DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '25 I => Current Talk '05 II => Topic started by: PennyDreadful on September 02, 2005, 01:24:38 AM
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I really enjoyed the 1840 storyline, but the continuity errors in this sequence bug me sometimes. One of these oversights is the fact that Daniel Collins seemingly has no knowledge of the family secret (i.e. Barnabas) in 1840. Daniel must have known though, since it was he who passed this knowledge down to Gabriel, who then passed it on to Edith. Clearly Daniel was senile in 1840 (likely a victim of early onset Alzheimer's). Perhaps his mind was so clouded that he didn't realize Barnabas was "the secret" when he saw him again. Perhaps, in the original run of events (pre-Barnabas & Julia time travel), he would have finally remembered the secret on his deathbed. Another explanation could involve some sort of supernatural manipulation of his memory. He really seemed to have no clue when he saw Barnabas. Obviously, either the writers forgot about "the secret" or didn't want to deal with this plot point. But, story-wise, does anyone have a theory on Daniel's memory lapse? I suppose the senility might be as good a reason as any, although I'm curious to hear other theories DS fans may have.
~Penny Dreadful~
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Of course, when Julia and Barnabas (and later Eliot) went back to 1840, they once again threw the whole time sequence out of whack. Edith didn't even survive to make it to 1897 where she became Grandmamamamama. But let's say the time-line followed as it was suppose to, sans Julia, Barnabas and Eliiot. I could then see Daniel passing the secret onto his daughter-in-law, Edith, rather than his son, knowing what a flakey-flight he was. That, of course, doesn't resolve the situation that Edith wouldn't be around in 1897 when Julia, Barnabas and Eliot travelled......oh, you know what I mean.
Gerard
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The thing is, when he saw Barnabas, at that point he seemed particularly lucid. One wasn't sure how he would react, but at that point he seemed to really be aware of things.
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You know, this was one part of the storyline I never saw, but the main inconsistency I saw was that Edith was killed in the 1840 storyline. So then....how did characters like Judith, Edward, Quentin (the second one, of course), and Carl come into the picture? If they weren't around, wouldn't the entire main timeline disappear (or be somehow changed forever)? I mean, it may not have changed completely if Geoffrey was already born...could someone clear that little bit up for me?
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I mean, it may not have changed completely if Geoffrey was already born...could someone clear that little bit up for me?
Yes, Edith and Gabriel already had children by 1840 but they were away at boarding school during this storyline (a fact that appalled Aunt Samantha).
ProfStokes
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Actually, when Daniel meets Barnabas, he's pretty much out of it and lost in the past, [spoiler]saying something like, "You had us quite worried for a while, running off to England like that, and then we never heard from you." But Barnabas explains that Daniel has Barnabas "confused" with his father, which confuses Daniel all the more until Ben has to remind him that the year is now 1840. Considering the way Daniel behaves during this meeting (and just prior to it when he was confusing all sorts of other things from the past), it's actually a wonder that he remembers his own name, and no wonder that he doesn't remember that Barnabas is "the secret." :D However, things are very different shortly thereafter when Daniel meets Valerie (in Ep #1131) and does recognize her as Angelique. He does indeed put things together, saying something like, "And Barnabas - if you have remained the same, has he?" But, of course, Angelique causes Daniel to forget his recognition of them for who they really are (revealing a shocking secret from Daniel's past in the process), and that's the end of that.[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]...But, of course, Angelique causes Daniel to forget his recognition of them for who they really are (revealing a shocking secret from Daniel's past in the process), and that's the end of that.[/spoiler]
I'm confused (nothing new) 'cause I'm missing some episodes. What was the shocking secret from Daniel's past?
Does it have anything to do with...
[spoiler]There's a scene where Quentin tells Daphne that his father killed his mother.[/spoiler]
I never saw anything else ever mentioned about this and wondered what the deal was. He tells Daphne rather matter-of-factly and I was a bit confused 'cause Quentin loved his father very much and never exhibited any type of resentment, emotional baggage, etc.
;D
I love 1840 ! ! [thumb]
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[spoiler]There's a scene where Quentin tells Daphne that his father killed his mother.[/spoiler]
Yep.
[spoiler]Daniel murdered his wife Harriet. Her ghost was played Gaye Edmond. [/spoiler]
The 1840 family was a pretty screwed up bunch.
