DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '12 II => Topic started by: tragic bat on July 17, 2012, 12:59:09 AM
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I've been watching the Viki/Burke romance storyline for the first time, and find it kind of disturbing. First of all, I can't imagine Mitch Ryan's Burke ever saying most of the things that Burke #2 does. But this revised character is sending up all sorts of red flags for domestic violence in my view. There is a deep conservatism and smarminess beneath his romantic gestures. He is possessive, controlling, agressive and creepy. He tries to tell Viki where she should and shouldn't go, condescends to her about her 'vivid imagination' and wants to decide for her who she should be friends with. He has a fit when she doesn't do what he recommends.
When he proposes, she says she doesn't know if she should accept not knowing her identity and he tells her, "you'll have an identity, you'll be Mrs. Burke Devlin." Which is so sexist and creepy that I imagine if Joe had said it to Maggie she would have screamed her head off. Then he tells her in a passage that is supposed to be sweet that "I'll ask you again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day until you say yes..." which is ultimately harassment, proven by his continued impatience in waiting for her answer. She asks about his past, and he refuses to tell her anything about it, saying it is none of her buisness and he is only interested in the future. Right after she accepts his proposal, he demands she never go to the old house again while refusing to tell her why (this is as far as I've gotten.)
Burke #2 really seems like the kind of guy who the day after they're married and she refuses to follow some order of his, will slap her in the face hard enough to land on the floor and then later come back crying, begging for her forgiveness (this is how most marriages on Dark Shadows end up, really). And Viki likely wouldn't know what to do, because her own past as an orphan has blinded her to this guy and how messed up he really is. Mitch Ryans Burke painted himself as someone too ambitous to go after an orphaned governess, but Anthony George's seems to see as her easy prey, much more 'managable' then someone like Laura or Carolyn. Just like Barnabas, he wants to feed off her vulnerabilities and use her, isolate her in a barren old house by the sea and cut her off from her support network. I wish Frank Garner had stayed around, he would be so much better as a love interest. But I absolutely hate Anthony George's Burke, I can't wait for him to [spoiler]take his plane ride[/spoiler] (though sadly jeff clarke isn't much better.)
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like victoria's "clueless" gothic ingenue role the burke devlin character has not help up well in the post-feminist age. he's a throwback. a world class male chauvinist. but in 1967 pretty par for the course in the world of daytime television.
i didn't see him as wanting to cut vicki off from her "support system". not liz or carolyn or maggie. and when david was going off the deep end he allowed(unwisely, in retrospect)their wedding to be put off indefinitely so she could stay at collinwood and care for him until he was well.
what burke objected to, quite correctly, was vicki spending time around barnabas and at the old house. where, it should be noted, there was a coffin in the basement with her name on it. he suspected barnabas was a liar...and he was. he thought that he was involved in maggie's kidnapping...and he was. all of burke's insticts about barnabas were, at the time, correct. it's easy to forget that because of his domineering personality.
it was not until burke's departure that barnabas gradually became the series' doomed romantic antihero. but during the devlin era he was pretty much rotten.
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I have never cared for Anthony George's Burke Devlin. I like his scenes with AM as much as I like those AM shares with Roger Davis. Nearly every one of them is uncomfortable to watch. I really wished that they would have killed Burke off when Mitch Ryan departed. He got what he wanted. He could have left. It would have made these episodes much more bearable. Another thing that bothers me is how the writers view the Burke Devlin role as the male lead. If anything, there was no male lead after Burke's initial storyline wrapped. He was a secondary character, yet Anthony George got star billing. There's nothing interesting about this Burke Devlin. He doesn't have a story or a cause. He's lost in a vampire story that doesn't involve him. His presence just bothers me. I am glad I am not alone.
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(**Applause for tragicbat**) I need not make specific comments, because I agree totally and completely. Well done.
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he was the rival in barnabas' romantic pursuit of vicki...
he played a very important part during that period.
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Well, I understand that, but the move was unnecessary. As tragic bat points out, Mitch Ryan's Burke would probably never have been able to settle down and live a normal life. It's like the character did a 360, and I would have rather had a new character or Frank Garner fill the role of Vicki's love interest. The decision to keep the character after his purpose was fulfilled, after the show had moved into a new direction, and after the first actor departed was a poor one. The fact that we are left wit these uncomfortable scenes is evidence of that. [ghost_wink]
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for what it's worth ryan's departure was very, very abrupt. at the very least they had a storyline to finish out.
and i believe at the time of his departure frid/barnabas was still on the 'thirteen week' cycle. barnabas was the one who was supposed to end up with a stake through his heart.
it was a very uncertain, up in the air time on the series and the producers did what they thought best.
