Discuss: '91 Series - Ep #10

[Watching Project 2]

For those who may have missed it the first time around, here's the montage for Ep #10 that we created in the forum's VantageNet days to celebrate the '91 series' 10th Anniversary:

And here's the recap:

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<a href="http://www.dsboards.com/1991/Recap_10.swf" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.dsboards.com/1991/Recap_10.swf</a>

(To control the play of the video, right-click on it and use the controls.)

[/video]

(More to come...)

[michael c]

i liked the scene with victoria and josette at the jail.they really seemed like some sort of spiritual soul sisters.

i'll admit it.the scene where barnabas rises in the mausoleum for the first time as a vampire was chill inducing.he seemed simultaneously perplexed by his new state and also possessed by a lust for blood.well done.this series can rise above the camp standards it sometimes falls prey to and this scene illustrates that.

was the idea all along to make millicent as unsympathetic as possible so we wouldn't care when she bought the farm?

in the "present" barnabas has become rather suave so it's fascinating to see his first rise as a hissing,snarling animal.it's the character at it's basest.

the way millicent reacted to barnabas here was exactly the same way carolyn did when she saw barnabas as an old man in the present.
this whole scene...barnabas attacking millicent,his encounter with angelique and his shock at what he had become was very well done and packed alot of emotional punch.again the series sort of rising above it's own standards and becoming something better.

i don't know much about this kind of story but it seems to go without saying that if you are a cockney-accented,dockside prostitute you might as well have been born with an expiration date stamped onto your forehead.your rocking chair years will not be happening.but didn't barnabas just feed?

this character gave me a bit of deja vu.a character introduced out of nowhere for the distinct purpose of being instantly killed off...the white trash couple from episode one!

speaking of the white trash couple here we see barnabs's clumsy origins of attacking poor people five feet away from the door of a crowded saloon.it's disturbing to know that two hundred years hence he will be no more discreet.

i don't know the gentlemanly way that one dealt with crazy old spinsters in the eighteenth century but if were joshua collins i would have packed my sister off to a nuthouse long ago.

josette dodges a bullet but poor millicent.

the scene with joe and sheriff patterson was dumb.it only served the old cliche that small town law enforcement are a bunch of yokels who will drag their feet in "protocol" and the need for "evidence" while crimes continue unabated until some local yahoo takes matters into his own hands.

here we have a sheriff that actually know about vampires,has valid information about who that might be,and he huffs about propriety.the grand dame stuff about "what will elizabeth think?" was stupid.like this costume party throwing old lady needs to taken into consideration when uncovering a major crime.this might have made sense on paper but since they didn't bother to fill out the liz character or give her a storyline or even explain exactly what her family does in this town it really doesn't make sense.

the ending scene with josette succumbing to barnabas was a real shock.

[Lydia]

I woke up at 4am with my cat under the covers with me due to the cold.  I went downstairs and turned the heat up from 55 to 65.  I came back upstairs and put on a bathrobe and slippers and wrapped my Faux Suede Down Throw around me (a Down Throw is so much better than an Up Chuck!), settled down to watch Dark Shadows, and was confronted with wide expanses of cold, rugless floors.  Now that is horror!

I like the idea of two incarnations of the same person meeting up face to face.  "In saving you, I save myself."  A neat subject for contemplation.  But today I thought to myself: Imagine discovering that your previous incarnation was a tiresomely hysterical slut!  And then I thought: If you have actual proof that reincarnation is a fact, then it doesn't matter what happens.  You'll always come back.  You can be take a dive off of Widows Hill, you can be hanged as a witch, you can die in every possible way and a few impossible ways - you'll always come back.  I'm not sure how it works if we have global thermonuclear war and the earth becomes uninhabitable - but never mind, you'll come back.  But I suppose the details could be a problem.  Certain terms and conditions may apply.

I like Sheriff Patterson.  His accent sounds fake, but I like it anyway.  He can sit in his office all day smoking and doing nothing, and I'll still like him.  It was sort of fun in 1790 when Joshua said he didn't want to bring any outside people into the Collins family's latest problem, and the camera turned to André Dupres, Patterson's 1790 alter ego.

But why does Joshua want to keep everybody else out of it?  As far as he knew at that point, Barnabas was attacked by a wild animal and died.  Why is that so shameful?

[michael c]

OUCH!

lydia...i don't believe that i've ever heard of the deified josette collins referred to exactly as a "tiresomely hysterical slut".

you might receive some death threats...but it's still kind of funny.

[michael c]

i must say that i'm surprised at how badly this "watching project" has deteriorated...

it was first announced to great enthusiasm and yet this week the only two people who posted,lydia and myself,are not exactly "fans" in particular.

weren't there supposed to be lots of people here who "loved" this version of the show?

[KMR]

I'm one of the ones who love the 1991 DS, but unfortunately when the watching project started up, things got a lot busier in my life, and will likely be so until the end of January.     Maybe in February I can get more involved and revive the threads that might be dormant by then...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm also way, Way, WAY behind.    But I will catch up with posting my comments on the eps as well as some articles - probably while the other WP is on hiatus for the holidays.

[RachelDrummand]

I'm here and do apologize for my lengthy absence. I too have some catching up to do. Lately I've been doing other fan-related things like starting up (slowly) a role-playing game based on the revival. Anyway, episode 10 is one of my favorites because of that scene where Victoria and Josette are in the jail. I found it very sweet and again I love how in this version, Victoria is the reincarnation of Josette. It just opens the door to many possibilities.

I didn't really care about Millicent at all mainly because her character seems more for comic relief than anything else (the scene where she meets Jeremiah for instance) so it didn't upset me when she died.

