in some ways tonight's episode seemed like two different shows...

i didn't get a chance to post in last week's topic but david's "dream" involving daphne,carolyn and vicki was pure velveeta.tonight's opening scene at professor woodard's place topped that slice of velveeta with a nice dollop of cheese whiz.totally adolescent and camp.i felt really bad for the actor.

but the scene that introduced us to angelique was genuinely well done.scary and cool and sophisticated.strange this dichotomy.

deputy harker looks sort of like roger davis.he's kind of hot.

so here we get to the place where it starts to become clear that julia has feelings for barnabas.he totally plays into this.is he being manipulative or is he genuinely clueless at this point?how is it that julia is unaware that barnabas and vicki are an item?they don't seem to be trying to hide it.how does the family feel that their new governess is romantically involved with a family member?wouldn't this "upstairs/downstairs" type of thing be frowned upon in an old moneyed new england family?

i can't get into the whole barnabas and vicki romance.it rings false to me.

vicki gets some seriously "grannyish" duds in this ep.all that crochet and lace and that brooch!

ely pouget is hot but maggie needs some serious frizz control.

i like that people still smoked and drinked back then before the p.c. police started babysitting everyone.

laura.so david's mother is getting the big buildup here.so is her affect on him.i wonder where this is meant to go.strange that in the same episode that they introduce angelique they also give laura a shout out.it's sort of confusing.it's like who the heck is this "witch"?laura or angelique?

this came up in another topic but i don't remotely get a "mother/daughter" vibe from elizabeth and vicki here.it's not even hinted at.

i love the outdoor location that vicki and maggie get coffee.does anyone know where that is in california?
since vicki is already well acquainted with ghosts and vampires it's funny that she raises an eyebrow to maggie's claim to second sight.it's like the least of what she's heard lately but whatever.

i liked that the other characters got some focus this week and it wasn't just the barnabas show.i've decided that barnabas is the j.r. ewing of this affair.he sucks all the air out of the room.he's sort of exhausting.

liz as vicki's mother in the 1991 series is a bit of a ho-hum as far as i'm concerned.

barnabas was clearly the centerpiece of this series,at least in terms of how season one played out,and there's no reason to believe that that was going to change.

the whole "jane eyre" aspect of the victoria character,a waif in search of her identity,was basically absent from this version,it was barely touched upon.and the elizabeth character had nowhere near the stature that joan bennett brought to the role in the original series.here she was written as a virtual nonentity.she had absolutely no storyline.

so unless the plotting had changed dramatically in season two and beyond this "revelation" would not have had much impact.

gothick dear...

your narration on "room twenty four" was indeed chillsworthy!

perhaps room twenty four does not actually exist as a physical location on this earth but is simply a pocket in time and space.

an astral way station where one frets one's final days while the fates contemplate your condemnation.

nelson...

at least three other unfortunate souls had the karmic misfortune of ending up in room twenty four in the present...joe haskell,paul stoddard and olivia correy all called this bleak space home before they met their final destinies.

i just thought that i'd point out that today's slideshow proudly features one of my personal favorite sets in all it's bleak spendor.

the purgatorial "room twenty four" in it's first incarnation as the suite of rooms burke devlin,it's first condemned occupant,takes at the collinsport inn.

perhaps a moment of silence for all those misfortunate enough to reside there over the years and the sad fate that befell them all.

what's interesting about this topic is it's very nature.

that it's all just speculation with many of us using our emotions for two fictitious human beings as a guide.

what's also interesting,in an odd and unsatisfying way,is that the show itself chose not to solve one of it's key mysteries.once it was decided that the show was moving in a new(supernatural)direction this could have been cleared up with a few words.indeed the scenes leading up to vicki and jeff's ill-fated wedding would have been the perfect time and joan bennett certainly played them from a decidedly maternal point of view.but for whatever reason the writers chose to leave this open-ended.

perhaps it's just the destiny of victoria winters to forever be an orphan.it's elemental to the character's nature.

my reasons for not going for the liz-is-vicki's-mother theory are long and myriad.

but one of the main ones is simply this.this was never actually spelled out for us in specifics on the show itself.

for me only what actually happened on the original series between 1966 and 1971 is "cannon".anything else is just speculation or reinterpretation.it's not "real" if real is a word that can accurately be used to describe a completely fictitious situation.

yes the "return to collinwood" presentation "confirmed" that liz was vicki's mother but that was simply an amusing production written around the actors who were present at this event.if i recall it also had carolyn marrying ned stuart which is hardly cannon as far as i'm concerned.

this production also varies widely from what is supposed to have happened to these people from other "official" continuations of the series like the 'big finish' audiodramas and lara parkers books.they all tell different stories so what is actually "real"?

and yes in later years both joan bennett and alexandra isles "confirmed" this as well because it's the fan favorite but in truth neither of them actually "know" this to be a fact because this mystery was never actually solved on the series.it was never written into the scripts.the storyline was abandoned.

so to me this isn't "officially" part of the d.s. lore.

thanks mysterious,

i'm genuinely not trying to be difficult.i'm just unfamiliar with shows of this nature.

on a high note i really like julia,carolyn and maggie quite alot.the more i see the more i like.

nelson brings up an intersting point that i never would have thought about...embalming.

through the process of embalming isn't all the blood drained from the deceased and their internal organs removed?wouldn't this remove the potential for the,shall we say undead,to crave additional blood?also since the vampire angle was already dangling about at the time of daphne's death why wasn't she cremated?

and as nelson mentioned,why was a newly created tomb already covered in cobwebs?

as i said before i find the plotting of this to be mystifying.what was dan curtis going for exactly?except for that "other" show i'm unfamiliar with vampire lore.i've never seen 'buffy' or 'angel' or anything.but isn't it typical that an air of mystery surrounds the goings on for awhile before the presence of vampires is revealed towards the climax?in other vampire tales is it typical for everyone to know about it so early on?this doesn't seem to leave alot of places to go.

i'm going to try to phrase this carefully because "this" show has provided us with such sketchy outlines i'm watching and going on alot of assumptions that i'm not sure have actually been spelled out for us here.

for instance,i'm watching under the assumption that victoria winters is an orphan uncertain of her identity and thus is traveling to collinsport to get information.however except for a few words that imply that during her opening voiceover has that been spelled out here?is it established that liz and roger are siblings or am i just assuming that because i know the story?i'm assuming that family's wealth comes from the ownership of a cannery and other fishing enterprises but is that even suggested here?who is carolyn's father and why are there so few servants in this place?i'm filling in all those blanks,again,because i'm so familiar with this story as a whole but what did new viewers to this series think about these things?