Discuss - Ep #0265

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #265

[IluvBarnabas]

The debut of Julia Hoffman. Hurray! Now before long, things are really gonna get good.

I have to admit I didn't care very much for her the first time I saw this episode....she was one cold fish. I thought she could have been a lot more understanding about Sam wanting to see Maggie.

It was so sad watching Sam and Joe trying to talk to Maggie. Try as they could they just couldn't reach her, she's still lost in her childhood world. Hearing Maggie scream out London Bridge was just heartwretching.

Good episode.

[loril54]

Great episode.  Julia is here, did anyone think that she would have such an effect on the show???? She did seem like an cold fish, but did she have to be, to be taken seriously.

I loved her office and the fish tank a good anology for watching closed in things. I was trying to figure what set they used as a base for this. It was interesting that Julia thought that she now wanted to see the effect of Joe and Sam, though I did feel very sorry for them.  Sam shouldn't have pushed to get her to remember, but how did she forget Sam her dad what switched?? She had earllier saw him as a small child. We didn't see her as she was now. Did Sam and Joe do this. Did Sam push her to much???

Standing O, for KLS she was the star of this show.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I thought she could have been a lot more understanding about Sam wanting to see Maggie.

Well, that's apparently not who Julia was at this point. She was not particularly understanding/sympathetic to her patients' families' feelings ("Your absence may hasten the day." Whoa! That's beyond cold!) The writers wanted to portray Julia as a coolly controlled, detached but dedicated, driven professional - and in that they succeeded very well. To have wanted her to have been otherwise would have diluted the show's vision of her. 

[IluvBarnabas]

Yeah, I hear what you're saying MB.

But in real life, if I came across a doctor who was so like Julia in this episode, I might consider finding medical assistance elsewhere.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

But in real life, if I came across a doctor who was so like Julia in this episode, I might consider finding medical assistance elsewhere.

After meeting her, I strongly suspect Sam had that exact same thought.    And if it wasn't for Dave Woodard's assurances, I believe he would have done just that.    [spoiler]And considering that Julia pretty much uses Maggie to further her own ends, and when it becomes necessary, buries the truth in Maggie's subconscious, Maggie would have been far better off in the care of another doctor. Though DS would most certainly not have been better off without a character like Julia - even the Julia as she is at this point - because she's endlessly fascinating.[/spoiler]

[CT!_CTP/FITBs]

Be
sure to check out these (hopefully  ) humorous topics related to this episode:

From "Caption This!":

From "Complete This Phrase / Fill In The Blank(s)":

[Lydia]

Hurrah!  Julia has arrived!  We haven't got her gloves yet, though, so she had to play with the fishnet instead.

If I had been watching this episode in 1967, I would have assumed that Julia was a four-episode character like Buzz.  She's so one-dimensional!  And then Grayson Hall went home for two weeks and thought about what she had been told about Julia, and said to herself, "That's not the whole story."  Or something like that.  Anyway, thank heaven for Grayson Hall.

One thing I will never understand: what gave Dan Curtis the idea that The Wig was feminine-looking?

I have to agree with others here that if I were Sam, I would have serious doubts about leaving Maggie in Julia's care - but I would also have done a lot more about it than Sam did, like asking Dr. Hoffman, "What happened?  When Maggie was delivered to you, she was perfectly happy, even if she did think she was a ten-year-old, so what have you done to make her so miserable now?"  But nobody ever asks any good questions on Dark Shadows.  If they did, the show would have folded in a heartbeat.

[EmeraldRose]

I also say, "Hurray!  Dr. Julia Hoffman has arrived!" Indeed, the story will get  a lot more interesting pretty soon!  I agree, KLS was the star today!   Her performance was heartwretching.  That was pretty cold of Julia to allow Sam and Joe to visit Maggie, but I understand their wanting to see her.  That scene with Maggie singing, "Take the key and lock her up." - over and over again and looking out the screen-covered window was very memorable. In retrospect, it probably would have been better for Sam and Joe to observe Maggie from afar, but that wouldn't have been very good drama now, would it? Great episode.

----- Sally -----

[MagnusTrask]

Yeah, I hear what you're saying MB.

But in real life, if I came across a doctor who was so like Julia in this episode, I might consider finding medical assistance elsewhere.

They're all like that.  Some are just better at hiding it, for the sake of the easier and more luctrative cases.   If you have a messy, complicated, difficult case, the mask comes off.   Take it from someone who's gone through 27 years of this.

That's real trauma coming out of Maggie.    That's totally exposed blind terror, there.     Really well done.     I feel like that (it has just a bit to do with the medical situation referenced above) but you need to keep a lid on it, to get through the day.    

[Gothick]

Holy Hekate!  How on Earth did I miss saluting my beloved, entrancing Divine One's first day on the series?  I'm gonna PAY bigtime for such an oversight!

I first saw this show during the 1976 syndication (on Phila's Channel 48) and it was like SEEING GOD.  I was fascinating by Julia's fishtank.  I think I wondered whether she was keeping her very own pet piranha pool in there.  There seemed something vaguely lethal about how she was playing with that little thingamujig (now, I KNOW it's not called a fishnet...).

I was very surprised at how different Jules was when she was introduced, from how she was when I first "met" her in June of '68.  I do think that some of Julia's harder edges come out occasionally in later storylines (thinking of some scenes in the original Chris and Sabrina story here, for example).

The other story I always remember about this episode is from an article in TWODS.  It was by a fan who had become enamoured of Grayson through Night of the Iguana.  One afternoon while she was sitting at home after school filing her nails, a dear friend rang her up and said "Hurry and turn on the TV, it's Grayson Hall running around in a lab coat!  You won't believe it!" Her initial reaction was to blandly inform her friend, "Darling, put down whatever it is you're smoking and take a deep breath and snap out of that trip!" Her friend finally convinced her to put the show on and her jaw dropped... and thereby, hangs a tail!

G.