I always wondered what the rest of the PT world beyond Collinwood was like.  Who was President?  Were there ever World Wars?  Was My Mother the Car a critical and commercial success?  All we heard was that there was a Genoa, Italy.

Gerard

Fantastic!  His artwork almost reminds me of a "hip" version of Ed Gorey.

Gerard

Well, I never!  How dare someone bespeak ill of my Maggie Evans!  But then, maybe the poster is refering to the PT1970 Maggie Evans.  To be honest, with her whining, she was also getting on my nerves.  So was Quentin.  Both of them needed a bit of strangling.

Gerard

And no Christopher Lee, either!  Plus, I also have never heard of a large chunk of those "most popular" vampires.

Gerard

I might be able to answer that, MB, from my own ghost hunting experiences.  First of all, what they said might not be completely factual but rather an exaggeration.  Even though the cast of Ghost Hunters are, for the most part, critical of claims of hauntings and spend time debunking claims (from watching the shows, they declare close to 90% of all hauntings "unproven" - they even did it with this one with regards to our beloved Collinwood [they never concluded it was haunted]), it's still a show that survives because of ratings.  I would not take their claim without a grain of salt.  I don't blame them - they're paid for this, and Sci-Fi (or SyFy, which I hate) gets money for this.  We're all trying to eat, pay bills, and be able to get stuff we otherwise could not afford with a little extra in the paycheck.  Second, "ghost hunters" (I'm an amateur among them), knows from other ghost hunters that a ghost (meaning the spirit/soul/whatever of a dearly departed) cannot effect something beyond human abilities.  Humans cannot stomp around like dump trucks; neither can ghosts.  Third, sounds, especially in large houses, can be exaggerated because of "travelling sound."  Stuff acts like microphones and can enhance sound.  Fourth, and this goes with the third, animals living in urban areas are everywhere.  When they crawl or walk around, they can be heard, and the sound of their scuffling is enhanced through structures, like a a tuner struck against a surface.  When the team climbed through the trapdoor and found only a roof, any animal that might've made the sound would've run (or flew or whatever) off.  I once was involved with an investigation in a "haunting" that included the same type of sounds.  What caused them?  Racoons.  In my own house, there were sounds emanating from the ceiling and walls.  Ghosts?  No - squirrels.  Critters are ingenous in making themselves at home in your home.

Ghosts are fun.  The episode was fun.  DS was fun.  Imagine if Stokes, while helping the beleaugered Collins family, had said:  "Quentin is not haunting Collinwood.  You've got a family of possums living in the rafters."  There wouldn't have been a DS for long.

Gerard

I'm totally fascinated by "ghost hunting," while at the same time I'm totally skeptical about their existence (and I've done a few "ghost-bustings"), and that's what I like about their show.  They actually don't try to engrandize things; they go a supposedly haunted place and try to disprove all the claims and in many, if not most, cases, they do just that.  They do not use "sightings," or "soundings," including their own, as proof.  If it isn't fully and clearly recorded, it's not evidence.  The ironic thing is that on most of their shows, they come up with virtually nothing and declare a place "not haunted."  One would think, with the lack of the sensational, the program would be a bomb (watching them traipse around and end up with nothing concrete, or even exciting, shouldn't be an audience-grabber).  But I think it's because of their skepticism of a claim and their thoroughness, mixed with the rare, occasional recorded happenings (such as the sliding folding chair in the attic of that famously "haunted" lighthouse) that keeps people coming back for more.  The audience is intellectually challenged, but when that rare "proof" is there, it's a shock.  It's like a good horror or scary movie becomes a success.  If stuff is shown all the time, it becomes blase.  If nothing is ever shown, even in a small glimpse, it's pointless.

Is our "Collinwood" haunted?  I doubt it.  Let's face it - other than college students behaving like typical college kids, nothing "horrific" ever happened there.  So why should it be haunted?

Gerard

I actually enjoy upcoming movie and TV spoilers posted all over the internet - they're fun.  And they're usually wrong anyway.  I remember when Cloverfield was getting ready to premier and they went to great pains to hide images of the Manhattan-eating monster from view until one was sitting in a theater seat and actually got to see it ruining everyone's day in the Big Apple.  Yet, all over the world-wide-web, there were "leaked" descriptions, "photos" and drawings of it.  And not one of them was true.

I sometimes wonder if movie studies are behind some of these untrue "leaks" just to spark up interest in an upcoming film.  It's an ingenious way to spread publicity to hundreds of millions all for free.

Gerard