To the person who thinks Josette is a hysterical slut - you're entitled to your opinion but I seriously don't think she is. Hysterical? Maybe a little but she was under a spell for goodness sakes! I also felt she had a reason to be hysterical. 1. She lost Jeremiah and was upset about that (under the spell) and then lost Barnabas after becoming reunited with again. I found it all very sad really.

[Gothick]

In the collage (or montage, or whatever it should be called), that's a wonderful shot of Julianna McCarthy as Abigail.  I loved her courtroom scene in that show.

Whenever I see the pictures of Ben with the contacts and the fangs in, it looks as if he's in extreme physical discomfort.  I've heard it said that wearing the contacts can make it feel as if you have saucers glued to your eyes.  Talk about suffering for your art!

The shot of Trask Thinnes here makes me wonder whether the vamp makeup on the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer may not have been inspired by Trask on this series.  Those eyebrows of his just seem to get more woolly and prehensile with each passing episode!

G.

[barnabasjr]

Hi, I'm one of the ones who said "I'm in!" but have found it somewhat difficult to chime in - in many cases the thoughts I've had have been more eloquently articulated by other posters who have a flair for writing.

I really loved this episode, and watching Joanna Going perform is truly like watching 2 different people. She really did a spectacular job!

I seem to be the only one who is not impressed with Barbara Blackburn. Someone pointed out how when she screamed (as Millicent), it was exactly the same as when she screamed at old Barnabas in the present. I noticed that, too. She just didn't do it for me as either Carolyn or Millicent. However, the scene where Barnabas attacks Millicent IS one of my favorites of the entire series. The music is so well done, here, and also in the scene when Barnabas retreats to the Old House cellar. I found it incredibly moving, and I thought Ben Cross was amazing.

I also seem to be one of the few who enjoyed Jim Fyfe as Willie/Ben. I think a lot of my appreciation has to do with just how different the actor is from his characters. I met him at a Fest and couldn't believe the total 180, as previously noted by MB with that clip that was posted earlier.

I'll try and do better with the posting. I really have enjoyed reading everyone else's posts. Thanks to all.

[Taeylor Collins]

I will resume my posting soon.  I am still recovering from traveling through three states in less than a week and the holidays...I am totally behind.   I will catch up as soon as  I can!

[Lydia]

I also seem to be one of the few who enjoyed Jim Fyfe as Willie/Ben.

No, barnabasjr, you're not the only one.  The Loomis boys seem to be the only ones with their feet on the ground sometimes.

[Philippe Cordier]

It's good to see that lively discussions have been going on over the past few weeks when I've been absent.  I'm a bit relieved to find that several others have also fallen behind in their intentions to contribute to this discussion.  I was enjoying the revival series, but other things began to take precedence.  In my case, I became involved in tracing some genealogical links that have proved to be beyond anything I ever hoped to find, and which no one going into genealogy can reasonably expect to find.  In going through some notes I had taken from a mailing list posting about a year ago, I noticed a reference to an article in German that was said to refer to one of my family lines in northeastern France.  I was able to obtain a copy of the article from a library in Mainz, and with translation help from a co-worker (as well as laboriously typing long segments of the article into online translators with mixed results), have learned that my earliest known ancestor, who is mentioned by name, was part of a line that has been traced back an additional 300 years. It's really almost too much to take in.

I had also set aside the 1991 series because I was getting ahead of myself, and instead began watching my DVDs of the 1995 and 1840 segment of the original series.  It's a little hard going back and forth between the two because they seem to evoke two different worlds and I'm unable to fully engage in both at the same time.

Hopefully I'll be able to post on the 1991 series again soon.  But as someone else has mentioned, much of what I have thought about the episodes has already been well stated here.

P.S. Hard to believe it's December already. The Christmas theme here came as surprise. Very nicely done but a little hard on my eyes. I put the posts in "print" mode and can read them better that way.

- Philippe

[RachelDrummand]

I seem to be the only one who is not impressed with Barbara Blackburn. Someone pointed out how when she screamed (as Millicent), it was exactly the same as when she screamed at old Barnabas in the present. I noticed that, too. She just didn't do it for me as either Carolyn or Millicent. However, the scene where Barnabas attacks Millicent IS one of my favorites of the entire series. The music is so well done, here, and also in the scene when Barnabas retreats to the Old House cellar. I found it incredibly moving, and I thought Ben Cross was amazing.

I also seem to be one of the few who enjoyed Jim Fyfe as Willie/Ben. I think a lot of my appreciation has to do with just how different the actor is from his characters. I met him at a Fest and couldn't believe the total 180, as previously noted by MB with that clip that was posted earlier.

You aren't the only one who doesn't care for Barbara Blackburn as Carolyn or Millicent. I think she was horribly miscast in both roles...and I also rather enjoy Jim Fyfe as Willie and Ben. A lot of original fans hate his portrayal because he's kind of there partially for comic relief I think but I really don't mind this at all.

[Gothick]

I liked Blackburn's *look* as Carolyn.  I know nothing about her career but I suspect a lot that people find irritating about her performance has to do with how she was directed.  I would say the same about Fyfe.  I personally find Willie very annoying.  Fyfe, from what I can recall, was allowed to bring more gravitas to the role of Ben and although Ben did not seem to get much to do, I liked him much better in that part than as Willie.

Given how extremely compressed the story was, some of Willie's odd antics in the later shows feel like padding out the show to achieve the required 45 minute running time, which seems very strange as they were trying to fit in so much in such a brief space of time.

G.