Discuss - Ep #1145

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1145

[Lydia]

Oh, dear, I just wanted this episode to end.  Why am I supposed to be interested in the umpteenth "Good person is framed for witchcraft" storyline?  Somebody please tell me.  Why couldn't we have had the Java Queen story?  Why couldn't we have spent this episode watching Julia dying?  Even if Grayson Hall hadn't moved a muscle, she still would have made it more interesting than what we saw.

[MagnusTrask]

I suppose what I like about 1840 would be 1840 Barnabas, the Head, and Gabriel, and two out of three are gone now.   Ben too, but he's gone.  I'm not sure how much more the storyline has for me.   [spoiler](Barnabas and Lamar during the trial, that I like.)[/spoiler]   

I guess a 1692 prosecuting Trask would have been too much, or so they might have thought.   ***  Gerard says "okay"... if that comes from "Old Kinderhook" he's a little early.   I think Lamar's shorter than his relatives.   Does Q know why Sam's mad at Gerard?

Dead Lorna Bell gets around.   She's doing a whirlwind tour of everybody's dreams and visions.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I know we're not supposed to like Samantha - we're supposed to root for Quentin. And I do. But at the same time I love to watch Virginia Vestoff as Samantha. She is so great in the role, so I could watch Samantha scheme for hours on end and never get bored. And the way Trask was able to get her on his side so easily was fun to watch simply because he was saying exactly everything that Samantha wanted to hear. She lapped it up because she finally had someone on her side handing her ammunition to go tattling with to Father Collins to poison his mind against Quentin. Add 'Gerard' into the mix, and yes, it was entertaining to see everything fall into place for "the bad guys" against Quentin. At least for me...

Actually Samantha and Gabriel are not just two of my favorite characters, they're two of my all-time favorite DS characters because they're both so despicable (and when they share a scene, I'm in heaven) - but at the same time one can understand and even sympathize to a point due to the circumstances that made them that way. They're far from black and white, mustache twirling villains.

[DarkLady]

I'm with you, MB. I love Samantha and (to a lesser extent) Gerard and Gabriel. Certainly Sam isn't one-dimensional--she is unhappily married herself, and she didn't want to see Roxanne share her fate by marrying Lamar. Virginia Vestoff is wonderful.

The opening scene with Lamar and Gerard was hilarious.

Selby does a nice save with those pesky curtains, although I feel compelled to add that if Quentin has the leisure to design and build the Stairway through Time, he doesn't look so good compared with our industrious Elizabeth Collins Stoddard! But maybe it's his occupational therapy after roaming the jungles of Brazil, trying to get home.

Never mind horoscopes or yet another innocent accused of witchcraft, what bugs me about this ep. is that Gerard does his first dream-trick-thingy. Oy oy oy!

[Gothick]

Virginia Vestoff's performance as Samantha is outstanding.  She's almost the only really brilliant element in the 1840 muddle, although I would certainly agree that Gabriel represents Chris Pennock's best work on the series.  It's too bad 1841 PT Gabriel turned out to be such a weakly defined character.

It's too bad, too, that Storm and Vestoff's 1841 PT incarnations dropped out of sight after a couple of episodes... but we take what we can get...

G.

[DarkLady]

It's too bad, too, that Storm and Vestoff's 1841 PT incarnations dropped out of sight after a couple of episodes.

Yes--I did love VV's pretty green frock. It really set off her hair and complexion.

[Janet the Wicked]

I feel compelled to add that if Quentin has the leisure to design and build the Stairway through Time, he doesn't look so good compared with our industrious Elizabeth Collins Stoddard! But maybe it's his occupational therapy after roaming the jungles of Brazil, trying to get home.

Quentin does not strike me as the wood working type, but hey, at Collinwood, anything is possible.

[DarkLady]

Quentin does not strike me as the wood working type, but hey, at Collinwood, anything is possible.

But wait--he may very well be the wood-working type! Didn't he also build the Rose Cottage dollhouse for Carrie--presumably before he and Tad went to sea?

[MagnusTrask]

I love how the physical dimensions of the staircase are supposed to be key to the time travel, the idea being that if all the physical spaces and measurements asrte a certain way, it will transcend time....  so presumably Q1 is in there daily, sawing and sanding to get things just so... yet when he's done, what does it look like?   Not some oddly-shaped staircase no one's seen the like of before, but just some regular old staircase you see everywhere, with decorative wooden balls on the "pillars", whatever they're called.