Discuss - Ep #1070

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1070

[Lydia]

Golly, what a packed episode!

We got the famous "Never without you" scene, beautifully done by both Frid and Hall.  Watching it, I thought, "Barnabas being Barnabas, he might have to let all of Collinsport die in the course of saving Julia, but she's worth it."  Thinking back now to Julia sobbing on his shoulder, I remember what a friend said 30 years ago about being rushed in an ambulance to the hospital after collapsing: "If I weren't in agony, this would be fun."  But I think Julia was too broken to think such a detached thought.

I gather that Barnabas didn't tell Stokes exactly why he killed the sheriff - i.e. that the sheriff knew that he was a vampire and was about to destroy him - and I wish he had.  Oh, how I would love to have seen Stokes's reaction!

Gerard gets more and more interesting.  His power over his victims appears to be intermittent, but I'm don't think that's the case.  Even in her tears, Julia would have obeyed Gerard.  It just made it all the greater fun for him that she cried.  Monday he had Carrie lure Julia up to the playroom to be subjected to him, and today Carrie apparently broke free by saving Barnabas from the Sheriff, and by showing Barnabas and Julia the way out the playroom.  I think, however, that Gerard didn't really lose on all that.  The end result was that Barnabas and Julia left, and that in this timeline Gerard will now rule Collinwood for as long as he wants.  He probably would prefer to have gotten Julia to kill herself, but that's small potatoes as long as Barnabas is out of the way.

I enjoyed seeing Grayson Hall's impersonation of Carolyn.  And I think it's not surprising that they didn't get anything more out of Carolyn's spirit than the repetition of the list.  Carolyn was crazy alive, and now she's crazy dead.

[MagnusTrask]

Lydia-- Of course Gerard doesn't benefit from seeing Barn/Julia booted out of 1995 if his timeline is then unraveled by them before it happens, but maybe Gerard figures that their method of fixing problems by getting everybody killed won't be too effective, so he had no worries...

"You have forgiven me so often, for so many things."   Some more of that regret and reflection on the early days that you were talking about, Lydia.   

I love that small, intense look of Gerard's, after Barnabas says he can't stop them both from going (after Julia and the knife).... as if to say "Oh, you think so, eh?"   What's so great about Gerard is that everything is so effortless for him.   Really though, Julia should not have recovered partly, and then staggered away.    Gerard killed the others with no difficulty.

I'll miss 1995, the only problem with which was, for me, how "blustering" Mr. Frid's acting seemed to be, as sorry as I am to say that.   I wonder if this was the direction.   Simultaneous with this, I'm watching 1795, the first days of Barnabas as a vampire, so I also get to see some great JF acting...

[Nightfall59]

This episode--the one I always refer to as the "Never Without You" episode--still stands as one of my favorites.  Not only because it gave us B&J shippers one of our rare thrills (lol), but because, imo, it was just beautifully acted and paced. And so much was happening!

It also illustrated how far overall Barnabas and Julia had come in their relationship from those dark, early days. Three years before, Barnabas would have had her in one of his infamous choke holds while he whined, "You beeeeetraaaayed me!" Now, however, he just wants to know, "Why?"

Julia's imitation of Carolyn was delightful. This was also one of my favorite seance scenes on DS.

Some episodes of DS just work, and, for me, this is one of them.

[Lydia]

Lydia-- Of course Gerard doesn't benefit from seeing Barn/Julia booted out of 1995 if his timeline is then unraveled by them before it happens, but maybe Gerard figures that their method of fixing problems by getting everybody killed won't be too effective, so he had no worries...

I'd be surprised if Gerard thinks there's a serious possibility of Barnabas and Julia changing the events of 1970.  After all, they didn't accomplish anything worthwhile in 1995.  But even if Gerard believes they could change things, would it matter?  I figure that if Barnabas and Julia change things in 1970, it will create an alternate timeline without eliminating the existing one.  We know that at least one parallel timeline exists in the Dark Shadows universe due to different events occurring in the past.  What we don't know is how a Dark Shadows timeline can be destroyed.  Probably a silver bullet to the heart of the timeline would do the job, but how do you find the heart of a timeline?

[Midnite]

A couple of eps ago, Lydia pointed out that it was surprising to watch Gerard and Daphne manipulate a piece of paper.  In this one, Gerard can be seen manually closing a door and locking it.  How silly.

Barnabas:  "Do you remember how you were 25 years ago?"
Stokes:  "Of course I remember. That was when I made my worst mistakes."
Barnabas:  "You're too old to make another."
Stokes:  "Too wise."
Ha!!!

What a pointless seance that turned out to be.

[Lydia]

What a pointless seance that turned out to be.

Sometime I'm going to count up all the seances, and determine how many of them didn't get anybody anywhere.  I think the percentage will be fairly large.

[MagnusTrask]

I'd be surprised if Gerard thinks there's a serious possibility of Barnabas and Julia changing the events of 1970.  After all, they didn't accomplish anything worthwhile in 1995.  But even if Gerard believes they could change things, would it matter?  I figure that if Barnabas and Julia change things in 1970, it will create an alternate timeline without eliminating the existing one.  We know that at least one parallel timeline exists in the Dark Shadows universe due to different events occurring in the past.  What we don't know is how a Dark Shadows timeline can be destroyed.  Probably a silver bullet to the heart of the timeline would do the job, but how do you find the heart of a timeline?

The only way I can straighten this out is to look to science fiction concepts (because they work, they help us understand these ideas, and are consistent), at least for definitions of terms, and to the TV conventions of the times.   Also, I'm not going to go beyond what they actually tell us onscreen, though it's fine to do that.  

