Oh, how frustrating.  I'd love to have a look at Hidden Faces - and all the tapes were probably destroyed over forty years ago.

But I daresay it would have disappointed me.  In all probability John Karlen's Sharkey Primrose did not wear primrose-colored pants the way Nathan Forbes did - and I do mean exactly the way Nathan Forbes did.

Ronny G, I revisit the Watching Project topics regularly, partly because they're an easy way to find the Robservations topics.  One of the wonderful things about these forums (thank you, thank you, mods!) is that nothing ever gets deleted due to age.  Therefore you could, if you wanted, see if there's anybody around here who would like to go through the 1970 parallel time storyline with you, and add to the topics.  I know there are lots of people who love that storyline.  Try the link to the following topic:

Who else loves Parallel Time?

A lot of the people who posted there are no longer regular posters, but I'm sure they're not the only people who like PT1970.

I have suggested to MB that he put the Watching Project topics into an area by themselves, and he said he was planning to do it...someday.  And with all the wonderful things that he does, it would be sort of rude for me to say, "Why not now?"

I love the orange in the color original of the painting of Laura.  It makes a big difference, and it must have been frustrating to be able to show it only in black and white.

Carolyn and Vickie have their first talk in a long time.

Yes, and Vicky wasn't very nice to Carolyn, I thought.  Carolyn says she made a fool of herself by throwing herself at Burke, and Vicky says, "I wish you wouldn't do that," as she were Carolyn's mother - except Carolyn's mother is smarter than that, I think.  When somebody admits she made a fool of herself, it's mean to rub it in.  And next thing we know, we get Maggie being callous to her father.  "You can't allow yourself to talk or think that way," she says.  Surely Maggie could come up with a more constructive suggestion than, "Don't do that!"

Vickie reveals she smelled Jasmine in David's room as she did at the Old House.

I said the other day that we didn't start hearing about the scent of jasmine until the next storyline, but I see I was wrong.  It's very strange watching this storyline, because I don't remember Josette being anywhere near as big a part of it as she is.  Was I watching from another planet, or what?

Is that KLS as Josette?

That's who it looked like to me.

If she could complete it, why have Sam do it in the first place?

Maybe originally she couldn't paint the picture.  It might have something to do with her power becoming stronger as she uses it.

So who screamed when the painting burned?

I'm hoping to find out tomorrow, but I doubt we will.  I don't see how it could be either Laura or Josette.

I think Laura put some sort of spell on Burke or at least enchanted him in some way.

I thought about that possibility, but concluded it was unlikely.  I think we would have gotten a whiff of it yesterday if that had been the case.  I think this was all about the bargain Burke thinks he has with Laura: if Burke gets David to like his mother, then Laura will testify for him in a re-trial.  Burke was terrifically awkward with Vicky because his change in attitude wasn't real; it was all about calculation.  [He reminded me strongly of a certain politician, but we don't discuss politics here.]  Any infatuation he has for Laura is prompted by the thought of the wonderful thing she'll be doing - well, that, and maybe the fact that she was probably his first love, and one never forgets one first love.

Frank is using Rogers long unseen office.

My impression was that it was definitely Frank's new Collinsport office; Lieutenant Riley dropped by to see Frank there, and then Frank answered the phone as though the office were his rather than a borrowed one.  I think this is the first re-use of a set that we've seen, and it shocked me that they didn't even bother take down the picture of Colonel Mustache.  With all the miscellaneous pictures they have, it wouldn't have been very difficult.  I know where they can find a nice old picture of a mother holding her child.  Hint: it was still on the floor of David's room yesterday.

I liked Carolyn today.  She was completely delusional about whatever relationship she thought she had with Burke - but I liked her better than I've ever liked her before.

Yes, Vicki, everything started when Laura came to Collinwood, just as Matthew thought everything started when you came to Collinwood....

Interesting thought.  Never having had a high estimate of Vicky's intelligence to start with, I did think to myself, "Does this really add up?" when she said that, but I didn't consider it in that light.

The plot thickens.  I don't think Laura will be around to follow through on her bargain with Burke, but if by some happenstance she is, and it advances her cause with David, I have no doubt that she'll do it, just as I have no doubt that she'll throw Burke to the wolves - or to the fishes - if it suits her purpose.

Burke's lost interest in Vicky now that Laura's around.  When she came to his hotel suite, she wasn't the special someone for him that she's been for the past few weeks.  I don't like Mitchell Ryan much, but I like the way he made that clear.

When Roger tries to take the portrait of Laura in flames away from David, David shouts that Roger hates him and wants to send him away from Collinwood. Roger actually sits on the bed next to David. With unaccustomed gentleness, he says, "I don't hate you, David, and I don't want to send you away. If you went away, I would be very sorry." I know I probably shouldn't believe him, but I can't help it--I just do.

I don't.

