Okay, my first post was based on notes I made as I was watching the episode, then I to skedaddle off to the country to see my bf for the weekend.
Here are some additional thoughts…
While it stands well enough on it’s own as a piece of late 80s horror, it doesn’t fare nearly as well IMO as a decent prime time soap. It seems that is what the show was trying to do (be a prime time soap) and in that respect, it fell down in a few important areas for me.
Victoria: We are treated to an intriguing voiceover from Victoria Winters telling us she “hopes to unlock the secrets of her past.” Unfortunately, that tantalizing comment is never built upon. There is a throwaway line from Roger about why a 25yo girl from New York would want to come to Collinsport, but otherwise it’s totally ignored. I have no problem at all with Carolyn being attracted to Vicki, but I think those scenes would have been put to much better use learning more of Vicki’s story. Why IS she there? Where is her family? Was she raised in an orphanage? Did she leave friends or a boyfriend in New York? Sadly, she is there simply because the script says she must be there. A wasted opportunity.
David: He
is a little monster, apparently carrying out an 80s slasher movie version of “The Sound of Music”. He’s troubled and his family wants little to do with him for all of Elizabeth’s protests. David has no scene with any of his family save the one where Barnabas shows up. The rest of the time he spends with Vicki, which makes me sympathize a little more with David at the expense of the rest of his blood kin. I noted that by the end of the pilot he seems to have softened quite a bit toward Vicki and no wonder: No one else seems to want to have anything do with him. No wonder he’s troubled. And if one goes by the broadcast version of the pilot, we don’t get even a hint of any backstory to suggest why this is the case.
Elizabeth: I like Jean Simmons, but Elizabeth is just words on a page to me right now. She’s given so little to do. There is just nothing to her. When Mrs. Johnson laments that she doesn’t know what to do with Willie, Liz just puts her head in her hands. Argh! She looked very weak in that one scene and I lost a bit of respect for her. The head of the family ought to be made of sterner stuff than that (I guess she
is the head of the family. She seems to be the oldest, but there is no dialogue at all in either version to indicate that definitely). She looks dowdy most of the time, and that one outfit she wore – the black jumpsuit with white dickey and cuffs??? Hideous. (Oh, and Taeylor, no worries, I didn’t think you were picking on my post in particular, but while I think that Liz might know who most of the town folk are, I am still surprised that everyone she meets in the episode knows her well enough to call her “Elizabeth.”
)
Roger: Fares better in the VHS version that the DVD/broadcast version, though, like David, without the extra scene, there is no backstory to even hint how he came to be so cold toward his son.
Carolyn: Carolyn is apparently a photographer whose career, according to her dialogue, was just taking off in New York when her mother called her home. I would have expected two New York girls who happen meet in a small town would have talked more about, well, New York. Again, Carolyn’s and Vicki’s scenes together would have been a perfect opportunity for comparing notes on where they both lived and quizzing Vicki on why she came and building on the mysterious promise of Vicki’s voiceover. And while, yes, there is a sexual innuendo to her dialogue with Vicki, she seems have the same performance toward her mother, the dude in the dance hall, etc. This is another reason why she confuses me and puts me off, the signals are very very mixed.
Daphne: Vampire bait written all over her. And that is about the extent of her character. She is the exact kind of character archetype that Joss Whedon would turn on its ear in creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The Collins Family and Collinwood in General: Unlike the oil empires that are clearly established from the get go on Dallas and Dynasty (the main nighttime soaps I watched at the time), we learn nothing about the Collinses except that they are rich and apparently the big noise in the town that also bears their name. How did they make their wealth and what keeps them rolling in dough now? We are never told. Also, they have a vast estate, but we see no staff but Mrs. Johnson and Willie (and before episode’s end, Willie leaves the main Collins family’s employ to work for Barnabas). If there is any mystery about why this is so, it’s not mentioned. If there are parts of the house closed off, that’s not even hinted at. So we have a huge house and estate and it’s kept in immaculate shape by one old woman and her useless nephew. Apparently, in New England, large estates with grounds and stables filled with horses take care of themselves.
Mrs. Johnson and Willie: To paraphrase Mrs. J - all I can say is Mrs. Johnson must be a wonderful woman to take in her brother’s? sister’s? boy and try to get him to turn his life around by getting him work on the Collins estate. I admire her for that. Willie, fares better than many of the characters (it seems that the characters that have the most to do with Barnabas get better written that the rest). As little time as they are seen to spend together, Barn and Willie in a way seem to have a much more intimate relationship than Barn has with anyone else, even Victoria. I suppose the blood is one reason. He is Barnabas’ protector during the day and Barnabas must rely on confide things to Willie that he never could to anyone else. Having said that, he is cartoonish in the extreme: nasty teeth, greasy, slovenly, a drunkard. I’ll reiterate from my previous post that Fyfe and Going have a good presence together that made me yearn for a scene in the pick up where they can first connect especially when he meets her in the stable later. He’s a good actor and does his scenes well: dumb, smarmy, belligerent, and later scared (of being blamed for the attack on Daphne) even terrified of Barnabas, but as Carolyn describes him, harmless. However, we still have little to indicate how Willie got this way, though I suppose there is enough dialogue to suggest that Liz was doing Mrs. Johnson a favor allowing him to come work there (Who took care of the estate before he showed up???) and that she is either the only family he has left or the only family that will have anything to do with him. He does seem to have enough affection for his aunt that he seems willing to share his riches with her. But when she scoffs, he gives his you’ll see when
I blow this dump on top of a pile of dough speech.
Last, but not least, Barnabas: He is obviously, the star of the show and the entire episode, and it seems, the series, is written for him and about him. Most of the episode leading up to his appearance at Collinwood was just marking time waiting for him to appear. He’s the center of attention, not only the effing big portrait seen on the first landing of the big staircase, but also on his first visit to Collinwood, everyone is seated and looking up at him standing in front of the fireplace.
Ben Cross is attractive and generally a good actor, but I sense he was uncomfortable with the way he was directed sometimes. I expect Barnabas to be courtly, somewhat old fashioned, and polite and charming and he was in the main, but there were times when he sound positively disingenuous (“That
is good news” sounds particularly phony) and it makes me think that Cross was told say it that way against his better instincts. From previous posts and threads, I now know that DC had more to do with the scenery chewing hissing and snarling and gnashing of his teeth, so I don’t blame him for that, nor do I blame him for the way over the top end to the pilot mentioned in my earlier post. In retrospect, however, those bits do a lot to diminish my respect for the character, and ups the cheese factor of the show.
In my opinion, Barnabas is the focus to the detriment of the rest of the cast and the show itself. He is billed as its star, but as he is a vampire, his interest in Victoria cannot come to any kind of good end and anyone who is familiar with the standard issue horror clichés knows that the vampire story must eventually come to an end, and a pointy wooden end at that. An ongoing series cannot keep this story going for long before it becomes repetitive, especially as we have already on a ten scale started off the story close to nine on the gore and gnashing teeth. There is not much further to go here.
For a pilot for an ongoing series, I feel too little time has been spent so far on developing anyone else's characters and establishing B and/or C storylines to carry the show forward when the vampire story is done, which it must be. I am wondering if there will be anyone else I am intrigued enough about to want to keep watching. I am trying to take a never having seen the series approach and hoping that future episodes will round out characters and provide more interesting and varied storylines, but based solely on the pilot, everything is so sharply focused on the vampire love story in general and Barnabas in particular, I don’t hold out much hope that the series can go anywhere after this story is done.
(edited by admin)
