DS Redux: Your Vision?

I agree MB.  I have have said this before and this is no disrespect to Dan, because he started it all and I have GREAT respect for him and his memory.   But the fact that he isn't going to be a part of the new movie is a blessing. He famously stated that by the time the original DS ended he didn't have another idea in his head. I was re watching DS RESSURECTED last night because I was so excited about Watching Project Two and Dan had planned to get the 1991 show started and set the style and then turn it over to other writers, directors, producers etc.  If '91 had lasted I truly think him relinquishing his hold over the show could have given the production team reign to tell some amazing stories.   It's excruciatingly sad that the fans didn't get to see what could have been done with the show, the possibilities could have been endless.  I think I have stated this before but I held a long standing grudge against NBC until Heroes started a couple years ago.  I TRULY boycotted them for the stupidity.

That was purely and simply because of DC's involvement. However, DC claimed that supposedly he was going to back away had the show been renewed, and the writers did have ideas to take the second season's storylines in new and totally different directions. But, again, alas...

Oh, I know that. I'm just talking about what did make it to the airwaves.

Many excellent TV series have been canceled unfairly - ABC killed Twin Peaks and My So-Called Life, Fox killed Firefly and Wonderfalls, Showtime killed Dead Like Me... What are you gonna do, though? I did still watch Lost and Bones, despite the fact that the networks are evil. Of course, it doesn't really affect me with my current lack of cable. :/

Magnus, I get it.  We all get it.  You don't want to see a new DS unless it is a continuation of the old.   Does it really bother so much that other people simply disagree and would like to take a trip in the imagination down a path not to your taste?

No.   I must have repeated myself, and sounded more insistent than I was.   With this eye thing of mine, I don't always read or re-read everything on a thread.

It's okay Magnus we still loves ya.  I tend to repeat myself at times when I am sleep deprived and probably shouldn't be posting at all. 

The problem with coming at this thing with supernatural stories is that you only have so many classics to use before you have to really dip deep into the well of those stories that aren't as familiar to people. These take more set up, and can be easier to pull off because you have more creative freedom with them.

But, what needs to be focused on in order for a new DS series to take place is the CHARACTERS. And I'm not talking about their possible supernatural illnesses. I think a DS: The Next Gen would be a good starting point, and so would a complete reboot of the series (as in new actors playing our familiar characters). The thing about DS: TNG is that you can have a completely fresh story with new (and old) characters, and still have little easter eggs throughout the series that are callbacks to the original show that we would catch.

If there were a DS: TNG, my vision is this:

David is master of Collinwood, but isn't happy about it. He feels as if he's been forced into it because Carolyn cultivated an interest in the paranormal and began traveling the world, teaching, learning, and living, so after Elizabeth died, David was the next one in line to take over the estate. He also runs the Cannery and Fishing Business, and is days are long, stressful, and fraught with problems. While he does have his wife to help run Collinwood, she is becoming increasingly stressed as well, and angry with David, because he comes home in nothing but anger much of the time, and takes it out on her. Not to mention the fact that he feels obligated to go over the Collinwood business when he gets home. Translation: Their marriage is falling apart, and she is thinking about divorce.

Now, if Roger is still alive, he'd have to be recast. I'd prefer to see his original pompous, highly aristocratic manor reduced to being in a wheelchair, and needing assistance from someone else to do most daily things. This would and could be mined for comic relief. His and David's relationship still wouldn't be a good one, because Roger always tries to offer up suggestions about what David should do with the business, and David feels as if his father doesn't trust him to do what needs to be done with the business.

David would have some kids, one or two, and they would provide your typical teenage storylines. Here is where the supernatural things could be introduced--the daughter is dating a guy who has a short temper only to discover he's a werewolf. The son gets entranced by a witch-like girl who takes him home to meet mom who is really Angelique!