[spoiler]So I guess we can chalk up Daniel not initially recalling the secret to his delusional state. Then, once Valerie/Angelique wipes Daniel's memory of her & Barnabas, she unwittingly alters history so that Daniel can never remember the family secret (Barnabas). This would likely mean that Daniel never passed the secret on to anyone, and that no one in 1897 knew the secret. Not to mention the fact that both Gabriel and Edith are dead by the end of 1840. If this is the case, the entire run of events in early 1897 would be altered. Hmmm. Some fans have theorized that Edith survived 1840 via supernatural means, and still lived into 1897 regardless.[/spoiler]
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Penny, remember what ProfStokes had said.
Yes, Edith and Gabriel already had children by 1840 but they were away at boarding school during this storyline (a fact that appalled Aunt Samantha).
That means that Geoffrey was free to marry and have Edward, Judith, Carl, and Quentin. There's still the fact that Edith never learns the secret, and she....well....dies. I think that they could EASILY have gone back to the present to discover so many things differently there. Easily have saved the series, at least for one or two more plotlines, IMHO.
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[spoiler]There's a scene where Quentin tells Daphne that his father killed his mother.[/spoiler]
Yep.
[spoiler]Daniel murdered his wife Harriet. Her ghost was played Gaye Edmond.[/spoiler]
Is it explained how he did it and why?
[wavey]
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Is it explained how he did it and why?
[spoiler]He pushed her off Widows' Hill. No direct motive was ever discussed though. Daniel only says that he always hated Harriet.[/spoiler]
ProfStokes
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It really seems that they should have had a motive. When you think about Daniel in the 1795 storyline; it is hard to think of him callously killing someone just because he hated them.
Misa
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[spoiler]He pushed her off Widows' Hill. No direct motive was ever discussed though. Daniel only says that he always hated Harriet.[/spoiler]
And yet, [spoiler]when Daniel hears evidence that Quentin is a murderer (of Randall), he wants to rewrite his will immediately despite his son's protestations that he's innocent.[/spoiler] So Daniel was harshly judging Quentin for a behavior that he was guilty of himself, the only difference being that Daniel's crime wasn't public knowledge whereas Quentin was arrested and charged. Those wacky Collinses-- always putting public opinion and the potential for shame above all else.
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Daniel told Gabriel that he (Gabriel) was just like his mother, so she must have been a conniving kind of women.
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Penny, when I first saw this thread heading, my response was "doesn't she mean: where were the writers' brains in 1840?" But I digress...
[spoiler]When Julia first arrives in 1840, at the very beginning of the storyline, she's hiding out at Collinwood waiting for Ben Stokes to help her with her plan to pass herself off as yet another long-lost cousin (from the Philadelphia branch!) of the Collins family. Daniel discovers her and begins to strangle her, saying that he knows she's really Harriet, and words to the effect of "you were such an interfering harridan, why don't you stay dead?" I believe Ben intervenes to save Julia. I understood from this episode that Daniel had seizures/attacks a la Caroline Lamb and that his mania took the form of killing his own wife. I suspect that Daniel's words in that show were the origin of the persistent fan rumor that Grayson played Harriet's ghost--actually portrayed by Gaye Edmond, as another fan noted.[/spoiler]
I've been away for a few days, playing with the Faeries. The amusing chat here is one of the few things today that makes me feel that it's actually good to be back. Thanks, everybody.
G.
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Daniel notes that our favourite red-hedded physician looks just like his own wife, Harriet. Do you think the writers might have planned to go back in the past to when Daniel was a bit younger and have Grayson play Harriet? Probably not, but I can't help but notice stuff like this. Also, I think DS missed a goldmine of storyline opportunities when they dropped the present day characters for 1841 PT: as someone else noticed above, history had been *completely* changed, much more so than in 1897. Virtually half the characters died in this storyline--surely that's got to cause some changes in the present!
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Also, I think DS missed a goldmine of storyline opportunities when they dropped the present day characters for 1841 PT: as someone else noticed above, history had been *completely* changed, much more so than in 1897. Virtually half the characters died in this storyline--surely that's got to cause some changes in the present!
