DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '25 I => Current Talk '02 I => Topic started by: Barnababy on March 23, 2002, 11:12:26 AM
-
Any viewers here, and opinions, especially in comparison with "Dark Shadows"?
-
ive watched it since day 1 and i love it. ive met just about the entire cast and discovered that jade harlow who plays jessica is a ds fan and attended the night of dark shadows 30th anniversary showing recently at the vista theatre in hollywood. they even played ds music on passions recently.
-
Passions.. ::) ::) ::)...I have seen it a couple times, though I really watch zero TV now. It seems very overwrought and childish to me...not particularly well done. With DS there's the allure of Barnabas's tortured character and intricate plot developments, but with Passions , well there is really nothing to gawk at, except for that sorry little Witch and her midget doll or whatever it is.
Frankly, I am offended when it is compared to DS -- they are nowhere in the same league. :o
-
Frankly, I am offended when it is compared to DS -- they are nowhere in the same league. :o
My work schedule does not allow me to watch Passions. However, I have seen it a couple of times to see what all the talk was about. I agree that it is not in the "same league" as DS.
-
Kinda along the same lines, anyone watch that vampire story on Port Charles which played out throughout last summer and autumn? Some actor played a double role - twin brothers, one a vampire, the other a priest. I watched it on and off, the vampire going after his version of Josette, the hero trying to go after the vampire, and some guy the vampire bit going back and forth between wanting to be a vampire and not wanting to be a vampire. I wtached it on and off, and then just lost interest. Anyone know what happened?
Gerard
-
I don't mean this to be a criticism of "Passions" in particular as I have only seen bits and pieces of it clicking around the cable......but I think "Passions" suffers from a problem that afflicts every other current Soap and most television these days: too many perfectly perky and pretty people.
Television has given up on what was once known as the "character actor". Those were the people who played the smaller but pivotal roles that gave the leads a reason for doing whatever the storyline had them doing. They never played the lead, usually because they weren't Star Quality handsome or beautiful, or they had aged out of the star's role into the character roles.
But they were vitally important to story lines, and frequently the best actors in the show. They were also the ones who could get away with the witty or stupid, or wicked or passionate lines of dialoge that the leads would not have been given, but were neccessary to the story.
Try to picture DS without Thayer David, or Louis Edmunds, or Clarice Blackburn...and on and on...you get the picture. They were all well trained actors of great talent and style. They carried the weighty roles that supported the leads. What did they have in common? They were older. And there's the problem.
Lately, Soaps, in particular, have been ditching their oldest and most beloved (by a certain segment of the audience) long-term characters in order to get and keep a younger audience. I'm not naive...I understand that like most things in life, TV is all about money and money requires a specific audience make-up.
But in the pursuit of the right demographic, tv today has tossed overboard a very significant part of storytelling: The Character, who knows the secrets, tells the tale, provides the moral, remembers the past and already suspects the future.
This is not an old lady trashing the beautiful young people on TV today.....there are some extraordinarily talented and stunningly beautiful young people working out there right now that are going to be the Emmy and Oscar winners of tomorrow, and I wish them all Buona Fortuna....but I do believe that an unrelenting diet of pretty faces is no substitute for the banquet a show like DS provided: some beautiful, some not, some young, some not, some very talented....well, no comment (!) and all supporting one another in the common task of telling the tale.
Raineypark, who wanted to be Paddy Chayefsky when she grew up, but didn't have the talent.
-
I tried watching Passions after I heard that it was using DS music for one plotline, but the show is so slow-moving that it just did not keep my interest. I am happy for a soap that uses the supernatural and loved watching Robin Strasser when she was on the show, but I really wish they would speed up the pace a little. That double wedding must have taken up a solid month.
I don't watch any other soap, but as a kid in the 60s I was hooked on several, besides DS. I know DS' pace was brutal and that helped kill it, but my memory of the other soaps was that they were not as slow to tell a story as Passions is now. Anyone else remember if that is so? Also, do all the current soaps progress at a snail's pace as well?
