I think it's a mixed bag. On the one hand you get things like Tom Jennings (pardon me while I drool), that creepy Leona Eltridge, the fabulous, glamorous, diVOON Marie Wallace, and let's not forget some marvelous Barnabas/Julia moments. Prof. Stokes has some great scenes, too, and Angelique is just so deliciously OUT THERE as a vampire. And presiding gloatingly over it all is the sinisters, insidious, devilishly smarmy Nicholas Blair, one of my fave characters in DS history!
On the other hand ... Liz is away, Roger barely exists, way too much Jeff & Vicki, and Adam gets reduced to the level of a Mafia hit man (I'm charitably assumign that the writers were simply baffled by what to do with his character). At this point I cringe whenever Adam or Jeff enters the scene--no, that's not quite true, at ANY point I cringe whenever a Roger Davis character is onscreen.
But to me, all of DS is like this. There are weak spots in all the major storylines IMO.
Gothick