Anyway... the PT room apparently does two things:  It takes you to a parallel reality occupying the same space at the same time as ours, and it takes you into OUR future, in THIS reality.   While people clearly make different choices in PT, there has never been any indication onscreen that people's choices created PT, and if anything was created, I think it was just the gateway between realities in that room, as someone's intentional project of some kind.  

The "Many Worlds" idea of human choices actually creating splinter-realities is not something that would have been in the minds of DS writers then, or anyone making alternate-reality episodes of any other program.   The idea probably did not exist yet.    It didn't make its way into TV till the '90s.

DS confuses things a bit by referring to PT 1970 as "another time" (to sound more romantic, even though it's the same time), and this can lead to both PT1970 and RT1995 being thought of as "alternate timelines" in some vaguely similar way.   A "timeline" is the one and only way history has gone.   The thing is, with time travel you can change that one and only way history has ever gone, so that that one single course of history is a different one "now"!  

While PT is an alternate reality to ours, though, 1995 is our future.   When we see 1995, it is the one and only timeline.   Unless one wants to introduce the very alien and (I think) disruptive, modern "Many Worlds" idea that the writers didn't have in mind, Gerard might think he can safely let Barnjulia go, but he's wrong.   [spoiler]Once they (somehow) acheive all their objectives, the one and only timeline that exists changes, so that Gerard's ghost's 1995 never happened.   Not only does Gerard not proceed into an alternate 1995, 1996, etc, still in control of Collinwood as a ghost, but the 1995 we saw has never happened, not in an alternate "timeline" or in any kind of reality.[/spoiler]

I'm sorry if you got all this already Lydia, and you just chose to disagree.  If I'm belaboring all this, sorry.   Anyone can choose to work "Many Worlds" into it, and I'm sure good fanfic has been written that way.   I have a personal issue with it though... I dislike how it's reduced the possibilities for SF plots, because it's now practically taken as fact, just because a few physicists expressed a fondness for the idea a few years ago.   But that's a tangent....

[Lydia]

Magnus, I figure that even if the writers didn't have the "Many Worlds" concept in mind, that doesn't mean it doesn't apply.  But mostly I just can't wrap my mind around the idea of a timeline disappearing into nothingness like a vampire exposed to the sunlight.

[MagnusTrask]

Magnus, I figure that even if the writers didn't have the "Many Worlds" concept in mind, that doesn't mean it doesn't apply.  But mostly I just can't wrap my mind around the idea of a timeline disappearing into nothingness like a vampire exposed to the sunlight.

That's the most interesting, challenging, and most creepy aspect of time travel, to me.   Whole lives and existences, terrors, strivings, and vanities can play out, only to be undone by some lucky jerk who gets his hands on a time machine.   Then that replacement timeline might be retroactively canceled out so that it never existed in the first place.   Now there's a challenge to the very idea of meaning...   Barnabas once said "The past is always being relived."   What if that's true?   We would never know.   If we were erased, we'd never know either.    All that draws me to time travel.

[Taeylor Collins]

Have you guys read THE PHYSICS OF DS! Very good book I picked up recently!

7/31/70

Do you think that the spirit was saving B or just appeared to observe? 
“
I saw the six-silver bullets!”
“Don’t you know? Julia
Great scene with JF and GH!  That's right Barnabas  glamour her ass.  I don't think Barnabas has ever done this to Julia before?  I don't really know what they call it on DS so I will use the word used on The Vampire Diaries!

“You can escape!” Julia
“Not without you!” Barnabas
“Can’t take me with you!” Julia
 “Never without you!” Barnabas

I'm sorry for all the people who didn't think Barnabas loved Julia; however I think this proves he loves her. I think it all boils down to the way he delivers the line “NEVER WITHOUT YOU!” And the hug (to me) at least seems more that friendly as he softly caresses her back reassuring her of his devotion!  And I think loves built on friendship first are some of the best out there and I really think this scene proves this. This is just my opinion of course.

“You  forgiven me so often for so many things!”
Great acting on GH part as you can see real tears in her eyes. 

The hearing aid Stokes has, is that a type used in the 70S?

Is it a prerequisite to turn the lights out for a séance? Why does Carolyn have to speak trough Julia? It looks as if the shot is set up so JF can read the prompter in a totally obvious way.
I love when Julia laughs before the 5Th clue!

[spoiler]It's interesting that Matthew Morgan dropped dead in that room and so did Stokes! Just an observation![/spoiler]

That is possibly the best Julia scream ever!! I wish they hadn't forgotten about Barney’s vamp strength!  I guess they achieved the door effect my melding two shots.  Nice work.  It would have been cool to see what they would have done with the progression of time with effects had the show lasted!  Kathleen says, who funny!

[Lydia]

Great acting on GH part as you can see real tears in her eyes.

A few days after watching this episode for the Watching Project, I happened to be involved in a conversation that turned to a subject that I cannot contemplate for more than five minutes without crying.  Luckily there were many people there, and nobody knew what was going on.  Later, as I drove home, I was still feeling shaky, and I thought of Grayson Hall in this scene.  Yes, those were real tears.  I assume that she deliberately called something to mind in order to bring forth those tears.  And that was at the beginning of the episode, and she had a lot to do for the rest of the episode.  It can't have been easy.

[Taeylor Collins]

Lydia I can definitely seeing her using method acting for this scene. According to Terry Crawford Grayson did some method acting with Terry in 1897 because she knew how much that style of acting meant to Terry. I actually had a discussion about this with Terry, although the first place I read about it was in RJ's book. However, Terry expounded upon it and spoke of her love for Grayson being willing to get into "The Method" with her.