a quick question.is the exterior of rose cottage also the house they used for angelique and sky rumson during the leviathan story?it looks similar.

there's something really sumptuous about the colors here.lush blues,purples,rusts,forest greens.

the character of roxanne drew is perhaps the most poorly developed ever on the show.in all three of her time periods(parallel-time,1970,1840)we're just supposed to accept that barnabas instantly falls in love with her the minute he sees her but we learn next to nothing about her.in parallel-time she spends half the time lying on a slab.in 1840 he's "in love" with her from minute one,then we don't see her for several episodes,then angelique show's up and all of a sudden it's this huge rivalry and she's out to destroy the woman barnabas is "in love" with.it's mentioned as an afterthought that they had been "seeing" each other but they didn't bother to actually write scenes of them together so this love affair has zero emotional impact for the viewer.poor lara parker tries to work herself into a jealous frenzy over this most unworthy opponent but without someone signifigant(like josette)to play against this whole plot plays completely flat.

with kathryn leigh scott out of the picture they needed b. to have the hots for someone else but they should have given this character some identifying characteristics.we don't see alot of josette but at least we know that she was the picture of virtue and innocence and thus b. carries around a torch for her for two hundred years and for similar reasons he goes for victoria but roxanne is too much of a blank page for the audience to care about.

i could be wrong about this but as the wife of the "patriarch" of the family naomi and her children would be the major beneficiaries of the collins wealth and property.

any of joshua's siblings and their children would be intitled to a lesser inheritance.

also at the time it was assumed that a woman of abigail's social status would marry of man of similar circumstances and he would support her and their children so her inheritance was probably comparatively modest.what's more knowing abigail (do we really "know" these people?) she would have probably donated what little she had to the church (i believe she once denounced worldly possessions as "sinful") and then very passive-aggressively relied on the kindness of her family for housing and other basic needs.

a few comments and many questions...

of all the time stravel storylines 1840 is the "prettiest".it reminds me of 1970 parallel-time in that collinwood itself looks bright and cheery despite the sinister doings beneath the surface.blue seems to be a signifigant color here that contrasts nicely with all the dark woods.there is a particularly lovely cornflower shade that colors everything from draperies to gowns.the set for rose cottage is especially nice.

questions and this will involve major spoilers...

how are flora and desmond related to the family?they are refered to as "cousins" but wasn't daniel the last surviving member of the collins family?since flora had to have married into the family was there some other hitherto unmentioned male relation or is this simply one of those things that goes unexplained?

why does nancy barrett as leiticia faye act just like charity trask possessed by pansey faye in 1897?is there a particular reason or was that just a popular character the writers thought they could milk a bit more?

one can assume that the child of gabriel and edith ends up being the father of the 1897 characters(judith,edward,quentin and carl)but those numbers don't really add up.again does this major continuity issue go unaddressed?are the 1840 quentin and the 1897 quentin supposed to be the same character for some reason?and for major spoiler points i peaked ahead in the episode summaries and see that at some point towards the end of this storyline gabriel kills edith...how is that possible if she's the head of the family in 1897???is this just another major continuity snaffoo or does some sort of parallel-time mumbo-jumbo undo this at some point?

i know this is cheating but i'm already confused by this storyline.

p.s.i'm probably one of those rare fans that prefers the "present day" storylines to the time travel stuff.

a couple more thoughts...

although the dates of the events originally told during the 1795 storyline alternate here between being 1796 and 1797 it is still only 1840.so how is it that daniel,only a child in 179-whatever,is "aged" and "senile" when the numbers add up to him only being in his early fifties?

again i think the writers really copped out on bringing "good" barnabas into the storyline too soon rather than exploring what would have happened had the "bad"(or at least very conflicted)barnabas released from his coffin stuck around for awhile and caused some trouble.was this due to fear that the show's pre-teen audience might get "mad" like they did during the leviathan storyline when barnabas turned nasty again?that's pretty weak storytelling as far as i'm concerned.

