"Cutest couple ever" or not?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

markallen's posterous: Willie Loomis & Barnabas Collins from DARK SHADOWS season one, omg cutest couple ever!!!

Many in fandom have said they are. 

(And how wild would it be if this is the same Mark Allen who originally played Sam Evans? Though I doubt it. And he may have already passed away...)

[Gothick]

I thought this was a hoot--great shot to choose for that headline.

Thanks for sharing the link, MB.

G.

[michael c]

frid and karlen did have a chemistry that first year that was never quite matched.

later on grayson hall sort of steals some of karlen's thunder as barnabas' sidekick and once they make barnabas "nice" the relationship's not as much fun.

willie and jason mcquire made a great "couple" too. great chemistry between karlen and dennis patrick.

[Nightfall59]

JF and JK had an interesting and intriguing chemistry right from the start. Barnabas and Willie clips at youtube often include comments from people laughing at how they bicker like an old married couple. lol

It is rather amusing how Vampire Barnabas had enough power over Willie in the early days to stop him from running away, ratting him out, or staking him while he slept, yet he never did much about Willie arguing with him. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed having someone to at least try to argue him down from the precipice of disaster?

[michael c]

if i may go off on something of a tangent so much of what made the show work(or not work)was the chemistry between the actors involved.

for example in this viewers opinion jonathan frid had it IN SPADES with lara parker and grayson hall. yet despite josette being barnabas' "great love" i never found him to have it with kathryn leigh scott. on the same note he didn't have it with donna wadrey as roxanne either.

but again he had it with alexandra,nancy and joan.

scott for her part had nice chemistry going not with frid but with joel crothers(obviously),david ford and john karlen. for this reason a maggie/willie romance seems to be a fan favorite even though that never quite came to fruition on the show itself even though it was suggested. those two actors played so well off each other. apart from everthing else i never bought for a second the maggie/nicholas pairing because there was zero chemistry with astredo.

the nice interplay between joan and alexandra would also play a part in the fan's favoring of the liz-as-vicki's-mother theory as much as anything else.

for what it's worth despite their being partnered up as the show's marketable "antiheros" in later years i never cared for scenes between frid and david selby either.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It is rather amusing how Vampire Barnabas had enough power over Willie in the early days to stop him from running away, ratting him out, or staking him while he slept, yet he never did much about Willie arguing with him. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed having someone to at least try to argue him down from the precipice of disaster?

If only Barn had actually listened to Willie (and Julia) and taken his (her) advice. But that would have required him to consider the possibility that an opinion other than his own could be valid.   

And I don't know how much he enjoyed being argued with, considering that he often violently/physically lashed out when Willie (and Julia) disagreed with him. Though what he might have been enjoying was being provoked to physical violence because he seemed to love to threaten Willie and he certainly attempted to strangle Julia often enough. 

[Nightfall59]

Maybe physical violence is just the way vampires show affection for their BFF? I just finished re-watching the 1795 story again, and I've lost track of the number of times Barnabas has his hands around Ben Stokes' throat after he's cursed. You will do as I say! THROTTLE! THROTTLE! THROTTLE!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Maybe physical violence is just the way vampires show affection for their BFF?

If so, heaven help their BFFs! 

And poor Ben. He might actually get it worse than Julia...

[Lydia]

It is rather amusing how Vampire Barnabas had enough power over Willie in the early days to stop him from running away, ratting him out, or staking him while he slept, yet he never did much about Willie arguing with him. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed having someone to at least try to argue him down from the precipice of disaster?

On Dark Shadows it appears that you have to keep on biting somebody fairly frequently to maintain power.  Perhaps Barnabas, as a heterosexual, sweet-young-thing-loving vampire, bit Willie the bare minimum of times to keep him under control but couldn't bring himself to go the extra mile (or quart) to keep Willie from arguing with him.

[Miss_Winthrop]

I think that in the long run, Barnabas tolerated Willie's arguing for the purpose of him(Willie)  remaining useful to him.  Barnabas was all about using people to his benefit (not such a bad thing in his case since his very survival depended upon it). 

[IluvBarnabas]

if i may go off on something of a tangent so much of what made the show work(or not work)was the chemistry between the actors involved.


for what it's worth despite their being partnered up as the show's marketable "antiheros" in later years i never cared for scenes between frid and david selby either.

Really? I absolutely adored any scene between Barnabas and Quentin, 1897, 1840 or present time. I felt that those two had a real great chemistry between them, whether they were friends or adversaries, same with Barnabas and Julia. No matter what the circumstances they just clicked well together.

I agree that the chemistry or non-chemistry existing between actors depended on the actors themselves. James Hall the original Willie, played the creep brilliantly, but to me he never clicked in well with Dennis Patrick. John Karlen did.
John's Willie I could see Jason having somewhat a bit of a leash on....I could never imagine how Jason and Hall's Willie ever got together without eventually killing each other.

I loved Alexandra and Kathryn's scenes together as Vicki and Maggie, their friendship was completely believable due to the fact, well they just clicked together. However, once Betsy Durkin took over the role of Vicki, the Vicki/Maggie relationship lost its appeal, at least for me. I always felt that Betsy did simply did not have that special connection with Kathryn or with any of the other actors that Alexandra did. No disrepect to her, as I hear she is a very nice lady in real life, but in my humble opinion, Betsy simply did not fit in the Dark Shadows universe.

There are many other examples I could cite but I won't go into them now. I will just finish by saying that chemistry between actors as well as the writing does play a large part on how well a story can turn out.