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« on: June 16, 2013, 02:54:40 AM »
Jean Simmons's Liz was really underdeveloped. We know so little about her. We know nothing of her husband/Carolyn's father. Was he dead, did he leave her like Paul in the original series? The whole reclusive story was dropped, and I don't remember there being the business and financial problems that were important in the tv series and movie. Liz and Roger had a niece Daphne, but we know nothing more about their family. Presumably they had another brother. The mystery of Victoria's origins and Liz's involvement also were dropped on the tv show, but one of the Innovation comics, I think it was the last one, did have Roger ask Liz when she was going to tell Vicki that Liz was her mother. If the comic series had continued we probably would've learned about her past in that format anyways.
But on the tv show there are no hints of Liz having marital problems, a secret illigitimate child, her torment over thinking she had killed Paul, and yes, there is no subtext in the performance for any of that. I don't mean it as any criticism of Simmons, she played the character as written, and none of those elements were part of the 91 series, but her character didn't get as much depth because of it, although I still liked her.
I feel that she had more to do with Naomi at least, with a cold husband, the deaths of two children and her son the vampire, and going mad.
Even in just two hours Pfeiffer's Liz got a lot of development, she had a crumbling family fortune she was trying to hold togather single handed at the begining, a troubled teen with a secret and a disturbed nephew, an odd but mature and believable friendship with Julia, and her character's ruthless traits as she accepted a vampire, turning a blind eye to the deaths Barnabas brought about, because she needed him. Pfeiffer really was one of the best parts of the movie imo.