Bette
-
I watched Passions a few times and threw up my hands in disgust. I think Raineypark summed up its major flaws from an objective viewpoint. On a more subjective level, it struck me as dimwitted and superficial; a pale shadow of the obvious source(s) that inspired it--not the least of which is the typical, mundane soap opera. Not that one should expect artistry from soaps, but something resembling integrity in characterization and storytelling never hurts.
Ah, for the old days of John Colicos (Baltar from Battlestar Galactica) scheming to use his freeze ray device on Port Charles in General Hospital. ;)
Mark
-
I started watching Passions at the very beginning, and although I initially enjoyed it, the storylines have become too drawn out with no resolution, causing me to lose interest.
As far as comparing it to Dark Shadows, it doesn't even come close!
-
I've been watching Passions off and on since its inception. It's been the latest sacrifice on my list of pleasurable things as my semester swings into high gear, but I've no doubt I'll go back to watching it again.
There are some parallels to DS (all the dimwitted idiots "who just can't understand what's going on") and some superficial similarities (wealthy New England family who owns a cannery), but I don't think it's meant to be compared to DS.
DS took itself seriously. Passions doesn't. Passions is intended as camp. You only have to watch Ben Marsters playing Julian Crane to see that. The heroes are as white hattish as they come and boring as Wonderbread and the villains are kind of on the scale of something that you might have seen on the old Batman show.
Tawdry and tacky, yes, but it's such tawdry and tacky fun 8)
Luciaphil
-
Raineypark wrote:
>>a problem that afflicts every other current Soap and most television these days: too many perfectly perky and pretty people...Lately, Soaps, in particular, have been ditching their oldest and most beloved (by a certain segment of the audience) long-term characters in order to get and keep a younger audience. I'm not naive...I understand that like most things in life, TV is all about money and money requires a specific audience make-up. But in the pursuit of the right demographic, tv today has tossed overboard a very significant part of storytelling: The Character, who knows the secrets, tells the tale, provides the moral, remembers the past and already suspects the future.....there are some extraordinarily talented and stunningly beautiful young people working out there right ....but I do believe that an unrelenting diet of pretty faces is no substitute for the banquet a show like DS provided: some beautiful, some not, some young, some not, some very talented....well, no comment (!) and all supporting one another in the common task of telling the tale.<<
You're so right, Raineypark! Of course, soaps (and all TV dramas/sitcoms) are fantasy, even if some try to throw in "realism", done for entertainment, and being fantasy they are populated by performers who look "more than normal". Yet, facts and figures prove that something is just not working, despite efforts by TV corporate execs to please that "demographic". The ratings are low. The Young and the Restless is today the highest rated TV soap and it can't command six million viewers. Naturally, things like cable options have cut deeply into the major networks, but I believe that the attempt to make everyone who appears in a show one of the "beautiful people" does not work. With everyone looking like some Vogue or GQ model, there is no variety - soon they all begin to look alike. So what would be a draw?
Let's be honest about DS - it was populated by "normal people" just like us. We all know there were some knock-outs, especially among the female cast, but what viewers cared about were characters, not cut-outs. Today, DS is the only soap which survives in syndication, still commanding millions of viewers, both old and new. Other than on the Soap Channel, can we find ANY of the other soaps, both retired and recent, re-airing anywhere on TV? All those beautiful people, and no one is interested in seeing them in their roles again. That says something.
Gerard
-
Thanks Gerard....I thought I might be a voice crying in the wilderness on this pet peeve of mine.
If anyone doubts the appeal of "characters" just look at two very popular and very acclaimed shows like "West Wing" and "The Sopranos".....
The casts are SO diverse as to age and looks....old people, young people, gorgeous people, homely people...I mean really....has there been a more indelible character portrayed recently than Nancy Marchand's Olivia Soprano? Would anyone have believed that an actor who looks like James Gandolfini could be the superstar he is today? What about John Spencer, who brings a lifetime of acting skills to his portrayal of Leo McGarry on "West Wing"
My own DS fave John Karlen went on to play The Character in movies and TV shows....to my eternal gratitude and joy....but how many of the others never really had that chance?
