Discuss - Ep #0753

[Watching Project]

Robservations #753

[alwaysdavid]

At the werewolf runs out we are able to see a person off to the right appearing to be waiting to go onstage in another scene.
I often wonder, who if anybody, was in charge of continuity.  They must have had someone checking scripts as they came in  since they had different writers assigned to them.   One would think that there would be some side effects to Barnabas' control over Charity. but there are none and one would think that Barnabas would have seen this as a perfect oppurtunity to keep an eye on Trask since he was so concerned with Trask on meeting him.  He could have at least ordered Charity to be kind to the children. 
Beth seems remarkably calm considering that her lover is cursed as a werewolf.

[Pansity]

Nancy Barrett voiceover, so we get to see Charity again.    And we pick up, not with the previous scene, but  a continuation of it.  We see Beth’s reaction, and meet our fuzzy (and short) friend for the first time.     (If you can be too short to be a stormtrooper, how come you can't be too short to be a Quentin?  )

Good thing for Beth he went for her with his hands first, and apparently had his nails IN.    Hmm made me think he was going for strangling – wonder if that’s a remnant of Quentin coming through?  Again, Beth seems to use her head, even when terrified.  She couldn’t get out the door, and went for the most realistic next shot – standing in the Pentagram.  Though collapsing into the chair afterwards WITHOUT shutting, much less locking, the door was NOT a bright thing to do.  I’m thinking lock the door and pile furniture on it, then stay in the pentagram all night – but that’s just ME.

Now we cut to Jamison in the Dickensian hellhole which is Worthington Hall.  And through Tim and Charity we learn that they also bury people as soon as it’s decent.  Dorcas is already buried by the next night after she was murdered.  It also seems, from their interaction, that Charity is really taken with Tim, but he’s not too eager to spend time with her. 

Charity is truly her father’s puppet,  believing everything he says and believing in everything he does.  She doesn’t hesitate a moment in punishing Jamison and turning Tim in.   Jamison, however, changes everyone’s plans completely.    Luckily he makes it past the roaming werewolf, and finds Beth, who believes him. 

Charity puts on quite a few airs for a modest and humble preacher’s daughter.  By sheer fluke I paused the disk at random to type up a thought.By chance it was a still of Beth,  and the look of sheer disdain that she gives Charity is quite interesting.   The antagonism between the two seems to come from nowhere, as I don't recall whether they had any interactions before, and if so what it was about. It makes me wonder if there’s some scene or scenes between them that were never shot -- or that we're to assume there were. Charity is very full of herself, giving orders to the help in someone else’s home.  It’s not her house,  Beth is apparently in charge until the family comes home (since the budget doesn’t cover the butler who would have been  there), so Charity is being extremely nervy telling Beth what they will do and where they will wait.  She'd probably have her own standign orders from whoever left her in charge, which probably didn't suit Charity's delusions of grandeur about being lady of the house.

Oops – Beth tells Charity she needs Edward’s permission to search.  Shouldn’t that be Judith, or did she put Edward in charge while she’s out. (And isn’t this the 2nd night in a row that Edward is out dining with Barnabas at the Old House?  That was what was said the first night Quentin wolfed out, too.  Even aside from that, I just love the mental image of Edward sitting there with Magda and Sandor as waitstaff.  If I was Edward, I’d invest in a food taster.  )

Smart move on Tim’s part, to use Charity’s looking like a fool to get her to leave. He knows exactly what happened, judging by his thanking Beth.  Rather creepy thought, though that WolfieQ is out there, and the French windows are wide open.  One half expects  the wolf to bounce through the window when Beth is looking out and calling for Jamison.

And right on cue, here’s WOOOLFIE, lurking around the house, as Beth goes out to find Jamison.  Again, got to give her points for guts.  She could stay inside and cower, but she’s willing to put herself at risk to keep Jamison safe.  She’s smart enough to find and bring a pistol, but she has no way of knowing that it won’t help unless she has silver bullets.  Nicely played when she sees the wolf on the rock, about to pounce.  Her hand is shaking as she holds the gun and she looks horrified.  She wants to shoot, but I’m betting it’s being Quentin is what’s stopping her. 

But will being the screaming damsel in distress bring any help in time?


Jeannie

[Midnite]

At the werewolf runs out we are able to see a person off to the right appearing to be waiting to go onstage in another scene.

LOL, I totally missed that until you pointed it out.  (Is it in Bloopers?)  From his clothes, I'm guessing stagehand.

I have a problem with a werewolf who turns doorknobs.

I often wonder, who if anybody, was in charge of continuity.  They must have had someone checking scripts as they came in  since they had different writers assigned to them.

That would be the head writer, who is responsible for the story outline.  But unfortunately, the behavior of vampire victims was never consistent.  And I couldn't agree more about Barnabas not taking better advantage of his connection with Charity.

One thing that was consistent-- the use of the same set for the House By the Sea (now the Trask school) that they had when it was seen in modern time in #298 (one of MB's screen grabs):

Re: Here is a new game, what room is this, and what else

(since the budget doesn’t cover the butler who would have been  there)

Wasn't Hanscomb the only butler that the family had in regular time?

And isn’t this the 2nd night in a row that Edward is out dining with Barnabas at the Old House?  That was what was said the first night Quentin wolfed out, too.

Edward was at the Old House (it was just after 10 p.m. when Charity phoned Collinwood) but we don't necessarily know he was there for dinner again.  LOL about the food taster.

[Pansity]

LOL, I totally missed that until you pointed it out.

