Discuss - Ep #0432

[Watching Project]

Robservations #432

[Lydia]

Fantastic episode.  First the scene with Barnabas and Abigail.  I really could imagine myself in Abigail's position, trying desperately hard to believe that things were going to turn out OK.  Barnabas was a ghost, the devil was testing her - anything was possible but that she was going to die.  At the same time, it was great fun to watch.

And then came Daniel's long scene, first with Naomi and then with Trask.  David Henesy did a fine job in a very difficult part.  Daniel is acting older than his years, and trying to be a good boy when he's thinking things that nobody wants him to think.  It's the sort of thing that could have been excruciatingly irritating if it hadn't been acted so well by Henesy.  How old was he at this time?  Ten or eleven?  He was just amazing.

And finally, Daniel ran out into the woods, just as Sarah did before she died.  Daniel was more warmly dressed than Sarah was, but Naomi had to be thinking about Sarah anyway, and wondering if Daniel would die, too.

[Sunny_Collins]

I enjoyed the talk between Daniel and Naomi. Naomi is trying so hard to be optimistic about the future, I don't blame her for wanting Daniel to stay at Collinwood.

For some reason I can't pinpoint, I liked the discussion Daniel and Trask had, at least up until Trask started ranting about a devil's mark upon Naomi's arrival.

[EmeraldRose]

David Henesy is a fabulous actor! I loved his scenes with Trask and Naomi - especially with Trask! It was wonderful to see Daniel utter so many zings at Trask! That's one smart kid!

The scenes between Barnabas and Abigail were fantastic! That sure was a scary look on Abigail's face! It's too bad Trask will use Abigail's death as further evidence of Vicki being the witch!   Barnabas told Abigail the truth about Angelique and the curse, but Abigail died, so she couldn't tell anybody else.  

Loved this episode - one of the best! I say good riddance to Abigail! I loved what Barnabas said to Abigail.

----- Sally -----

[MagnusTrask]

You mean... "Why does the Devil always want to touch you?  Why do you think that?"  ?

[Bob_the_Bartender]

The scenes between Barnabas and Abigail were fantastic! That sure was a scary look on Abigail's face! It's too bad Trask will use Abigail's death as further evidence of Vicki being the witch!  Barnabas told Abigail the truth about Angelique and the curse, but Abigail died, so she couldn't tell anybody else.  

Loved this episode - one of the best! I say good riddance to Abigail! I loved what Barnabas said to Abigail.

Ah, yes, the kind and gentle Abigail Collins; Dark Shadows' very own "answer" to Rosie O'Donnell!

[Roland]

The poor Collins family.  Here they build this huge mansion and it seems to grow less populated by the minute.

Great scene between Barnabas and Abigail - classic stuff.

Much of this storyline feels so anachronistic.  I mean were people - even of Trask's ilk - still pushing the line that thunder and lightning WEREN't the result of atmospheric conditions as late as 1795.  This is post Benjamin Franklin and his famous kite experiment after all.

David Henesy has a wonderful way with understatement.  I love his response to Trask's "Don't you think it's time we had a little talk?" query: a simple but devastating, "No."  There is so much innocent contempt and dismissal of Trask's self-importance contained in that single word.  DS at its best.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Much of this storyline feels so anachronistic.  I mean were people - even of Trask's ilk - still pushing the line that thunder and lightning WEREN't the result of atmospheric conditions as late as 1795.  This is post Benjamin Franklin and his famous kite experiment after all.

Ask yourself this - is it not true that in 2008 people (including even someone running for President of the United States) discount Darwin in favor of Creationism (and hasn't said someone won several state primaries)? Puts 1795 in a whole different perspective, no?

[Roland]

Much of this storyline feels so anachronistic.  I mean were people - even of Trask's ilk - still pushing the line that thunder and lightning WEREN't the result of atmospheric conditions as late as 1795.  This is post Benjamin Franklin and his famous kite experiment after all.

Ask yourself this - is it not true that in 2008 people (including even someone running for President of the United States) discount Darwin in favor of Creationism (and hasn't said someone won several state primaries)? Puts 1795 in a whole different perspective, no?