Raineypark
-
I watched Passions a few times and threw up my hands in disgust. I think Raineypark summed up
I also tried it for a while in my apparent terminal unemployment...
mark - ditto
Raineypark - ditto
like a really bad comic book, whereas DS is like a really good comic book [so was 'Dallas' probably my fave soap since DS!] 8)
-
Raineypark and Ringo make excellent points about character actors. They are usually more interesting than the leads and also the parts many actors prefer playing because of the "meat" in the role. On DS, some of the actors played older. Louis Edmonds played older as did Thayer David.
The actors who came from vast experience in the theater included Edmonds, Karlen, Frid, Hall and Blackburn had some good stage experience under her belt for working on TV. Of all the actors on DS, with the possibly exception of Joan Bennett, the least experienced on TV of the older actors was Frid. He had next to no experience in TV, and obviously didn't care enough for the experience to do more work in that medium.
Look at the birth years of key DS actors on right now:
Louis Edmonds - 1923
Jonathan Frid - 1924
John Karlen - 1933
Thayer David - 1927
Clarice Blackburn - 1921
Joan Bennett - 1910
Nancy Barrett - 1943
Lara Parker - 1942
Kathryn Leigh Scott - 1945
Grayson Hall - 1921
Jerry Lacy -1936
Alexandra Moltke 1945
Anthony George - 1925
Joel Crothers - 1945
David Ford - 1929
All the actors born in the 1920s are dead except for Frid. Interestingly enough, Frid was cast alternately as the leading man and a character actor in the theater. He got cast as a leading man but preferred character work since he plays at least a dozen characters in each of his one man shows on stage. The other actors seemed to have been cast more along the lines of either character roles OR leads.
John Karlen had been working on TV and state for over a decade before doing DS. He probably had the most TV experience of all the actors.
There's no real point in sharing all this information other than being interested in how actors were cast for the show and in 1795 which I'm seeing for the first time in about fifteen years. 8)
I can't comment much about the casting of soaps today since I don't watch them, but I've seen enough to know young and pretty is cast over talent all too often. :(
Nancy
(who loves researching things on the IMDB)
-
Thanks Gerard....I thought I might be a voice crying in the wilderness on this pet peeve of mine.
If anyone doubts the appeal of "characters" just look at two very popular and very acclaimed shows like "West Wing" and "The Sopranos".....
The casts are SO diverse as to age and looks....old people, young people, gorgeous people, homely people...I mean really....has there been a more indelible character portrayed recently than Nancy Marchand's Olivia Soprano? Would anyone have believed that an actor who looks like James Gandolfini could be the superstar he is today? What about John Spencer, who brings a lifetime of acting skills to his portrayal of Leo McGarry on "West Wing"
My own DS fave John Karlen went on to play The Character in movies and TV shows....to my eternal gratitude and joy....but how many of the others never really had that chance?
Raineypark
Many of my favorite actors are not traditionally handsome; their appeal lies elsewhere and it's unmistakable when people obviously talk about them endlessly. James Gandolfini is an excellent example (though I think he has a nice face). People will remember The Sopranos and he will be one of the key reasons. Nancy Marchand was brilliant in almost everything she did.
I get annoyed when I see DS now because it was done in such a substandard way because ABC was so cash strapped. Other soaps had the chance to shoot and reshoot (usually)scenes since most actors only had a day to memorize a full script. Even theater trained actors in stock had at least a week to memorize their role. It's a shame that DS could not have been accorded the same professional standards other productions of its kind were; the actors had to work most of the time in a substandard situation. I don't know how they kept their sanity especially when the demand for interviews and personal appearances came about when the cast became famous.
