Any particular episodes where the pants are especially vulgar?  (I want to know which eps to avoid in future, you know. ahem.)

Well, to be pedantic, it's not the pants that are distracting.....  Tee hee!

Willie:  I know you're not in the mood, Jason, but only one of us has to be....

OT - but since we are talking about Clarice Blackburn (mostly) -

[spoiler]I know that Mrs. Johnson came to work for the Collinses after Bill Malloy's murder in order to spy on them for Burke.  But was there any subsequent development of this particular plot thread? For example, Liz finding out or Sarah deciding not to help Biurke after all when she discovered his motives weren't the purest, or did it just fizzle.  Was he paying her for information?[/spoiler]

Mrs. J seemed to become one of the most loyal supporters of the Collinses, at least by the time I first met her in ep 211.

I recently acquired this series on VHS (after reading on another thread about the silly mistakes made on the dvd set).  Some thoughts:

Cast:  Generally well cast, though the one person who stand out (and unfortunately not in a good way) is Lysette Anthony.  Her Angelique was entirely forgettable, not holding even close to a candle to Lara Parker.  I kept trying to imagine Lysette as Cassandra Blair and realizing that she would have failed miserably.  This Angelique is not in love with Barnabas, she is only infuriated when when he spurns her affections.  There is none of the layered and definitely watchable Parker character in LA's Ang, just pure one note evil.  Rather boring, imo.

Jim Fyfe accquitted himself very well as Ben Loomis, but as Willie, well, it was more Barney Fife.  And OMG, get that man to a dentist STAT! And a bath! EWWW.  He was occasionally bumbling and funny and harmless, but poor Mrs. Johnson should be embarrassed to claim as family a man not on speaking terms with hygiene. He needs eliza doolittle-ing but bad (though, having said that, there was some evidence of Barn doing precisely that.  Good on him).

I miss the spikey bangs but I rather liked Bem Cross' Barn.

As was said in the Dear Dead Abigail thread, there was not enough time spent on many of the character's.  Liz and Carolyn suffered most in that respect I think.  I kept wanting to see hints of the Liz who had never left collinwood in 18 years.

Did I hear correctly?  I 1790 was Collinsport referred to as being in the territory of Massachusetts?  Why not Maine?  and anyway weren't the 13 original colonies officially states by 1790?

*sigh* Michael T Weiss  - he could walk back and forth in front of the camera for an hour and I'd watch....

more later.

Well several that come to mind were when [spoiler]Angelique revived and killed Alexis in Ep #1001, Julia accidentally killed Hoffman when she was about to stake Barnabas in Ep #1036, and the many instances when David and Hallie saw the ghosts of Tad and Carrie.[/spoiler] It was mostly a device that was used whenever an actor had to appear on screen in two places at once.

Ah, that explains it.  I haven't made it past 1897.   As far as I'm concerned
[spoiler]Jenny isn't even dead yet![/spoiler]

Buzz:  Blunts ... ya can't smoke just one.   Hey, why do you think they call me "Buzz"?

Burke:  To you, Carolyn.  You remind me of one of my cellmates.  He had a pretty mouth, too....