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Part of the problem was George himself, who admitted that he hated doing DS and considered it a comedown, especially after starring in primetime TV & having been a contract player at 20th Century Fox.
I don't think he put his "all" into Burke.
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for what it's worth ryan's departure was very, very abrupt. at the very least they had a storyline to finish out.
and i believe at the time of his departure frid/barnabas was still on the 'thirteen week' cycle. barnabas was the one who was supposed to end up with a stake through his heart.
it was a very uncertain, up in the air time on the series and the producers did what they thought best.
All very true. But Ryan had had his big scene. The storyline was no longer focused on Burke. It had gone off the deep-end into supernatural territory, regardless of the longevity of the Barnabas character. The family competition, the cannery, everything was gone, and Burke didn't seem to serve a useful purpose after Ryan left. In all likelihood, I would have been better able to accept the new Burke had they had the character leave for several months and then return. It was a poor decision to immediately recast imo (just as with Vicki, though Vicki's case was a little more pressing), but that's hindsight.
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A few comments:
Anthony George did not get "star billing." The only actors who received special billing on DS were Moltke and Joan Bennett. In the final few months Jonathan Frid finally got the special billing he had deserved since 1967. Everyone else on the series was just billed as name and role.
I agree with michael c--Burke's instincts about Barnabas WERE correct, and he had very good reasons for trying to get Vicki not to go to the Old House.
As far as acting goes, I thought George wasn't right for the romantic stuff, but some of his antagonistic scenes with Barnabas were really well played, particularly the "I thrust, you parry" scene in the Blue Whale. At least, that's how I see it. If you don't like the actor from the get-go, the guy could cry real tears while delivering a Shakespeare sonnet and your reaction is just going to be "feh." And frankly, if Roger Davis declaimed from the Bard, *my* reaction would be "feh." I just happen to think George was better than most fans seems to feel. I also love the scene where Burke and Miss Hoffman have a deliciously man-to-man talk in the drawing room over cigarettes. Just grand stuff IMO.
The Burke character was, as michael c points out correctly, a holdover from Shadows' origins in the realm of paperback Gothic novels. The aggressive, controlling, demanding mystery man who both intrigues and repels the heroine. It's kind of frustrating to think that if Conard Fowkes hadn't asked DC for a pay raise, Frank might have been Vicki's love interest and Barnabas' rival in 1967 and we might have had a very different story. I presume the Burke character was retained because he was established and for whatever reason a re-cast of Frank was not considered.
G.
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Anthony George did not get "star billing." The only actors who received special billing on DS were Moltke and Joan Bennett. In the final few months Jonathan Frid finally got the special billing he had deserved since 1967. Everyone else on the series was just billed as name and role.
But Anthony George was billed first when Joan Bennett was not in a show and second when she was (just as Frid was after his departure.) I consider that, in terms of the DS universe, "star billing," because that's just how the cookie crumbled in the credits. The biggest "star" in any given show was listed first.
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Cousin B, I've heard that theory, but I don't know that I'm convinced.
It may be that George got listed first because of his starring role in the early 1960s series Checkmate (which also starred Sebastian Cabot and an incredibly young Doug McClure). Maybe.
Being listed first in the scroll hardly equates to star billing IMO. Just how I see it.
G.
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I've spent a good deal of time studying those credits, and it's the only plausible theory I see. It's especially interesting to watch the climb of Jonathan Frid's name. If not for the "biggest star angle," why else would Frid be given first billing, Grayson second, etc. for most of the run of the show (discounting Joan Bennett)? (I suppose this is another thread. [ghost_wink])
But regardless, George received first billing (again w/o Joan) from his first appearance, just as Ryan had since the beginning of the series.
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I agree with michael c--Burke's instincts about Barnabas WERE correct, and he had very good reasons for trying to get Vicki not to go to the Old House.
I agree with Gothick and michael c, but I also agree with tragic bat. I don't see Burke as physically abusive, but I do see him as incredibly controlling. Everything will be his way and no other way, save for a few other circumstances (such as David, because he does care for the kid). I hate they way he talks to Vicki sometimes, as if she is a child and everything she's interested in is beneath her time and most of all, his. It's frustratingly insulting. I thought AG was much better as Jeremiah.
