Discuss - Ep #0007

[Watching Project]

Robservations #7

[MagnusTrask]

During director's slate snappy-thing intro, stagehand butt passes over screen, momentarily taking up entire screen.   Maybe not a stagehand, maybe a higher-up personage, a little hard to tell from that vantage point.

Sam Evans:  Nice to have a character who drinks too much presented as a human being with value, who's dealing with hard problems, rather than as evil or disgusting.   I think that even at this early stage, we're meant to have more respect for him than he does for himself, but then I've never watched without knowing him from later episodes.   

This is ep#7, and still day 2 in Collinsport.   Way to out your father to near-strangers as an alcoholic, Maggie!   190 proof... would that have to be Everclear or something?  Had that once--  never, ever again....

Vicki says that her job "pays very good", not "very well".   Maybe a pay cut is in order?   ***   I'm going to guess that they cast Louis Edmonds for that great look of near-helpless mortification of his.

[DarkLady]

True, Roger does the near-helpless mortification thing very well, but he does the angry pompous thing even better.

I agree we're intended to have sympathy for Sam Evans. Obviously he has a really terrible secret, and seeing Burke Devlin again doesn't seem to make him feel any better.

Vicki had better shape up soon. *sigh*

[Gothick]

I was thinking about the current relay of episodes earlier today and wondering:  "Hmmm.... episode 7 ... wonder whether Vicki's taken her coat off yet?"

I was amused just now to look through the Robservations slide show and see a scene with her and Burke where, sure enough, she's wearing the coat.  (Although I do think she had it off at some point in episode 6.)

Wonder whether anybody's ordered a "container of coffee" yet?

G.

[Lydia]

Way to out your father to near-strangers as an alcoholic, Maggie!

It may be a form of protection.  If she makes him out to be worse than he is, then people will be pleasantly surprised when they meet him.  I'm not saying this is the case; it's just the first thing that came to my mind when I read your comment.

Vicki says that her job "pays very good", not "very well".

I heard, "The pay's very good," or something like that.

Vicki had better shape up soon.

Yes indeed!  I've absorbed the message from other Watchers that Vicky hasn't much to lose by acting in a way that could get her fired because she doesn't really care about the Collinwood job anyway.  I still have problems with it, because I'd rather have "Left of my own accord" on my resume than "Fired".  Yes, I know, this job wouldn't be going on her resume at all.  But that's the way I think.  I guess I'm not heroine material.

Meanwhile we're seeing more flubbing from Mitchell Ryan.  He seemed to do better with Mark Allen than he did with Alexandra Moltke, though.

We got our first episode, I think, in which we didn't see the foyer and drawing room at Collinwood.  All the action took place in town, which made me think of other directions this soap opera could have taken.  I'm glad it took the direction it did.

[Midnite]

I've absorbed the message from other Watchers that Vicky hasn't much to lose by acting in a way that could get her fired because she doesn't really care about the Collinwood job anyway.  I still have problems with it, because I'd rather have "Left of my own accord" on my resume than "Fired".  Yes, I know, this job wouldn't be going on her resume at all.  But that's the way I think.  I guess I'm not heroine material.

Just to clarify what I said about that (I would never dream of arguing with you, Lydia ), it's not that I think Vicki was consciously thinking, "I could get fired, but it'll be worth it"-- *I* was the one considering that it was the worst that could happen, and I'm sorry for not being clear about that.  Vicki may have thought this subconsciously, but we do see that she almost quit the job herself but decided, "If I go, then all I'll have is this [note]" and so she sought Matthew out; we see evidence of an obsession with learning about her past that drives her to keep pushing for answers from the people who are telling her to butt out, and we see indications of what Art Wallace called her "fierce core of determination."  Yes, the outline in Wallace's story bible was only meant as a guideline, but it's the motivations he created for his characters that ring true, at least in the early eps, because Wallace's writing was all about understanding what drives them.

And you'd make a fine heroine.

