Samantha didn't change at all.  She was always scheming and volatile!
When we first met Samantha, we simply didn't know her well enough to see those qualities lurking beneath the surface.  And I'm sure that the grand lady of Collinwood didn't want people knowing the darkness that lurked beneath that well-lacquered veneer of gentility and moral uprightness.

Of course, we did see hints of Samantha's true character in her exchanges with Gabriel.  At the time, it looked like she just didn't like him in particular.  It was only later we learned that she was basically a bitch to everyone!

It's a testament to Virginia Vestoff's talent that she gave Samantha such life and believability - such a good actress!  The writers should be given their props too.  The character of Samantha is just so multi-dimensional, and proves that 1840 isn't just a shoddy retread of 1897.

(As an aside, it's a little surprising that the mental asylum allowed patients to roam freely on the edge of a cliff ...  )

I thought Samantha threw Joanna off the cliff on Collins property, after the latter had been released from the asylum.  I was pretty sleepy when I watched that particular episode, so I could be wrong. 

Or, one could infer that because they were totally identical, what else would they be but twins? 

But I get your point, MB.  Guess the world of DS fandom has many unanswered questions, and always will...

I do like the idea of time being circular.  It almost has to be ... the linear model presents too many problems.  This could account for a LOT of the things that have been discussed here recently, and could account for CassandraBlair's feeling that another timeline was entered when Barnabas and Julia went back to 1840.

Amen to that.  IMHO, 1840 almost HAS to be some kind of different timeline, since what Barnabas & co. accomplish there alters the fabric of time as we've previously known it.

[spoiler]Upon their return to 1970, they find the ghosts of Gerard and Daphne aren't there.  One might also theorize that they may find nobody remembers Cassandra or Nicholas Blair.  Maybe Quentin wouldn't even be there, who knows?[/spoiler]

I wonder if the original timeline, in which Collinwood was destroyed, still exists somewhere else.  The idea of time being circular rather than linear suggests that, given the time slippage always happening at Collinwood, in some alternaverse the ghost of Gerard (Judah?) is still walking in darkness...

Stop!  You're killing me!  I almost laughed my head off!!!

And all this time it was all right there in KLS's DS almanac. She described Miranda as a member of Judah's Z's coven who later changed her name to Angelique. I guess in this case, Kate was right. Now we know how Ange got her powers too. Puzzle solved. Case closed. No?

Yes, this (plus the dialogue from Monday's episode quoted by Vlad) convinces me too.  However, I still maintain that it's completely revisionist, given what was said about her before, which it directly contradicts.

I guess that when you're watching anything prior to the 1840 storyline, Angelique is a woman who was born in 1774 and became a witch on the island of Martinique.  The Miranda/Angelique story is the truth for the character we meet in 1840.  Like I said before, maybe 1840 is some kind of parallel time. 

I'm sorry, but did it strike anyone else as weird that Angelique could just lift the curse - presto!  If it was so easy, why didn't she do it at some other time, like say in 1897 when she had to give Barnabas all those injections after Julia was ripped out of the past?  Why didn't she just lift the curse then, if it was so easy - since she obviously was trying to help prevent his exposure as a vampire to the 1897 Collins family then as now (1840).

I too have wondered just who was haunting Collinwood c1970.  Judah/Gerard or just Gerard?  One has to presume that if Barnabas and Julia didn't travel to 1840, Judah would have prevailed in his plan to destroy Quentin and take over the house.  But if you think about it, you realize that can't be entirely true, and that Judah must have been defeated by someone at some point in 1840.

After all, if Judah had won, wouldn't he have destroyed the entire family, pertaining to his vow?  Why would he stop at posessing Gerard and killing the children?  And what had happened to the infamous head?

My guess is that before Barnabas and Julia's little journey, Judah wasn't much of a factor (if at all) in 1840, and that it was Gerard's ghost haunting Collinwood.

Maybe he and Daphne colluded in killing Quentin and were discovered by the children (who they also murdered).  Then perhaps Gerard and Daphne were found out and executed for the murders, or maybe for witchcraft (since Gerard was dabbling in the occult).  After all, the original headstone said "He lived and died in darkness..." or some such, didn't it?

What do others think?  Was it actually Gerard causing the haunting of Collinwood in 1970, or do you sense the shade of Judah Zachary?

Good question.  And you're right - there were so many times that's it's hard to narrow down.  Off the top of my head, I'd say 1795.  It was just so well-written and the actors really seemed to be surprising themselves with where they were taking the characters.  Watching the whole "how Barnabas became a vampire" thing just kept me glued to the television, and got me hooked on the show for good.