It's a day late, but the sentiment's the same!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATTI![/color] 

Well, as others have already said, Chris Jennings and Joe Haskell, definitely I cared for them.  And I also felt really badly for Maggie during her imprisonment and brainwashing at the hands of Barnabas.  I so wanted her to get away.  And when Maggie and Joe broke up, it was truly a moment that I cared about the characters, and wanted better for them.

Bad as he was, I cared about David, esp. in the early days.  Look at all the crap he had to deal with:   scary monster for a mother, and an emotionally detached and likely uncaring father.

Although she isn't a fan favorite, I cared for Rachel Drummond [spoiler]and felt terribly sad for her when she died.[/spoiler]

Even watching this show as a kid, I never wanted Barnabas to be exposed as a vampire, so I guess I cared for him too.

And of course, Dr. Julia Hoffman is my favorite character, so I definitely care for her.

Never thought I'd see the day when Raineypark cut Barnabas some slack.  Surprise is too mild a word...shock, maybe?  

Let's see, hate may be taking things too far, however I strongly dislike the characters of Jeff Clark, Ned Stuart and Hallie Stokes.

Although Jerry Lacy does a fabulous job with the part, I really hate the character of Lamar Trask.  He just icks me out.   Sorta love to hate the other Trasks.  Does that count?

Makes me sad that Joel Crothers left the show - he was excellent.  Would have really liked to see him play another bad guy on DS - he was so good at it.

Also dislike that they didn't do more with some of the minor and secondary characters, actors.  Would have loved to have seen more of Elizabeth Eis, Jane Draper, the Powell "siblings" (both Addison and Lovelady), whoever that chick was that played the most eeeeeeeeeeeevil woman of the 18th century (Danielle Roget), and some others.

Really don't like the 1841PT storyline.  I've tried and tried, but it just leaves me kinda blah!

Oh, I have one.  I hate that Tony Peterson and Sky Rumson never took their shirts off!

Truth be told, I actually kind of like Roger Davis as Peter Bradford in the 1795 storyline.  Dare I say that he seemed to me the best match for Vicki of any of the men they paired her with on the show?   Once they brought the character to 1968 as "Jeff Clark," he is annoying as hell, and the hair touching becomes out of control! 

I think he does kind of a good job with Dirk Wilkins too.  I'm not fond of the character, but then, he's not really supposed to be likeable, is he?  [spoiler]It's fun seeing him slave for mean old Laura the Phoenix.[/spoiler]

Nate (?) or whatever he's called when he plays Sabrina's brother is pretty assy character, like Jeff.  But as Penny Dreadful mentioned, Charles Delaware Tate is a decent character, despite the fact that he functions as a kind of plot contrivance.  There was a weird undercurrent to his relationship with Petofi that he and Thayer David played nicely, IMO.

Not having ever been to the fests or met him under any other circumstances, I don't have any opinion about Roger Davis himself.

Actually when Barnabas first sees Angelique in 1840, he is horrified to see her when he shouldn't have been. The last time they dealt with each other they were in a cordial relationship.  he should have been happy that she was there so she could help him fight Judah Zachary.  Though there is also the fact that she doesn't remember anything chronologically post 1840, which is another discrepancy. 

When Barnabas meets up with Angelique in 1840, I think it's at least implied that she hasn't experienced the events of 1897 and the late 1960's early 70's.  He's encountering an Angelique that hasn't seen him since he was chained in the coffin in 1795/96.  The writers kind of goofed with this, because so much of what the characters had been through in earlier storylines had involved the witch, and now they were essentially rewriting the history of the main timeline of the show (if you follow).

I for one never really bought into the idea that Barnabas really loved Angelique in the 1840 storyline.    And it was a real slap in the face to viewers who knew the whole tragic story.  Some have theorized that maybe Barnabas told her he loved her so that in death (this time anyway) her spirit would find rest and not trouble the folks at Collinwood any longer.

My guess is that the writers pulled the Angelique redemption story out of their hats in order to make the paring of Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker more palatable to viewers in the upcoming Bramwell/Catherine story, and just didn't care to think about the ramifications of Barnabas and Angelique actually being together as lovers, 'cos it would likely never have happened.  Remember, JF allegedly refused to play Barnabas any longer. 

I went to college (back in the late 80's/early 90's) with a girl named Angelique who was also named after the character on Dark Shadows.   She was a sorta butch punk rock chick, and didn't know anything about her ficitional namesake except that she was a witch.

And there's also a singer who's called Angelique Kidjo, she's originally from Benin, and is rather well-known on the world music scene; she has a great voice.

If I could have voted, it would definitely have been for Lara as Cassangelique, which I guess is not a huge surprise, given my avatar.  Of course, I just loved her as Angelexis in 1970PT, too - [spoiler]esp. when she was Angelique posing as Alexis.[/spoiler]She was so bitchy and insincere, it's amazing nobody figured out her true identity earlier.

Seems to me that Barnabas always had to get back to his coffin by sunrise, and so did every other vampire on Dark Shadows.  Weren't there even a couple (Tom Jennings, Roxanne) who were destroyed by being kept out of their coffins and exposed to sunlight?  I don't remember Barnabas ever having to take a dirt nap, except for the time Julia and Willie thought he had died from the Dream Curse and buried him in the woods near the Old House.  And of course he was originally buried in the secret room of the mausoleum, maybe below ground level, but certainly not in any dirt.

Yeah, Patti - it really does seem as if vampires in literature (and on film) are changing with the times and evolving.  I always find it interesting when new authors (and filmmakers) put a new spin or create a new mythos for their particular version of that most fascinating of night creatures, the vampire.

I wonder where the idea came from that a vampire had to sleep in the earth in which s/he was originally buried?  Does anybody know?  Maybe it's from Dracula or some eastern European legend.  You hardly ever see this in anything made recently.  The last time I remember seeing anything about dirt in a vampire movie was the Dracula made by Francis Ford Coppola in the early '90s.