Maggie says, "Maybe I'll go to New York."  And in fact Kathryn Leigh Scott, unlike Maggie, did go to New York.  KLS is so much more enterprising than Maggie.  I was wondering today: What does she think of Maggie?  I remember somebody asking KLS at the 2007 fest if she wished Josette had been less clueless (note: this was my fellow fan's question, not mine; I have no complaints about Josette) and the answer was, "She was the only Josette I knew," so I guess maybe KLS just accepted Maggie as she was, too.

Joe's basic response to Maggie was, "Stay here," and I wondered how good that advice was.

As Maggie's leaving for work-- she wants to "get there early to see the surprised look on his face."   Mentioning that jerk in the hotel's name is vorboten at this point, I guess...

But didn't Burke mention it just the other day?

Collinsport is supposed to have an artists colony, right?  Of which Sam Evans is the representative for us viewers.  Are there any other artists who feel compelled to paint Laura Collins in flames, over and over again?  Artists who don't even know who Laura is?  Sort of like the potato blight in Ireland, only in Collinsport it's pictures that are withering on the vine.  Yeah, I know, that's not how potatoes grow.  Or pictures, for that matter.

Diana Millay is much better than I remembered her in this storyline.  Watching it the second time around, I see so many more details in Laura, and I wonder (the perennial question) what Millay knew when about what was happening.

So what is Laura anyway? Is she a ghost, a phantom? She seems to be solid. How can there be two lockets?

I can't figure it out.  The duplicate locket is a stumper.   But whatever Laura is, I don't think she initiated it.  Initially she didn't seem to know why she was in Collinsport, and then things became clear to her.  She voluntarily told Vicky about the locket, and it seems plain to me that she had no idea that the locket story would come back to haunt her.

I'm even less convinced today than I was yesterday that Josette has anything to do with any of the pictures Sam has painted of Laura.  Josette would not want to scare anybody, even if it was for their own good.  She's a comfort ghost, not a warrior ghost.

When I was a kid, I hated that kind of patronizing on Sam's part-- the cider and cookies diversion.

Maybe it was patronizing, but it was kind of Sam not to go into his "I hate that painting" rant with David, so I was all for the cider and cookies diversion.

Elizabeth is worried how Laura effects David.

Good for Elizabeth, pointing out to Vicky that what matters is not how much Laura needs David, but rather how much David needs Laura.

The picture in David's room of the mother holding her child keeps catching my eye.  Previously it hung on the wall over his bureau, but yesterday when he was putting string on the picture of Laura so he could hang it, he had apparently taken the mother-and-child picture down, and it was on floor, leaning against the wall, and the picture of Laura was hung in its place.  Today, to my surprise, the mother and child picture was still on the floor rather than having mysteriously disappeared, and I expected Elizabeth to suggest putting it back over David's bureau, or at least to comment on it.  But it just was there on the floor, with nobody paying attention to its message: "This is what true maternal love is."

Thanks, Midnite!

What a profoundly weird episode.

But he's horrified when this one is a variation on the same theme--except that this time, the woman looks almost birdlike, her expression downright feral. And she has wings that seem to be beating--fanning the flames of her pyre, perhaps.

I was noticing today that the first picture had wings, too, and I started thinking about Laura flying about in the night.

Then it must be Josette who's making Laura's big giant head come out of the painting, just as it's Josette who's compelling Vicki to give David the painting in the first place.

In that case, it would be Josette who compelled Sam to paint the painting, and Josette who is now compelling Sam to paint Laura again.  That's a substantial amount of power that Josette is wielding all of a sudden - if it is indeed Josette that's doing it.  Why would Josette be suddenly turning into a very active supernatural force, instead of one who stays around the Old House dancing and saying "Don't be afraid" to damsels in distress?  I like the idea that after David brought Laura to the Old House and put her in the same room with Josette's portrait, Josette started taking action.  But Sam felt compelled to paint before that.  So, is there another power inimical to Laura at work here?  Or is Sam just super-sensitive to the supernatural because he's an artist?  And again, why is Josette throwing her ectoplasmic weight around - assuming that she is?  If so, it must be wearing her out considerably.

And if it's not Josette, who or what is it?

Definately the most confusing storyline.

I'm not so sure about that.  There's so much that doesn't make sense all the way through Dark Shadows.  But at this point the writers were still trying to make sense, so I have more of a feeling here that the puzzle can be figured out, if only we try hard enough.

Sam: There's an old, battered hulk on the beach, half in the water, half out.

The town authorities should do something about it.  There's no way you can keep children from playing on that sort of thing, and I'm sure it has rusty nails and splinters in abundance.  But maybe there are ghosts that scare the children away.  Note: a month ago, I wouldn't have suggested there might be ghosts on the battered hulk.  Dark Shadows had very little to do with the supernatural back then.  But now things have changed.

When Laura's head came out of the picture, I sort of expected it to say, "I am the great and powerful Oz!"