Very, very interesting. 1840 Barnabas goes to Josette's portrait and tells her that he's finished with her because she's dead (which is a pretty paltry excuse for a brush-off in the Dark Shadows universe, but never mind), and he's moving on. I suppose he had the same idea in 1967, until he saw Josette's spit and image in Maggie and immediately planned to kidnap and brainwash her. All very well and good, and now he's free to chase the presumably still-human Roxanne if he comes across her in 1840 and likes the look of her, or anyway of her chest. But I keep hearing that the original idea was for Kathryn Leigh Scott to play Samantha. If 1840 Barnabas had seen Josette's spit and image in Samantha, what would he have done then? Of course, the writers brought Roxanne into the picture only because they knew Kathryn Leigh Scott was not long for the Dark Shadows universe, so if KLS had stuck around, things would have been different for Barnabas with Roxanne. But it's still sort of interesting trying to juggle Barnabas and KLS/Samantha and Roxanne.
And another thing. Ben Stokes is worried because Mr. Pettibone is making the connection between the attacks in 1795 and the current attacks. But the timing of the beginning and end of the 1795 attacks was such that it was easy to conclude that the witch - either Victoria Winters or Phyllis Wick - was responsible for them. Now the attacks have started again, and look! there's another new woman in town, a woman who claims to be a Collins cousin named Julia but who has nothing to prove it. Somebody's going to start wondering if the strange redheaded lady is a witch. And of course Gerard will be very amused, and may even encourage the speculation of the townspeople, because he knows that the earring found in the playroom belongs to Julia, who, less nimble than Barnabas was in 1897, didn't make any serious attempt to deny ownership; she just said, "So prove it already."
They got eight characters out of six actors today. Nine, if you count 1840 Barnabas and 1970 Barnabas as two different characters. It's a tough call. Either way, however, I enjoyed seeing both Ben Stokes and his descendant Timothy Eliot Stokes in the same episode. Meanwhile, Barnabas needs to have a long talk with another Thayer David character, Count Petofi, who could tell him about how dangerous I Ching can be, illustrating the point with the story of the woman whom I Ching turned into a skeleton. Not that Barnabas would listen, of course. And he would be right not to listen, because clearly I Ching (whatever it is) adores Barnabas and just rolls over and wags its tail whenever he comes near. But Barnabas shouldn't take it for granted. He should keep in mind that I Ching has teeth as well as a tail. Or something.