here goes something of a tangent...by making previously "bad" characters like barnabas and quentin "nice"(or at least nuetral)it actually does them a tremendous disservice and nullifies alot about what made them compelling in the first place.

in 1897 they created in quentin one of the most fascinating and complex characters in the show's history.yet when he's brought into the present by trying to make him "nice" they negate all that.if it weren't for david selby's striking good looks and the character's strong name recognition he was written almost as a nonentity.at least as a vampire barnabas still had an element of dangerousness to him.speaking of quentin's name i think it is more cynical "branding" than valid storytelling that made the writers name selby's character that in every single time period.again did they worry that those "kids-that-you-know-what" would not be able to identify him as a character with another name?

that bitch-session aside i do really like these episodes and am looking forward to angelique's return.

thus far i'm really enjoying these episodes.

a few observations...

with kathryn leigh scott gone this is the first time travel storyline that does not have some sort of "josette-centric" theme going on.it has a whole different "feel".

obviously jonathan and grayson are front-and-center but with joan,louis and nancy in supporting roles this leaves the later actors...james storm,virginia vestoff,christopher pennock,donna wandrey,kate jackson...to head things up.this really gives the storyline a "new" or "different" feel as the previous two time travel storylines(1795,1897)featured a signifigant number of the original actors.this feels about as far away from 1966 as possible and yet is still the same show.

i understand that kls was originaly slated to portray samantha collins.i just can't picture it.she has an inherent sweetness that i think would be at odds with the character.i wouldn't have minded seeing either terry crawford or elizabeth eis in the role.

i have to say i was disappointed with what happens with barnabas in these episodes.i was excited when ornery 1795 barnbas was released from his coffin and was momentarily at odds with julia again.that would have been a much more interesting direction to explore for awhile.instead after just a few days boring,1970,casper milquetoast barnabas "i-chings" his way into the picture with a dull thud.the "barnabas-and-julia-variety-hour" wears on my nervers in a real hurry.

i really like the costumes in this era...what keeps driving me nuts is how they keep changing the chandelier in the drawing room from the 1897 one to some other one specific to the 1840 storyline.

as the show's original "stars" i think the four actors who fared(or would have fared)the worst were joan bennett,louis edmonds,alexandra moltke and mitch ryan.

ryan got out early.

but i agree that it was perhaps joan bennett who suffered the most once the barnabas character took over.at least in the present time as elizabeth.she went from easily being the "star" to a secondary(and at times tertiary)character within a matter of months.by the 1970 episodes it's easy to forget that collinwood was still liz's house with barnabs and julia running the show.

that said i have read many times that joan did not in fact mind the reduction in her workload,looked at the show as a well paid "semi-retirement" and it was at her request that her characters only appear in one or two episodes a week(as opposed to the first year when she was in nearly every show).

in general i think that after a certain point both joan and louis did much better in the time travel storylines than they did in the "present".

as for alexandra i don't know if she minded the reduced screen time she got but of course we all know she was disappointed that her character became so "dumbed down" over time.

once monsters became the main characters i think that the "townsfolk" like joe haskell,sam evans and mrs.johnson suffered greatly storywise as well.

one more thing on 1970...

i just watched maggie's final episode where she dons that little head scarf,says goodbye,and is driven to wyndcliff.

i actually felt a bit emotional about saying "goodbye" to maggie.we've been through alot together over the years.

yes i know i can watch hundreds of other maggie episodes but this was the last time i would see her in an episode that was "new" to me.i felt sad.since vicki's final appearance featured an actress other than alexandra i wasn't that emotional about it but with mags it was k.l.s. from day one.

also during these episodes maggie reminded me alot of linda blair about mid-exorcist before she really turns into the pea-soup spewing monster.
i don't know alot about vampire lore(my knowledge is limited to d.s.)but as maggie here was the victim of a female vampire is there anything "saphic" about that?obviously that could not be spelled out in specifics on a soap in 1970 but can this subtext be read into it?