Carolyn would return in the first or second episode, finding Collinwood and the life of her cousin not doing so well. Carolyn comes back with bad news--in her travels, she stumbled across Barnabas, who informed her that Julia has just died. Carolyn has elected (basically forced) an aging Baranbas to return to Collinwood with her, despite his vehement refusals, claiming that if he comes back bad things will most certainly happen. Once he is back, and staying at Collinwood, despite his protests that he'd rather live at the Old House, he feels a familiar urge that he hasn't felt in decades: the urge for blood.

Baranbas ends up in the hospital one evening, suffering from a condition that the doctors cannot diagnose. Late one night, a hot young nurse enters the aging man's room, and he makes her his victim.

Soon after, a young man shows up at Collinwood, one who bears a striking resemblance to Barnabas, and says that he is Barnabas' son. He claims that the hospital contacted him after his father's death, and he is here to meet his family, back from studying abroad.

Things are beginning to heat up at Collinwood...and old ghosts are returning to haunt.

Carolyn comes back with bad news--in her travels, she stumbled across Barnabas, who informed her that Julia has just died.

  However, I am not necessarily saying that is a bad thing.  I just hate the thoughts of Julia being dead.  To tell you the truth though Brandon I absolutely love your take on it. KUDOS!  Are you thinking daytime serial or nightime show?

Personally, I don't really think any of the characters whose actors aren't able to reprise their roles should appear in a sequel series. In a remake series, sure, different actors are necessary. But the idea of a recast Barnabas appearing alongside members of the original cast is just thoroughly unappealing to me. The only real exceptions I can see are people like David Henesy, Denise Nickerson, and Kathy Cody; the actors who were very young in the original series and can be recast without too much damage.

Taeylor--I think it would work as either, as has been proven in the past with the original series and the 91 remake, but my version was envisioned as a primetime drama. And I'm glad you like my ideas!

Goober--Your comment, I'm assuming, refer to the appearence of Roger and Barnabas in my take on the revision of the series. I think we could get away with Roger being recast, but and we've dealt with and will deal with Barnabas and everyone being recast. But I like Jon Frid as Barnabas, so that's why I kept the "older" version of him to one episode in my idea--this way, his "son" could be introduced, with a different name (instead of Barnabas Collins, maybe Bramwell Collins, Brandon, Ethan, George, Goober, Jeff, Alex, etc etc) and a different actor playing them.

Oh, I'm in no way criticizing your idea. I'd find recasting roles a bit disconcerting in a sequel series, but I'd be able to put up with it. I'm still going to see the Dead Like Me film despite Laura Harris being recast with Sarah Wynter.

I don't mind being criticized, so that's why I responded.

And I do agree that recasting roles can be disconcerting because depending on the new actors take on things it will take a while to get used to their portrayal versus the original actor's take on the character.

I must confess I think I would enjoy a reboot as well as a continuation.  The New Doctor Who Series, I think, kind of gives one the best of both those worlds.  However, I think if a new DS series were to be mooted here and now, a reboot would be the best option.  ST:TNG I think succeeded not only because of the success of TOS in syndication, but also because by the time TNG was broadcast, the show had also enjoyed 4 (or 5) successful feature films that reached a broad audience and familiarized the concept of the show.

Unfortunately, and as others have pointed out,  in that respect DS is probably more similar to Battlestar Galactica, which I'm told, as I have never watched either version, the reboot is a great success.

So, reboot?  Bring it on!

OTOH, how about a few DS films with Depp and co.  set in the 60-70s, followed by a modern "continuation" on prime time TV? Perhaps exec produced by Burton or Depp?

Just for fun (and to get it out of my system  ) here is another idea... (oh noooooo!)

Collinwood
In a small town in Maine is a large estate, the domain of the wealthy Collins family.  The central mansion is a gutted ruin, the result of a fire nearly fifty years ago.  The family itself lives mostly in the original Collinwood mansion, sometimes called the Old House.  But the Old House is getting a little crowded, so family patriarch Quentin Collins (David Selby) and his wife Maggie (KLS) have decided to move to Cliff House, which is near the estate (also known as the House By The Sea).  It once belonged to civil war veteran Theodore Collins, who lived there as a recluse until his death in 1879.  Boarded up for years, Quentin and Maggie have made its restoration something of a project.

