Discuss - Ep #0475

[Watching Project]

Robservations #475

[Lydia]

Professor Stokes is a wonderful character.  Everybody else is enchanted by Barnabas's old world charm and courtly manners, but Stokes complains about Barnabas's hospitality.  No doubt if Stokes had attended the costume party, he would have asked when Barnabas was going to bring the cheese out.

I get the impression that Stokes has no personal experience of the supernatural at this point.  If he had, he would surely be talking about it.  “I would like to meet your witch, and see if she is in any way connected to a most fascinating witch whom I met on a recent journey to the year 1427.  Sadly, that witch was burned at the stake before she could whip up the Love Potion #6 that she had promised to make for me.”

I noted that Barnabas and Lang are now on a first-name basis.  It seems unduly intimate. I get surprised when Barnabas calls Burke and Joe "Devlin" and "Haskell", but to hear Barnabas call Dr. Lang "Eric" - oh, gosh, I wish Barnabas would be more careful in choosing his friends.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I know I've probably mentioned this at least a half a dozen times by now, but honestly I can never pass up an opportunity to say how I love Stokes' first visit to the Old House. It's quintessential Stokes, capped off by his audaciousness of turning a table upside down in mid-conversation with an already impatient Barnabas and remarking about how Oliver Bennett must have been drunk when he made the table:

Priceless!! 

[MsCriseyde]

I know I've probably mentioned this at least a half a dozen times by now, but honestly I can never pass up an opportunity to say how I love Stokes' first visit to the Old House. It's quintessential Stokes, capped off by his audaciousness of turning a table upside down in mid-conversation with an already impatient Barnabas and remarking about how Oliver Bennett must have been drunk when he made the table:

I love that scene too because I think it gives a clear indication that there's much more to Stokes than what he's actually saying and doing. There's a very sophisticated game being played there.

[EmeraldRose]

I noticed a blooper in this show, which is similar to other bloopers. This blooper was when Dr. Lang pulled down the sheet covering his "creation". I could see movement around the neck, like a heartbeat in a vein or something. Whoever was the "stand-in" wasn't able to be still. Actually, I'm surprised they had a living person lying there, since he wasn't supposed to be alive yet, and there was supposed to be no head.

The scene between Cassandralique and Dr. Lang was both thrilling and funny. The idea of his heart beating faster and faster until he died was pretty scary.  But the overacting was funny. His facial expression and movements were comical.

Professor Stokes is a fascinating charactor. He looks very handsome and civilized, and he's so well educated. This is my favorite of Thayer David's characters. That was a great scene between him and Barnabas.

----- Sally -----

[IluvBarnabas]

Professor Stokes is definitely one of the best characters during this period. He's so clever, so on the ball, and
very perceptive.

I think Barnabas would have been wiser to have confided in Stokes rather than Dr. Lang. But I guess he felt he couldn't take a chance that Angelique/Cassandra had enslaved THIS Stokes as well as Ben. (Fortunately this Stokes is a more stronger character than his ancestor Ben as time will prove).

I agree, the scene with Stokes inspecting Barnabas' furniture is too funny.

[Josette]

I think Barnabas would have been wiser to have confided in Stokes rather than Dr. Lang.

However, Dr. Lang found out about him by himself, so it wasn't a matter of Barnabas confiding in him, just being lucky that rather than wanting to destroy him, he wanted to cure him!  While Stokes probably had lot of good suspicions, Barnabas would have had to actually inform someone who possibly didn't know.

[Sandor]

Barnabas has a lot going on - and Jonathan Frid is great in both episodes. Really on his game. His scenes with Professor Stokes, Cassandra, and Julia, respectively, are engrossing and believable. I mean, the concept of an ex-wife who is truly a witch from 2 centuries past showing up, while a mad doctor collecting body parts offers a bizarre cure for a man's vampirism... the viewer buys into the whole nutty premise because the actors (save Dr. Lang) play it so well. As one DS actress said, "They weren't doing this stuff over on 'As The World Turns'"....

[Roland]

I still don't get Lang's reluctance to accept the existence of witchcraft.  I mean how does he think Barnabas BECAME a vampire?  He seems so dismissive of Barnabas when Barnabas should know, if anyone does, the events leading up to his becoming a nocturnal bloodsucker.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Maybe Lang thought Angelique was some sort of bat whisperer.    He believed she could summon vampire bats through some perfectly natural vibrations that they picked up on, and then once a bat attacked, it passed along whatever germ it is that creates the disease of vampirism. Who knows what he told himself to rationalize the situation?    But obviously he saw vampirism as a perfectly natural affliction that may have appeared to have been caused by supernatural means but actually wasn't (similar to how magic tricks appear beyond the normal but actually aren't). And he probably had Julia in his corner deducing something very similar as she fully believed her treatments could have cured Barnabas...

[Lydia]

Or maybe Lang thought that Barnabas was simply mistaken.  After all, Barnabas was not a man of science, and he had started life in the 18th century, when people believed all sorts of harebrained things about how diseases were spread.

But I like the idea of a bat whisperer.  Lara Parker could have done a beautiful job with that.

[MagnusTrask]

Ang: "Stop squeaking so you can hear me whispering!"