my vote goes to alexandra.i loved the "my name is victoria winters..." voiceovers.it had the quality of a girl reciting a passage from her diary.

joan and grayson are both great as well.

for some reason i find it discombobulating when an actor(not an actress)reads it.

kathryn leigh scott erroneously stated in one of her books that the only criterion for reciting the voicoever was that one didn't appear in the opening scene.i have recently watched several episodes where alexandra reads the voiceover and then appears in the opening shot.the same thing with grayson.

in general i've noticed a preference for a type of shoe very specific to d.s..it's sort of a low,squat heel but not a flat.the toe is usually squared-off.

it's a very "square" shoe but i kind of like it.it provides a satisfying "clack" on the stone floors of the foyer at collinwood.

the worst is when one of the characters has to appear in her nightgown.then she gets this super wierd "bed shoe".it's not a slipper exactly.it's harder.it's really dowdy.

it's funny how the show embraced certain 1960's trends while managing to avoid others completely.for intance no one ever wears textured or colored stockings.it's always a "sheer".no one ever wears those god-awful white "go-go" boots that were fashionable at the time either.

i guess if i had been a fan at the time i would have been devestated by the show's cancellation.
but as a contemporary viewer i have found the five year cycle to be quite satisfying.i'm really not sure how much more i could have taken...and this is only having watched sequentially from episode one through the summer of 1970.i still have yet to watch the 1840/1841pt storylines.

as for the much maligned leviathan and 1970 parallel time storylines i was quite surprised at how much i actually enjoyed them despite their many(deep)flaws.

where the whole thing began to lose steam for me was during the summer of 1970 episodes.perhaps i was just sort of burned out on it but i couldn't muster up much enthusiasm.

as for the 1840/1841pt storylines i still can't work up any interest in them.from what i've read here they're sort of all over the place.some people like them and some don't but for whatever reason i'm really caring less and less about whether or not i ever watch them.

i'm having more fun rewatching some favorites.

what i'd like to know is why some of the "present day" costumes got lots of use while others only got one or two airings.

for example in 1967 julia gets this really lush salt-and-pepper tweed number.it was yummy.yet i recall only seeing it once.contrast this to that lime-green get up she wears for her entire run as dr.hoffman.similarly i remember towards the end of her days on the show vicki got a lovely emerald-green sleeveless with pockets and big brass buttons.again,one use.

then out of the clear blue sky sometimes they'd come up with something totally new.both carolyn and maggie got several new ensembles in the 1970 episodes...some of them featuring the then scandalous maxi-skirts!

i've been rewatching the part of the 1967 episodes where barnabas,convinced that david knows his "secret",decided that the boy needed to be done away with.

i had forgotten how much energy they had given to this little subplot.it's really quite shocking.

self-preservation is his modus operandi during this part of the show but still killing a child and a member of your own family is pretty harsh.this deed might spare barnabas exposure in the short-term(if david did indeed know what he was)but in the end would have thwarted alot of his bigger goals.for example.

the police:as julia rightly pointed out if david disappeared the police would conduct an investigation of the likes the town had never seen.it's one thing when a waitress and the daughter of the town drunk turns up missing but when it's the heir to the town's most prominent family it's quite another.they would search the old house top-to-bottom.no amount of stalling and double talk from willie would keep them out.

vicki:supposedly barnabas is in love with her.but if david died she would be emotionally destraught.inconsolable.at the very least the collins family would no longer need the services of a governess and she would leave.

elizabeth:it's made pretty clear that liz keeps the house and the business afloat for david's sake.she expects him to carry on the family name.neither roger or carolyn seem to have the inclination to take over the whole thing so she might have decided to sell the whole thing off...including the old house.

julia:she always said her arrangment with barnabas did not include the taking of a life.if david's killing did in fact take place she would have ratted him out anyways and this all would have been for naught.

i think that vicki's "admiration" of barnabas in 1967 and 1968 are two totally different things.

i've been rewatching 1967 lately and i'm not 100 percent sure of what the writers were going for with vicki here in her blindness to barnabas' oddness.at one point she even threatens to call-off her engagement to burke if he doesn't stop his private investigation of barnabas.considering how desperately she was seeking an identity this doesn't make much sense.to us this comes across as extreme naivety but i think they needed for her to see him as kindly older gentleman and for her to be an innocent,trusting girl for this storyline to work.

at various points in 1967 barnabas' conscience does start to awaken but in general he is as mean as a hornet right up until the sceance that leads to the 1795 storyline.

after 1795 vicki's admiration of barnabas changes in that they become allied in their belief that cassandra is really angelique.they're on a slightly more level footing.

for most of 1968 barnabas' moral compass is all over the map.he's certainly not the bastard he was in 1967 but i wouldn't say he was morally admirable until the start of the quentin storyline.i skipped the late 1968 fake-vicki episodes and the conclusion of the adam plot(i just didn't care about it)and i was surprised at the change in the direction of the character when i returned to the show.with vicki gone and elizabeth and roger "away" for part of this storyline barnabas(and julia)does function as the show's skewed,by default "moral center".wierd.

my d.s. "crush" is an especially odd one in that while i play for the other team(if you get my drift)as many of you are probably(painfully)aware i am totally smitten by alexandra moltke as victoria winters.

i can't really explain it.she's so pretty.she has such nice hair.i like the sound of her voice.

when she's onscreen i'm transifixed.even at vicki's vapid and wimpy worst(and she spent the better part of 1968 there)i like seeing her.