I see your point (heck, my own brother is a young earth creationist, perish the thought), but it has always bothered me that they were holding a witchraft trial a good hundred years after the real witch trials had officially ended.  This storyline really would have worked better had it been set in 1695 rather than 1795. 

[MagnusTrask]

I suppose Collinsport, Maine may have been the frontier for some people.    People probably could get there in not too long a time if they really wanted to, a few days, but it was also out of the way, not a place people passed through on their way elsewhere.    Backwaters are isolated and their inhabitants can have their own special mindset, often from the past.    If the legal system there was at all flexible according to community standards, a trial might almost have been possible.    If not, an unofficial lynching or some mob-justice sort of "trial" might have been.

Wasn't there a sort of cliche (maybe in the 60s) about there being some New Englanders in backwater towns that were somehow stuck in the past?   

[Lydia]

But Collinsport wasn't a backwater!  I think that Maine is not more than a day's sail from Boston.  There was a naval officer stationed in Collinsport, and Sarah was very blasé about going to China when David mentioned it to her.

The thing is, though, that in the world of Dark Shadows, witchcraft is real, so a trial for witchcraft made sense, if only the authorities had caught themselves the real witch.

Roland's point was about the thunder and lightning, however, and it's a reasonable one.  But electricity is a mysterious business, even today.  Since my understanding of it is pretty hazy, I can't make an intelligent guess at what people understood about it back in the 1700s.  Is it something to with electrons?  What would Trask have known about electrons?  There had to be a lot of people who thought that Franklin was going to go to hell for messing around with God's most impressive smiting tool.

[MagnusTrask]

Yes, people didn't all hear about Franklin and his wacky kite stunt and change their views right away.   These things take time, maybe generations.   He needed time to do more work, and the ideas had to filter down from scientists to the general mindset of people.

Electricity is key in this condition of mine, and I wish I'd learned about it years ago.   The moment anyone tries to explain it, I get lost, because nothing follows any understandable logical pattern that corresponds to anything I know in the "real" world.  I must organize information in my head differently than other people.  Anyway, years ago when I could barely get myself to an occasional SF convention, at a room party, people were told to touch what I think was a Van der Graaf generator.   The entertaining sparking did not happen with me, which was unique, and must be a clue as to how I'm hooked up differently.

People could get to Collinsport... I'm just saying that they usually chose not to.   The interaction with the outside was limited.

When was the last recorded witchcraft trial?

[Gerard]

As much as I love the 1795/96 story, the pushing of the historical envelope by having a trial for witchcraft always irked me.  No matter how superstitious some of the residents of Collinsport might have been, trying someone (and executing them, no less) for witchcraft, in historical accuracy, just would not have happened.  But.....there could've been a way around it.  Trask and his disciples, let's say, wanted a witchcraft trial but knew that no matter what legal shenanigans they attempted would not make it happen, so they decide to attack it from another angle.  Instead of Vicki (or Phyllis) being tried for witchcraft, why not have her tried for murder, using witchcraft as a tool?  They could argue:  okay, we all know that witchcraft was used and we also know that it no longer is a crime to practice it.  However, it is a crime to murder and we can prove that witchcraft was the tool to commit it.  So, we'll prove that Vicki was a witch - which ain't no crime - and she used it to kill (in this case Jeremiah and the hosts of others dropping dead all around) and that is a crime.  After all, it's not a crime to own and use a gun, but it is a crime to murder someone with it.  It's not a crime to own a hatchet, but it is a crime to murder someone with it.  It's not a crime to have two hands, but it is a crime to strangle someone with them. 

If the writers had used that approach, not only would it have been more historically accurate, but would've been even more interesting, IMO.  I won't even get into the whole witchcraft trial in 1840/41. 

Gerard

[MagnusTrask]

Unimpeachable, Gerard.  Well done!    I don't imagine that there's any statement enshrined in law that says that witchcraft doesn't exist, either.   I don't think the law covers whether phenomena are real or not.   That sounds like a smarter version of something I vaguely remember their trying to do in the 1840 trial, though.

I can't help thinking of the Elvira MOTD trial now...