1991

[Nelson Collins]

I recently acquired this series on VHS (after reading on another thread about the silly mistakes made on the dvd set).  Some thoughts:

Cast:  Generally well cast, though the one person who stand out (and unfortunately not in a good way) is Lysette Anthony.  Her Angelique was entirely forgettable, not holding even close to a candle to Lara Parker.  I kept trying to imagine Lysette as Cassandra Blair and realizing that she would have failed miserably.  This Angelique is not in love with Barnabas, she is only infuriated when when he spurns her affections.  There is none of the layered and definitely watchable Parker character in LA's Ang, just pure one note evil.  Rather boring, imo.

Jim Fyfe accquitted himself very well as Ben Loomis, but as Willie, well, it was more Barney Fife.  And OMG, get that man to a dentist STAT! And a bath! EWWW.  He was occasionally bumbling and funny and harmless, but poor Mrs. Johnson should be embarrassed to claim as family a man not on speaking terms with hygiene. He needs eliza doolittle-ing but bad (though, having said that, there was some evidence of Barn doing precisely that.  Good on him).

I miss the spikey bangs but I rather liked Bem Cross' Barn.

As was said in the Dear Dead Abigail thread, there was not enough time spent on many of the character's.  Liz and Carolyn suffered most in that respect I think.  I kept wanting to see hints of the Liz who had never left collinwood in 18 years.

Did I hear correctly?  I 1790 was Collinsport referred to as being in the territory of Massachusetts?  Why not Maine?  and anyway weren't the 13 original colonies officially states by 1790?

*sigh* Michael T Weiss  - he could walk back and forth in front of the camera for an hour and I'd watch....

more later.

[IluvBarnabas]

One of the show's few highlights for me in regards to the 1991 show were Jean Simmons and Joanna Going.

JG's Vicki seemed to be more on the ball than AM'S Vicki, at least during the 1790's flashback (at least Joanna didn't go on saying over and over "you resemble someone I once knew" and knew when to keep her mouth shut). I loved her interpertation of Josette too.

Jean brought a lot of class and grace to her role.

Ben Cross was merely okay in my eyes, but I just could never feel for him the way I felt for Jonathan.

Sorry to say I was not a fan of Barbara Steele, but I realiize she has her fans so I won't say anything bad about her. I do feel that she and Ben never really clicked together, certainly not like Jonathan and Grayson had.

Of all the casting choices the two I hated most were:

1.Willie Loomis. Hated the way Jim Fyfe portrayed him as a bumbling idiot.

2.Reverend Trask. Roy Thinnes made him a too over the top, in fact almost comical guy, rather than an overzealous fanatic.

And that's all I have to say.

[Lydia]

Did I hear correctly?  I 1790 was Collinsport referred to as being in the territory of Massachusetts?  Why not Maine?  and anyway weren't the 13 original colonies officially states by 1790?

Maine didn't become a state until 1820, as a result of the Missouri Compromise.  Before then, Maine was part of Massachusetts.  In the original show, Barnabas refers to the province of Maine when he firsts meets Vicky in 1795, and it's one of the many things that blow her mind.

If you watch the movie 1776, not only will you see three count-'em-3 Dark Shadows alumni (although you'll see so little of Daniel Keyes that it's a wonder he even made it into the credits), but you'll never again be able to forget which were the original 13 colonies.

[Brian]

Well, to be the, umm, devil's advocate  when I first saw the 1991 series in . . . 1991 . ., I decided to try to take it on its own terms, without comparison to the original series, just as one would need to do with the 2 movies, HODS and NODS, which have little to do with the original series, except for the characters and some basic plot points.  In fact, the 1991 series pilot had more similarity to HODS than HODS did to the daytime show.

Anyway, even watching the '91 series today, and after repeated viewings, I find myself drawn to the actors' interpretations of the DS characters, with my particular favorities being (in alphabetical order  ) Lysette Anthony, Michael Cavanaugh, Ben Cross, Jim Fyfe, Stefan Gierasch, Joanna Going, Julianna McCarthy, Adrian Paul, Jean Simmons, Barbara Steele and Roy Thinnes--in most all of their characterizations.  Within this group of actors, my favorite character(s) for each:  Angelique (1790); Patterson/Andre; Barnabas; Willie/Ben; Joshua; Josette; Mrs. Johnson/Abigail; Jeremiah; Naomi; Julia and Natalie; and Roger and Trask (although I had some issues with some of the actors' characters lineage, i.e., Michael Woodard to Joshua and Roger to Trask, but that was a writer/producer decision, not an actor choice).  I was less impressed with the other principal actors, although I enjoyed Michael T. Weiss as eye-candy, and Barbara Blackburn was fun as Millicent.  I found the characterizations as written for both Carolyn and Maggie somewhat distasteful, although Carolyn in 1991 was probably an appropriate update of a rebellious and loose 1966 Carolyn;  1991 Maggie, and her relationship with you-know-who just came so far from left field, and had no similarites with 1966 Maggie Evans.  These were two completely different characters, related only by name and, frankly, Curtis should have created a new character for 1991 rather than tarnish the name and image of 1966 Maggie.  (But that's another thread.)

