Somehow Bruno manages to take credit for a musical composition that we know was written in the 1800s.

Forget the grandfather clock. Someone needs to pull the plug on that damn jukebox at the Blue Whale. It's always playing that same blasted "tune." I understand that DS's miniscule budget would never have allowed them to pay the royalties on some of the actual songs that were hits at the time, but it sure seems a shame for the hip and happening residents of Collinsport to be subjected night after night to this dreck, especially in an era famous for its wealth of great popular music. No wonder Carolyn doesn't want to dance.

This episode reminded me of one of those French farces in which characters go in and out of rooms at a dizzying pace. I've never seen the Collinwood foyer more busy and the doors more in use than they are here.

Once again, some of the folklore elements seem a tad arbitrary and inconsistent. Barnabas manages to kill Roxanne after what appear to be two bloodlettings (and not very long ones at that). Considering how long he strung along his other victims like Maggie and Carolyn without killing them, Roxanne seems to succumb awfully quickly.

Is it me, but I could swear there was music and singing of some sort playing dimly in the background of the scenes in the drawing room, as if somebody had left a radio or something on during the filming? Or was it just one more example of Collinwood's notoriously restless spirits doing their own thing, utterly indifferent to the goings-on of the "live" people in the house?

This is one of those times you wish the characters would make some obvious connections to earlier episodes and storylines. There's a lot of that in this section mainly due to the striking parallels between this ghost story and the previous one with Quentin. You often get the feeling that the characters are always re-inventing the wheel when they could just apply some basic memory and answer their own questions by referring back to their previous experiences.

It's particularly noticeable in this episode when Carolyn ponders whether or not Sebastian Shaw could be the reincarnation of Jeb Hawkes. I keep waiting for her to say, "But didn't this very thing happen when Peter Bradford returned and was reunited with Vicky?" Ah well, nobody ever said the residents of Collinwood were known for their long-term memory.

For me, the most egregious example of the writers losing touch with the full storyline is in how the 1795 section eventually becomes the 1797 timeline every time it's addressed later in the series (it's like they fused 1795 with 1897 and came up with a new date).  They probably assumed these episodes would all be played once, then lost to time, and never envisioned a bunch of nitpicky naysayers pointing out their mistakes so many decades later.

Ah well, at least it gives me a reason to yell back at the screen every time they make the mistake.

It could be that I just wasn't able to find them, but it seems that Amazon Prime has, for some unaccountable reason, decided to drop the pre-Barnabas episodes from its collection. It was nice having access to that earlier portion of the series, particularly as the CDSWP is now, once again, plowing through those episodes. 

Apparently, all you needed was the title "Doctor" in your name to get the run of the place. Nobody knew that better than Julia Hoffman.