for me watching d.s. is a bit like reading a book.i immerse myself in it.

watching willy-nilly isn't that satisfying to me.

when i get a new round of dvd's i tend to watch them through once and then i watch a few select episodes again.then i move on to the next collection.

right now i'm watching the laura collins storyline so that's all i'll watch until it's done.it wouldn't occur to me to randomly throw an 1897 episode in.i like to experience the storyline as a whole.

before i got a dvd player i watched on video and i got used to the five episode structure of them.it ends up being about two hours.like watching a movie.so even after i switched to the dvd format i like to watch it in about five episode blocks.more than that and i start to feel overwhelmed by it.

i guess i missed the "magical" part of the sci-fi board.

in fact the very mention of it makes me shudder.when i first got into the show a few years ago that god-awful board was my first experience with fandom and i'm surprised i didn't jump ship right then and there.talk about trolls!

i also have very good reason to believe that some of it came from within.one night i e-mailed the sci-fi board's administators and suggested that they might perhaps do something to control the level of hostility that was overtaking the board at the time.

needless to say i didn't get a reply but the very next day i began to receive very disturbing/obscene e-mails from unidentifiable sources.since my e-mail address was never posted there i can only assume that someone who worked at sci-fi had a hand in it.it got so bad that i had to block all e-mails for several weeks until it stopped.

then i was lucky enough to discover this "magical" board and i never looked back.

but as for the sci-fi board good ridance.

i'll post a few more thoughts about these episodes without starting a new thread.

i so love this storyline!it's such a treat to see it again after a long time.

the first time i saw it i didn't have anything else to compare it to.so there's a slightly odd sensation watching it again after seeing(most)of the rest of the series and the three characters that ended up dominating the plot(barnabas,julia,angelique)for the rest of the run are not present.

at the same time it's a fully developed plot with very well written dialogue and excellent characterization.all of the main characters are at their best here.later on they seem a bit worn out by the preposterous situations they get put in but here they bring alot of energy to it.as someone pointed out this was an excellent time for strong women.later on the show becomes a bit of a boys club.but laura,liz,carolyn,maggie and vicki carry this for me.

in addition to the scene with liz laura has a cat-and-mouse scene with carolyn(with some hilarious business with a scarf)that is an absolute all time favorite.i'm reminded here of why i first fell in love with vicki.she's not just an "ingenue" but very "nancy drewish".very "victoria winters girl mystery solver".it's a nice take on the character.later on the plot dictates that she become "fond" of barnabas and that changes her nature completely.there is a great opening sequence with carolyn nervously pacing the room while vicki plays solitaire.it doesn't mean anything to the plot but it's just some nice attention to detail that gets a bit lost later on.

it's also sweet seeing the beginings of joe and maggie's courtship.great all around.

in my opinion every single one of them was a drama queen...

...except for perhaps joe haskell.

that's so true mangus,

collinwood is enormous and yet they all do just hang out in that front room off the foyer.i mean the "drawing room" of course.but at least it's explained right off the bat that much of the house is "closed off" and at various points in time we are privy to the study,the kitchen,the characters bedrooms and countless,unused,spooky east wing/west wing/basement/attic rooms.

over at the old house despite it's massive scale the only rooms we ever see are the foyer/drawing room,josette's room and the basement which seems to alternate between being barnabas' coffin chamber and julia's lab.we never even get to see where that funky louvered door leads to.

did lara parker pull a "mary sue" here?that's too funny.
i guess i'm not that familiar with fan fiction.

i never thought about it but when ms.parker is describing antoinette she is of course decribing an idealized version of herself.too funny.

while it is true that the show made occasional references to the topics of the day in general they steered clear of them.collinwood is actually a pretty "square" place when you think about it.this of course probably had as much to do with it's advertisers as anything else.a daytime drama relied heavily on ad dollars from such housewife friendly products as floor wax and laundry detergent.so lots of references to the drug culture and the sexual revoltion were out.

in my opinion this remove is what gives the show alot of it's charm and one of the many reasons that i found this book to be completely out of whack.

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