Connie dear, that's adorable!

Many thanks for all the good wishes! I surely do appreciate them.

G.

Another stellar element of the 1840 storyline is Chris Pennock's work as Gabriel Collins.  By far Pennock's most nuanced, emotionally plausible characterization on the series, I think.

I also enjoy John Karlen's work as Kendrick Young in PT 1841 because it is so unlike anything else he did on the series.  He gets to play the young romantic hero--more in the vein of Jane Austen than Bronte (that's Frid as Bramwell--even his name is Brontean), I think.  His courting scenes with Nancy Barrett are adorable, and of course I love watching him cross swords with Grayson's acid-tongued Aunt Julia.

G.

Thanks, again, to all of you for wishing me well!  I had a lovely day.

Jean-Claude, you know you're KIILLING me with that card!

cheers, G.

I just love the selection of snapshots from Episode 21 on today's slideshow.  It almost seems like the theme is "Dark Shadows Salutes the Bright Lights of Broadway"!  In the first one, it looks as if Burke and "friend" are singing "I Whistle a Happy Tune" from "The King and I."  The second one could be Vicki and Carolyn doing that big number from "West Side Story," "I have a love" (I'm probably getting the title wrong), while the third one has to be Collinwood's unique version of "How you solve a problem like Maria" from "The Sound of Music."  (Don't you think Liz would be a natural as a Mother Superior.)

I'm not sure which big B'way hits involve telephones so I am at a loss to come up something with the final shot of Burke on the phone.

G.

The original bat in 1795 is what in Ceremonial Magic is often called a Servitor.  It is a being fashioned out of the Sacred Elements in combination with the Will of the Magician and exists to perform specific tasks.  In Angelique's case, she created it to spy on Barnabas and be her eyes and ears where she was not present.  When you create one, you are supposed to be very specific and sensible craftsmen with solid training will usually give a specific date or circumstance for the dissolution or "death" of the creature so it doesn't run around wreaking havoc after it's done what you wanted.  They often take the form of mythological animals such as griffins or unicorns but such beasts as cats or bats are also popular. Somewhat confusingly, there is another tradition of a Witch creating a cat, a bat, a bird, a wolf or other animal as her "Fetch."  It is linked to her life essence and if it is harmed, the Witch can suffer harm as well.  There is a story about this in the Silver John stories written from Appalachian folklore by one of the old writers--Manly Wade Wellman, maybe?  And some folklore was collected in a recent volume on faery and werewolf legends by a French scholar that has been published in English.

When Jeb summoned the Bat from Hell during the Leviathan period, that bat was clearly of demonic nature.  I think that technically speaking, it was a critter of a very different kind from Ange's bat in 1795.  Of course both were played by the same Bil Baird puppet, and I'm sure I have written far more than anyone wanted to know on this subject.

cheers, Gothick

I just double-checked, and those last 4 tracks have an asterisk which marks them as "bonus tracks."  I presume they are bonus to the previous release which must be the one you have.

Does yours include a couple of extremely rare photos in the inlay "booklet" (which is only two pages in mine)?  Mine has a shot of Joe giving Maggie a kiss (from a 1968 publicity session from which another picture of the two together has been much more widely circulated), a picture of Quentin in his post-werewolf shredded clothing posing in the drawing room set, shots of Gregory Trask and Magda, and a photo of Liz and Carolyn together from Episode 2--all seldom if ever seen elsewhere (by me).

Best, G.

Hi Charles, I have it at home and if I can remember, I will post it in this thread tomorrow.  It sounds like fun but I have never tried it.

G.

Since I just watched it recently, I would go with Nicholas' evil laughter at Cassandra's new "manicure."  (Clever thing to call it!)  It's understated and, if evil laughter can ever sound natural, fairly plausible. 

I do like Angelique's evil laugh but all too often they replaced it with some canned laugh from an actress who sounded as if she'd gotten into Roger Collins' secret Scotch stash.

Special mention has to made of Julia's demented laughter when lawyer Tony Peterson states his belief that Roger is the individual Julia does not want to get his paws on her diary.  I just love the Divine One's laughter from beyond the border of sanity: "Ra-ha-ha-ha-ha-HA-jerr!" Great stuff.

G.