It is incredible how small rooms were in those grand, old houses.  A beautiful mansion in my hometown was eventually converted into an art museum (I use to work there).  The various rooms became gallaries, and some of the bedrooms were so small that walls had to be removed, but others retained their original size.  Even the parlors, several of them that there were, were diminutive.  About the only chamber that was sizeable was the main entrance hall with its grand staircase.  One of the reasons that the rooms were tiny was, I read, to help preserve heat.  These palaces were constructed in the days before central heating, even if they had some form of furnace.  And because there was no central air, they were built in specific placements, with large windows in the rooms, to allow for cross ventilation with the doors open, taking advantage of any breeze during the summers.

By the way, that museum-sans-mansion is haunted and, yes, I did have "experiences" while working there.

Gerard

You'll have a wonderful time, Annie!  Italy is a beautiful place!  I've been there several times, and will be back there in September (on a cruise).

Gerard

Interestingly, the only person I had a crush on was TLATKLS.  I still do.  I had the opportunity to meet quite a few of the handsome menfolk from DS when I went to my one and only festival (in 2003), but the only time I almost passed out was when I got to meet her.  Go figure.

Gerard

Like David, I, too, watched DS because it was scary (well, it was back then to a kid - there were times when I watched it with my hands over my eyes).  I never considered my fondness for it, back then, as having anything to do with my orientation; I didn't even know what that was all about.  I just liked horror - scary monsters, ghosts, things from another world eating New Jersey, etc.  I couldn't get enough of shows like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Thriller, Lost in Space, Star Trek, et. al.  I have friends who are also gay, including my best friend, who absolutely loathed DS (and anything scary).  Nothing in it piqued their gayness.

Gerard

i do think that even in 1991 joan collins would have been much too old to play david's mother.

She might've been type-cast perfect for the part, considering the character is actually several hundred years old and still looked pretty darn good.  And wouldn't it've been rather neat when Elizabeth (Jean Simmons) has her face-off with her about taking David away, and instead of Laura (Joan Collins) casting a spell, the two of them have a good old fashioned, hair-pulling, furniture toppling, fall-into-the-pool cat fight with every other line being "you bitch! - you bitch!"

Gerard

Those palm trees!  Don't forget those palm trees!  How those things drove me nuts!  They still do just thinking about them!  Paaalllmmm tttrrreeesss!!!   Aaaaaaaaaagh!

Gerard

Yes, as wonderful as 1897 (and its prelude in the present time) is, what a mess from Barnabas going back in time.

SPOILER HERE!

In 1968, Quentin is haunting Collinwood (plus his body, having been shot by Beth, was found in the sealed-off room by David and Amy), so obviously he was dead.  But then Barnabas goes back in time to change things.  What really changed things wasn't so much his going back in time, but Petofi showing up and having Tate make that portrait which basically makes Quentin immortal.  He can't be harmed, because whatever harm comes to him goes to the portrait.  So if he was shot by Beth, he'd have a momentary "heart burn" and then the fatal wound would appear on the portrait, so he ain't dead.  So how could he have croaked and ended up haunting Collinwood?  Did Barnabas' arrival change it all?  If Barnabas hadn't've showed up, would Petofi?  Well, maybe, maybe not.  Magda was all out of sorts when she found out that by cursing Quentin she had cursed her own descendents, so she went to get Petofi's hand in order to cure Quentin.  But would she have done so if Barnabas had not been there?  Maybe he cajoled her more into trying to repair things; if he had not shown up, Magda might've just bemoaned what she did and let it go at that, so she would not have gone to get Petofi's hand and Petofi would not have shown up and had Tate make that portrait.  But Petofi did show up and made Quentin immortal, so he was more responsible for stopping the haunting than Barnabas was.  And yet a body showed up in Quentin's room - Trask's.  Is that what the kids found in 1968?  Or was history changed in a paradox that skeletons were switched?  Now that would've been an interesting haunting:  Quentin's spook is banished, but now there's a really angry Gregory Trask.  So here we go again.  Like I said, what a mess.

Gerard