Discuss - Ep #0904

Robservations #904

(Remember - beginning Monday the Watching Project will go on holidays hiatus and will return on January 4th.

The Watching Project is going on hiatus for the next three weeks.

)

Breaking for the holidays after this ep is perfect because it features what is perhaps the weirdest dream ever in the history of DS - and dissecting and discussing it could easily take three weeks just to attempt to try to figure it out. 

I know if I was Liz and I'd had that dream, I would have had the exact same reaction to it as she did - a look of what the hell was THAT about?!   

Frid VO, but in the Barnabas voice.   He doesn't always use it for VOs.

ECS telling Carolyn to stop working at the shop-- I hate it in shows when someone just "has a feeling" this or that is wrong, especially when they're right.   It seems like sloppy writing.

Carolyn says David's a "small boy", but he's taller than Carolyn isn't he?   I like David's yellow-orange shirt.   I noticed again while ECS was in bed that Joan Bennett with lipstick looks like a little girl who's just eaten a cherry popsicle.

Don't know what to say about the dream.   I guess it came from Barnabas's masters since he sent her to bed.... was the fact that ECS was smiling at the creepiness by the end mean that they were attempting to prepare her to like the creepy Leviathans (after seeing the Book and starting to be controlled)?   If so it didn't work.

"Unknown Man: David Selby" in end credits... thanks so much for preserving that secret; who could it possibly be?!    I like the two puppets in the end credits, gesticulating endlessly to no one.

ECS telling Carolyn to stop working at the shop-- I hate it in shows when someone just "has a feeling" this or that is wrong, especially when they're right.   It seems like sloppy writing.

As a general rule I agree with you, Magnus, but in this case it makes sense to me.  Elizabeth has seen enough to think there's something strange about the antique shop, but she can't put make head or tail of it - so "just a feeling" works.  At least she's quicker on the uptake than Carolyn, who sticks by Megan through thick and thin.  I think I want Carolyn for my best friend.  I've never liked her much, but once she's on your side, that's it, you can do anything and she'll back you up.  Where did she learn that kind of loyalty?

Elizabeth performed quite an investigation on David's actions, going to Brewster's and getting Miss Templeton to show her the record of the purchase that David made.  I wonder what Liz thinks he's getting involved in.

So our task for the next three weeks is to figure out that dream of Liz's?  Or anyway, to attempt to try to figure it out.  The task would be based on the assumption that the dream makes sense.  Well, maybe it does, but so far I'm not seeing it.  My first question is: who, in the Dark Shadows universe, orchestrated the dream?  Barnabas makes it clear that he knows Elizabeth will have a dream of significance, but I doubt that he created it.  Did the spirits of Oberon and Haza do the job?  Or did the jovial Mr. Strack send the funhouse to Elizabeth?  There's lots of laughter among the Leviathan crowd - Barnabas at the Blue Whale the other day, Mr. Strack at the Blue Whale 20 years ago, and now the people in Elizabeth's dream - but it's all pretty nasty laughter.

Were the puppets an indication that David and Barnabas were puppets too?  Or did the Dark Shadows people just like using puppets?  There were puppets in Jamison's dream about 1969.

Why, in her dream, did Elizabeth give in and laugh - or, on the flip side, why did she hold out for so long?

By the way, Barnabas's suggestion to Elizabeth that she empty her mind of all her problems and think only of herself is not one that I could take, if I were in Elizabeth's shoes.  That sort of thing is hard to do.  It seemed to be the necessary preliminary to having the dream, though, so somehow Liz must have managed it.

I found the poem from which Carolyn was quoting, though I'm not sure I found the definitive version.  It may be by Thomas Ford, but that wasn't clear.  I don't understand the third verse, but Carolyn didn't quote it, so it doesn't matter.


There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I'll love her till I die.

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I'll love her till I die.

Cupid is winged and he doth range,
Her country, so, my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet, I will love her till I die.

I agree....the dream is beyond crazy! However, I think that David H does some of his best acting in the dream. He is completely convincing and acts like a raving maniac with his laughing.  The kid had it alas it was not what he wanted to do with his life.  Oh well....

At the beginning, what's the thing that Carolyn put in the window?

Liz's hairdo looks like a helmet-- so stiff and round.  I swear that huge flip could take out somebody's eye.

Were the puppets an indication that David and Barnabas were puppets too?  Or did the Dark Shadows people just like using puppets?  There were puppets in Jamison's dream about 1969.

Or Violet Welles likes puppets, since she's responsible for both dreams.

Thanks for the text of the poem, Lydia.  Couldn't they find a love poem about a man instead of changing "her" to "him" in an established poem?

Why, in her dream, did Elizabeth give in and laugh - or, on the flip side, why did she hold out for so long?

There's a line by Barnabas to David before it that I never noticed before this viewing:  "Your Aunt Elizabeth has a way of taking things very seriously, doesn't she?"  So I guess the dream sets out to make her lighten up, and it takes 3 funhouse mirrors and a silly rhyme (the version I remember from childhood is fat and skinny went to bed, fat rolled over, now skinny's dead... ahem, sorry) before Liz was able to relax, enjoy herself, and even laugh.

"Unknown Man: David Selby" in end credits... thanks so much for preserving that secret; who could it possibly be?!

I'll forgive them this one time since we get a quick look at Selby's face at the end.  At least they didn't give away the name of his character, and kept the audience guessing.

Did anyone notice that the unknown man wore a watch?  Snort.

I know if I was Liz and I'd had that dream, I would have had the exact same reaction to it as she did - a look of what the hell was THAT about?!    

LOL, MB!  Love your dream montage.

No ABC logo? 

Did anyone notice that the unknown man wore a watch?  Snort.

Really? I don't think I've ever noticed. The shots of the watch must have been too subtle.

 

No ABC logo? 

I'd forgotten all about that.    And it didn't show up in any of the captures.

I'd forgotten all about that.    And it didn't show up in any of the captures.

It's probably just as well.  In his published review, David Hofstede not only blasts the dream as DS's worst moment, he also calls it "technically inept" because of that logo.  But actually, I find surprising that it showed up only once during a segment in which the main character is asked to repeatedly stare into a mirror.  And considering how often cameras and stagehands wandered into shots, by his standards wouldn't the entire series be technically inept?

The dream is crazy and weird, but I don't hate it and can think of far worse moments.

In his published review, David Hofstede not only blasts the dream as DS's worst moment, he also calls it "technically inept" because of that logo.

Really? Wow. ... REALLY?? ... I can't get over that.

I don't have any of his reviews - but if that's an example of what he has to say, I suspect he and I would disagree a lot of the time...

considering how often cameras and stagehands wandered into shots, by his standards wouldn't the entire series be technically inept?

Undoubtedly. 

Have to agree with Lydia on how devoted Carolyn is to a friend...even to one she hasn't known for very long.

With Vicki and to a lesser degree, with Maggie it makes more sense since Carolyn has known Maggie for a long time and knew Vicki for at least a couple of years. She's barely known Megan a month and yet she can't smell that something may be odd.

The dream was freaky, but I wouldn't say it was one of the show's worst moments either. Actually, I thought it was kind of neat. It was spooky yet amusing at the same time. I can only imagine how Roger would have responded to such a dream if the Leviathans had ever seen fit to 'enlist' him....

I just pictured Roger sitting bolt upright in bed and exclaiming, "Why, I've never seen anything so preposterous in all my life!!"

LOL Magnus! Roger to the tee!

LOL, Magnus! That would indeed be SO like Roger!