Discuss - Ep #0970

Robservations #970

You have a cheap, insufferable son-in-law, Roger!   There'll be pork in the treetops come morning!

Julia to Barn re PT room's look: "Was it modern?"  Good question, time travel's a possibility.

Roger: "Delight in your ignorance, Loomis!"  I like Roger under Megan's influence.   Anyway, I know MW was told Megan was being killed off and she took another job because of it.   Was that premature?  Might they have created PT Megan if she hadn't bolted?   And anyway... couldn't Julia have incapacitated Megan in her coffin with a cross, and then given her injections?

Barnabas: "LET ME IN!!!!!   LET ME IN!!!!!"   Good grief!

Julia to Barn re PT room's look: "Was it modern?"  Good question, time travel's a possibility.

Yes indeed, I like the possibilities there.

Roger wanders cluelessly through this episode like the Town Fool, and in the middle of it he tells Willie (as Magnus noted), "Delight in your ignorance!"  As he was being bitten by Megan, I was thinking it was surprising that he hadn't been bitten before by some vampire or other, because Roger has been clueless for a long, long time.  Barnabas has such a nice cousinly relationship with Roger that you'd think he might well want to deepen it by biting him - but then again, he might well not.

We're getting lots of pleasant, uneventful conversations between Julia and Elizabeth in order to emphasize the fact that the relationship between them is very different from the relationship between the Julia and Elizabeth in the parallel time room, and also to emphasize the fact that our own girls are both nice people.  I liked it when Elizabeth (our Elizabeth) said there were some people whom she would want to tell personally about Carolyn's marriage.

Julia said she was over at Eliot Stokes's house having dinner "last spring".  That would have been when Barnabas was in the I Ching trance in the basement of the Old House.  It's surprising that Julia would have left the Old House for pleasure under the circumstances, but maybe Stokes was firm with her and told her she needed to get away for an evening.

3/13/70

My notes are getting longer which means I am not bored anymore!

This seems very cutting edge for 1970 whatever these new developments may be!
 
JF looks really good.  He looks as if he has had a fresh haircut.  I have pointed out several times that I think Frid looks best with a nice neat tight hair cut.  He was so busy with events and appearances let alone the show I am sure it was hard to work in haircuts. 

Roger still acts as if Carolyn is a child and cannot make decision on her own. She was supposed to be 17ish when the showed started wasn't she?  So by this time or soon she should be turning 21?  Let it go Roger! 

This room is actually very beautiful and again kudos to the set designer Sy Thomasoff.  He did a wonderful job!

I too wrote in my notes Lydia that I guess Stokes and Julia didn't constantly watch Barnabas when he was in the I Ching trance!  Glad I am not the only one wondering about that.  Perhaps Willie returned to watch Barnabas and after he disappeared he was relieved of his duties!

“PARALLEL TIME!”  LOL  I just love how Grayson says that!  I am a Grayaholic!   

”Mr. Collins Barnabas don't confide in me!” Willie
“Well that's certainly understandable!” ROFLMAO  I love when they give Louis Edmonds barbs like this to throw at his costars. It's such a shame he wasn't used more in the latter years! Sigh…..

Julia is trying to hand out sedatives as usual.

Poor Willie! John Karlen is such an amazing actor!

I have to wonder if the writers planned on going anywhere with the Willie/Roxanne story or was it just a plot device!? 

Why didn't Barnabas flinch at Julia's cross??

“Any of the servants??”  What servants Elizabeth?  And when did they hire them.  Didn't she fire them all??
Did she say it's “cleaned every spring!”  If so then they need a new maid.  I wonder why a room in Collinwood serve as a portal to another time?

I like PT Julia looks!  Hmm….Angelique???

Why didn't Barnabas flinch at Julia's cross??

Maybe it was due to Julia's injections.

Also, Megan displayed more sensitivity to the light than I recall seeing in any other vampire on the show.  Is there a known rationalization for that?

Roger’s back. YAY!

Maybe Liz ought to consider renting out some of those rooms at Collinwood and make Mrs. Johnson really earn her keep. “Dinner for 43 tonight, Mrs. J. I know I can count on you.”
Bad tenant? Just move them into the PT room.

The bantering back and forth with Megan in the middle is like watching a tennis match with Megan as the battered ball. Julia and Barnabas will stop at nothing to try to right the so many wrongs they’ve inflicted on people. It’s evident here when they are going back and forth attempting to convince Megan that they can help her. Too little, too late. And it’s horribly painful watching them manipulate Willie. So why can’t Barnabas kill Megan? Is it absolutely necessary that a non-vampire do it? Couldn’t Barnabas cut her head off or something? Like the Life cereal commercial in the 70s - Let’s make Willie do it. Yeah Willie will do it, he’ll do anything.

