting off his own head.[/spoiler]

Overall, I didn't find it scary, just stupid.  And bringing back a beloved character who already had a good ending to get rid of him in such a way is unforgiveable in my opinion.   That's why I said in my post, that the storyline takes away, it doesn't give.  Of course they did that a lot at the end of the show.   

While some of the more recent actors did get characters that brought something different, there were too many rehashes for my taste; a cheap pansity-faye knockoff, another Trask, another Angelique, another Roxanne, another HAA warlock, another patriarch for Louis, another Quentin hardly distinguishable from the others... And in the one case where maybe a knockoff could have been fun (i.e. if Grayson had played Magda's ancestor) we had to watch Julia travel through time and waste Grayson's talents on the same-old.

[MagnusTrask]

Of course we get another Trask and we get Angelique.... that's part of what makes DS DS, and part of the fascination and fun.  There were new twists-- Julia knowing Ang but Ang not knowing Julia, and a Trask with no power and no followers, who was so haunted by his father's mysterious death that he became a mortician.   With Roxanne we see not another Roxanne, but the same Roxanne's origin, which her 1970 appearance was setting us up for.   Old Ben died too soon, but at least we got to see old Ben.   And of-1840 Barnabas was classic.

Everybody gives examples of genuine flaws with 1840, but it seems to me that most eras have similar lists of flaws.  We seem to be less forgiving about them with 1840.   

[Lydia]

Magnus, I see what you're saying.  It makes sense.  But however forgiving i try to be, in the end I come back to: I just don't like 1840 much.  When I'm watching it, I keep thinking how much i dislike the hair and the costumes.  And that's totally frivolous.  But if I liked 1840, then I would probably barely even notice hair and costumes.

[Joeytrom]

For me, the issue about 1840 is mainly that by that point in the series, I had enough of all the time travelling.  Every new storyline was taking place in a new time period.  I was tired of being introduced to all new characters who would be gone in a few months.  I wanted to see Liz, Roger, Carolyn, & the rest of the present time characters.  After 1897, the present time became a temporary stop over.

[MagnusTrask]

For me, the issue about 1840 is mainly that by that point in the series, I had enough of all the time travelling.  Every new storyline was taking place in a new time period.  I was tired of being introduced to all new characters who would be gone in a few months.  I wanted to see Liz, Roger, Carolyn, & the rest of the present time characters.  After 1897, the present time became a temporary stop over.

But the present-day family had been reduced to a collective damsel-in-distress.   Was there ever much of interest going on with them for most of DS?   They never even had a clue what was going on, so they couldn't really take part or react.

1840 seemed to me to be a correction of a mistake the makers felt they'd made, in ever leaving 1897 at all.   They never actually left the past, once they'd gone back to 1840, though there were vague plans to eventually.   I can understand, if they felt this way.   The past was when DS woke up, and the magic came back, no matter how many stumbles were made along the way.

[Joeytrom]

1840 seemed to me to be a correction of a mistake the makers felt they'd made, in ever leaving 1897 at all.   They never actually left the past, once they'd gone back to 1840, though there were vague plans to eventually.   I can understand, if they felt this way.   The past was when DS woke up, and the magic came back, no matter how many stumbles were made along the way.

1897 was a great storyline but I don't see how they could have stayed there any longer.  In it's last months, the writers were obviously stretching things out.  They needed to beef up the present time characters more so that they wouldn't be "damsel in distress" like.  Alternating with a regular time soap opera plot would have been a good idea like the first Barnabas storyline. 

[MagnusTrask]

Well, conceivably they could have started fresh and created new storylines in whatever era they were in.   I think they regretted ever leaving the atmosphere (and ratings) of the past, not the events of the 1897 plot specifically.

I should add here, for purposes of complete disclosure, that on first run, I was drifting from DS in 1970 (including 1840).   I do remember Collinwood being destroyed.   I'd check in on it occasionally to test the waters, and then of course I was more and more confused each time I did that.   Eventually, with 1841PT, it seemed as if they'd lost their minds.   Was it the past?   None of these events or characters belonged...  Julia Collins?   Uh... what?   It didn't help that they stopped telling us in the VO that it was in PT.   They were in the romantic, ratings-generating (they hoped) past, that's all that some of the makers and viewers cared about I guess.   

Leticia Pansy was unforgiveable, but I'm going to guess that an irrational demand was made by DC or someone to get very popular character Charity Pansy back in there, no matter how crazy it was.   They un-Pansy-Fayed the character as soon as Dan's attention was distracted by something else, I'll guess....