DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '04 I => Topic started by: michael c on May 02, 2004, 03:46:13 AM
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i know i'm going to get into trouble for this,but of all the characters on d.s.,angelique is the one i haven't ever taken to.does anyone else feel she was overused/overcredited on the show.the new d.s. plans to introduce her in the pilot ep.,which is strange because in o.s. she wasn't introduced until over a year into the run.
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ithe new d.s. plans to introduce her in the pilot ep.,which is strange because in o.s. she wasn't introduced until over a year into the run.
More proof that the new series will be a departure from the original one in many ways.
Seriously, why on earth would they wait a year to introduce Angelique in the new series? They certainly aren't going to keep Barnabas waiting in the wings for the period it took to get to HIS arrival, are they? ;)
And no, I wouldn't say the part of Angelique was over used or over credited. I do think the part could have been better written than it was.......
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why wait?subtlety and suspense perhaps.why put all your eggs in one basket?what made o.s. so engaging was the gradually unfolding storylines.to have victoria's arrival at collinwood and a character who appeared over a year later in a flashback be introduced in a 1 hour pilot seems confusing.
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The original series started with Victoria and the suspense at Collinwood. Things gradually evolved and to spice things up Barnabas was invented and then, eventually, a trip to 1795 and Angelique. But, now that we're "aware" of them, it does seem to make sense to incorporate them in a new DS from the beginning. When one thinks of DS, that's a major part of what one thinks of. I don't think we could wait a long time for them to be added, unless they were doing an entirely different story. And, from the casting we've learned of, it seems the basic underlying story will be the same.
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I'm rewatching the Adam & Eve storyline now. I am even more impressed with Lara Parker than I was originally. During this storyline, Nicholas, Barnabas, Joe & even Prof. Stokes revolve around her character and make the story more interesting IMO. I really have come to appreciate her character and rank her as one of my top character's in the whole show. I'm really becoming impressed with the character Eve (except the Jeff Clark part) or should I say Marie Wallace. Her relationship with Nicholas and Adam glues me to the set. I think I had some preconceived notions about Eve's character the first time I saw her but I've seen the light so to speak.
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why wait?subtlety and suspense perhaps.why put all your eggs in one basket?what made o.s. so engaging was the gradually unfolding storylines.to have victoria's arrival at collinwood and a character who appeared over a year later in a flashback be introduced in a 1 hour pilot seems confusing.
This will be a prime-time series, and not a regular daytime soap like the first DS. The time to establish characterization and back stories are limited (and expensive.)
There is also a perception (very likely, quite accurate) that the modern audience (that is, most people under 30) is not noted for having a long attention span vis-a-vis getting hooked on any fictional series anymore. Once you HAVE them, that is another matter, then the program can drag on for a few seasons expanding and expounding on any plotline, but they have to get the viewers' juices overflowing FIRST.
Hence, a lengthy intro of Vicki's story, and gradually getting to know the C'wood family BEFORE springing the "main attraction" apparently MUST be done this way, and in less time, even, than the 1991 introductory. (Which, it can also be argued, many of the potential viewers of the newest DS probably watched, and remember fairly well, even if they didn't see the older series, nor ever owned the tapes / DVD of the 1991 version.)
Still, if the script is well-written, my hope is that it won't SEEM so abrupt.
l.
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No, after Barnabas I think Angelique was the most interesting character to come out of DS. It doesn't really matter she came a bit late in the series.
What is so very interesting about Angelique, and I've only come to this conclusion after reading many of the DS boards because I certainly never felt that way, is how much sympathy she attracted. I've actually read posts which have denied her evil deeds altogether, or seem to have forgotten them anyway and quite logically defend their perceptions adroitly skirting and avoiding the ugliness that was Angelique. If that doesn't prove Angelique was a very successful piece of writing and acting, I don't know what does.
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Denying the ugliness of Angelique is delusion thinking IMO.. but i do agree Parker was great in the role. .so great i think she had hard time breaking from it. . .and while has done several guest appearances, hasn't gone to greater things. . I do believe it was her who said to one of her fellow co-stars on DS .."who knew our first job would be our best?" or something like that. It's so interesting she didn't wanna play the baddie/heavy part cuz she was soooooo good. Instead we got the insipient Catherine and LP wasn't so good at portraying her torn heart. . Catherine came across as selfish and spoiled instead not tortured and 'deserted' by Bramwell. . .