Finally, if asked to name my three favorite characters as played by the actors in 1991:  1] Trask (not so over-the-top when one considers portrayals of similar characters in stories/films about the Salem witch trials);  2] Natalie; and 3] Willie Loomis.

But that's my opinion. . .

[Gothick]

I personally blame the writers and directors for a lot of the clumsiness, one-note performances and odd (or, in some cases TOTALLY LACKING) transitions in the 1991 series.  From what I can recall of the circumstances of the time (I was actually living in China when it was being produced and broadcast so this is all very second-hand), I suspect that the real villains were some of the NBC network supremos--"the suits"--who, I seem to have heard, kept interfering and micro-managing.  I know I read somewhere that they were the ones who demanded that during the 1790 story, they keep switching back to show what was going on in 1991.  That leaves even less time to work out an already crowded & compressed storyline for 1790.

Just to cite a specific example--I just re-watched episode 6 and there's a scene at the beginning of the show between Willie and Carolyn that is a re-staging of a scene originally played in the film, house of Dark Shadows.  In the 1991 version, neither actor appears to have been directed, and Barbara Blackburn, who plays Carolyn, doesn't seem to be doing anything at all--literally sleepwalking through the scene.  And not in a way that relates to what is supposed to be happening.

At the end of this episode, I find it clumsy, poorly paced and a complete mood-breaker when Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as David comes into the room and makes his little announcement.  That scene desperately needed a rewrite but, as seems to have often been the case, they probably ran out of time.

I know that the actors cast in the series were an exceptionally talented group.  I have seen Lysette Anthony in other work produced in England and know she has chops.  I really feel sorry for her at the embarrassing antics she had to put on as Angelique--it's really at the level of cheap panto.  But at least, from what I can recall from an interview I saw from her at the time, she had fun doing it.

G.

[Nelson Collins]

Oh, and in one of what must the the silliest of continuity errors ever, In the episode where Barnabas shows VIckie Josette's room for the first time, we see the portrait of Josette, full body, but all subsequent episodes, shots of the SAME PAINTING are of a waist up or head and shoulders portrait!!!! What gives??

[Darren Gross]

Oh, and in one of what must the the silliest of continuity errors ever, In the episode where Barnabas shows VIckie Josette's room for the first time, we see the portrait of Josette, full body, but all subsequent episodes, shots of the SAME PAINTING are of a waist up or head and shoulders portrait!!!! What gives??

Maybe it's like the portrait's in Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction!

[MsCriseyde]

Oh, and in one of what must the the silliest of continuity errors ever, In the episode where Barnabas shows VIckie Josette's room for the first time, we see the portrait of Josette, full body, but all subsequent episodes, shots of the SAME PAINTING are of a waist up or head and shoulders portrait!!!! What gives??

I noticed this when I watched the DVD set some time ago as well, but I thought there were actually two different portraits rather than a cropped version of the original. The one in the subsequent episodes appears to be the same version that was auctioned off at the Fest a few years ago.

[Fletcher]

Actually both featured portraits -- Barnabas and Josette were re-painted after the pilot (what became the first episode ot two of the series).  I'm not sure why they were re-painted.  I assume the originals from the pilot were either damaged or destroyed after the initial filming.  Wasn't there a prolonged period between the filming of the pilot, and the resumption of filming for the series?  I seem to remember nearly a year hiatus.

The differences between the two Josette portaits are the most extreme -- as already explained in the post above.  And, the second portait of Barnabas is nearly identical to the first -- although there ARE differences.  If you have the books which were published about the 1991 series, you can compare the two Barnabas portraits.

Does anyone have more details?

[Midnite]

Wasn't there a prolonged period between the filming of the pilot, and the resumption of filming for the series?  I seem to remember nearly a year hiatus.

It was just under 3 months between the completion of the pilot and the start of production on the series.  In that business, however, it's not unusual for actors and crew to have already moved on to other jobs in this amount of time.

[Nelson Collins]

To attempt to answer my own question, after puzzling over it, perhaps the decision was taken to redo the painting because it is far easier to see the resemblance between Josette and Vicki than in the full body version.

Perhaps in the pilot filming the idea was that both portraits of Barn and Josette were full body to make some kind of connection between them in the viewers mind, but when the series was remounted it was decided to repaint Josette's for the reason above?