Discuss - Ep #0843

[Watching Project]

Robservations #843

[alwaysdavid]

The creation cannot talk?  What about Amanda?   She never mentioned being unable to talk. (Of course we know that it's because of cheapness on the  production side)  Beth wanting to work for Petofi came out the blue, but then I began to realize it was part of a plan which no doubt will be ill conceived and turn out badly.  It was great when Tate wanted to marry Amanda and she reveals she hates him.  Now he plans to kill the poor creation, who is much more interesting than Tate.  I knew this had to be a Violet Wells episode and it was when the credits rolled.

[MagnusTrask]

The creation cannot talk?  What about Amanda?   She never mentioned being unable to talk. (Of course we know that it's because of cheapness on the  production side) 

We do?   They just didn't want to pay an actor extra for speaking lines?   It's inconsistent with Amanda maybe, but we don't know a lot about what her first day was like.   The creation appearing in front of Tate and being mute makes far more sense than what we know of Amanda's story.  And it's a lot creepier.   I love it when the creation appears, in his nice suit because he was drawn that way, but a fully grown man moments after being born...   Isn't it great wondering what's going on inside that head?

[sheenasma]

The creation is more interesting than Amanda, who never shuts up.

[IluvBarnabas]

I don't think Beth's wanting to work for Petofi is that out-of-the-blue...she's angry and she's hurt over Quentin throwing her over for Angelique.  The angry part of her wants to hurt Quentin as badly as he hurt her. She knows what a pain in the neck Petofi can to Quentin, so she aligns herself with him.

Apart from the Beth/Petofi scene, I can't say this was a particularly interesting episode. I just can't get into the whole Amanda/Tate situation here.

[MagnusTrask]

I don't think Beth's wanting to work for Petofi is that out-of-the-blue...she's angry and she's hurt over Quentin throwing her over for Angelique.  The angry part of her wants to hurt Quentin as badly as he hurt her. She knows what a pain in the neck Petofi can to Quentin, so she aligns herself with him.

I just posted on this elsewhere.   It's like Tim and his revenge plan.   If what's most precious to you is pulled out from under you, you tend to snap, and say, the bad guys have it all, I'm in.   Then eventually you realize it's just not you, and can't be a bastard after all.   

Unless you can.   The real bastards must come from somewhere...

 

[Lydia]

When Amanda said, "I saw him create someone else!"  I thought that this was when Nicholas Blair should have appeared on the scene.  Could he have corrupted Tate's latest creation?  The guy looks sweet and innocent, but his experience of the world so far has been pretty uniformly unpleasant, so I think Nicholas wouldn't have had any trouble.

It seems unfair that the actor would have been paid less because he didn't speak: his face spoke volumes, even if his voice didn't.

When Tate told Amanda that she could feel, so she must be real, I thought about Julia's current status.  She can feel in 1897, but is she real?

Does Tim's abandonment of Amanda at Tate's studio mean he's given up on his plan of revenge?  Or is he prudently avoiding being seen too much in public with her?  And what is he planning to do with the manufactured man?  By the way, somebody should put a TV camera (transported from 1967) in Tate's studio to see how his creations appear.  Is it gradual - from translucent to opaque - or is it sudden?

I've always liked Amanda, but she's getting to me on this go-round.  Such shrillness!  And as she ran out the door of Tate's studio, I looked at her dress and thought, "That's an awful lot of pink."

[EmeraldRose]

Major Milestones:
1. Beth told Count Petofi that she wanted to work with him.
2. Petofi told Beth to use the I-Ching - She got the 23rd Hexagram (Po - the hexagram of falling) - All Beth saw was "shadows". Dark Shadows?  
3. Charles Delaware Tate's "creation" was mute and very frightened - Tim took him from Tate [spoiler]and then Tate "shot" the "creation" at the end of the episode.[/spoiler]

Tate's "creation" was very handsome.   I felt sorry for the poor guy. He was scared to death! Tate told Tim that he looked "all over the house", but Tim only opened one door and looked at Tate's sketch pad. Not a very thorough search! It looked weird when Tim was holding the gun to the side instead of straight, the way people usually hold guns. Looked rather wimpy to me.    Tate's "creation" had a huge role in the show, even though he did not speak. I think he deserved to get a credit at the end of the show.  That was a great look of fear on the "creation's" face when Tate pointed the gun at him.  

There was no Barnabas or Quentin in this episode!

----- Sally -----

[Midnite]

There was no Barnabas or Quentin in this episode!

And no Julia or Angelique, though I would've thought that Don Briscoe had the chops to carry the episode, but he didn't do it.  DB was way over the top in his scenes, Donna McKechnie was over-emoting and we see that annoying habit she has of facing the camera to scream or even while just conversing (this isn't Broadway, sweetie), and Roger Davis seemed to be doing his trademark ad libbing, and the end product was a terrible, awful, very bad mess.  The one bright spot was the dialogue between Petofi and Beth, which used the analogy of finding a new road after the first one has ended to beautifully spell out why she has suddenly turned to Petofi, which is why I anticipated seeing Violet Welles' name in the credits, though I suspect it's not for the same reason that alwaysdavid expected to see it (Reply #2).  

The I-Ching experience felt very rushed.  We don't see Beth walk through the door, and we don't see what she saw.  She then tells us there were shadows.  "Only shadows," she says.  Just shadows, really??!!!

The camera really ought to stop showing the actors turning over and rearranging the wands after they're tossed.  But why is Beth not getting a clue that there's a reason she threw the 23rd hexagram?

Like the previous ep, Thayer David got very close to an actress' face and delivered a p-word so strongly that it made her blink and blew her hair about.

How fortunate for Amanda that she was well out of Tate's reach when she first appeared.  Would she have been treated to the same manhandling and verbal abuse that he showed his male creation, who also got stuffed into a closet, kidnapped, pressed for information by Tim, and then threatened again?  Maybe to some degree.  It had the Barnabas/Julia method of child rearing written all over it.

Amanda to Tim:  "I saw that man unable to speak, trembling with fear, in a world where he doesn't belong-- I saw that creature and I saw myself."
Was Amanda admitting to having vague memories of being in the same sorry state when she was first created?

alwaysdavid and Lydia, has it ever been established that pay scale on DS was lower in the absence of any dialogue?  I hope it's not the impression I gave when I've talked before about the tendency to not put an actor's name in the credits for a non-speaking role.  I wasn't referring at all to wages.

Sally, I added spoiler tags to your final milestone.  It happens in the next ep.

[Lydia]

alwaysdavid and Lydia, has it ever been established that pay scale on DS was lower in the absence of any dialogue?  I hope it's not the impression I gave when I've talked before about the tendency to not put an actor's name in the credits for a non-speaking role.  I wasn't referring at all to wages.

I can't remember, but maybe I just assumed it was all about money because it so often was.

[EmeraldRose]

Sally, I added spoiler tags to your final milestone.  It happens in the next ep.

But Robservations says that it happened in THIS episode! Wait a minute... Oops, Robin was wrong!   I just checked again... Tate just pointed the gun at the Creation at the end of the show, and nothing else. Sorry I made a mistake. That's what happens when I take a while to post and watch multiple episodes.  Thanks for pointing out my mistake, Midnite.

----- Sally -----