Minerva reminds me of Ms. Gulch from The Wizard of Oz.

This is one storyline Barnabas doesn't interfere with.

[spoiler]Another one is surprisingly not getting Jamison to forgive Quentin, it played out the same way even in this altered timeline.[/spoiler]

Someone posted that in the original timeline, Dirk didn't get held up by Barnabas and got to the cottage before Quentin did to get Jenny out of the way.

1897 is different already then 1795 as the beginning of the time travel story is told in the third person then in the first (with Vicky) as 1795 began.

I always thought it odd for a time travel storyline, that although time traveler Barnabas appears in the first scene, we then switch to the omniscient point of view.  Has that been done in other time travel stories?

Its like the start of a new series.

This is the beginning of Barnabas' meddling with history.  If they only handled 1897 as they did 1795 so we could see what happened originally.

As stated before, this should have been an information gathering time for Barnabas.

One thing I'll say about 1840 is at least we see what happened originally as Barnabas & Julia mainly stay on the sidelines.  Probably because DC had Lela Swift running the show.

Now that you mention it, she could be a different Edith, who along with her husband, was brought in to take care of Gabriel & Ediths children as they were deceased. 

[spoiler]I think there's such back-and-forth time travel that something much more interesting could be worked out than just having 1840 be PT or something separate from main history.  Besides, the changes they make in 1840 affect 1971, so it's RT.  I was sure that Gabriel's name had been mentioned by old Edith, but no, so are we even sure this Edith is the same person as 1840 Edith?[/spoiler]

I was always sort of disappointed terry crawford never appeared as a "present time" character. she's the only major female player we never got to see in "modern" clothing.

Terry Crawford had a cameo as a nurse in HODS.

I posted once about her not being in the present time and most people agreed it was because Dan Curtis didn't have a part for her.

Lawrence Luckinbill is also Lucie Arnaz husband.

A follow up to Cruising is out now on DVD called "Interior.Leather.Bar"

Product Description
Inspired by the mythology surrounding the highly controversial 1980 film, Cruising, starring Al Pacino - in which, 40 minutes of sexually explicit material was forced to be cut out - filmmakers James Franco and Travis Mathews set out to re-imagine the lost footage. Assembling a mix of gay and straight men, including Val Lauren (The Salton Sea, Live from Baghdad) in the lead role, the result is a provocative exploration of the importance of the radical and transgressive in society and the value of engaging with the unfamiliar.

Special Features:
Short Film The Feast of Stephen by James Franco
Short Film In Their Room: SF by Travis Mathews
Interviews with James Franco & Travis Mathews
Original Theatrical Trailer

http://www.amazon.com/Interior-Leather-Bar-James-Franco/dp/B00I4CWIVU/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1399388032&sr=1-2&keywords=gay.leather.bar

This looks like it will be the right size to read the daily strips as the first book made the dailies way too small.

http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Complete-Newspaper-Dailies-Sunday/dp/1613450710/ref=sr_1_27?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399071699&sr=1-27&keywords=dark+shadows