There are two possibilities I can see with the 1840 alterations:
[spoiler]Possibility 1 - Barnabas' actions altered history to a tremendous extent. The unseen ramifications of Barnabas, Julia and (to a lesser extent) Eliot's time-tampering would indeed have provided excellent material for a DS storyline in which Barnabas and friends realize that they should have been more careful when tinkering with the past. I can imagine a situation where certain characters simply cease to exist because of their time-tampering. Considering the fact that no one in 1971 seemed to remember the 1970 hauntings, the time trip to 1840 obviously caused some major changes in the present. We never learned the extent of those changes, but we can assume Gerard/Judah and Daphne's ghosts never existed in 1970. If such a major happening as the destruction of Collinwood ceased to take place, then we can also assume that other things were changed as well. Odd Sidenote - Through some strange quirk (i.e. the writers) the present-day characters still remember the 1968 hauntings even AFTER the time trip to 1897! Ah, the unfathomable mysteries of time-travel!
Possibility 2 - History rights itself, despite the changes. The possibility that Barnabas changed history to such a great extent is problematic. Edith's fortune and secret were the reasons Quentin came back to Collinwood in 1897. Edith's death in 1840 might have completely nullified the 1968 haunting if Quentin never returned to Collinwood in 1897. In fact, Quentin's very existence in the present may have been eliminated if he never came back to Collinwood in 1897. He never would have had his portrait painted by Tate. Luckily, on DS, history has a way of righting itself. I like to think Edith survived 1840, despite her apparent death. IIRC, she made a pact with Gerard/Judah before she died. Perhaps, after/during her death, Edith appealed to dark forces in order to come back to life, thus enabling her to exist in 1897 despite interference from the time traveling trio. Her existence in 1897 would then have allowed events to play out more or less the way they had done before the time-alterations took place.
As for the Secret - Maybe Daniel's ghost, now freed from mental aberration, appeared to someone (Quentin I? Edith?) and revealed the Secret to them. This would have brought the Secret back to the land of the living.[/spoiler]
A combination of both scenarios is probably most likely. Certain events were completely changed, while other events righted themselves.
I guess it's a good thing the writers left us with a variety loopholes and dangling plot threads. There are endless possibilities for storyline speculation with DS.
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On an AOL DS message board, I tackled the tricky thing about the massive change in history caused by Barnabas, Julia and Eliot in 1840/41 by coming up with a scenario (had the series continued). It was a whole plot-line, along the lines of Charles Delaware Troll's wonderful website. I'll keep it short so as not to bore anyone and not to violate our fantastic message board's rule about not delving into fantasy role-playing and storyline matters (there are other boards for that, as our illustrious webmasters point out).
When our three heroes return to 1971, they find that the family they knew is gone; they never existed, since the lineage had so drastically been altered. Instead, there is a completely different Collins family (all played, of course, by the actors/actresses on the show). Our heroes manage, as usual, to ingratiate themselves into the new family, wondering what to do now, finding themselves strangers in a strange land. A severe haunting begins, which leads to the eventual deaths of virtually everyone in the family. It turns out that the main spectre is none other than Tad Collins. It's perplexing why he would do so (there are also some "minor" ghosts involved), since history records him as being a great man, involved in the abolitionist movement, dying in a tragic accident in 1860. But he has a dark secret, one for which he will go to any length to keep hidden, even as a ghost. There is a subplot intertwined with all this - since Barnabas sent back only his consciousness and not his body to 1840/41, when the three return to 1971, Barnabas in his 1840 body, they find his 1970 body a very much alive but mindless/soulless zombie (two Barnabas' for the price of one!). To cut to the chase, the three go back in time to 1860 to find out what really went on and why the evil, enraged spirit of Tad Collins did such mischief in 1971. They solve the mystery and get things straightened out, including restoring the "correct" family lineage, so when they return to 1971, there's Elizabeth coming into the drawing room, looking for Roger's speech which he needs to give at the history society meeting. And away we go with all new adventures as DS continued on the air for years and years and years. It was a lotta fun coming up with the whole story.
Gerard
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I always thought that it may have been Petofi's spirit haunting Collinwood in the present with his image presented as Quentin via Charles Tate's painting. Thats why the present time family still remembered the haunting of "Quentin" and Beth.
As for Edith, perhaps she simply was unconscious at the time and suddenly came to, without the interference of the Dark Arts. It was mentioned elsewhere she may have married a Collins cousin and he was the grandfather Judith and Edward refer to in 1897.
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I always thought that it may have been Petofi's spirit haunting Collinwood in the present with his image presented as Quentin via Charles Tate's painting. Thats why the present time family still remembered the haunting of "Quentin" and Beth.
