Discuss - Ep #0744

[MagnusTrask]

[spoiler for #745 --admin]

now I'm not sure if the school fire where my VHS starts again is 734 or 736.  Anyway, more remarks on these ten ep's after that...

Barnabas must be keeping a checklist of all the women he's dressed up as Josette.   I picture him with a clipboard, checking them off.  I forget who else, but it was Jenny this time.... "Wouldn't you like to put on a nice dress and make yourself beautiful, Jenny?"   Too bad he couldn't I Ching a Poloroid camera back to 1897 with him...  As far as I know cameras don't have astral selves....

Jenny beans Magda, Madga falls down, but she puts her hand on her wig to keep it from falling off!

Jernny's thought process: Whatever thought occurs to her becomes total absolute reality instantly.   She could stop to think for a moment about how frightening a tornado or hurricane might be, say, and would in an instant be convinced that one's coming right now and is about to kill her.   That's a horrible way to exist.

[EmeraldRose]

I'm really angry with myself, because I had to write this post twice!   I inadvertently lost it the first time, when I wanted to check something in Robservations. I was posting on the bottom of Page 2, and I had to get to Page 1 to click on the Robservations link.  In the future, I'm going to copy my post into a document before I do that again. Oh, well... Live and learn...

It was delightful to watch Barnabas talking to Jenny like she was a child. He was very patient and gentle with her. I thought it was strange that Barnabas threw the knife into the fireplace, though. Knives don't burn, do they?

I like the way Quentin described to Judith what he would do about Jenny.  "I'll see to it that she leaves..." And then, after Judith asked him what he meant by that, he replied, "What do you think I mean, sister dear?" Great lines!

MW did an excellent job, as usual, with Jenny in this episode. Jenny was all over the place, emotionally. Sometimes in the past, sometimes in the present. It was cute when she treated Barnabas as if he were a bellhop. Sometimes, she was very scary, such as when she thrust the knife into the air and had that insane smile. Oooh! Other times, she was very childlike, and she was very pretty after she fixed herself up. One of the best lines on DS -- Jenny: "If she is in the mirror, then where am I?" When Jenny was afraid of her reflection, she seemed like a wild animal.

It's figures that Quentin would find the note, take the keys, and throw the note in the fire before Magda saw them. I'm not surprised that he would know where Josette's room was. I'm sure that he had loads of fun when he was a kid, exploring the Old House.

I thought the picture of the sunrise at the end of the show was gorgeous. There were no credits, just the screen that shows "Dan Curtis Productions". I guess the show ran too long.

----- Sally -----

[Midnite]

Sorry to hear you had to rewrite your post, Sally.  Instead of copying and pasting the text into a doc, you could try just copying it.  Then when you return to the post reply page, you could paste it back in if needed.  It's just a suggestion, but I'm all for saving time and extra steps.

[MagnusTrask]

My favorite moments are those where a character's individual and different point of view is explored and played around with.  The Jenny line, if she's in the mirror then where am I, was a nice one.   I like being called upon to try to live in Jenny's head.

I can't tell you the number of times when I've had posts that I've worked long and hard on obliterated by some quirk of the Internet, which is especially hard to take considering my eye and concentration problems... it's just too painful for the work to be wasted.    Still... usually now I find that when that happens, it seems to be for a reason.   There's usually something mis-spoken or not explained clearly enough in those posts, the first time around, and the snafu gives me a chance to fix things.

[EmeraldRose]

... usually now I find that when that happens, it seems to be for a reason. There's usually something misspoken or not explained clearly enough in those posts, the first time around, and the snafu gives me a chance to fix things.

I agree, Magnus. I often find that happens to me, too. Usually, the second time around, it's a better post.

Sorry to hear you had to rewrite your post, Sally. Instead of copying and pasting the text into a doc, you could try just copying it.  Then when you return to the post reply page, you could paste it back in if needed.

Thanks, Midnite. That's a good idea, except I wouldn't be able to copy something else in the meantime. That's what I did yesterday.

----- Sally -----

[Midnite]

You're welcome, Sally.  I didn't know you were doing any copying within the Robservation post, but in that case you'd probably have to get posts from different threads copied into your post first.  I would open a new tab in order to do some navigating before I'd open a text program, but that's me.

[dom]

That's what I do. I open a second (and sometimes a third or fourth) tab, I pull from there to paste into my original post or reply. It works really well for me.

