PT1841

Looking at the slideshow, I've come to realize, for myself, how rather enjoyable and well-made the PT1841 storyline really was.  For many, this final "tale" of Dark Shadows was a disappointment, and I think it might have been because there were no characters who had an attachment with the Collinwood populace of Normal Time (NT).  The PT1970 plots did contain "our" Barnabas (and later "our" Julia) thrown in with unfamiliar, albeit fascinating folk (oh, how I loved Will and Carolyn Loomis and how I wished they had more of them), but in PT1841 there were no connections.  I remember, as a kid, watching it during its initial run and how I missed Barnabas!  We had Jonathan Frid playing his son, Bramwell, but that wasn't Barnabas.  I think the storyline would've been more receptive to viewers (both then and now) if maybe they had the character of Bramwell as Barnabas' and Josette's son, but named him Barnabas (Jr.) and kept his hair flat rather than giving him that moussed, blow-dried Elvis 'do.  After all, the Quentin of 1840/41 (as well as PT1841) was not the same Quentin of 1897/1969-70, but because the name and pretty much the look remained the same, one could accept totally different characters played by the same actor.

Nevertheless, even as a "disappointed" kid, I subconsciously liked the story and without knowing it, it fascinated me.  One thing, in my opinion, that made it work was how the two plots so perfectly coalesced - the curse, and Bramwell's and Catherine's passionate love affair.  Most of the other storylines, regardless of when they were set, would have two plots that the writers tried to mesh together and quite often it didn't work - it was "forced."  I'm thinking, for example, of the Leviathan story, where you had the Leviathan conspiracy itself, and then Quentin's return.  Even though I liked the whole Leviathan thing, it just didn't work trying to bring those two plots together.  The same with PT1970.  Again, I generally liked it (Will and Carolyn, where are you?), but trying to bring the Angelexis plot together with tragic-mad-scientist Cyrus/Yaeger was like attempting to put two mismatched puzzle pieces together.  The same with many other storylines.  But for PT1841, it worked brilliantly, the two plots flowing together while maintaining their unique tales.

The writing was well executed, the acting tremendous.  If one could move beyond having these "strangers" in our midst, one really felt for the characters.  The only thing, for me, that was and remains a disappointment was the resolution to the curse.  It seemed muddled and poorly explained.  Call me dumb, but to this day I'm still not sure exactly how the hero/heroine were able to end the curse.  The last couple episodes had me scratching my head, saying "huh?"

But all things considered, I think PT1841, when taken on its own merits, was a remarkable story.  In many ways, it took DS back to its roots of gothic romance, bringing the show full circle to its original purpose, while incorporating the right amount of "spookiness" which eventually made it so unique.

Gerard

Watching 1841 for the first time in recent months, I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed 1841 PT (especially since I hadn't been all that thrilled by 1970 PT). My gosh, Jonathan was soooooooo hot as Bramwell (much more than as Barnabas) and he and Lara just clicked together. Bramwell and Catherine were totally different from Barnabas and Angelique.

And I loved Kendrick and Melanie too. He was there for her, he was determined to help her [spoiler]even when she told him she believed she killed his sister Stella. I think he respected Melanie a lot more than her family too, especially Julia who did her upmost to hinder Melanie's efforts to find out more about her real parents.[/spoiler]

As for the resolution of the curse, yes, on the surface it does seem TOO easy that [spoiler]Bramwell and Catherine manage to defeat the ghost of Brutus, but thinking about it I remember what Brutus said....that the one true Collins who was able to stay alive and sane would be the only Collins worthy of the name. Maybe Bramwell had a lot more courage and free will than the other unfortunate Collins who went in there doomed....maybe it hadn't taken all that much for the others to succumb to death or madness caused by Brutus' spirit.[/spoiler] But hey that's just my theory.

So all in all, I think the mixing of the lottery along with the love stories of Bramwell/Catherine and Kendrick/Melanie, and the brilliant acting of all made 1841PT so enjoyable for me.

I hesitate to criticize 1841PT now, after having seen Adam for the first time since original broadcast.    I think 1841 had for the first time I know of in DS a prominent romantic component that didn't connect immediately to anything supernatural.     That divides viewers between romance fans, and supernatural fans, when both were merged before.    Either camp could tread over into the other camp when it was made as palatable as they had made it, in earlier storylines. 

1841 PT seems divisive and alienating to the portion of us who don't go for straightahead romance stories.    It also makes DS more like regular soap operas than it had been.     Even the supernatural element was one of those unnamed "horrors" that you never see, that they expect the viewers to invent in their own imaginations.   Sorry, I was faked out with the Leviathans briefly, and that's the last time that's ever going to happen.   And it dragged on and on and on in the same way.    Endless repetition.    We've got to have the lottery.   But wait, we did it wrong, so again tonight, which is to say, next week.    Then they forget about it for awhile, then it becomes the most urgent thing in the world again suddenly.   Looks like I got over that reluctance to criticize.

But... it's perfectly competent as DS.    I need to watch Adam in better personal circumstances, but after seeing that, to me there's Adam, and then there are all the rest: all the competent storylines that have no question of possible "camp".

Spoilers ahead for newbies....

Back in 1971, I enjoyed the 41PT story, up until I read the show was being cancelled, and even then, in the last few days, I was naive enough to think that Catherine's [spoiler]possession[/spoiler] in the next-to-last episode would result in the whole cancellation thing being a huge April Fool's joke on all of us and DS would continue on Monday April 5...but I was wrong.  Anyway, the 41PT story is well-written and self-contained, and does not rely on previous knowledge of the DS universe.  So, what if...just before the last few shows, a decision was made to NOT cancel DS, and one of the 41PT characters viewed another parallel time Collinwood with Bramwell and Catherine as the hero and heroine...where might the next story have taken us?  And would we ever have returned to the 1971 Collinwood we knew so well?  Anyone up for speculation?