Mmm…Willie.

Well, the staking does have to happen during the day.   I like how B&J discover Megan, then shift the subject to something totally unrelated to her vampirism.   That's a classic sort of DC moment to me.  In any other vampire story, the discoverers would quake in fear then get bit, but no, here they start grilling this creature of the night about something else they're curious about!   I like the line from Megan: "Why is she (Julia) questioning me?"   Perfect line for a slightly discombobulated new vampire momentarily deprived of the fearsome creature role!

All the Leviathan slaves forget the Leviathans when released?   Alright, I'll buy that.  but why does roger forget?  (Or does he just act as if he does with Liz?)   He was never a Leviathan... he should remember what Jeb was.

How can Barnabas be the one to kill Megan? He too has to sleep during the day.

Megan CHOSE to stay the way she is...why anyone would want to stay a bloodsucker is beyond my comprehension. Sure, you may stay young forever, but you would be vulnerable during the day, the threat of discovery and destruction would exist every day, not to mention having to suck on blood...but maybe Megan has taken to the drink of blood much like Sam Evans took to whisky.

Roger was such a snob to poor Willie. But damned if he wasn't funny. It was interesting to see Roger fall under the thrall of Megan. I wonder why he would tell Barnabas and Julia he saw Megan...or rather why didn't Megan tell Roger not to tell anyone he had met her in the woods?

Megan CHOSE to stay the way she is...why anyone would want to stay a bloodsucker is beyond my comprehension. Sure, you may stay young forever, but you would be vulnerable during the day, the threat of discovery and destruction would exist every day, not to mention having to suck on blood...but maybe Megan has taken to the drink of blood much like Sam Evans took to whisky.

I like the comparison.

Marie Wallace showed such enthusiasm in the roles of vampire victim and then vampire, following Megan's total immersion in the Leviathan world, that I feel that, although Megan started out as a nice ordinary woman, once she had been introduced into the world of the supernatural, there was no going back.  It would be as if a switch inside her had been turned on that could not be turned off, a switch that exists in very few people, and which would have made her perfect for the Leviathan cause.

Look, don't you think you're just a wee bit late in posting? I mean, after all... Wait a minute... I have ti kill a bug that just flew in.

Marie was a great Vampire, she did love it. Why do all the coffins look the same.

Are they stored in the basement, maybe the family got a good deal on them.

I would have been nice to see one of the metal ones used for the vampire.

Can you imagine the vampires building their own coffins. 

Can you imagine the vampires building their own coffins. 

With the manual spread out on the floor in front of them.... tab A into slot B.... looking out the window for sunlight every minute...

With a special built-in container for the essential bit of soil.

I wonder how many coffins they kept in the prop room.  How many different sizes did they have.  I still think that they were kept in the basement of Collinwood in the locked room. 

Roger to Liz:  "Marriages can be annulled."
Hey Roger, CAROLYN IS NOT YOUR DAUGHTER.

Now vampire Megan is wearing Liz's hand-me-down snake pin.

And we get a first mention of Parallel Time, and the first look at Angelique's portrait.

Julia to Barnabas:  "Suppose time is like a road and parallel to it there's another road. On one, we live the lives we know, but on the other road our lives are different because we're in a different time band and we've made different choices. For example, in that other band of time, I could have made a different choice when I was at college. Instead of being a doctor, I could have married and had children."
It's probably a good thing that I wasn't watching in 1970 because that would have made me, budding feminist that I was, throw something at my TV.  Shame on Sam Hall for basically saying that a woman's career and the choices concerning her personal life must be separate and distinct paths, and for making his wife (a strong, independent female character) utter that crap in front of the little girls that were watching.

Julia to Barn re PT room's look: "Was it modern?"  Good question, time travel's a possibility.

Or she wanted to rule out that it was a vintage photo?

Anyway, I know MW was told Megan was being killed off and she took another job because of it.   Was that premature?  Might they have created PT Megan if she hadn't bolted?

They did have another part for her and begged her to take it (perhaps to play Samantha Collins?), but Somerset had her under contract.  They had a part for her in HoDS too, but she needed more than the week's notice that Curtis gave her and subsequently, the scene was never filmed.  <sigh>

And anyway... couldn't Julia have incapacitated Megan in her coffin with a cross, and then given her injections?

Hmm, as someone who has had to give injections to uncooperative patients-- who fortunately for me were not vampires-- I'd guess no.

So why can’t Barnabas kill Megan? Is it absolutely necessary that a non-vampire do it? Couldn’t Barnabas cut her head off or something?

I totally understand why you'd ask that, considering all the verbal posturing that Barnabas was doing.  Please, Barn, you're going to be crashed out while your friends take on all the shame and assume all the risks.  There's no I must or we must about it.