since angelique is such a shape shifter i was wondering what incarnation they'd pick(1795 ang,cassandra,vampire ang,1970 miniskirted leviathan ang)...

it looks like they went with 1897 angelique. funny that she's pictured in the 1970 parallel-time room.

i still think i'll hold out. i'm not interested in a barnabas or quentin figure either. i'd definitely go for any of the "present time" female characters. liz,julia,maggie and of course vicki. i'd love to see an ohrbach's sleeveless done in 8" scale.

as threadbare as the chartreuse caftan thing must have been by 1970 it looks like that at the time of it's purchase it was rather expensive and somebody...be it joan bennett or ramse mostoller or dan curtis or the suits at abc...decided to get their money's worth!

remember how mesmerizing it was when you first saw that god forsaken thing in color?

perhaps if this garment was bennet's own it was not in fact bought at ohrbach's but at some swanky and long-defunct department store like bonwit teller or i.magnin. dreamy!

speaking of which the tradition of the caftan and the soap dowager is as time honored as the character itself. soap operas in the 1960's and 1970's loved to cast some down-on-her-heels actress from hollywood's "golden age" as some sort of grand matriarchal figure.think of not just joan but ruth warick as pheobe wallingford and anna lee as lila quartermain on "all my children" and "general hospital" respectively...all grand dowagers on their soaps and all costumed in variations of some floaty chiffon caftan,loads of costume jewelry and topped with some sort of ridiculously elaborate,overly glazed architecture as a hairdo.

me thinks that this type of get-up is supposed to make their characters look "regal" or at the very least rich. at least that's how it was done in the 1970's...i don't watch soap operas anymore.

yes i'd love to see someone do that insane chartreuse caftan thing in eight inch scale.

they can call it any number they want but it's the same purgatorial space.

the sense of despair that permeates room twenty four is unmistakable.

woe betide all who end up there.

yeah i haven't seen 1897 in a long time but aren't jenny,laura,beth,angelique and amanda all quentin's concubines?

am i missing anybody? did he make a play for charity?

barnabas is slightly more consistant. except for vicki and roxanne all his interests look like josette.

Oh gosh, mscbryk, you wouldn't abandon us altogether for another soap, would you?

don't worry lydia. somehow i doubt ten years from now i'll be attending "peyton place" fan conventions and posting on a message board. dark shadows is in my blood.

there are more coincidences to be sure. like d.s. peyton place opens with a shot of a train pulling into a small new england town and a conductor announcing it's arrival time that's nearly identical to the scene with burke devlin.

the actresses who portray both shows ingenue heroines will later in life become embroiled in rather sordid public scandals.

of course both shows employ that old soap chestnut of having a star from hollywood's "golden age"(in this case dorothy malone)climb onboard as some sort of central matriarch.

the barbara parkins character betty anderson kind of reminds me of maggie evans. sort of the working class girl playing second fiddle to the dreamy central ingenue.

obviously a vampire isn't going to come crawling out of the woodwork but both show's early days share some similarities and i think that's why i'm enjoying peyton place so much.

interesting theory sandor.

still it might have lent the show more emotional depth if say maggie once in a while referred to her dead father or her institutionalized former fiance or her best friend who just vanished into thin air.

but like you said the day-to-day atmosphere at collinwood was so chaotic...