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arashi’s response prompted me to spend some time wondering why this topic was entitled “The Creepiness of Anthony George” rather than “The Creepiness of latter-day Burke”. Anthony George was given some disturbing lines to act; although I can't remember the episode, I do remember thinking once that Vicky should steer clear of Burke. But would Mitchell Ryan have delivered those lines in a way that made them seem OK? If the answer is “No, the lines were intrinsically creepy,” then the next question is: Would these lines have been written for Mitchell Ryan? And also: Why wasn't Jeremiah given creepy lines?
I do remember noticing that Jeremiah was a more authoritarian character than pre-vampire Barnabas was, and I thought it could cause trouble in his marriage to Josette somewhere along the line. Maybe if Anthony George had stayed in the show, Jeremiah would have ended up seeming just as creepy as George’s Burke. But that's something we can't know.
I think Anthony George has a weak-looking demeanor. Is that why the writers thought it was OK to give him control-freak lines?
And yes, I agree that Burke's instincts were right about Barnabas, but doesn't make Burke himself any less unpleasant.
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I like Anthony George as Jeremiah; he's much more believable. Perhaps I take issue with his take on Burke and the way the character is written because the pre-Barnabas storyline (the whole thing) is one of my absolute favorites. I dislike where they took the Devlin character after the vampire's arrival. He was made to be almost completely different (and in such a short time!). Burke as portrayed by Ryan was one of my favorite characters on the series. I cheered for him almost as much I cheered for Joan. He was a terrific anti-hero and very well played. The new identity they gave Burke, the softer side he adopted, his attitude and outlook... it wasn't Burke Devlin as I had originally seen him. And that is why I'd rather he had just gone away.
It's interesting to note that I can hear Ryan delivering a lot of George's lines immediately following his being re-cast. But, as the series progresses, I don't hear Ryan delivering many of the lines written for the new Burke. I've always wondered how the famous "duel'' scene would've played out with Ryan. I'm not sure it could have happened.
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Burke 2 has a different world view. Stodginess is his religion. He's all caught up in being the straight-arrow, while Burke 1 was a maverick. "Two" is a prosletizer or inquisitor for his religion of unimaginativeness too, guilting Vicki over and over for not being like him in this. "One" would have been bored out of his skull by the ordinariness Two needs.
I used to see the Blue Whale sparring scene with AG and J Frid, before I saw pre-Barnabas, and thought how anemic and yet aggressively unpleasant in general AG was, and was sure MR would have done it so much better. I suppose Burke One wouldn't have been a sort of aloof businessman, so some lines may not have fit, but Mitch would have been a lot more "there" than George, relatively speaking, even though Mitch was gradually less and less "there" himself as time went on.
One was sort of masquerading in a suit, and he always seemed too "big" for it, or too big to be confined by it. Two sleeps in his.
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I totally agree with the both of you. Dead on. They should have gotten rid of the character and kept Buzz on or Jason. I like Jason's sparring with Barnabas. Don't know how far they could have gone with that, but it would have been interesting. Buzz meeting Barnabas - heh, heh...
I definately don't care for Anthony George as Burke, but I've seen him in other things, and I really like him. Go figure.
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I never warmed up to Anthony George as Burke, for reasons I explained in another thread: Ryan was totally believable as a guy who had done hard time, then roamed the world making his fortune. George (referred to in some places as Burke Lite) seems as if he might have gotten a parking ticket and traveled as far as-- Augusta. I have to admit that George was a better fit as Jeremiah than Ryan would have been.
But once the whole cannery vs. cannery story was dropped when the show went supernatural, Burke became extraneous. It would have been fun to see Buzz kept on as a fly in the Collins ointment. He might even have made a very interesting Jeremiah!
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Wow, a lot of comments! I definitely agree that it was a mistake to recast Burke Devlin. His foundation storyline was already over, and having a different actor come on to play a completely different character with the same name just didn't work. They could have said that he went away on buisness or something. I do think George was much better as Jeremiah. It's too bad to read that Frank Garner was gone because the actor wanted a payraise. He and Viki were so good together, maybe there wouldn't even have been a jeff clark if Frank stayed on.
I agree Cousin Barnabas, Burke #2 was so hung up on being conventional and straight laced, I don't think he would even have liked Mitch Ryan's Burke, and he seems out of place at the Blue Whale. I can imagine him saying to Viki one day (in a whining, nagging, complaining manner) "can't we just stay home?"
Burke was correct about Barnabas, but as Viki yelled at him several times, "is this how you're going to be when we're married?" He never really found out about Barnabas, but was so sure that he was right anyway. I don't really see any good option for Viki in this love triangle. Sadly, that fact didn't change when Jeff Clark came into the picture.
