DARK SHADOWS FORUMS

General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '26 I => Current Talk '15 II => Topic started by: Watching Project on October 15, 2015, 03:38:27 PM

Title: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: Watching Project on October 15, 2015, 03:38:27 PM

BEWARE THE NOSE!!!!

(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)

Quote from: ROBINV on June 24, 2003, 09:07:12 AM

Robservations #996

(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Quote from: Lydia on May 10, 2010, 09:13:28 PM

Re: Discuss - Ep #0996

(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)(http://www.dsboards.com/nose.gif)

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: alwaysdavid on October 19, 2015, 04:04:34 AM

All I keep seeing of Yaeger is the terrible fake nose. it's like another character as it appears to be trying to peel away from it's face. Once I was able to see most dramatic widows peak and it certainly put emphasis on Chris Pennock going bald.
This is the first time that the wall where Barnabas' picture hangs and there is a shield in its place. I'm really surprised that Angelique doesn't have her own likeness there.
Trask wants to close the house and run away from the ghost's.
Yaeger is very violent and attacks another man in the bar and then another woman who works there. Her name is Buffy Harrington according to the credits. 

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: DarkLady on October 19, 2015, 01:22:02 PM

Welcome back to Elizabeth Eis as Buffie Harrington!

Cyrus Longworth has drunk the potion, ostensibly for the good of humanity, and John Yaeger--the very personification of evil--remembers who he is. (The new compound works as Horace Gladstone promised.) He is as powerful and loose-limbed as Cyrus is meek and restrained. I suppose nobody had time to do a test run on Yaeger's makeup! Oh, dear!

Trask commits a big no-no--the Master of Collinwood returns from, well, somewhere and finds the front door of his own house bolted. Instead of explaining anything to Alexis, he decides his good friend Cyrus will know what to do. But when he phones Cyrus, Yaeger just laughs as the phone rings and rings. Instead of answering, he takes his trusty swordcane and leaves for a night on the town.

In real or parallel time, the Eagle (parallel)/Blue Whale (real) is a great night spot--in fact it's the only place in town! We come on a peaceful enough scene: Buffie Harrington (no vampire slayer, she, just the tough but pretty, husky-voiced barmaid--welcome back, Elizabeth Eis) is absently fending off Steve, a dock worker and her occasional boyfriend. We find out that Buffie used to work at Collinwood before coming up in the world to work at the Eagle, and we know that she will be a kind of heroine because although her dress is very cheap looking, nevertheless it’s blue. Yaeger arrives and picks a fight with her sometime boyfriend, Steve. The fight contains a classic blooper: A breakaway bottle on the bar disintegrates before Steve can use it on Yaeger. Buffie complains about the mess; Yaeger promises to return.

Quentin tells Trask about the spontaneously opening desk drawer and the blood-covered sheet music. Trask wants to close up the house and leave, but Quentin isn't buying. He tries to question Trask about Dameon Edwards's murder, even grabbing him by the lapels. He tells Trask not to leave and goes off in search of Cyrus.

Yaeger keeps his promise and returns with a check for the damages--signed by Cyrus Longworth. Buffie knows Cyrus, because she worked at Collinwood and he used to visit a lot, so she's suspicious. How do you think you’re going to pull off a check signed by Cyrus Longworth? Buffie asks. Are you implying that I am a liar or a forger? Yaeger asks quietly. Buffie quickly backs off. Using the tip of the cane to pull the hair away from her neck, he warns her, Don’t mention Cyrus Longworth’s name--he doesn’t want his name mixed up in tonight’s events. Half scared, half turned on despite herself by Yaeger’s manner, Buffie says quietly, I understand. I like people who _understand_, Yaeger tells her, adding, About those who don't _understand_ (smiling), the less said the better. Perhaps they are best forgotten! Buffie somehow manages to put on a brave face.

On the docks, Yaeger comes across Steve again and is in the process of quite thoroughly beating him with the cane when Quentin arrives. Yaeger runs off (Quentin doesn't see who he is). Quentin helps Steve up and takes him to the Eagle for first aid.

Steve must have told Quentin his story on the way back to the Eagle. Buffie is surprised to see Mr. Collins at the Eagle, but Steve tells her, You know who beat me up. He refuses Buffie’s offer of a drink, but despite Quentin’s protests, charges right back out to find Yaeger again. Quentin says goodnight to Buffie and starts to leave. She is still cleaning up the results of Yaeger's visit, so she tells him all about it--except for one thing. But apparently Quentin was a good boss. Impulsively she says, Mr. Collins, I never lied to you when I worked at Collinwood, and I’m not about to start. She shows Quentin the check and tells him who brought it. He too marvels at the signature and agrees with her that it must be a forgery.