But after DS, for example, Louis Edmonds could not get arrested. If you read the biography Craig Hamrick wrote on Mr. Edmonds, you can see how hard a time he had of things until ALL MY CHILDREN came along. At that time, very rarely did any actor who worked in soaps find significant work in prime time TV or even films. John Karlen and David Selby did manage to break through that barrier over time. Frid left the business a few years after DS because he wanted to do his own thing, and the other actors seemed to just work wherever they could.
Funny, I wonder what someone would prefer: not being part of a "cult" show and working consistently or being remembered for a role decades afterwards, but not working in your field all that much?
Ranting Nancy
-
Nancy's
I can't comment much about the casting of soaps today since I don't watch them, but I've seen enough to know young and pretty is cast over talent all too often. :(
It is unfortunate but so true about the acting scene.
I have a question for you Nancy. How come David Selbey was not considered in the "key" group?
-
I can't comment much about the casting of soaps today since I don't watch them, but I've seen enough to know young and pretty is cast over talent all too often. :(
Nancy
(who loves researching things on the IMDB)It is unfortunate but so true about the acting scene.
I have a question for you Nancy. How come David Selbey was not considered in the "key" group?
I didn't know he had appeared yet. I totally missed it. I've only seen the segments of Barnabas being discovered by Willie, and then the 1795 sequence to present. I haven't laid eyes on Mr. Selby as yet. I thought he should up later in another time travel sequence.
Nancy
-
I didn't know he had appeared yet. I totally missed it. I've only seen the segments of Barnabas being discovered by Willie, and then the 1795 sequence to present. I haven't laid eyes on Mr. Selby as yet. I thought he should up later in another time travel sequence.
Nancy
Sorry, my error-your reference is to 1795 storyline and not the whole series.
-
Wow, I come back a day later to find 17 posts in the thread! You do "Dark Shadows" proud. Good points on character actors and talent. I wondered whether the people in "Passions" were being intentionally bad or just couldn't do any better, though I suspect the latter. Had no idea they'd used "Dark Shadows" music--maybe trying to be all the more obvious in paying tribute to their sources. I mean, could that bar in "Passions" look any more like the Blue Whale or what?
-
Nancy, I think the answer to your above question (will I EVER learn how to use the Quote Box??!!) lies in the performers motive for going into the business.
Did they become actors to be famous...or did they become actors because acting made them happier than anything else they could think to do?
If you want to be famous, then you go for the Cult status, if you think you can guess where it's going to be!!
But if you want a long term career doing what you love to do, you take your parts where and when you can find them, and you leave the glory for the history books. In fact, if you want a long and varied career, you'd probably better pray that Cult Status NEVER finds you, because it can be the Kiss of Death.
Raineypark....who would wait in line to hear Johnny K read from the phone book. [grinb]
-
Nancy, I think the answer to your above question (will I EVER learn how to use the Quote Box??!!) lies in the performers motive for going into the business.
Did they become actors to be famous...or did they become actors because acting made them happier than anything else they could think to do?
If you want to be famous, then you go for the Cult status, if you think you can guess where it's going to be!!
But if you want a long term career doing what you love to do, you take your parts where and when you can find them, and you leave the glory for the history books. In fact, if you want a long and varied career, you'd probably better pray that Cult Status NEVER finds you, because it can be the Kiss of Death.
Raineypark....who would wait in line to hear Johnny K read from the phone book. [grinb]
Raineypark - when I came to New York many years ago, I trained to be a professional actor and actually got work. I prefer the theater over anything else, but TV and movies pays much more than theater work. And for that kind of work, you have to be willing to travel back and forth constantly and I wasn't willing to do that. Being in the business as an actor, and after that just being in the business, I learned from experience that the hope of most actors is just to find consistent work. You can always consider yourself a success if you are able to do what you want. Being famous is something altogether different, and there are actors who don't want fame, they want work. Unfortunately, if an actor works on a TV series or in a film, there is always the chance of becoming famous. Many like it, others don't. James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos" for example, dislikes fame though he has the catch 22 of it getting him more work Before The Sopranos, he was working fairly consistently in film but now is able to make more money. With the bigger bucks (his marketing value) comes celebrity.