This also serves to get them away from some arguments among their children.  Daniel Collins (Kyle MacLachlan) is the current head of the family business, a no-nonsense type who tends to insist upon his own way.  Like his father, he is a widower, having married a glamorous young woman who died in a car accident.  So Daniel has raised his daughter Esther Collins (Kristen Bell) alone, and she has a similar, almost icy personality in many ways.  Both are, however, extremely protective of their family and friends.  Esther is also keeping a secret--she is gay.  She and her father disagree about recent efforts to mount an archeological dig into the ruins of the old mansion, which was over 250 years old when it burned and whose cellars are relatively intact.  He opposes the idea, while she quietly approves and is curious about her family history.

Dr. Amy Collins Woodard (Carl Gugino) has grown up to be a teacher of history at the local college, married to a Sheriff Andrew Woodard (Taye Diggs).  They have no children and are somewhat estranged from Daniel, not least because she favors exploring the ruins of the big mansion.

Joseph Collins (Matt Keeslar) is the only son of Quentin and Maggie, named for Maggie's best childhood friend who drowned.  An artist who lives in Rose Cottage, he has achieved a little bit of a reputation for rather abstract paintings.  He is very much in favor of archeologists looking into the estate.  He and Daniel have odd, intense relationship.  Each are frustrated yet deeply loyal to the other, affectionate and annoyed.  There's also a lingering resentment over an unstated fact of live--Daniel was Quentin's favorite, while Joseph was Maggie's.

The archeologist who wants to explore the ruins is one Dr. Ellis Lang (Bradley Whitford), by all accounts an eccentric but brilliant figure.  His assistant--and distant cousin to the elder two Collins siblings via their mother--is Amber Stokes (Nina Siemaszko), who shows a (to some) surprising and (to some) disturbing interest in the paranormal.

As work proceeds, several odd discoveries are made.  One is a dead body, found in a trunk in a sub-basement, dating from the 1860s.  It would seem to be that of Ariel Beaumont, who vanished in 1863.  She had been the fiancee of Theodore Collins and he never got over her.  She was evidently strangled, which leads Amber Stokes in particular to wonder by whom?  Esther Collins seems fascinated and repulsed by the discovery, and comes to believe she may be a reincarnation of someone from that time (she is correct--in a past life she was Theodore Collins).

Maggie and Quentin, meanwhile, discover that Theodore had been experimenting with cross-breeding different plants and a few bulbs--remarkably--survive.  But are extremely poisonous.  Indeed, exposure to one of them begins to have an impact on Amy--she smells of lilacs, even her breath, but insects that bite her die.  Soon her pet becomes ill.  It is as if she is turning into a creature of poison (shades of Rapucinni's Daughter).

Just a little bit of exercise of the imagination.  Comments appreciated.   

Here is my comment: YOU HAVE ONE HELL OF AN IMAGINATION!

[The following was submitted as a response to this post in the Depp/DS film topic:

-- Midnite]

I think Barnabas learning about our world should start out with a little humor but end up very, very sad, to the point that the viewer feels like crying for him.

I think he's look should echo the past. I think he should look timeless. Beautiful but worn, not old but more like an antique. Someone that others would be able to tell is different but not know how or why. His eyes would show the lonely years that he has seen pass. His walk, his manner, his voice would be elagent, like someone that knew Shakespeare and would be at home talking with him. Yet at the same time he should seem very smart, like he could keep up with Einstein. But above all he should look very, very lonely.

That's just my opinion.

I am sure half the board will not agree with me but I thought Ben Cross was very elegant.  Actually about % 85 of the board will probably not agree with me.