Not sure I want to become embroiled in a controversy (and I'm going out of town so I won't be able to get too embroiled), but I never watched DS looking for happy endings.

While I was shocked at Vicki's fate, I wouldn't presume to dictate what I think should happen on a TV show or in a novel I read.  Life is full of tragedies, and I thought this segment reflected that.

I really don't see why they needed to invent the syphillis story.  It didn't make much sense to me

I think they brought in the syphilis angle because some biographers have speculated that Stoker might have had it, though there's no evidence.  (Nice how biographers like to speculate.)

I liked Warren simply because he played the part with a different twist.  Since so little of the dialogue or story from the book was used, it made it easier to accept Dracula being very different from how he was described in the book.

Which is not to say that Marc Warren wasn't an interesting casting choice, and I'd be interested in seeing more of his work.  He has quite a list of credits, mostly for British television.

I actually thought certain scenes may have owed a debt to Dark Shadows. Mina and Lucy's meeting with Dracula on the Whitby cliffs, for one.  (I don't think they actually filmed in Whitby.  For my money, Dan Curtis' use of Whitby locations was really quite imaginative in his version of this tale.)

I don't remember Dan Curtis using Whitby locations.  Are you sure you're not thinking of the earlier BBC version with Louis Jourdan?  They did use location filming in Whitby for that one.

Another character who changed drastically - due more to a change in the writers' concept of her than to character development, IMO, though one could argue that there was a natural change in her attitudes over time - was Mrs. Johnson.  Remember at the beginning of the series, she had nothing but dislike for the Collins family and their high-and-mighty ways.  She went to work at Collinwood in order to spy on the family - especially Roger -  for Burke Devlin - or at least he convinced her to use her position at Collinwood to help him plot his revenge against Roger.

Hoping not to go too much off-topic, I'll make a quick tie-in with DS.  Remember how the early part of the 1897 storyline drew a lot of inspiration from "Jane Eyre"?  For that matter, the whole governess situation that DS began with had many echoes from the novel.  

I agree with David that DS viewers should find "Jane Eyre" of special interest.  From what I read about the recent BBC production that aired a couple of weeks ago, though, people who hadn't read the book loved it (for example, the San Francisco Chronicle reviewer, I think it was, thought it was great but showed he wasn't very familiar with the original novel's ideas); many of those who know the book, on the other hand, had big reservations.  I only turned it on for a few minutes, and at first was taken in by the beautiful settings, the filming, the costumes (probably too beautiful).  And I think this actress may have been right for the part had it been written true to the book (though she was probably too pretty).  And I usually hate to say that anyone is "wrong" for a part, but Toby Stephens (besides being way too pretty) was not Charlotte Bronte's character at all ... If I could let go of my impressions from the book, I might have been able to sit back and enjoy it (especially if I had thought more about DS).

That will be the challenge for me with the new "Dracula".  As a great admirer of Stoker's novel, every production has disappointed me to some degree, although some more than others.  (I rank Dan Curtis' version as one of the better ones.)  Some of the early Barnabas scenes on DS reminded me of the Stoker novel.

David makes a good point about previous versions of "Dracula" not adhering much to the novel.  I'll do my best to take his advice :

I look forward to this new Dracula as I would to any old fashioned Gothic chiller!

Quote from: Vlad on January 31, 2007, 05:18:39 AM

I don't think it's a coincidence that many descendants of executioners today are in science and engineering professions.

Where on Earth did you find statistics indicating that the descendants of executioners are more likely to be scientists and engineers?  I would LOVE to see that source!!!

I would have to characterize the evidence as anecdotal.  It's based on my own observations from reading many sources particular to one region and my correspondence with independent researchers.  I would like to do further reading relating to England to see if this observation holds true there or has been noted in reputable sources in English.  It makes sense to me, though, given that continual experimentation was necessary (e.g. using precise weights, measures, and angles) combined with a rational temperament and the ability to distance oneself from emotion.  These weren't cold, barbaric people.  Executioners were sometimes called upon to aid physicians in the case of accidents and in surgery.  To cite only one example in the case of a noted person in the sciences, Louis Pasteur had many executioners in his ancestry.

I'm trying to be concise and don't want to go off-topic further.  In fact, I would be interested in bringing the discussion around to the execution scenes in DS.  Since this thread is getting awfully long, does anyone think a new but related topic on that subject could be started?

-Vlad

KLS is of Norwegian (I think) descent, ... we know Alexandra is Danish

Yes, Kathryn Leigh Scott is a nice Minnesota girl whose parents were born in Norway, and her family name is very Norwegian.

The Von Moltke family is originally German but some of them emigrated to Denmark for military and diplomatic posts in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Hi, Midnite, thanks for your message.  I'm not sure what caused the errors I was experiencing but at least I'm "in."  (I thought at first maybe my registration status had expired ...  ).  I'm using IE because the forum looks better with it than with Mozilla.  But since last updating IE, I can no longer get into my gmail account and had to switch to Mozilla, so maybe it's an IE problem.  

The login spaces at the top right of the home page do not work with most browsers, btw, but attempting to use this shortcut should bring up a second login screen.

I think this is what happened.

Thanks for letting me know that the image is "actual size" as it appears.  After checking the www.darkshadowsfestival.com website more closely, I then realized that there probably wasn't a larger photo.

Regarding the book - if anyone is able to describe the episode summaries (length, depth, accuracy), it would be interesting to hear.  I didn't realize at first that the episode summaries were for the first year only, though (duh!).