No sooner does Quentin leave than Yaeger steps out of the shadows, having overheard every word. (He seems to have an uncanny ability to rematerialize in places he's just left, but due rather to native cunning than to supernatural powers.) My dear! he says as he walks toward her, I thought our _understanding_ was that you were not to mention who gave you the check. Well, apparently you didn't understand. With a smile he moves even closer to her and says, That is a pity--because now I'm going to have to teach you to understand! Buffie screams as he wraps his fingers around her throat....

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: Uncle Roger on October 19, 2015, 04:55:11 PM

The Cyrus/John Yaeger story dominates this episode. Not my favorite part of the show. It never really engaged me. Good make-up job on Chris Pennock, except for the wandering nose. The Yaeger make-up kind of resembles Jack Palance, who had played Jekyll and Hyde for DC a little earlier. Intentional?
Trask is genuinely spoiled. The presence of Alexis seems to freak him out a great deal, probably more than anyone else. He's also extremely high strung whenever the name Damien Edwards comes up. Quentin wants answers. Will he get them?
Enter Buffie Harrington, one of the few characters that we actually see doing a job. Buffie is kind of like early Maggie Evans before she lost her edge. Elizabeth Eis does a very good job as Buffie and this is my favorite of her three roles on DS. Is this the part that was originally intended for Marie Wallace?

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: MagnusTrask on October 19, 2015, 05:35:37 PM

What big thing will happen when we go to four digits, I wonder?  Lara VO.  Shouldn't Cyrus become more "good" now that he's splitting himself into good and evil halves?  That might show Cyrus's dishonesty.  He claims to want to isolate the "good", so "good" will triumph in society, I guess, it's all about the goodness... but the only change the potion makes is to unleash unrestrained evil, so Cyrus can let loose and escape his own repression.  Cyrus was already "good" enough, until he started with all this.  In his behavior, anyway.  I assume.

It's principally a brain transformation, I guess, so it must be very painful, or other sensations equally as bad as pain.

Trask bolts the Collinwood front door.  A bolt!  Big difference from RT!  Alexis meets Trask... no big shock scene, though here was an opportunity for another of those scenes.  I guess they were tired of that at this point.  They certainly leave it totally up to the viewer to glean the irony in these scenes, don't they?  You'd never know what a reversal or difference this was, Lara and Lacey meeting again but like this, from the acting.  In playing Trask, Lacey has a hint of the booming Trask voice, but just barely perceptible... to differentiate from Tony Peterson, I suppose.

Yaeger and Bruno should hang out.  Between the two of them, they could wreck the town... Welcome Buffie Harrington!  Yaeger gives a potential lumberjackish suitor at the Blue Whale the proverbial bum's rush.  Yaeger is engaged in the closest he gets to a courtship ritual, which doesn't involve winning her approval, strangely... but it does involve sidestepping any blame falling on him, through the paying for damages to the bar from the fight he started. 

Despite his only having Cyrus's knowledge and personality as his starting reference point, I guess Yaeger (instinctively only?), and guys like him, know they can aim for a sort of sick symbiotic relationship, between themselves, the domination junkies, and someone like Buffie who moves toward a powerful abuser despite herself.  This seemed nonsensical to my younger, more naive, more earnest and straightforward self.  This seemed like clumsy writing.  It's what happens from early abuse though, combined with a need in one's sexual nature to be submissive.

So, Yaeger puts his best moves on Miss Harrington, by strangling her... end.  The red plaid man with the greasy kid stuff was played by George Strus.  That last name really sounds like a random noise made in one's sleep, or something.  Is there a Strus family?  Who'd make that up, though?  An Ellis Island thing, probably.

Heroines wear blue, DL?  I'll have to remember that... I missed the blatant broken bottle blooper.  I feel really unobservant.  Q should worry what might happen if he accuses Trask.  He could be poisoned... It's refreshing, though, that so often on DS characters aren't so careful, and blurt out their concerns.  And PT Q is precipitous.  All Qs from this point on are, or are said to be at the start.  I think they wanted a bit of miceness, a bit of "loose cannon" in the Quentins' makeup, to hold onto the formula that made him so popular. 

Quote

(He seems to have an uncanny ability to rematerialize in places he's just left

I missed that too... good observation... (about JY)

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: DarkLady on October 19, 2015, 07:54:20 PM

A long time ago, I heard from some actor friends that in the old days at least, heroines always wore blue. That's how you could spot ’em. "Bad" women, on the other hand, could wear bright red or black, I suppose. I know that a similar tradition prevailed in opera with the heroine nearly always being a soprano and her female companion and/or rival in love was a lower-voice mezzo-soprano. The villain is nearly always a baritone or bass, and the hero nearly always a tenor. This last item can lead to some hilarious on-stage situations because most tenors are short--they have shorter vocal cords, which enable them to sing higher--and sometimes they're shorter than the soprano!

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: MagnusTrask on October 19, 2015, 09:34:44 PM

Thanks for all that, DL...

Title: Re: Discuss - Ep #0996
Post by: DarkLady on October 19, 2015, 11:21:33 PM

Sure! It's funny how some conventions just keep going.