MichaelC does have a good point, seeing Burke #2 act so agressive and hostile to Julia and Barnabas doesn't hold up too well considering that the storyline didn't have it's original (HODS) ending.
Lydia, I really don't think that most of these lines would have been written the same for Mitch Ryan. I think (and hope) they would have maintained character consistency even if they had thrown him into a romance with Viki. I'm sure Anthony George may have been a nice guy, I just don't like his performance here.
Buzz was actually a really nice guy, I wouldn't have minded seeing him stay on.
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As for AG as Jeremiah, I think he was just "neutral". I think he walked through that part, too. The thing is, he didn't speak lines that made him seem to have a bad attitude of any kind, so we're left with a sort of mild, vaguely amiable, agreeable character, and people generally find that to be "likeable". Not me-- I'm leery of the bland. Too often they hold others up to their middle-of-the-road standards and find them wanting, so... not so nice after all.
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Haha, Magnus. It has been a while since I have seen 1795, but I am getting there quickly in my viewing. So I will come back with more thoughts after seeing him again. All I know is that I didn't have an immense dislike for him like I did when he played Burke. And I usually really like DS actors in particular roles or hate them, which is why George's Jeremiah is an interesting case I will have to review again.
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i had no idea that AG's burke was so unpopular...
i will say this. i felt that with burke it was the last time vicki seemed somehow safe and protected. after his disappearance she was totally at loose ends.
i mean jeff clark could not walk and chew gum at the same time, let alone care for another human being. vicki was pretty much toast.
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I don't think that Anthony George was a bad actor but I think he was miscast as Burke. As a performer, he was more suited to a traditional type of soap, as his long runs on Search For Tomorrow and One Life to Live show.
Whether the writers didn't know how to write for him or if he just didn't put much into the character, the end result is still the same. By the time Barnabas really caught on, Burke outlived his usefulness.
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In the Burke Two vs. Barnabas contest, I can't for one moment see Burke as the hero and Barnabas as the villain. No matter how horrible Barnabas gets, there is apparently no way for him to equal the "evil" of Burke Two. I root for Barnabas and want Burke tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
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In support of Anthony George, he probably was rushed into the part due to the sudden departure of Mitchell Ryan. Even though Burke's Storyline was a "flop" he was on the show from the very first episode and had become a fixture, if not the central character, of the show since the very beginning. Wasn't there an Actor's Strike around this time? Other "expendable" actors were also cut from the show about this time, such as Robert Gerringer and Daniel Keyes. And Dark Shadows Fans are notoriously intolerant of change. Look at what happened to the role of Victoria Winters when Betsy Durkin replace Alexandra Moltke. Burke was on his way out, but his part had to be phased out gradually. And Anthony George, who probably knew his days on the show were numbered, did the best he could. [ghost_wacko]
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Ryan was not ousted because of the actor's strike, and I don't think there were plans to phase Burke out at the time of the replacement. The actions taken on the part of actors (and the subsequent consequences) during the strike happened a couple months later. And I still can't forgive Curtis for having Gerringer replaced. [ghost_mad]
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I think Anthony George has a weak-looking demeanor. Is that why the writers thought it was OK to give him control-freak lines?
I think that was probably the main reason I didn't care for him as Burke. We were used to Burke being one sort of character, and strength was a main attribute, and with the change, he just seemed so different that it was hard to accept him as being Burke.
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I could see Anthony George as Frank Garner. Having him be a lawyer would certainly make for an interesting adversary with Barnabas!
Interesting the way things work out: MR stays, Burkes fate is changed, no Peter/Jeff.
MR as Jeremiah who lives on and defends Vicky. Burke vs. Nicholas & Cassandra!
AG as Frank Garner: No more Burke, probably no Tony Peterson. AG as Jeremiah, though still leaves the show & then possible recast of both Jeremiah & Frank.
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I'm going to guess that most fans got used to AG first, before MR, because it usually takes us a while to get access to pre-Barnabas... so if we were intolerant of change we'd probably never accept Mitch.
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One was sort of masquerading in a suit, and he always seemed too "big" for it, or too big to be confined by it. Two sleeps in his.
This sums up my take on their characters as well, nice analogy MT.
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As for AG as Jeremiah, I think he was just "neutral". I think he walked through that part, too. The thing is, he didn't speak lines that made him seem to have a bad attitude of any kind, so we're left with a sort of mild, vaguely amiable, agreeable character, and people generally find that to be "likeable".