[Midnite]

Love the outside shots filmed in Essex!

In small towns, apparently you could dial the Operator to get the time.  I don't remember doing that, but in my hometown you received a daily newspaper instead of weekly.

It seems Burke has imagined living at Collinwood.  Hmm.

Maggie:  "You couldn't pay me 100 bucks a day to work in that spooky joint."
Burke:  "Nobody asked you, Maggie. But they did ask Miss Winters."
That was really cold.

You can't fault Vicki for telling Burke to go to Roger for the answer to his question about him even though she knew the answer.

[Gothick]

Wow, I totally missed that put-down from Burke to Maggie, Midnite.  Thanks for pointing it out!

I just may have to revisit a couple of these over my evening meal tonight...

G.

[michael c]

i'll have to give this episode another look lydia...

i don't recall an episode that didn't feature collinwood at least in part.

you bring up an interesting point about how this soap could have "gone in another direction". in a way the story we started out with went underexplored... and then it was abandoned entirely for something completely different.

like you i'm glad the show ultimately made the jump. but still i can't help but wonder how things could have played out differently. i enjoyed these episodes as much as anything that came once the show went supernatural. it had a charm all it's own.

given the show's overall scope these months are almost like an isolated series within a series.

[Lydia]

I would never dream of arguing with you, Lydia

Oh, yes, heaven forbid.

I'm seeing that "fierce core of determination" in the lines, Midnite, but I'm not seeing it in Moltke's acting.  So Vicky just ends up looking silly to me.  I vaguely remember saying about another character (Amanda Harris, perhaps) that I wasn't going to blame the character for the deficiencies of the actor who played that character.  But I find myself unable to be so charitable to Vicky, probably because she was such a long running character.

[Lydia]

i don't recall an episode that didn't feature collinwood at least in part.

There are a few.  Besides this one, try 199, 207, and 1103, and I'm sure there are several in the 500s.

[MagnusTrask]

you bring up an interesting point about how this soap could have "gone in another direction". in a way the story we started out with went underexplored... and then it was abandoned entirely for something completely different.

like you i'm glad the show ultimately made the jump. but still i can't help but wonder how things could have played out differently. i enjoyed these episodes as much as anything that came once the show went supernatural. it had a charm all it's own.

I'm not sure it did go in such a different direction.   I think there was the original Art Wallace realistic drama, but that couldn't continue forever.   I think that was fairly self-contained.   It was like a film that just happened to be done in the form of the first few months of a soap opera.  I doubt Wallace had any idea of staying around after that.

And then, there was the longer-term more soap-like, ongoing "story", consisting of whatever generally supernatural ideas the subsequent writers could come up with.   My impression from these early days is that they do intend to work the supernatural very slowly and gradually into DS from day one.   That's the usual way to tell supernatural stories.   You don't necessarily even know if anything really supernatural will happen, curiousity is built up, apprehension, and eventually you see that sign finally that yes, the ghost, or whatever, really exists.

They're always referring to the creepy house full of ghosts and creatures.   Everyone always thinks of the house as haunted.   We've already heard the Josette story.   I think it was set from the beginning that the Art Wallace harder drama would play out, then when that was over, and the show became more episodic, the talk of the supernatural would start paying off, and the world behind the facade of Collinwood would start to be revealed.

I'd like to have seen the town included more in all that, but Collinwood is where the supernatural action is.

[Lydia]

What I meant when I said the show could have gone in another direction is that it could have focused more on the town of Collinsport.

As for the supernatural aspect, my impression is that in the beginning anything supernatural was intended to be pretty much peripheral.

[MagnusTrask]

What I meant when I said the show could have gone in another direction is that it could have focused more on the town of Collinsport.

Yes, I was responding more to michael then.

[Janet the Wicked]

Love the outside shots filmed in Essex!

This what I truly love about DS. And... Cousin Lydia was kind enough to send me her spare DVD collection 1. Love it.