K is for the Kilt(complete with kiltpin)that vicki wore in 1966 before her full-on switch to sleeveless.

U is for the burnt Umber tweed suit julia wears with those ropes of gold "chanel" style chains.

during the laura collins storyline when liz was under a certain "influence" carolyn was put in charge of running both the house and the business...much to roger's dismay.

she was very "mistress of the manor".

probably the biggest and strangest impact that d.s. has had on my life is that i am not otherwise remotely interested in anything having to do with the occult.

not vampires.not witchcraft.not werewolves.nothing.

i've never watched 15 seconds of the sci-fi channel(other than this show).i don't in general watch films of the horror genre.

it was just something about this very particular set of actors and sets and costumes and music that hooked me.

i'm currently (re)watching dvd collection 3 as well.the summer and fall of 1967 is one of my absolute favorite time periods on the show.i love everything about these episodes.

i do think that barnabas and julia are at their most compelling here.i love the cat-and-mouse dynamic.later on things get too easy between them.

it's amazing how quickly these two ascended the throne during this period.from "temporary" characters destined to be killed-off to the main players in the span of weeks really.

i too laughed out loud when julia brazenly "lights up" inches away from a comatose patient in a hospital room.

the opening shot of collinwood in ruins gave me goosebumps!

besides julia's sedatives barnabas makes a pretty bold assumption in that his coffin will still be ready and waiting for him at the old house(or was it the mausoleum?).in that twenty five year period no one ever stumbled across it?might the old house have not been demolished even?

in general traditional men's suiting doesn't "date" in the same way that women's clothing styles do.so i don't think barnabas would have looked all that out of the ordinary in 1995.julia much more so.little did our nattily attired time travelers know that by 1995 most people ran around in sneakers and sweat pants.

i think they tried to solve the futuristic fashion bug-a-boo by making the characters look insane.they didn't have to worry about how carolyn and mrs.johnson looked if instead of trying to predict what would be "fashionable" in the future they just made them look nuts.since they both existed their own world since the disaster that supposedly struck the family in 1970 it's not inconceivable that shopping for new things was not a priority and they just wore increasingly tatty remnants of their old cloths.

if i recall the tone of the show changed dramatically in the aftermath of the 1795 story.thus most of the plots that were percolating before it were hastily wrapped-up or abandoned altogether.

the way the show is structured no one(besides julia)can know that barnabas is a vampire for long.it puts either them or him in too much jeopardy.those who possess this knowledge must conveniently "forget" it for the action to move foreward.

however the writers play fast-and-loose with how each character comes to forget this fact.after dr.lang "cures" barnabas of his vampirism carolyn and vicki both completely forget it.nothing.it is literally erased from their memory banks.maggie's memory of it remains "supressed" but it still exists dormant.when she's trapped in the mausoleum during the adam storyline she remembers it.of course she then again "forgets" it(i forget how this particular bit of forgetfullness occurs).willie on the other hand seems to know who's who and what's what.

david never completely knows barnabas' secret(he suspects)but after 1795 he doesn't have much interaction with barnabas for several months.by then the decision to cast barnabas as the reluctant "anti-hero" was made so having him plot to kill a child was not possible anymore.the next time the two are on the same page storywise is during the quentin hauntings and there barnabas takes an almost paternal interest in david's well being.go figure.

retzev,

i love that photograph.it's so glamourous.i wonder when it was taken.it must have been after her time on the show.

i believe that it was luciaphil who once said that perhaps the boxy "mod" lines of the 1960's were not as flattering to alexandra's figure as they might have been.perhaps the curvier silhouettes of the 1950's would have suited her better.the a-line shapes sometimes look dumpy on her and the above-the-knee lengths cut her legs off at an unfortunate place.

to me kathryn leigh scott had the "gamine" quality to perfectly carry off these styles.she wore the shortest skirts of any actress on the show.

slightly off-topic but having met several of the actresses on the show i'm struck by how tiny some of them are.the camera definitely adds hieght.nancy barrett and diana millay are pint-sized!kathryn and alexandra are slightly taller but i still had to look down to them.lara parker and marie wallace are the only actresses i think that seemed tall to me.