speaking of comics...

i don't talk about d.s. with my friends as much as i did a few years ago when i first got into it.

so a few weeks ago i had a birthday and a friend told me he had seen a d.s. comic book somewhere and thought about getting it for me but then thought maybe i "wasn't into it anymore".

he got me a dvd of the bette davis film 'of human bondage' instead(still a nice gift).

please don't get me wrong because i love,love,love diana millay as laura collins and would have relished her inclusion in any storyline however...

i always found her presence in 1897 to be odd and even slightly uneccessary.she wasn't the key player like she had been in 1966.the storyline was clearly about quentin and the werewolf curse and later on the whole petofi thing gets going.laura was actually only around for about two months of a nine month storyline.it seems like the plot would have worked out the same with or without laura's presence in the end.

plus since the show had not been particularly highly rated during the first laura story it's strange to think that they needed barnabas' reaction to her to reigister the same "shock" as the viewers because so many 1897 viewers were new to the show.that said it was a nice bit of continuity to recognize that laura had been a part of the show from the early days.

While I really enjoyed the early episodes, having not seen them until after being very familiar with the rest of the show, I can't tell how they would hold up on their own.  I don't know if they are very good just coming into them "cold," or if already knowing these characters makes their earlier story interesting.

as someone who watched the series from the first episode(on video)i can say that for me this part of the show held up very well on it's own...sort of a sleepy gothic soap that had it's own pitch that was unique.

very different from what comes later on but worth watching in it's own right.

it's also a great introduction to characters who later on become more one-dimensional. 

i always thought i had seen all of the pre-barnabas episodes but i must have missed a few way back when because on "the beginning collection two" dvd i came across several i had never seen.

there in one episode where maggie invites vicki over for dinner at her house and burke(at this point still fuming over the whole manslaughter business)crashes the festivities and really puts a damper on the whole evening.it's a very weird scene.

i know burke is supposed to have this big chip on the shoulder at this point(and i usually like mitch ryan)but he really comes across as a horrible bully in this scene!

he lashes out at sam(natch)but sam is a grown man and the folks up at the 'big house' with their money and influence can handle devlin's shenanigans but i really felt bad for maggie and vicki in this episode.
all maggie wanted to do was invite her new freind over and vicki(who is enduring no end of torment from her employers at this time)just wanted an evening away from those crazies and perhaps learn something about herself in the process.they both seem so upset.finally a dejected maggie sighs and says "i'd better turn the stove off" and the whole evening is ruined thanks to burke.

now considering the types of catastrophes that befall these two lasses in later years(you know,being attacked by vampires,sent back in time,hanged for witchcraft,that sort of thing...)a ruined dinner ain't that bad but in the early episodes they seemed more like real people(not charicatures)and thus were easier to sympathise with.at the risk of sounding like a total freak this scene nearly moved me to tears!

i forgot to add this...

for another odd review of the early episodes check out a site called "the blunt review:by emily blunt".

http://www.bluntreview.com/reviews/dark.htm


it gets alot of details super-wrong but it's fun.

great review...

it's good to see the PEN PLOT getting it's due.

a pen.an automobile accident.a dispute over the ownership of a cannery.the first year was something else!

i believe that in an attempt to update 'masterpiece theater' and perhaps bring in a younger audience they have dispenced with some old gentleman narrator sitting in some book filled study and brought in gillian anderson of 'x-files' fame to host the program.

i think they might have even changed the name somewhat.

b.t.w. to this day my mother swears that 'upstairs,downstairs' was the best television show she ever watched.