Oh, my goodness! You know, I watched virtually every episode of the whole Quentin/haunting/back-to-1897 plotline when it originally aired back in 1969. I was then just a very young junior-high-schooler. But somehow I ended up with a bout of FDSMS (Faulty Dark Shadows Memory Syndrome). I always thought, for decades after, that it wasn't really Quentin's ghost that haunted Collinwood, it was Petofi's, in the guise of Quentin's body (even his spectral one) because he confiscated it back in 1897. I was positive that Petofi had been trapped in Quentin's body when, somehow, Quentin's body was killed in 1897. Anyway, that's how I remembered it. Finally, when I got to see the whole thing again in its entirety in the early '90's on the Sci-Fi Channel, all I could think to myself was: No! That's not how it happened! I recalled it differently! I know it was originally the way I remembered it! Strange how strong FDSMS can be. I even "remember" vividly episodes which were in my eskewed recollection of what I thought the story was all about.
Gerard
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I always thought that it may have been Petofi's spirit haunting Collinwood in the present with his image presented as Quentin via Charles Tate's painting. Thats why the present time family still remembered the haunting of "Quentin" and Beth.
Interesting theory - but I'm not so sure it can fly. Unless Beth was deliberately trying to mislead Julia in Ep #836 (and that certainly doesn't appear to be the way things play out), the spirit that haunted Collinwood was Quentin because when Beth tells Julia why Quentin is so interested in David, she explains it's because Quentin's spirit loves David because he reminds him of Jamison. It seems unlikely Petofi would have had any such interest in either Jamison or David.
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Goodie more plot speculations! My favorite thing! [idea2] [ideay] [toothy10]
Great responses, its SO hard to decide what to reply to.
LOVED the plot ideas put forth by Gerard and Penny Dreadful. What we already know doesn't give me any reason to think they wouldn't work and be really interesting to see to boot. A friend of mine loves this plotline, and the ins and out often drive her to refer to the infamous "Collinsport Dumbwater". Characters drink that, and it explains all the lapses in logic, plausibility and reason that are unexplainable any other way.
As to Edith's continuance into 1897 -- well it kind of fits the period, oddly enough, like 1897 Q's family not thinking anything of him going zombie then waking up on the couch yelling he'd been stabbed. Anyone remember an old Sean Connery movie called "The Great Train Robbery"? Pivotal scene is when one of the scam artists is being a grief striken woman carrrying brother's body for burial. The bell thing on the top started ringing convincing her he was still alive. Liz's coffin alarm was nothing new. (And thank you History Channel for that bit of knowledge). Medical knowledge was still shaky back then, so people were paranoid about being prematurely declared dead and buried alive. Of course it helped, esp in 1840 that embalming wasn't invented till the civil war (Trask the undertaker not withstanding!) After all, Gabriel didn't exactly wait around to make sure she was "really most sincerely dead."
[dancing_skeletons]
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Goodie more plot speculations! My favorite thing!
Mine too! One of these days I'd love to put together a fan publication of DS plot speculation essays, if I ever find the time.
Gerard, that storyline continuation you did on AOL sounds really interesting. Do you have it up online anywhere?
~Penny Dreadful~
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I too would love to see Gerard's story. It sounds like great fun!
Misa
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Thank you for the wonderful compliments! No, unfortunately it's not on-line anywhere, and the synopsis is somewhere on one of my countless unmarked zipdisks. I'm one of those - you put stuff on discs and then say: "I'll mark it later on," but never do and soon you have piles of them, not knowing what's on any one, so when you do have to find something, you fish through all of them until you find it on the second-to-last. Of course, while doing that, you intend to mark them, but don't do it then, either. The same thing is done with the pile of video cassettes.
Gerard
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That's too bad, it sounded really good!
I've got lots of video tapes that are like that, not marked. Some night I'll just have to have a surprise night and see what's on one of them.
Misa
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I'm new here and, after having trouble navigating, got pointed here by Pansity. Just wanted to say thanks for the 1840 thread. I LOVE 1840. You just can't think about it too hard. As for the Edith paradox, their problem is that they didn't call for the coroner. He was working two jobs and at that time, he was in Munchkinland. So he could not have proclaimed Edith most sincerely dead, so apparently she was only merely dead, which, we all know, in DS, doesn't mean much. ;D
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Welcome to the Boards Angelique Wins! I too enjoy 1840. As you say "dead" in Collinsport, doesn't always mean what it does everywhere else. >:D