the dinner party

[michael c]

i always thought i had seen all of the pre-barnabas episodes but i must have missed a few way back when because on "the beginning collection two" dvd i came across several i had never seen.

there in one episode where maggie invites vicki over for dinner at her house and burke(at this point still fuming over the whole manslaughter business)crashes the festivities and really puts a damper on the whole evening.it's a very weird scene.

i know burke is supposed to have this big chip on the shoulder at this point(and i usually like mitch ryan)but he really comes across as a horrible bully in this scene!

he lashes out at sam(natch)but sam is a grown man and the folks up at the 'big house' with their money and influence can handle devlin's shenanigans but i really felt bad for maggie and vicki in this episode.
all maggie wanted to do was invite her new freind over and vicki(who is enduring no end of torment from her employers at this time)just wanted an evening away from those crazies and perhaps learn something about herself in the process.they both seem so upset.finally a dejected maggie sighs and says "i'd better turn the stove off" and the whole evening is ruined thanks to burke.

now considering the types of catastrophes that befall these two lasses in later years(you know,being attacked by vampires,sent back in time,hanged for witchcraft,that sort of thing...)a ruined dinner ain't that bad but in the early episodes they seemed more like real people(not charicatures)and thus were easier to sympathise with.at the risk of sounding like a total freak this scene nearly moved me to tears!

[Garth Blackwood]

Do you have the episode #?

[michael c]

garth,

it's actually a two-episode situation.numbers 60 and 61.

bon appetite!

[IluvBarnabas]

Burke did come off rather boorish in this episode.

He probably hoped that he could intimidate and harass Sam enough so that Sam would come clean about Roger bribing him to keep quiet about the whole manslaughter mess...but this really wasn't the right way to do it.

Burke does have good reason to be ticked with Sam,  but dragging it out in front of Maggie and Vicki like he did was rather mean-spirited. There's a time and place for everything...the Evans Cottage with two innocent women wasn't it.

[Gothick]

I remember those episodes well.  I particularly enjoyed the shows where Maggie had Joe over at the cottage and was more or less courting him, impressing him with her knowledge of nautical argot.  I believe the reviewer of the DS: The Beginning set 3 on DVD talk complained that he found these scenes boring, but I thought they were among the highlights of that period because both Crothers and Scott were so good at what they were doing with these scenes.  In the later years, we never got to see them act this kind of scene.

G.

[Brandon Collins]

It is infinitely easier to sympathize with the characters during these episodes. I haven't even finished watching the first set yet (a result of my overzealousness at rewatching ALL of my boxsets), and I can already start to feel for Vicki and how she's being treated by the very people who hired her! She's naturally curious about her surroundings, but all Liz and Roger want to do is to hush up all the secrets and keep everyone in the dark! And Carolyn is the only one who seems to be on the same page as Vicki, but has probably a little more information because she's lived there her entire life.

I just recently watched the episode where Vicki goes to Matthew's cottage and attempts to probe him for information. Matthew gets a call from Liz asking him to bring some firewood into the house, and he mentions that he's there talking to Vicki. Apparently, from Matthew's reaction after he hangs up, Liz has forbidden Vicki from even visiting Matthew (why they're both servants for Chrissakes!) and Matthew gets very upset that Vicki might have gotten him in trouble. I was fully expecting a scene where Liz gives Vicki a severe tongue lashing, but it never came.

[IluvBarnabas]

Roger in particular was nasty to Vicki. I watched the episode where he encouraged David to try and drive Vicki out of Collinwood and the episode where she's locked up in a deserted wing and, before releasing her, Roger is tormenting her by pretending to be a ghost and urging her to go away.

And I remember after the Bill Malloy murder was solved he got on her case about it. Boy, Roger really treated her like dirt.

I've really sold the pre-Barnabas era short. Even without my favorite vampire, Dark Shadows still makes for worthwhile and fascinating TV.

[Brandon Collins]

I still can't get over just how atmosphereic the show is during these episodes. I mean, talk about great lighting, writing, set design, acting, directing, producing et all! The show really took a downturn when it started to hit its stride in terms of production values. The camera work is infinitely better than the later days, where everything seemed to be rushed.

[Josette]

While I really enjoyed the early episodes, having not seen them until after being very familiar with the rest of the show, I can't tell how they would hold up on their own.  I don't know if they are very good just coming into them "cold," or if already knowing these characters makes their earlier story interesting.

[michael c]

While I really enjoyed the early episodes, having not seen them until after being very familiar with the rest of the show, I can't tell how they would hold up on their own.  I don't know if they are very good just coming into them "cold," or if already knowing these characters makes their earlier story interesting.

as someone who watched the series from the first episode(on video)i can say that for me this part of the show held up very well on it's own...sort of a sleepy gothic soap that had it's own pitch that was unique.

very different from what comes later on but worth watching in it's own right.

it's also a great introduction to characters who later on become more one-dimensional. 

[Gothick]

I think it's worth remembering just how much time the special effects took up in the seven or eight hours they had between arrival at the studio and taping at 3:15 ... MANY of the actors have commented upon how setting up the FX (primitive though they look to today's viewers) resulted in considerably less rehearsal time.  Actors did their best to make up for this by going over scenes on their own, but obviously this didn't always work out given the exigencies of blocking, the cameras, etc. all of which of course came into play with chromakey FX.

I got a couple more of the MPI DVD sets in the recent amazon sale (sets 3 and 4, specifically) and in one of them there's an interview with Nancy Barrett and at one point she just laughs and says "well, for one thing, you have to understand that it was all INCREDIBLY under-rehearsed!"  I'd rarely heard that point argued so bluntly but I think this has a lot to do with that air of barely controlled insanity we associate with certain episodes of the show.

I love it how in the various sequences in 1968 where Angelique and Nicholas pay calls upon Diabolos, the entire set fills up with mist from all the dry ice and smoke machines... I think this happened with a couple of the Maggie-wandering-around-Eagle-Hill scenes in '67, too.  That studio really was a tiny little thing.

G.

[MagnusTrask]

I guess no actors on other sets coughed from the fog, though I almost wish they had.

[Lydia]

Back to the dinner party...I remember Burke's unforgivable behavior, but I also remember, though not in any detail, that I wasn't any too impressed with Vicky, either.  (Am I ever?)  I can't remember what was that she did, but it may be that when Burke asked her, "Would you mind if I had dinner here uninvited?" she said, "No, I wouldn't mind," thus making things even more uncomfortable for her hosts, instead of saying, "Well, it's really not up to me." 

[michael c]

there were lots of similarly odd exchanges between vicki and burke in these early days...many of them oddly written making them seem even weirder.

but there was supposed to be this sort of push-pull dynamic coming from the both of them.they were sort of each other's forbidden fruit.they knew their mutual attraction was "wrong" according to what their personal agendas were and thus acted very awkwardly around each other for a long time.

but i guessed from the first scene at the train station that a hook-up was inevitable.