You mention liking John Karlen a great deal. JK has said in previous interviews that he never wanted to be in commercials. They can pay quite a bit, but it was something he would not pursue in spite of the money. He considered it beneath his craft. Actors don't always do projects for the money or the high profile.
Then you have someone like Jonathan Frid who disliked being famous to the point of leaving the business for thirteen years. Sure, leaving the business for over a decade can hurt your career, but then some actors value privacy and independence over anything else. But once back in the business, he worked consistently in the theater until retiring in 1994.
It is something, isn't it? If actors want to remain journeyman actors in order to have variety and independence in their work, they run the risk of losing all that working in the better paying mediums of film and TV. If they became famous, they run the risk of only being accepted in a certain kind of role, they they might be financially very well off as a result.
Nancy
-
Oh, I'm very glad I never caught JK in a laundry soap commercial.....but on the other hand, people with bills to pay and kids to feed have to make money and who am I to criticize? I'm glad he worked hard enough so that he worked often enough not to have to compromise his craft.
I LOVE the fact that James Gandolfini is as publicity shy as he is for the simple reason that it makes it so much easier to see him as his CHARACTERS than as himself. Oh, and for the record, I think he's handsome as hell, myself....maybe he reminds me of some of the ragazzo's I grew up with! ;)
-
I LOVE the fact that James Gandolfini is as publicity shy as he is for the simple reason that it makes it so much easier to see him as his CHARACTERS than as himself. Oh, and for the record, I think he's handsome as hell, myself....maybe he reminds me of some of the ragazzo's I grew up with! ;)
According to the NY papers, he recently asked his wife for a divorce. Supposedly, she was taken by surprise since she wasn't aware that there were problems. Maybe some of the hype has gone to his head.
I never did like Passions but Port Charles has had a vampire. They are ending a current storyline about four angels and now a mysterious portrait has been discovered that looks exactly like a current character. Shades of Josette/Maggie.
I'm also happy to know that there is another JK fan on board. I could watch him act 24/7 and never tire. Btw, he's going to be on an old Rockford Files episode on 3/31 at 2pm on TVLand.
Carol
(A devoted JK fan since the 60's)
-
Oh, isn't that just my freakin' luck!!!!!?????
My cable company (may they and all their descendants burn in hell for all eternity) has just informed us that out of the kindness of their hearts, they will begin providing us with TV/Land as of.....the first week of APRIL (groan!!!)
Carol, please watch and enjoy every minute for me, okay? >:( :P :'(
-
I'm a person who loves soap operas. I could watch them all day! However, I was never a big fan of the night soaps and I have only watched one network of soaps. Y&R, B&B, ATWT and GL. *Interesting note, all of these soaps had DS actors on them at some point. Some had a couple DS actors on.
Anyway, I too tuned into Passions just to see what it is about. I don't find the actors nearly as compelling and fun to watch as the DS actors. But neverless I do like Tabitha and Julian Crane. It's a fun soap and I love the camp. I believe it was created to hook the younger crowd. However, it should then be on at 3pm because most of the younger group they seek is in school at 1pm.
I only catch it about once a week and with the slow moving storeyline that is enough. They need to quicken the pace and resolve their storylines and please get rid of Theresa or give her a life. I disliked Charirty until they made her a Zombie. Now she's fun to watch!
HobbiesDS
-
Well I also watched from day one and have the lst years's worth of episodes on tape but....the show started going downhill with major re-casting blunders and the overemphasis on the Theresa Lopez Fitzgerald character. The most promising actress in the cast was Taylor Anne Mountz as Kay Bennett and she left the cast to attend college..so they say. The writer James Reilly sould have recognized that Lindsay Korman's Theresa was irritating viewers with her tears and shrieking and the constant glorification of a horrible character and shifted the focus to the character of Kay. Kay could have been a great teenage witch! Mountz had a definite goth look about her and enough ammunition to wage hell war on Harmony. But Reilly doesn't knowhow to write beyond character sketches. He has no genuine plot thrills the way DS always did. Satan was on the show recently and he wasabout as scary as Count Floyd from SCTV. Don't get me started about WItch Hecuba except to say what the HECUBA was that all about??? Pash in no way shape or form compares favorably to DS. Heck, even actress Robin Strasser who did play Hecuba mentioned at the time of her casting on Pash that DS was wonderful and well fleshed out. I wonder what she thought of Pash after she left it!
