i grew up in new england as well but i don't remember 'brewster's'.

in our town the department store was called 'miller's'("meet you at miller's" was the slogan).in boston of course we had 'jordan marsh' which has sadly departed and 'filene's' which is similarly about to become history.it's so sad that all the old regional chains are gone.they really used to be a source of pride for a town.

b.t.w. i rewatched the episode where maggie goes on about her paisley dress and indeed the place of purchase was 'shepherd's' not 'brewster's'...my bad.

it always amuses me when something sort of comes out of nowhere and becomes a major plot-point on the show.

case in point.i've been watching the leviathan episodes and apart from everything else going on suddenly everyone is spending an awful lot of time shopping at BREWSTER'S.a hitherunto unmentioned department store.

maggie proudly holds up a new dress(a dull paisley affair in 'harvest gold' hues.sleeveless with a big,dumpy bow on the front.it's just not kicky enough for mags)and tells carolyn of a "blue silk she would love".david comes across a newspaper ad that announces that BREWSTER'S is open nights till christmas(a very rare reference indeed)and then sneaks out to run an important errend.megan seems to stop by BREWSTER'S daily.elizabeth,suspicious of a BREWSTER'S box in the antique shop,is informed by carolyn that everyone in collinsport must have a box from BREWSTER'S and that hundreds of people shop there every day!even monstrous leviathan michael,jealous of a new sweater that david has,demands that megan go to BREWSTER'S and get him one.

i don't know why but it cracks me up that with all of the bizzare things going on here people have time to do something really ordinary like shop at a department store.

i was surprised several episodes later to see maggie's above mentioned dress on mrs.schuyler rumson.did ang hit the same sale at BREWSTER'S?
in general they outfitted angelique strangely in the present.she's about the same age as nancy and kathryn but while they were styled almost girlishly angelique can get kind of dowdy(and that's saying nothing of her garb during her stint as a vampire).

very interesting.

this storyline is so controversial.

this is just a thought but because the 1897 storyline lasted so long i wonder if fans had just gotten used to the show being set in the past(which in and of itself is something of a novelty)so when it returned to the "present" and that element of it was over it read as "boring".i read some comments that it seemed like a regular "soap opera" which of course it didn't when set in another time period.

if barnabas hadn't returned to the present when he did and this storyline had been worked into 1897 i wonder if it would have been so reviled?

yuck.

i'm in agreement in that this isn't reading as 'sci-fi' to me.

it's certainly weird and different than any other storyline but it's still 'gothic' in my mind.there isn't anything more gothic than the antique shop set.it's classic horror stuff.

i also kind of liked barnabas' brief return to evil ways.the character had become sort of a goody-goody and i appreciated the menace that he brought to his early work on the show.

i'm surprised myself that i liked these episodes.in general i prefer the earlier part of the show.
like i said i have only scene about half of it so i can't say yet what my opinion of it's totality is.

but i do know that i could never despise anything more than the adam storyline.it was almost a fatal blow for me.that it followed what i consider to be the show's best stuff made it even worse.i enjoyed 1897 but don't hold it in quite the high regard that i do 1795.

i made what was something of a mistake with the show.because i watched from the first episode i allowed myself to become very emotionally attatched to the original characters.especially vicki.so when the adam story came into the forefront and these characters were given very weak storylines i took it to heart.so after the adam storyline was over i vowed to watch the show with a different objectivity and take each storyline on it's own terms and not really compare it to the earlier part of the show because it just became so different.

so true!

i just watched an episode during the leviathan storyline where julia casually disinterred yet another coffin like it was all in a day's work...and of course it was empty!

where is collinsport law enforcement when all of this is taking place?or at the very least that old caretaker?
isn't this illegal?and laborious?and time consuming?

everyone acts like it's nothing to just dig up graves on a whim.