believe it or not i still have dial up so downloading videos takes hours.

does this actually say who heathcote is playing or is it just speculative?

what's strange is that if you google 'bella heathcote victoria winters' dozens of links pop up but if you google 'bella heathcote maggie evans' you get nothing.

so she's either "victoria" or she's "a governess" or she's "a waitress" but she's never referred to as "maggie".

i wonder if they're creating a composite character(magtoria?). vicki as a waitress doesn't work for me.

since kathryn leigh scott played maggie evans as a waitress forty five years ago i don't really see that as a "modernization".

and part of the charm of DS is that it exists somewhat out of time. i'm sure by the mid 1960's the concept of a governess was already somewhat antiquated.

another word on john lasell(dr. guthrie)...

because not just one 1960's small-new-england-town-with-secrets soap opera is enough for me i've been watching "peyton place". lasell appears in one or two episodes as the divorce attorney of bad girl betty anderson(the lovely barbara parkins)during her breakup with golden boy rodney harrington(ryan o'neal).

by 1970 the storyline for roger had grown pretty skimpy. louis edmonds seemed to do better during the time travel storylines by that point. so i guess it's not inconceivable that one of the "core" collins family members would be killed off.

what i do find impossible to imagine is barnabas doing the killing at this stage. considering the fuss that is made about him killing carl during 1897 and returning to his "evil ways" during the leviathan arc i imagine a huge fan outcry if he offed such an established and beloved character.

to add to the rumor mill i've always heard that edmonds was concerned about having to go out and find work again after five years when DS left the air.

i definitely hear your points about the lighting mysterious.

however it's not just the light. i've lived in california and i've lived in maine. everything about the foliage,the coastline look completely different. i'm not trying to be critical it's just the way it is. they're on opposite coasts and the landscape is just different in each location. if the series had been shot in pheonix, arizona it would have a different look too.

as a devoted fan of the original series i know that it was not filmed on the coast of maine but on a set. it looks like a set because it's a set.

but anyways i'm sure this is beating a dead horse....

great topic. it should come as no surprise to those here that i love this storyline. it's very close to being a personal favorite.

in terms of the show's overall continuity the laura story exists in almost complete isolation. it effects very little what came before or after it. in this way it almost functions as a little self-contained series-within-a-series. it has it's own tempo that's quite unlike any other storyline.

after it's over it's over. there's the very occasional and cryptic reference to "roger's wife" or "david's mother" but laura is never mentioned by name again(in the present)and the whole "pheonix" thing is certainly never even alluded to.

diana millay is phenomenal. her performance is electrifying. i love how vicki functions as a sort of "nancy drew" type of character here. kind of a girl mystery solver. i watched the show from the beginning and when i first got into fandom i was surprised to hear vicki constantly refered to a "clueless" because this was the vicki i knew. it wasn't until later years that she picked up those qualities.

in some ways this is "my" DS  because it's really the first storyline i was mesmerized by and i always remember i watched it over the winter and it's totally curl up under the covers stuff. i was hooked the minute laura walked into the collinsport diner(in a hat and gloves no less!). her delivery was so languid and odd i was entranced.

and oh the showdowns during this plot! nearly every character goes toe-to-toe with laura and the results are always genius. it's a true gem for me.

i'm not very well versed on 1840 but perhaps barnabas somehow stumbled into the original,UNALTERED,turn of events.

the natural progression of years uninterrupted by constant visitations from time traveling vampires,ingenue governesses and lovelorn lady doctors. without all of these interuptions(and the ensuing chaos and changes brought about by these visiting outsiders)angelique simply stayed in her time(1795)and drifted about(unaged,of course)until the barnabas released in 1967 showed up. without vicki's 1795 visitation ang would never have showed up in 1968 or any of the future(or past)time periods.

in other words 1840 angelique simply followed an unaltered timeline.