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As my choice of avatar might imply, I'm of the opinion that Angelique was underused! I would have liked to have seen more of her in 1897, for example.
Sure, Angelique was a rotten broad. She really doesn't garner much of my sympathy until the Leviathan storyline. But even from her introduction on the series, she was so much fun to watch! Despite the fact that she does horrible things in the name of love, Lara Parker's performance, IMHO, made the whole thing riveting to watch.
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there are times i love her and times i hate her but Parker was good at the role!
Was She overrarted Nah IMHO!
jennifer
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Agree with CassandraBlair; but, it may've gotten too 'busy' with Laura/Angelique AND PETOFI
Looooove PT Angelexis.
Patti
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Angelique was by no means overrated IMO. There's no denying she could really be an evil, manipulative bitch but she sure was fun to watch! ;)
Lara Parker was simply brilliant and I just loved to hate her as Angelique.
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I do and don't think Angelique was overused/overrated.
I DO think that she was involved where she didn't need to be sometimes. The dream curse could've not happened, IMO. Angelique/Cassandra didn't really NEED to be there, except to fill in a storyline. She could've been used for something else, or not at all.
But, DS wouldn't have worked without Angelique. Ang is like that blackmailing Aunt that pops up every so often for cash--you can't just send her away because she knows so many secrets about you, and therefore is dangerous. She was used in good ways. One of my FAVORITE things that Ang. was used for was in 1970 when we find out she's married to Sky Rumson, and is trying to live a normal life.
That is my favorite Angelique storyline because it humanizes her character a lot, and the writers actually seem to be attempting to get some character development in there for once, instead of just putting them in the same situation that is retold differently. Her shock at finding out that she really ISN'T leading a normal life is one of the best Angelique moments of the entire show, and the vulnerability it creates within her is just priceless. It really knocks her down a peg and adds even more fuel to her fire for when she wants to be evil again.
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flashback!!!
this was one of my first posts at the forum.at the time i think i was watching the 1795 storyline and i just wasn't "feeling" angelique(at that time a "new" character to me).
but needless to say ang did grow on me in a big way and she went on to become one of my favorite characters.
time is a funny thing. ;)
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time is a funny thing.
It sure is. One of the things I like about Dark Shadows is how in different decades in my life, different characters appeal to me. I adored Rachel Drummond in the 60s, couldn't stand her in the 80's, and respect her now as someone totally out of her depth but trying anyway. I never had much use for Grandmamma before, but this time around, I just loved her. Sometime in the 2040's, when I'm bedridden in the nursing home watching Dark Shadows, I'll be saying to my roommate, "That Ezra Braithwaite - is he HOT or what???"
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My darling Angelique, overated? Perish the thought! ;D Different people like different characters, but Angelique was just perfect in my opinion. You can say what you want about her being evil, but I always found her very sympathetic.
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My darling Angelique, overated? Perish the thought! ;D Different people like different characters, but Angelique was just perfect in my opinion. You can say what you want about her being evil, but I always found her very sympathetic.
Even despite the fact [spoiler]she was responsible for the deaths of a little girl, her husband's sister, his uncle, his mother?
Some might think Barnabas was a cad for sleeping with Angelique and then discarding her for Josette, and that this somewhat justifies her cursing him, but the curse didn't affect him solely....remember she also added anyone who loved him would die. Sarah and Naomi never did anything to Angelique that justified her dooming them with her curse on Barnabas.[/spoiler] That's why I have never been able to summon up much sympathy for her. She was always fascinating to watch, well of course, but sympathetic she was not, at least as far as it came to hurting other people who never did her wrong in any way.
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Put this in your pipe and smoke it:
Angelique cursed Barnabas in a fit a justifiable temper. She said a little more that she meant to say, as people often do when they're angry. Once created, the curse got out of control. Angelique couldn't stop it, she couldn't stop the deaths that it caused, and she couldn't stop the curse from changing her personality just as it changed that of Barnabas. She was as much a victim of the curse as Barnabas was.