[Taeylor Collins]

Personally, I just use a Word Processing program and type my review, and it saves as it's going.  Then when I have all the grammar and spelling correct, I copy and post! 

[EmeraldRose]

I sometimes open more tabs, too, Midnite and Dom. ... And yes, sometimes I've even typed my review on a "TextEdit" document, Taeylor. But I don't do it that way very often. It's a great idea, though. ... I like the convenience of the Quick Reply at the bottom of the posts, so I like the idea of opening more tabs. Yeah, that's what I'll continue to do. Thanks for all the input, everyone! 

----- Sally -----
 

[Pansity]

My favorite moments are those where a character's individual and different point of view is explored and played around with.  The Jenny line, if she's in the mirror then where am I, was a nice one.   I like being called upon to try to live in Jenny's head.

Me too, Magnus.  Love the character development moments; they're always great writing, and sometimes at their best they lift you up and make you look at a character in a completely new and different way.  Those moments of character revelation are key if you want to write fanfiction that people would want to seek out and read. 

I can't tell you the number of times when I've had posts that I've worked long and hard on obliterated by some quirk of the Internet....

LOL me too.  I had one like that recently, must have been a three screen post on an ep.  All I did was hit the wrong function key when I aimed for the shift key -- and there went the whole post.  I now do what Taeylor does and draft the long posts like episode comments in Word, then play with them with the forum open so I can work the comments on other comments into the post.  And I do with word what I do at work -- autosave every min and hit save after every change.

Glad your posts get better when you have to rewrite them.  it doesn't feel to me as if mine do.  I just KNOW I have stuff that was made more clear, details I got one time that I glossed over if I have to watch the ep again, etc. when I have to rewrite a long detailed post.

Jeannie

[Lydia]

Someone coughed (a common blooper) when Barney threw the knife in the fire!!   I think almost everyone smoked on that show.  It's seems people in general smoked more back in those days.  I guess people didn't know how bad it is for ya.

Usually when I notice somebody coughing, it's on a day when Grayson Hall's on the show.  Coincidence, I'm sure.  As for people not knowing how bad it was for them...they knew.  I don't know how many times my parents told me when I was growing up: "Don't EVER smoke cigarettes!"

I thought it was strange that Barnabas threw the knife into the fireplace, though. Knives don't burn, do they?

No, but it was a very effective way of saying to the madwoman, "Knife all gone."

Interesting choice in having Jenny go on about her father being a King in India

Yes, I started wondering[spoiler]about Magda's exact parentage.  When she's dealing with King Johnny I don't remember getting a feeling of her being of an important gypsy family.[/spoiler]

It seemed to me that when Jenny was in Josette's room, we got as close as we would get to a flashback to Quentin's and Jenny's newlywed days.  Then when Quentin came knocking on the door, it was as if two time periods were colliding.

[alwaysdavid]

I think the King of India reference was that gypsies originated from India, or it could be that being mad she may have had delusions of grandeur.  My great-aunt who lived in Fergus Falls MN would write to my grandmother telling of her tea's with the Queen of England.

[Midnite]

Oh my goodness re: your great aunt, alwaysdavid!

I agree with what you said.  It was probably another symptom of her schizophrenia.

[Pansity]

As for people not knowing how bad it was for them...they knew.  I don't know how many times my parents told me when I was growing up: "Don't EVER smoke cigarettes!"

I'm thinking it's something people suspected, but didn't really know till the early 60s.  But of course by that time a lot of people had been smoking for years, and were too hooked to realistically stop. In my family only my grandfather smoked, but I do remember my mother, when going out, taking cigarettes and saying she essentially nursed one all night on the same principal as social drinking.  Society saw it as something "cool" (think James Dean and Bogart) and one tended to do it to fit in.

Yes, I started wondering[spoiler]about Magda's exact parentage.  When she's dealing with King Johnny I don't remember getting a feeling of her being of an important gypsy family.[/spoiler]

The sense I got with [spoiler]King Johnny[/spoiler] was that Magda was dealing with him more as a supplicant.

It seemed to me that when Jenny was in Josette's room, we got as close as we would get to a flashback to Quentin's and Jenny's newlywed days.  Then when Quentin came knocking on the door, it was as if two time periods were colliding.

That makes a lot of sense.  We see Jenny the needy, insecure girl, married to someone we know is an immature, self centered, needy beneath the tough guy mask, boy.  Talk about a recipe for disaster, Jenny's madness notwithstanding.

Jeannie