I know I've mentioned this before here, but on an AOL DS message board, I came up with a whole plot-line wherein we return, after PT1841, to 1971 with Barnabas, Julia and Eliot after their return from 1840/41 Normal Time, only to find because of the drastic changes they made in history, they find not the Collins family they love, but an entirely different family (the lineage having been broken).  They feel like strangers in a strange land, and mixed in with that, they have to deal with a developing haunting at Collinwood which eventually takes the lives of most of the "new" family members (plus, as an add-in, they discover the soulless, apparently mindless, but something-is-controlling-it body of Barnabas [those familiar with how Barnabas travelled back to 1840 and how he returned to 1971 will know why there's an extra body]).  The cause of the vicious haunting is the ghost of Tad Collins as an adult, and our three heroes have to go back in time to not only prevent the current tragedy, but somehow to restore the correct lineage.  So off they go to the year 1860, just before the Civil War begins (which factors into the plot-line) for a whole bunch of mysteries and adventures and in the end, everyone lives happily ever after, things back to to normal in 1971.  Well, not happily.  No one lives happily on DS; if they did, there wouldn't've been a DS.

Gerard

I might not despise 1841 PT as much as I do if DC & Sam
had properly resolved the loose ends in 1840 & 1971.

Gerard, your story sounds wonderful, and might be that much needed resolution to storylines that were left hanging.
May I suggest you write a DS novel?

(don't forget to explain how the 1840 [spoiler]deaths of Edith & Angelique[/spoiler] affected the stories of 1897, 1968 & 1970!~

David

Gerard-- I say that 1840 made proceeding from 1971 on absolutely impossible, but I hope your story resolved it all.

I actually wrote two DS novels, back in the late '90's, in the hope that maybe they could've been part of the new HarperCollins series (and we know what happened to that).   One was called "The Watcher on the Hill," a where-are-they-now story set in the year 2000.  (Imagine Barnabas and Willie living happily in retirement in the Old House, now filled with electricity, plumbing, central heat and air, a satellite dish on the roof, and Barnabas surfing the Internet.)  The second, called "Occasion of Sin" was a massive, semi-historical epic (it ran over 500 pages) with a prologue set in 1918, the main story running from 1927 to 1949, and the epilogue set in 1967.  (We followed the characters not only in Collinsport, but also in Massachusetts [where Jamison Collins has a meeting with Joe Kennedy], to Philadelphia, to New York, to Los Angeles, to Paris.)  Though they will never see the publishing light of day, they sure were fun to write.

Gerard

Forgive me for introducing a crude note into the discussion, but what fascinated me the most about the PT1841 shows back at the time was those incredibly tight trousers they gave the men to wear.  I was 12 going on 13 and my hormones, while not raging, were certainly those of a healthy pubescent male and I found much more intrigue in the male "blooms" than I did in the story.  When not distracted by those swelling crotches, I kept wondering "when are Barnabas and Julia going to show up?" or "when are we going to return to 1971 to find out what happens next"?  I think even on the last day I was still expecting a switch back to "the Present" and this was another distraction that kept me from concentrating on the new story.

I do have a vivid memory of being very affected by the emotion of Nancy Barrett's performance as Melanie.  It was during one of the nighttime viewings and I think the scene involved her trying to get into the Locked Room.  As an adult viewer,  I find Melanie's story--her search for her true identity (maybe a reminder of where it all began for Dark Shadows) and her growing love for Kendrick, to be by far the most involving part of the story.  The triangle between Catherine, Bramwell and Morgan just doesn't draw me in very much.  None of them are very nice people IMO.

cheers, G.

Gerard, the two DS novels you wrote sound fascinating! Do you you will ever publish them privately or maybe publish them on the Web. I think a lot of fans would enjoy reading them.

I've had friends read them, Rosebud, but that's about it.  Some were big DS fans, but for me the ultimate test was to have friends who were not familiar with the show to see if they could understand what was going on and could associate.  That was particularly important with the first novel because one wants to reach as wide an audience as possible.  I had to do "flashback memories" of the characters and to my joy it worked.  One friend, not familiar with the show at all, said, after reading the first novel (the where-are-they-now set in 2000) he didn't want the story to end.  I was tickled pink.  The second novel, since it was set before the show started, stood out on its own with only references to what happened in 1897 (since two of the characters, Jamison and Nora, now adults, were central, as well as Carl, since the story was set before Barnabas went back and in time and, well, you know what happened when he did).  For me, my satisfaction, even after being disappointed when the HarperCollins series ended and the books would never see publication, was simply writing them, if only in first rough-draft form.

Gerard

You really should put these online Gerard! Ever since mark Rainey posted that link to his book about Quentin (the name escapes me now) I've been wanting to go and ready it but I haven't had time to do it yet. I'm sure everyone would love to read it, and published or not, they'd be a hit I'm sure!

I agree also of how the storylines were brought together at the end, and how i originally didnt like the storyline, but after watching it i do enjoy it now.  JVjr

I didn't mind 1841pt. It's much better than the everything including the kitchen sink mess that 1840 became. 1841 has a smaller cast and better storylines. But I think we all would rather have the last weeks of the series with Barnabas, Julia and the Collinses that we knew.

But I think we all would rather have the last weeks of the series with Barnabas, Julia and the Collinses that we knew.

Not all of us.  I adore PT1841, and I love having so many unresolved questions in our-time 1971.