It's true that he may not have really known Josette that well, but the real beneficiary of that realization would be Julia, I think.   He's closer to Julia than anyone else.  Ang would just be yet another passion he got carried away with.

I completely agree with this point. Barnabas and Julia are the shows ULTIMATE couple, even if they never really became a couple on the show. She obviously loved him, and he, like a dunderhead, completely did not realize that she loved him as much as she did. Even if he did see that she liked him, there's no way he would've just dissed her all those times. Why should he? For their professional relationship? Hardly!

And, if you notice, Angelique never really did anything that bad to Julia. Compare what she did to Julia (practically nothing) to what she did to Barnabas' ACTUAL family, and it pales in comparison. All this even after Julia slapped the H-E-L-L out of Cassangelique! which called for some serious retribution!

I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet: ADAM! How about that entire character for one of the biggest writer's mistakes ever! Okay, so I won't completely degrade him--I'll add the fact that he did have good parts. But for the most part, that entire Frankensteign rip off (which seems to stick more to the book than the actual Frank. movie did) became extremely tired as it wore on (which is probably why the Frank. movie deviated so much).

I'm sorry to say that I'm am NOT one of those fans who thinks that the entire Barnabas telling Angelique that he loves her thing was bad. I actually can see how that makes sense. Not only does it tie up both of their storylines--after all, the entire series was based on the fact that Barnabas was wronged by Angelique because he refused to love her--and now that she's dying, he's either

A) Telling her he loves her because he wants her to die peacefully and feeling that she has accomplished something (no matter how torturous and murderous that accomplishment was)

or

B) Telling her he loves her because he really does love her, which, granted, is kind of hard to believe, but it is BELIEVEABLE. To me anyway. Because I think that it really speaks to Barnabas' overall character that he can forgive someone who wronged him so much throughout his 200+ years of living (or unliving, as the case may be). Not to mention the fact that the statement truly gives him a conscience and a sense of morals, which, let's face it, he didn't really put on display much of the time.

Do I think Trask was justified? Heck yea! Why wouldn't he be? And do I think that HE thought he was justified? Well, of course. Otherwise, why would he have come back to brick Barnabas up?

Come to think of it, I think Trask was MORE fair to Barnabas than Barnabas was to him back in 1795 when he bricked him up. Barnabas didn't give Trask any way out of the situation. It was "Here, sign this letter and then get in that alcove there while I put bricks in front of you." That was that. At least when Trask came back as a ghost in the present day storyline, he summonded ghosts of the past who Barnabas had "wronged" and gave him a trail. Sure, it wasn't a completely fair trial, but it was more than Barnabas did for Trask in the first place.

Ultimately, did Trask deserve to be bricked up? Probably not. But given the circumstances and Trask's extremely crafty ways, Barnabas really couldn't trust that Trask would go to the courthouse and freely state that he was wrong about Vicki, and that he recanted all his testimony and his entire case basically. Who did Barnabas know that would accompany Trask that would seem to be credible? No one. Ben was only a servant after all, and Barnabas couldn't do it for himself because he was too busy snoozin' away in his coffin all day. So, really, Baranbas' only option was to somehow keep Trask captive and then make him visit the judge's offices or home at night, which would've been highly risky (Barnabas could've been seen), or to kill Trask after Trask signed a confession. The latter of the two seems the easiest.

If I go I'll probably just go online to their website and do that, because if they run out of DS rooms, there's still more rooms available throughout the hotel. The entire thing can't be booked.

Thanks for the offer! I'll let you know if I'm gonna take you up on it or not. I still need to decide what I'm doing! LOL. (I am NOTORIOUSLY indecisive)

Speaking of small rooms, I was very surprised at last year's fest when we went to Lyndhurst, at just how small the rooms in that house are. And the "long, wide," hallways that seem to be in existence in the movie certainly do not exist there. The hallways were long, yes, but very narrow. The rooms were very small compared to their enormity on screen. I find that this is the cast in most older houses as well, no matter where they are located.

And Gerard, great stories! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks to those who have reassured that traveling alone is just fine! I'm sure it it, but I've never done it before. But, I guess you've got to take the leap sometime or another! And there is a great line up of events this year. Maybe I'll go do some pricing and see what it'll cost me to fly out for a few days.

Okay. Let's take it from the end of the series, present day Collinwood. Characters we have are:

Barnabas, Liz, Roger, David, Carolyn, Julia, Quentin, Sebastian Shaw (?), Angelique.....

Based from that, I'd probably say that Sebastian would've left. He was the least-central character to the show, especially compared to all the others. David and Carolyn would've stayed in the spolight, because as David was still not an adult, there was still plenty of instances where he could've been put in danger. He wouldn't be there everyday, but in the later years he never was. As he grew older they could've sent him away to college or even kept him in town to develop some story with him. Same with Carolyn.

Of the core cast, I think Roger or Liz would've been axed. Personally, I would kill one of them, just to have shaken things up in the house. A mysterious death of one of the core characters, and a murder mystery to solve. Was it something supernatural? Could've been! Maybe that could've led to a new baddie being introduced.

But, of course, Barnabas, Julia, Angelique, and Quentin wouldn't have been touched. Otherwise, the audience would cry fowl.