Who was upset that DS ended in 1840 PT?

[BuzzH]

It would have been really interesting if, instead of cancelling the show, they had taken it to an evening time slot.  Then the adult themes could have been explored, and an entirely new audience found.  But no doubt even Curtis would never have believed the show could develope an adult audience.

That *would* have been interesting indeed, especially since he'd wanted to do DS as a night time series to begin with.  Too bad HBO didn't exist back then!  

[Mysterious Benefactor]

But no doubt even Curtis would never have believed the show could develope an adult audience.

DS did have an adult audience. Publicity for the show was aimed at both teenagers and adults, and many articles loved to tout the show's attraction to adults as well as teenagers. Though, of course, airing during the daytime, DS didn't have nearly the adult audience that it would have taken to make DS a primetime hit.

I never said he did, go back and re-read my post!

You said "perhaps he didn't actually walk off the set" so there had to exist a reason to even make the clarification/correction in the first place.

I could be wrong, but I assumed BuzzH was commenting on Gothick's remark that he'd read online that Frid walked off the set but had never seen a published report. 

[Nancy]

I could be wrong, but I assumed BuzzH was commenting on Gothick's remark that he'd read online that Frid walked off the set but had never seen a published report. 

Yes,that could be but I wasn't sure hence my question. Thank you for answering, MB!

Nancy

[Nancy]

MB, I have always believed that the reason HODS was so gory was because DC wanted to make DS more attractive to adults.   It certainly took the show out of the kiddie areana in a big way but if that had ever been the plan, it backfired.

Nancy

DS did have an adult audience. Publicity for the show was aimed at both teenagers and adults, and many articles loved to tout the show's attraction to adults as well as teenagers. Though, of course, airing during the daytime, DS didn't have nearly the adult audience that it would have taken to make DS a primetime hit.

[Brian]

I remember seeing a clipping from a magazine published in Jan. of 1971 introducing Keith Prentice to teen readers and commenting that he had signed a "five year contract" for DS.  Difficult though it seems to believe now, the DS TPTB may have been hoping to have Prentice be the hot new male property on the show.

I knew Keith in the early 1980s, after he had returned to Dayton, Ohio, to care for his ill mother.  Shortly after we met, Keith and I went on a dinner date, which ended at my apartment.  Keith was the perfect gentleman with me, and did not try to take advantage of me--even though I was, at the time, young enough to be his son (I was well past 18, BTW--LOL).  Although he had very strong opinons about his DS cast members--some very nice and some not so nice--he never mentioned anything about the show signing him to a five year contract.  Instead, Keith talked about his short-lived DS appearances as just another job, while he looked for other work in NY.  He also told me that he was not that pleased with the film CRUISING, in which he made a short appearance, and was mostly upset that the murder of his character was "left on the cutting room floor," as they say.  He also made some strong comments about Richard Rodgers's attraction to young chorus girls (Keith was in the 1959 Broadway production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC), a claim that has been confirmed in recent Rodgers bios.  Keith has his fans and detractors, but he was very nice to me and my theater friends in Dayton, and I am very pleased to have known him.   

[Nancy]

What a lovely account, Brian. Thanks for sharing.

Nancy

[Miranda]

The one thing I would like to have seen when Julia, Barnabas and Stokes return to 1971 is to somehow have an Angelique lookalike come into the Blue Whale or something after the Historical Center Opening and faint in front of Barnabas, fade out....otherwise I was okay with it ending how it did..

[Angelique Wins]

The one thing I would like to have seen when Julia, Barnabas and Stokes return to 1971 is to somehow have an Angelique lookalike come into the Blue Whale or something after the Historical Center Opening and faint in front of Barnabas, fade out....otherwise I was okay with it ending how it did..

An online friend did just that.  Or is doing just that, I should say.  She isn't done yet.  It's being posted on the Barnabas/Bramwellfan fiction Yahoo list.

Judy

[Pansity]

the cancellation of STAR TREK at the end of the Sixties.  But still, TV Guide never ran an article on "here's what happened to Capt. Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Lieut. Uhura after the show ended."

True, but they did get 6 movies!  

And speaking as someone involved with the fandom from the mid70s onward, you do NOT want to know just HOW many letter writing campaigns that took.

 

[dom]

Me. Well, not upset, 'cause I had stoped watching the show long before 1841PT. I know I saw much 1840 and 1970PT but I can't recall exactly when I stoped watching or why. Which is interesting in itself to me because DS was a major addiction. More than likely, it was the meeting of new friends in 'middle school' and becoming sexually active. Too young to have sex after dinner and a movie, so had to fit it in after school and before dinner, lol.