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Justifiable temper? Hmmm....[spoiler]if I recall, she was sticking pins into Sarah's doll to make her sick again and threatening to kill her if Barnabas left her for Josette. If someone was threatening to kill my sister through voodoo, I might want to take a potshot at them too!
And don't forget as Cassandra she was more than willing to torture his friends and family by using them as instruments through the dream curse....why the hell couldn't she have just cursed him again the first day she arrived at Collinwood as Cassandra rather than make other innocent people suffer? Not one of the victims of the dream curse, Maggie (other than her unfortunate resemblance to Josette), Jeff, Dr. Lang (aside from his curing Barnabas through a blood transfusion), Julia, Mrs. Johnson, David, Willie, Carolyn, Sam, Vicki.....NONE of these people deserved the mental anguish that went with having the dream and having to suffer through it over and over for not telling the next person.[/spoiler]
Nothing that Barnabas ever did to Angelique even remotely justifies her torturing and tormenting his friends and family. She'll never be a victim in my eyes. Sorry but that's just how I feel.
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Justifiable temper? Hmmm....[spoiler]if I recall, she was sticking pins into Sarah's doll to make her sick again and threatening to kill her if Barnabas left her for Josette. If someone was threatening to kill my sister through voodoo, I might want to take a potshot at them too![/spoiler]
Everything that happened after the curse could be because of the curse's effects on Angelique, so I'm not worrying about it. That leaves, from your list,
[spoiler]the torturing of Sarah[/spoiler]
which is, I admit,...umm...problematical. Bear in mind, however, that
[spoiler]Angelique did not kill Sarah during this torturing.[/spoiler]
We assume that the reason she didn't go that far is that Barnabas stopped her - but it may be that she would have drawn back from the actual
[spoiler]killing[/spoiler]
just as she drew back from
[spoiler]killing Barnabas when Josette first arrived.[/spoiler]
I know that what she did do in this instance, shorn of what she might have done, is still less than admirable, but gosh, this was the 18th century.
[spoiler]People got painfully, mysteriously sick even without voodoo, and I don't think that anybody remembered this illness as being anything out of the way.[/spoiler]
Of course Angelique did other reprehensible things before the curse took hold of her, but she didn't
[spoiler]kill anybody. The only death before the initiation of the curse was Jeremiah's[/spoiler]
- and that was Barnabas's doing.
I really don't like Angelique, by the way.
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How could the curse have affected Angelique? They never gave any indication that she was different pre-curse or post-curse. She was the same in 1795 as she was parading around as Cassandra in the present time. She tears Barnabas's family apart in 1795 and she's just as happy to try and do the same to Elizabeth, David, Victoria and the rest in the present day.
Nothing that Barnabas ever did to Angelique even remotely justifies her torturing and tormenting his friends and family. She'll never be a victim in my eyes. Sorry but that's just how I feel.
Agreed. I'll also add that he didn't deserve it. The punishment didn't even come close to fitting the crime. If I had a brief affair with someone who later told me he fell in love with another and wanted to marry them and not me, I'd be upset. I'd probably call him colorful names & want to throw a punch out of anger..... I wouldn't curse him as a vampire.
I don't know about overrated, but I do think Angelique became overused on the show in the role that she often played. It isn't until the last half of the 1897 storyline and into the Leviathans that her character had some development beyond playing the villainess out to ruin Barnabas or trap him into staying with her. They should have done more with that. I liked seeing Angelique have other interests. .
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Everyone seems to be forgetting that [spoiler]When Angelique put the curse on Barnabas, she had just been shot by him and she was lying on the floor dying. If that's not justification to curse somebody, I don't know what is. As far as torturing Sara with the voodoo dolls and the pins, I don't find that any worse than what Barnabas did to Maggie Evans (kidnapping her and basically putting her through hell for a much longer period of time). I also don't find it nearly as bad as what Barnabas did to Carl Collins - murdering him in cold blood just to keep his vampirism a secret. He could have just let Carl live and went into hiding, which is exactly what he ended up doing anyways. Killing Carl only bought him a few days time. And while we're at it, Barnabas went back to 1897 knowing that he would revert to being a vampire and have to kill people - probably prostitutes down at the wharf. But saving the lives of David and Amy was more important than a few random lives lost; rather selective morality there. And lets not forget some of the good that Angelique did either - she's the one who kicked Laura Collins butt in 1897, thereby saving the lives of Jamison and Denise Nickerson's character.[/spoiler]
Yet Barnabas is always thought of as a sympathetic hero - which I completely understand because I think of him that way as well. But if we look at his actions under the same microscope that we're using to examine Angelique, he doesn't come out looking much better than she does. Which is why I find her very sympathetic as well.