-
I tried watching Passions, tried giving it a fair shake, but uh-uh..no go..didn't take. I got sick of Teresa whining about Ethan and I hated that when there was a cliff hanger it sometimes laster for 2-3 weeks! Sheez! I did like Tabitha and Timmy(I really like Juliet "Nanny & Professor" Mills). And I caught a performance by Maureen McCormick as Gwen's Mother! Otherwise..not interested..sorry.
Love Sopranos! Watch it every week. Seeing the Twin Towers in the opening credits gives me a wiggins. Also loved that Gandolfini and his wife posed with some of the Ground Zero Search and Rescue Dogs in the New Yorker magazine right before the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show! Mucho kudos to them for that!
[shadow=teal,left,300]Always, Minja[/shadow]
-
I And I caught a performance by Maureen McCormick as Gwen's Mother! !
[shadow=teal,left,300]Always, Minja[/shadow]
Marcia of Brady Bunch fame was on the show-desperate aren/t they ?;)
-
Looks like everyone else has already covered this point but I'll just jump in and say yes, I tried to watch Passions when it debuted. I had high hopes for a new soap that promised to be supernatural but alas - I found the show to be more of a Saturday morning cartoon than a daytime drama. I concur with the sentiment that soaps these days are a different breed of show than daytime drama of the 60's and 70's. I don't know about you but I can't really relate to an entire town filled with models. There is very little good acting these days on daytime TV. 80% of the original DS cast would never be hired today by modern standards of 'beauty.' That's a pretty sad comment on the genre's current priority - appearance over substance (WAY over).
-
Kinda along the same lines, anyone watch that vampire story on Port Charles which played out throughout last summer and autumn? Some actor played a double role - twin brothers, one a vampire, the other a priest. I watched it on and off, the vampire going after his version of Josette, the hero trying to go after the vampire, and some guy the vampire bit going back and forth between wanting to be a vampire and not wanting to be a vampire. I wtached it on and off, and then just lost interest. Anyone know what happened?
Gerard
I watched that for a little while too - but here again we had an interesting story idea being written by sub-standard writers - or at least writers adhering to the substandard of today's soap genre - and very substandard acting by people who were clearly hired for their looks and no other reason.
-
Kinda along the same lines, anyone watch that vampire story on Port Charles which played out throughout last summer and autumn? Some actor played a double role - twin brothers, one a vampire, the other a priest. I watched it on and off, the vampire going after his version of Josette, the hero trying to go after the vampire, and some guy the vampire bit going back and forth between wanting to be a vampire and not wanting to be a vampire. I wtached it on and off, and then just lost interest. Anyone know what happened?
Gerard
If I remember correctly, Gerard, the priest was really the vampire's alter ego. The usual struggle between good and evil ensued and evil won, temporarily. But the vampire's Josette(can't remember ner name on the show)was having an emotional upheaval as well between wanting to be with him or with her true love. She prentended to love the vampire and continued her charade by getting the Port Charles regulars into this club for their destruction. Unbeknowst to the vampire(which was hard to believe since they're supposed to know everything that their enthralled is thinking), the Josette character turns on him and stakes him. End of vampire.
Hope that clarified some issues. Right now they are ending a story about 4 angels on earth.
Carol :)
-
;D
I kinda sorta liked the evening vampire soap "Kindred: the Embraced." It's as well it was cancelled, I guess, as some folks were taking it too seriously--probably not a problem "Dark Shadows" caused much, at least among those who liked it.