I've been watching the 1840/Judah Zachary storyline and, with three episiodes to go, I thought I'd add a few comments
SPOILERS
This storyline was well acted and had many surprises from day to day. Gerard Stiles was a great villain, even though there were so many people to hate in this period. Edith, Samantha, Gabriel, Trask of course. The writers always seem to have problems coming to the conclusion of a storyline and transitioning to the next one. The story seemed to slow down in the last few weeks, and while 1840PT needed to be introduced, it should have been done more leisurly, with less time spent on every episode towards the end. Everyone was interested in that room! Daphne is busy staring into the room while she is in a hurry to meet up with Quentin!
You know the story is coming to a conclusion in DS when everyone is killed off!
I liked the way Barnabas began to appreciate Angelique, as well as the softening of the character. It made some sense since we got a backstory that she was around a lot longer and was seduced by Judah Zachary. The other good moment was Angelique's reluctantly helping Quentin. Barnabas telling Angelique that he knew she was still selfish and could not change was a good moment. Of course A does help Quentin, at her expense - still for selfish reasons, to try to hold onto Barnabas. An improvement, but in character.
1840PT looks somewhat interesting, but I would have liked to see the show go out in a contemporary setting. Perhaps it would have been better if the show ended a few weeks earlier, with B&J returning to 1971, as they do at the end of this storyline.
Nick Caputo