Who do you think would have made Vicki the happiest out of her prospective boyfriends?  I'm going with Burke Devlin for this one.  I've been watching the summer of 1967, and they're just so great together.  I get all tingly when the "Missy" music plays and they're out on the terrace.  So romantic.

I just noticed a very funny/odd line in episode 636...Jeff Clark calls the good Professor's house while Adam is hiding there, and Adam picks up the phone without saying anything.  Later, when Jeff reports this to the Professor, the Professor says it might have been a ghost.  However, he then remarks to Jeff Clark that he never heard of a ghost that uses the telephone.  Hmm, well, we all know that will all change within three episodes--a certain late Victorian spectre will soon haunt Collinwood via a telephone.  I hadn't noticed this little line before, but it suddenly seemed very funny to me; I wonder whether it's mere coincidence or, possibly, foreshadowing.

I just got Set 23 recently, which features the end of the Summer of 1970 storyline (which is still one of my favourites) and the beginning of 1840, and I've gotten about halfway through the third disk.  I haven't seen this storyline since it aired on the Sci-Fi Channel a few years ago, so it's all rather fresh and new to me.  Though I remember liking it the first time, I have rather mixed feelings about it now.

Pros:
Beautiful sets, costuming, & props (Ah, Rose Cottage is great!)
Well-balanced makeup use; not too much rouge or lipstick
Generally good hairstyles (though I dislike Daphne's '70ish fall); Samantha's ringlets are pretty, and I actually like Valerie's "Swiss Miss" look
Well-placed music cues and pieces, especially the creepy Judah Zachary theme and sundry new atmospheric tunes
Some stunning performances, most notably Virginia Vestoff as Samantha and Christopher Pennock as Gabriel; their scenes together are riveting
Disturbing, frightening plot with many twists and turns
A nicely realized world with many side characters; people actually have families, and Collinwood doesn't seem as isolated as it does in the present at times

Cons:
Atrocious scripts that are barely coherent
*Poor direction*  Scenes just roll quickly into one another making everything a bit jarring to watch
Obscure lighting--sure, it adds to the omnipresent evil theme going on, but I have trouble seeing the action at times
Sloppy writing makes for sloppy, confused plotpoints
Occasional bad/out-of-character acting (e.g., Joan Bennett switching from ditzy and vivacious to matriarchal and Liz-ish within a couple of lines--I don't really blame her, though, for it's probably the director's fault.  Also, given these horrible scripts, what else could she have done?)
Overly-derivative characters (Leticia Faye = poor copy of Pansey; Lamar Trask = caricature of all other Trasks) and poorly developed characters ("Valerie," especially:  I hate how the writers made her the [spoiler]Angelique from 1795 rather than the Angelique of the present; I mean, we've seen this character develop over time through 1968, 1897, and then the Leviathans that it's almost a crime that we're back to square one again)[/spoiler]Too fast-paced; I can see why people couldn't keep up with the show by this point

All this from just the first 18 or so episodes of 1840.  It gets much worse from what I remember...

The shot of Lt. Forbes pants gave me an idea...why does DS have so many weird camera angles and shots on random objects?  Which director uses the most innovative techniques?  Also, I was watching DS with a little cousin, and she became quite annoyed that the camera lingered at great length on some bushes on Widows Hill or some such set.  On another note, I've noticed that many of the episodes utilize mirrors:  Barnabas is speaking to Carolyn in one episode and though she herself is not in the shot, her reflection is shown.  I think it's a cool technique, but they over-do it sometimes.  And I do get tired of the endless inanimate objects (though it's funny when they focus on Julia's ash tray or Quentin's brandy).

I was looking at today's pics, and Sabrina's horrified face brought back memories of ep. 944, because it has my all-time favourite DS scream, even better than any of Julia's.  Truly this is Sabrina's shining moment on the show, when she shrieks at that hideous flower's destruction.  Feel her pain, fellow DS board members!  No other actor could possibly emote as much as Sabrina has done in this fantastic scene!

1970 PT has become one of my favourite storylines of the show.  The variety of characters, the luxurious setting, the omnipresence of Lara Parker, the garish costumes, & etc. are all so wonderful and fascinating as is the very concept of PT!  A lot of people seem to dislike this time in DS, but whenever I want to watch an episode or two (or three or four), I usually reach for 1897 or PT.  Sure, Maggie and Quentin can be quite annoying at times, and the Roxanne stuff is kind of tacked on badly, but the rest is brilliant.  Angelique PT is a great villain, even more evil than her regular time counterpart, IMO, and Grayson Hall as "Hoffman" is fantastic.

I just love this episode on the opening screen today!  The first part with Angelique visiting Satan in Hell is fantastic, but the next part with Julia and Adam...Julia says "I don't know" a total of 7 times in under 5 minutes.  That must be record with her, and it's probably why I remember this episode so well.  Oh, and Satan speaking through Maggie is pretty darn exciting as well.

I love the feel Cassandra brings to the house as soon as she arrives--suddenly, it's like a "normal" soap again what with all that family drama and angst.  I especially like what appears to be a budding friendship between Barnabas' worst enemy and his strongest advocate.  Unfortunately, all that real stuff is dropped in favour of the increasingly hokey Curse/Adam crap, which, while mildly entertaining, would have been a whole lot better if they had downplayed the supernatural and actually focused on the emotions and passions as they had done more in the pre-1795 episodes.  Did you guys notice the few episodes when Julia and Cassandra are laughing and talking to one another like friends?  It's just so bizarre, for they never really talk/communicate any more, until that infamous slap scene.