I never spotted it either -- that was a great catch by alwaysdavid.

I have a problem with a werewolf who turns doorknobs.

  snicker! 

Wasn't Hanscomb the only butler that the family had in regular time?

Best I can remember he was the only mention.  Odd, too, since if the family had had servants and a butler in the 40's they sure would have had an Upstairs, Downstairs-like small army of servants in both time periods in the 1800s. Omitting a butler -- not even referring to one, even -- is really odd. A wealthy, old money family opening doors themselves would have been almost as much of a scandal as any of the ones they jumped through hoops to try and avoid.   

Jeannie

[MagnusTrask]

I have a problem with a werewolf who turns doorknobs.

Good point!   I imagine that regular Quentin sometimes has more trouble with doorknobs when blind drunk than he does as a werewolf! 

They absolutely have to have that army of servants no matter what the era or situation at Collinwood.   Gigantic houses have to be cleaned and maintained.   If all of them scurry away when the TV cameras appear, I suppose a valet or butler could too.

[Pansity]

Good point!   I imagine that regular Quentin sometimes has more trouble with doorknobs when blind drunk than he does as a werewolf!

    All too true!  We already saw he has problems with encounters with undomesticated hatstands.

They absolutely have to have that army of servants no matter what the era or situation at Collinwood.   Gigantic houses have to be cleaned and maintained.   If all of them scurry away when the TV cameras appear, I suppose a valet or butler could too.

Ah but how convenient would it have NOT been to have a butler lurking within range of that foyer?   

Jeannie

[Taeylor Collins]

VO:NB

In my notes I have, “what was that moving 'BEYOND THE DOOR' and this was the first time I had spotted that stage hand too.  GOOD CALL! 

Donald Briscoe looks cute as usual and Nancy is so pretty it's hard for her to look dowdy.  I do prefer her hair honey blonde though instead of that harsh platinum blonde it was during the beginning of the series.

On the subject of servants there seem to be very few instances that we see them.  I saw a maid in 1795 today, which I had forgotten about and almost fell out of my bed! LOL I know a lot of times is 1795 Joshua would scream at them and say something like “CONFOUNDED SERVANTS WHERE ARE THEY?”  They are nowhere JOSHUA as DC is too cheap to pay them! 

Not much to say on this one kids.

[Taeylor Collins]

I tried to get to this in time to modify.  I wasn't for sure if we are supposed to spoiler tag subjects about episodes that have preceded these.  I always figured if someone was watching this they had saw what has come before it.  If you need to tag my rant on 1795 Midnite or MB, please do.  Thanks!

[Pansity]

On the subject of servants there seem to be very few instances that we see them.  I saw a maid in 1795 today, which I had forgotten about and almost fell out of my bed! LOL I know a lot of times is 1795 Joshua would scream at them and say something like “CONFOUNDED SERVANTS WHERE ARE THEY?”  They are nowhere JOSHUA as DC is too cheap to pay them!   

 

But what gets me is you could use throwaway lines (like they did when Q told Jamison to wake up the servants) to imply there were servants we didn't see.  Wouldn't have been QUITE so obvious then that they were missing.

Jeannie

[EmeraldRose]

This was the first time we (and Beth) saw Quentin turn into a werewolf, and the first time a pentagram on the floor protected someone from a supernatural being.

I cheered when Jamison cleverly used the book of meditations on the chair so he could escape the closet! Brilliant! Also, it was smart of Tim to help Jamison in a sly way. I also was happy that Beth was helping Jamison, too. Loved it when Tim told Beth, "Thank you."

Great acting by Terrayne when she was around the Werewolf. Beth sure was brave to go out there to try to protect/find Jamison. That would have been horrible for Beth to know that the man she loved was also a dangerous, murderous Werewolf. (But I don't think she knew the name of what he was yet.) 

Too bad the Werewolf had to be so much shorter than Selby, and even Briscoe.

----- Sally -----

[alwaysdavid]

I've always had to assume that the werewolf shape doesn't necessarily correspond with the human form of the accursed, but that still does not explain the magically shrinking clothes and why does a werewold need clothes in the first place? maybe because a full blown wolf costume was too expensive.

[Taeylor Collins]

AD, too expensive would be my guess!

[dom]

Had anyone done the full-blown werewolf costume up to then? I don't know, but I don't think so. My guess is that it had never been conceptionalized. There's something iconic about the 'wolf' in man's clothing. Was An American Werewolf In London the first use of a full body werewolf?

[Lydia]

Tim is quite a bit smarter than I remember him being, and this adds some pleasing consistency to later developments.  But he should have gone to that funeral.  Even if he couldn't stand Dorcas Trilling, funerals should not be skipped.

When Tim told Jamison that Trask couldn't tolerate a smart and independent kid, I was thinking that Jamison's answer should be: "Aha! So I should lie and play dumb and pretend to knuckle under."  But that's not the Dark Shadows way.

I was glad to hear Jamison mention the cottage when he got to Collinwood; Laura's gone unnoticed for quite some time now.  Maybe she's moulting.

Barnabas certainly has been neglecting Charity's education.  Last time she was with Barnabas, she was raving on about love, but now she seems to have forgotten all that.  Maybe Angelique has something to do with it, although, if that's the case, I would like to have seen it happen.  Angelique did tell Barnabas to leave Charity alone, but that wouldn't have been enough to get him to lay off the sauce.  And why didn't Charity perk up when she heard that Edward was at the Old House?  I was expecting her to grab the excuse and sprint down there to see Barnabas.