Idle Thoughts--Wearing of the Green and Weird Science 5/20

[Luciaphile]

Fashion notes first . . .

What was with all the green in the first episode?  Cassandra's lime green number, I really liked.  Good cut.  She looks good in the color; it all really worked.

Who buys David's clothes?  Egad, if Roger wasn't enough to send the kid into therapy, that outfit would.  I get that he's supposed to be the poor little rich kid, we all do--hello, the mansion?  So why encase the boy in that mod nehru-ish thing?

Jerry Lacy looked yummy as usual.  My beloved Roger on the other hand . . . note to the costume person (the poor man's Irene): if you're going to use different shades of the same color, they need to not clash.

Okay.  Onto the show . . .

Roger could have been used as an object lesson on how not to be a parent.  I love the character.  I adore Louis Edmonds, but hello?  telling your son that you've got him a "new mother" is just so very much the wrong move.

I adored the girlish "I'm so nervous" Laura Petrie dialogue.  In fact, I thought the whole Cassandra and Mrs. Johnson scene was fab.  Both actresses were on target and it just flowed so nicely.

And why don't I pause right here and say that the first episode was really great all around.  Good, solid performances from all concerned.  Dialogue that fit all of the characters, their histories on the show, and the situations.  It ended too with on a nice dramatic, supernatural, suspenseful note.  It worked.  

It was a little sad watching Roger and David for their second tete a tete (sorry, too lazy to make the correct accent marks).  You could just see the distance growing between the two characters.  Again, good job all around and I liked seeing David Henesy again.

Poor David  Hehehe (sorry, couldn't resist the emoticon when I saw it).

Onto episode two . . .

My biggest problem with the Dream Curse is that most if not all of the dreamers remind me of bad mimes and as I don't even like good mimes, this is not a great TV viewing experience for me.

Kind of very unclear here as to just how Barnabas planned to evade Cassandra even if the experiment worked the way he expected it to.  I mean, I realize she's not exactly a Rhodes scholar, but she isn't stupid.  How long would it take her to figure out it was him when "Cousin Adam" showed up from England and settled in at the Old House and started courting Vicki?  

But then Barnabas still hasn't figured out how to use his mind, so I guess that's a moot question.  Why Julia didn't bring it up to him is another story.

Noted that Julia seemed pretty unconcerned about Mrs. Johnson after she'd left.  

Vicki's scene with Barnabas was a weak point.  All very well to have Vicki expressing sorrow and not wishing to hurt Barnabas blah, blah, blah, but considering that she dumped him while he was in the hospital, it really comes across as too little, too late.  

And Barnabas just seemed way too creepy with the "I'm sure you'll like my cousin Adam" setup speech.

The experiment.  You know, I've just seen this done too many times before and usually with much better execution (I mean, for heaven's sake even Colin Clive seemed like a miracle of restraint compared to Addison Powell) and it's old now.  

Where's Dwight Frye when you really need him?

Luciaphil

[Gothick]

Thanks, Luciaphil, for those wonderful notes.  As for the wardrobe, just remember that lime green was one of THE colors in 1968, the year these episodes were taped. I'll never forget around that time (I think it was '69 actually) one of my friends informing me that his Mom had just bought a new car and the color was ... (roll those drums) SUB-LIME.  I'd try to describe the color, but words literally fail me. Let's just say you would have NO trouble locating that car in a parking lot, at night, during a power failure, at the dark of the moon!!

There's a great Julia/Mrs. Johnson scene coming up in a day or two, I believe.  And I think it is the occasion for the first in the grand, exciting series of 1968 Julia b*tch slaps!  I put as many of them as I could find on one tape once.

We should lobby the Mysterious Benefactor to replace the Roger Davis follicle-clutch tally with the Julia b*tch slap tally, at least in the absence of RD (I'm smiling just typing those last few words).

xo  Gothick