I think you're right, Jeremiah was never particularly offensive, but he also was just sort of there. It's hard to have any strong opinion about him, because he just went through the motions. And from the way Barnabas often talked about him pre-1795, you'd think Jeremiah would be a more intense character. Perhaps having them be best friends until a moment of witchcraft was really a copout for the storyline.
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Jeremiah is a far more interesting character to hear about than to actually experience. For example, I never would have expected Mr. Bland to have ever been involved with Laura, let alone have been married to her as we learn in 1897.
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It would have been an interesting tie in to have had Mitch Ryan be the Jeremiah married to Laura. And If Mitch Ryan had stayed and Alexandra had a decent leading man with whom said he enjoyed working, would she have left.
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Burke/Mitch was good as a lone wolf. He's not leading-man/boyfriend (aka "adjunct-to-the-heroine") material. The problems happened when his storyline was over, and for lack of anything else to do with him, they had to attach him to Vicki to justify his continuing presence. By that point, it didn't really matter who played him. The boyfriend role is superfluous.
You might be able to tell that I'm not a soap viewer...
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Didn't Mitch Ryan have a drinking problem? Perhaps he was a loose cannon on deck. Dan Curtis was very ambitious and there must have been clashes between the two. As for Robert Gerringer, perhaps he decided to split when he learned his character was being killed off. Even Dana Elcar left around this time. Dark Shadows was about to travel back in time and some of the characters were doomed, such as Burke, Dave Woodard and the Cemetary Caretaker.
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I'm no source for fannish information, but I do know from posts here that Gerringer refused to be a strikebreaker, and was fired instantly over it. No one here has contested that story, anyway.
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My Anthony George experience may be different, since I first watched him on "Search For Tomorrow" in the early 70s as the kindly Dr. Tony Vincente - before realizing he had been on "Dark Shadows" in its early years. The weirder part is, after George was killed off "Search," he later joined "One Life To Live" as a likeable doctor, and at the same time (mid-70s), a local station was showing the first re-run 1967 episodes of "Dark Shadows" - the early black and white Barnabas ones.
Realizing that Anthony George was now playing Burke Devlin - 180 degrees from Mitch Ryan's version of the part (writers' choice likely, to pit Burke as Barnabas' rival), I was more disappointed that his dour presence was so unlike his later daytime efforts on "Search" (he married the long-suffering heroine, Joanne) and "One Life To Live" (he was a widower with 2 grown kids). But maybe the Burke character was re-molded to possess a creepy, chauvanistic way of expression - to contrast Barnabas' nostalgic romanticism. It was as if we the audience noticed Anthony George's detachment and Burke's new uncharacteristic aloofness and concluded, "Sure, Barnabas may have a coffin waiting for Victoria, but he'd treat her better than this Burke #2 would!"
-Sandor
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Did Sam Hall and Gordon Russell write for One Life to Live when George was playing Will Vernon? If so, they wrote much more suitable stuff for him there. The character was widowed before he took the part and Will's only on screen love interest died early in the game. But he was great as a concerned father/doctor/friend and still looked damn good.
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Like a lot of New York actors, Tony George was a friend of the Halls. He and Grayson were particularly fond of one another, and I think it shows in some of the Burke/Miss Hoffman scenes.
G.
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But maybe the Burke character was re-molded to possess a creepy, chauvanistic way of expression - to contrast Barnabas' nostalgic romanticism. It was as if we the audience noticed Anthony George's detachment and Burke's new uncharacteristic aloofness and concluded, "Sure, Barnabas may have a coffin waiting for Victoria, but he'd treat her better than this Burke #2 would!"
Only if they'd decided Barnabas was headed out of being a villain, at this point. Had they? AG's Burke always does seem like "the wrong boyfriend", but was that me or the writers?
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It's no secret I'm in the 'Mitch Ryan the best Burke Devlin' camp. Say what you want about his occasional flops on lines due to his drinking, but he infused Burke with such a complex and interesting flair to his character that Anthony George simply could not do.
It's not that I found George creepy...I just found his version of Burke too bland, and too overdemanding where Vicki was concerned at times. I do say though I loved him as Jeremiah, and curiously enough there was a rapport between Jeremiah and Vicki that I found curiously missing between her and Burke, even though both characters were played by the same actor.
I'm not so sure that Mitch could have pulled off the role Jeremiah, but who knows?
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There is no question that Mitchell Ryan was the Definitive Burke Devlin. The character was his from the very first episode. Anthony George did the best he could with what he had to work with...probably with very short notice. There are very few actors on Dark Shadows that really disappoint me. Perhaps the Rose Colored Glasses are to blame [ghost_wink]