I think one of the main things that makes Angelique seem so evil to some people is that we never saw her relationship with Barnabas prior to her coming to Collinsport in 1795. Was it a one night fling? I really didn't get that impression. Was it a months-long passionate romance? Maybe. But since we never saw it, it seems odd that she would be so attached to him and be willing to go to such lengths to get him back. But it might very well have seemed completely justifiable if we had spent 40 episodes seeing them together, and then seen her heart being miserably broken when Barney decided to marry someone else.
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[spoiler]Barnabas shot Angelique because she was standing there threatening to kill his family and Josette if he left her. She was effectively keeping him prisoner in his own house. He had just discovered that all of the tragedy that fell upon his family and Josette was caused by Angelique. And that Angelique could still easily kill anyone if he angered her. The only difference between Barnabas and myself is that I probably would've aimed the gun between her eyes instead of her shoulder.[/spoiler]
I've never seen Barnabas as a sympathetic hero. I've always seen him as a sympathetic anti-hero. But Angelique was never an anti-hero for me because I never found her to be sympathetic. Dumping her after their fling was not a nice thing to do, but compare that to someone destroying your family and cursing you as the undead to live an eternity alone as a monster and that's very, very small potatoes. Barnabas is more sympathetic because he suffers so much more than she ever does and we see it. We see the reasons for the darkness in him in the present day and those reasons are much more tragic than Angelique's. One mistake (pretty minor in the grand scheme of things) ruined his life and turned a part of him inhuman.
There is no doubt that Barnabas did awful things as a vampire, but the fact that he was a good man in 1795 is telling. And we see how he goes from one extreme to the other and how he eventually settles into the middle ground. It's his character development and story that makes him more sympathetic and much more understandable.
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one thing i can say about angelique is that she's rather delusional.
whether she and barnabas had a one night stand or a lengthy romance isn't made clear but when she boarded that ship bound for collinsport she knew what time it was.
she was acompanying her "mistress" on her wedding voyage.perhaps she thought she could just bat her eyelashes at barnabas and he would toss josette aside and claim her as his love.
but she had to have known him better that that(with his profound sense of family and position).she must have known from the get-go that witchcraft was probably going to be part of the eqation.
and how satisfying could that have been?
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I see Barnabas' point of view, but I also see Angelique's.
[spoiler]She was the jilted lover, so she broke up Barnabas and Josette via the means at her disposal. A very understandable thing to do, especially considering that he had apparently made some sort of promise to her that they would be together. Who knows, maybe she thought she would be his mistress. We're left with only a few sentences to understand their prior relationship. Then Barnabas takes it into his head to fight a duel with Jeremiah, and she tries to talk him out of it. There was no reason for it, Josette was now married to Jeremiah, however, "I don't want to be poor Barnabas". Angelique tried to offer him her love, but that went nowhere. So he kills his uncle. There's the whole thing with Vicki, but that would have never taken place without that nutcase Abbigail, the equally nutty Rev. Trask, and Vicki's dimwitted confession of everything. Angelique helped it along, but that's understandable because she was, after all, the real witch, and had to protect her own life. Then Jeremiah's ghost starts showing up and ruining what could have been the start of their happy lives. She did everything she could to stop that as well. Then Barnabas shot her, so she cursed him. Even after all that, she tried to remove the curse. Everything else that happened couldn't have really been stopped by her - she's not omnipotent. Barnabas enjoyed scaring Abbigail to death, Forbes goaded Naiomi into going to the tower room, resulting in her suicide, Sara wandered out into the night and caught her death of cold.
The only completely unjustifiable thing she did was to inflict suffering on Sara, but that's not enough to make me think of her as unsympathetic. Just like Barnabas' killing Carl just for the sake of convenience didn't bother me.[/spoiler]
Anyhow, that's how I see Angelique, and that's why I've always liked her. Others are of course perfectly free to feel just the opposite ;D