It's been a long time since I watched the pre-Barnabas episodes, but I do remember vaguely some of what Dom described regarding Liz/Joe/Burke. It's a valid argument to make that maybe Liz was trying to encourage the Carolyn/Joe relationship so that Joe could eventually take over the family business. After all, with as troubled as David was it wouldn't necessarily be prudent for Liz to plan on him making it into adulthood with a sound mind, enough at least to run the business correctly instead of in to the ground.

I've seen that many times, along with "To my next victim" or some variation of that. I can't believe the seller is asking $49 for this! I would think her autograph is readily available for much less.

I was interested in watching this series but I saw a lot of things online that were not exactly what I would call good reviews. I suppose it could just be that some are missing the tone that the series is striking for the viewer. MB's recaps above seem to shine a bit more light on how the show actually is, which is intriguing. However, given that I have a current back log of entertainment to catch up on (tv, movies, and books) I might not get to it for some time.

"Now fans can get in the mood for the upcoming film"? You think they're referring to the potential new TV series on the CW, or just plain don't know what they're talking about?

I did a quick forum search on "Hawkes Harbor" and only came up with a few mentions of it in past years.

I just finished reading the book last night, having picked it up earlier this year at a discount book store. I wasn't expecting much, and I have to admit that the beginning portion of the book was a bit difficult to get through. But once I was in, I was in for good.

It wasn't difficult to discern who each character represented from the Dark Shadows world, and the same goes for the settings used most in the book. I have to say though, that I found some of the relationships between characters to be a bit unexpected from how they were presented in the show. I have to wonder if these were present in the first draft of the novel, or if they were the result of changes made after the DS Gods determined that the book would not be an officially licensed DS novel?

The relationship between Jamie (Willie) and Grenville (Barnabas) was really all over the place. The early part of it (where Barnabas practically abuses Willie at every turn) I found to be pretty accurate. However, by the end of the book (SPOILERS HERE) where they practically became road trip buddies was a little much for me to swallow. And Jamie's fate at the end of the book was also not what I would've guessed given that Willie is always involved in later DS projects (particularly the audio dramas).

Anyway, has anyone else read the book and what did you think?

EDIT: I must not have been searching the Home page of the forum, because I just found more mentions and a topic. However, I'd enjoy talking about it further if this topic stays up.

There is always something bittersweet to me about getting to the end of DS, even though 1841PT is definitely a rough watch for much of the time. One of my favorite sequences in the entire show is the very last one, where Thayer David does a voice over of what happened to the Collins family in the short term. The camera panning around Collinwood and showing the empty sets while he does so is very evocative for me, and almost somber.

I've always thought it was nice that this moment exists because there are too many times where television shows get canceled or end and they don't have the time to try to wrap things up. While this isn't exactly a well though out, well planned and/or extensive wrap up of all the storylines, I think the fact that in 1971 the effort was made to attempt to provide closure for a soap opera is pretty marvelous.

Interesting points Patti! Imagine if David had actually succeeded in killing Roger at some point, it sure would've made a good portion of Burke's early storyline practically moot. Who would Burke have taken revenge on? Liz?

And, could you imagine Liz knowing that David killed Roger and covering it up? That would've made for yet another (this time real) reason for a character, maybe even Jason McGuire, to blackmail her!

Julia was usually one of the least annoying characters to me, outside of the incredible over acting and "Oh-oh-ohhhsssss" that Grayson loved to employ. Sometimes those could be a bit much. However, there were a couple of times throughout the series where Julia was definitely more of a party pooper than a party enjoyer and the example above was certainly on my list!