An interesting irony (re: DS' cancellation in 1971)

I saw the pilot at the fest several years ago.  TPTB never even gave it a chance.  It was really quite interesting and IMO just needed a few changes to the characters and it would have been a hit.  They made the Liz character a cartoon and I thought the actor portraying Barnabas was wrong (although he was good looking).  There was a fantastic scene were Barnabas is up in a tree and a young woman (I think may have been Maggie) walks down a deserted street and he swoops down and in the blink of an eye, the woman is nowhere to be seen! I'd love to buy the dvd for the pilot if it ever became available.  Alas, that will never happen I'm afraid.

I don't think they really made Liz a cartoon. Yes, she was certainly, uh, effervescent to say the least in the scene where Liz welcomes Vicki to Collinwood - but that could have simply been due to nerves - after all, the subtext for her was that she was welcoming home her own long-lost daughter. Giddiness due to nerves would be a departure from the seemingly always in control Liz of the daytime show. But keep in mind that the '04 pilot was retooling several of the characters. And truthfully Liz was nothing like the way she was in that scene in any of her subsequent scenes - she was much more regal and dignified, no doubt having regained her composure. But then, having one's daughter (Carolyn) attacked by "a vicious animal" can easily do that. Which leads to the fact that it was Carolyn whom Barnabas swooped down from the tree to grab (in one of the pilot's most effective and innovative scenes). And as for Barnabas, I thought Alec Newman was perfectly cast. In fact, I liked the vast majority of the casting. Unfortunately, though, some characters (like Julia) appeared much too briefly to form much of an opinion one way or the other.