Discuss - Ep #0658

[Watching Project]

Robservations #658

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
1969

[Midnite]

Love it, MB!  They really started that year off with a ! The dream was top notch from the acting and stunts to the cemetery set.  And shot on Christmas Eve, no less.  What a fantastic decision to shoot Joe's reaction through the mausoleum gate; MB placed a capture of it in the Robservation thread.

Plenty of eye candy here.  I actually stopped missing Quentin for the duration.

I HATE the rude fate written for Joe (why couldn't he finally buy his fishing boat and head down to Bimini and try [his] luck down there, to quote another Joe Haskell?), but by not killing him off, plus the voiceover suggestion that he [only] "may" be permanently insane, it at least it offered fans an opportunity to rewrite the character's future, perhaps one that includes a reunion down the line at Windlciff with another DS character.

Now I have to ask-- How many identical shirts does Chris have?!

[IluvBarnabas]

Good grief, that dream still gives me the shivers! When Joe learns from his cousin that he isn't Chris but Tom...man, that still sends a chill down my spine. And then Joe finds himself trapped between vampire Tom and Chris the werewolf!

This is the last episode we see of Joe Haskell. Poor guy. He had already been through enough before this. When I see the Joe Haskell in the pre-Barnabas episodes and compare him to the Joe we've seen the past few weeks....it makes the decline in his character all the more tragic.

I also feel bad for Chris. He never wanted Joe to know his secret, but he feels guilty nevertheless. When Julia tells him there was nothing he could do...Chris just looked completely miserable. 

This episode was both scary and sad.

[Lydia]

Happy 1969!  It surprises me that Dark Shadows wasn't pre-empted on New Year's Day - all those parades and football games!  I used to watch the parades on TV, and now I wonder why.

I feel sorry for Chris because he is blaming himself completely for Joe's descent into madness, when in fact Tom's grim fate was partially responsible...I think.  But I haven't gotten it completely figured out.  Back when Joe was himself, he could not remember why he had behaved so badly - i.e. he couldn't remember his victimization by Angelique.  And I don't think he could remember what happened to Tom, either.  Now that Joe's insane, he remembers what happened to Tom, and that's part of what's making him crazy.  So Chris isn't entirely to blame...but how is that Joe remembers about Tom now?  Is it that the shock of seeing Chris turning into a werewolf burst a door open in his mind?  But apparently he still doesn't remember Angelique.  Very confusing.

At any rate, I think this is the only episode in which one actor played both a werewolf and a vampire.  I was impressed with how Don Briscoe made Tom seem quite different from Chris, to the point where I was thinking: "Can't Joe tell the difference?  It's obvious that this is Tom!"  But then, I always did like Tom better.

[Midnite]

Back when Joe was himself, he could not remember why he had behaved so badly - i.e. he couldn't remember his victimization by Angelique.  And I don't think he could remember what happened to Tom, either.  Now that Joe's insane, he remembers what happened to Tom, and that's part of what's making him crazy.  So Chris isn't entirely to blame...but how is that Joe remembers about Tom now?  Is it that the shock of seeing Chris turning into a werewolf burst a door open in his mind?  But apparently he still doesn't remember Angelique.  Very confusing.

Maybe he can recall the part of the conversation he had with Julia about Tom victimizing her (in #619), but he can't remember the rest of it because it directly related to Angelique.  It might explain why he seems to have forgotten that [spoiler]he's the one responsible for letting Angelique into Tom's hospital room.[/spoiler]

[JWGucciEnvy]

Very sad...No More Joe...

At least Joel Crothers went out with a top notch acting job!!

[EmeraldRose]

Due to the limited number of smileys allowed, I am combining two smileys into one. This was the final episode for Joe Haskell, and the first (and probably only) episode during which a werewolf and a vampire were both being played by the same actor.   It was possible, of course, because Alex Stevens actually played the werewolf after the change. That was a really scary dream!  It's no wonder that Joe was driven mad!  That was pretty sneaky in the dream for "Vampire Tom" to pretend to be "Normal Chris" until just before "Werewolf Chris" showed up! Poor Joe! He deserved a better sendoff. But, on the plus side, it was a real acting coups for Joel Crothers. I believe it was his best performance!

I also felt sorry for Chris. He was forced to witness Joe's madness, which was caused by him and "act dumb". Sadly, there was nothing that Chris could do for Joe. 

I liked it when Julia and Sheriff Patterson were trying to figure out what caused Joe to go mad. The audience and Chris, of course, knew what Joe was talking about. But it made no sense to Julia and the Sheriff. As I was watching, it made me feel like I was "in the know", and I was one of the "privileged few" who really knew what was going on. It gave me a feeling of power, which was rather satisfying. 

This was an excellent episode. Don Briscoe did an superb job, as well, playing the "supernatural brothers" and being so anguished over Joe's plight.

It was nice to hear the voice-over being done by the "current" Sheriff Patterson, a minor character. 

----- Sally -----

[MagnusTrask]

I wonder if when there's some big manhunt going on, all the Sheriff Pattersons are sent out to search the countryside.

[Gothick]

I just watched this last night on the DVD set (it came a couple of weeks ago) and am more impressed with it than ever.  Sooo deliriously Brechtian, and one of the shows that feels as if it echoes NYC avant garde theatre of the day (another one is the dream that Quentin has [spoiler]after he murders Jenny, when Magda comes in with her tambourine--always love that show because it's just so ... weird![/spoiler]

The revelation that Joe was mistaken in who he thought he was talking to in the mausoleum gave me a real fright the first time I saw it.  That sequence is worthy of something out of the 1940s Universal "house of monster" films.

The episode ending in one of the most bleak scenes ever seen in DS.  Fabulous work all around.

G.