while the rest of the cast got to play new and different characters in each of the time periods I got the impression DC was "afraid" to give Selby another role to play.

so even though they are technically supposed to be different people the various "Quentins" are supposed to represent the same thing to the viewer. if you rooted for Quentin in 1897 you're supposed to root for him in 1840 even though it's actually a different character. but it isn't.

they just glued the sideburns on and told him to act the same. it was more an exercise in "branding" than character development.

if they had returned him to some of his more roguish ways during the later time periods/storylines it might have been much more successful...

but as it stood each successive "Quentin" was duller than the last. 

that's what drove me crazy too...


one minute he was a total stranger. the next he was a core member of the family mentioned on par with Roger and Liz. after 1897 I always felt like the character was being forced on the viewer.

and after Selby had played the character as such a wonderfully malevolent ghost in 1969 and womanizing cad during the first half of 1897 once they tried to make him "nice" (or whatever the heck he was supposed to be) he was as dull as dishwater.

they took all the "juice" out of Quentin. and then having Selby essentially play the same character for the rest of the series didn't do him any favors either.

as much as I enjoyed seeing Diana Millay again Laura's presence in 1897 and the rewritten 1795 threw so much previously established continuity out of whack it was impossible to ever try and reconcile or make sense of it.

it was a rewrite. 

A complaint I have about PT 1970 (a storyline I really love, btw), is that PT Liz was originally given outdated sweaters and off the rack skirts to wear.  Very mousy and dowdy. When she "came back" from her "rest," she was back to the standard issue "Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Lady of the Manor" wardrobe.  And the dialogue about her anxieties when Quentin was late with her monthly check also disappeared.

at least she never appeared in "Liz's" chartreuse roll neck caftan thing (although it was probably still out at Lyndhurst)...

a similar thing happened with "Flora" in 1840. when first introduced she was sort of a doodlehead. however a few episodes in Joan, or someone, got cold feet and she quickly reverted to her standard issue imperious and "matriarchal" Liz-type of characterization.

and leave it to DC to pinch a few pennies by utilizing the rented period costumes for both applications. 

I've heard that cast came directly from the Lyndhurst shoot in their "period costumes" to the studio to shoot the parallel time "costume party" sequence. or vice versa...

I've never actually compared them side by side.

in the other time periods they could write him a narrative purpose. in "the present" he was sort of useless.