I was disappointed and cornfused to say the least because I didn't have a single solitary idea who any of the characters were. It's weird coming back to see the last episode in what kind of represented my old life and not be able to relate. What I did concentrate on was saying farwell (so to speak) to the actors. At least I knew who most of them were. Having not seen the entire show or that last year of airdates, loose ends weren't a factor for me. I thought the show ended okay. For me it basically said that all was well. Of course at the time I don't think I knew they were even in parallel time.

I remember not being too thrilled that Thayer's was the last voice heard. I had no appreciation for him back then. Why Frid wasn't chosen to do the final voiceover I'll never know. Anyone know why Thayer was chosen over Frid? You'd think Frid would have been chosen.

[BuzzH]

Anyone know why Thayer was chosen over Frid? You'd think Frid would have been chosen.

Don't know, maybe he *was* asked and didn't want to.  I think he only did like a dozen or so voice-overs during his entire run w/the show (not including his thinking voice-overs, I mean the ones at the beginning of the show)-which in and of itself is strange to me considering he was more or less the 'star' of the show.  But for whatever reason he didn't do a lot and maybe that factored in w/the last one.  Who knows.  It's too bad though since he had/has such a unique speaking voice and all.

 

[MagnusTrask]

It was all so spontaneous and rushed on DS, that I'm guessing Thayer just happened to be there.

I lost track completely back then I think.   They stopped telling us in voiceovers that it was PT, and I don't think they cared.  They'd ditched "RT" and the "present" for the romantic world of 1840/1, as depicted in so many of those novels by female authors, intending to stay there, I guess.    It actually helped them, they probably thought, to let viewers forget about RT vs. PT and all that.   This romantic past setting was even going to have its own "Barnabas", a vampire that is, going by the last episode, so they had everything they thought they wanted, and gave up nothing.

They were rectifying the supposed (ratings?) mistake of leaving 1897, I guess.    Only, 1897 did so well because of writing and not just atmosphere and romanticism.  And 1897 was darkly, disturbingly "romantic", very different from the straight-ahead romance of the 1840s.    

[Gothick]

Well, Grayson said in the '73 fan interview tape that the script had to be changed on the day of taping because Frid refused to say the final dialogue line about the possibility of Melanie having been attacked by a vampire.  He felt that the line "made fun of Barnabas" if he delivered it.

As I believe Buzz indicated, Mr. Frid did very few of the opening voiceovers, and the ones he did were fairly late in the game--I seem to recall first hearing him do one in a 1970 episode.  Thayer David, on the other hand, had a massive side career in voiceovers.  He discusses this in Ron Barry's interview with him (great tape).  As a viewer at the time, it seemed natural to me that Thayer did the closing voiceover, I think because I primarily identified him with Professor Stokes and I could imagine Stokes summing everything up because that just seemed to be a natural role for him to take.

I guess it would have been nice to have had Alexandra return to do the final voiceover, but it would also have reminded everybody how Vicki's original storyline got pretty abruptly canned once they started up with Barnabas.  It would have been really neat to have had Vicki return in a final 1971 storyline to finally learn the answer to the question of her parentage.  Ah well, we can dream!

G.

[Pansity]

Coming in late on these posts (yeah, I know, what else is new) but this one caught my eye.

It was all so spontaneous and rushed on DS, that I'm guessing Thayer just happened to be there.

That sounds like a very plausible explanation to me.  They seemed to have been "making it up as they go along" even more than Han Solo.

And 1897 was darkly, disturbingly "romantic".....

Now THAT is an excellent description of not only, 1897, but the Victorian era in general.  Juxapositions of flowery romanticism and extreme cruelty and cheapness of life, not to mention moral rectitude and extreme vice. (Keep in mind that these proper and moral Victorians also had a massive cottage industry going in child prostitution.  Not to mention that its now thought that more of the stories that Freud heard about incest were fact and not oedipal fantasies than society was willing to believe at that time.)

[loril54]

They were rectifying the supposed (ratings?) mistake of leaving 1897, I guess.    Only, 1897 did so well because of writing and not just atmosphere and romanticism.  And 1897 was darkly, disturbingly "romantic", very different from the straight-ahead romance of the 1840s.

But how much longer could have they gone with 1897?? Now the Leviathans I think was the main mistake. Nobody likeed a bad Barnabas. Also they went to PT and Roxanne and Barn, a bad move. [spoiler]If they hadn't turned Barnabas into a vampire again in 1970.[/spoiler] How things might have been different.

I was so upset that I even turned in the Next monday and hoped that Password wasn't on. To bad there was no WWW.

(edited by mod.)