Discuss - Ep #1186

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1186

FAREWELL, TERRY CRAWFORD!

Terry Crawford makes her final appearance on DS in this ep...

[MagnusTrask]

OVERLAP WITH PARALLEL TIME 1841

Bye, Grandmamama.  You died too soon.  I mean, you really died too soon...

Gabriel appears to be the good guy in his conversation with Gerard.   Edith: "I'm going to start living!"   Gabriel doubts it!   ****   Barnabas never introduced the idea to the court of someone framing Q1.  Why not?   

"Oh no, PT room?" -- I wrote in my notes, as Daphne hears mysterious piano playing.   Yes.  AAAA!!!!  Morgan!!!!  Morgan has a huge head.   He should be smarter.  But then I'm jumping ahead of myself (when in DS you're supposed to jump backward... or sideways).

[DarkLady]

Interestingly, the piano music Daphne hears from the PT room is Quentin's Theme. Sheesh.

When Edith arrives downstairs for her tryst with Gerard--what, right there in the drawing room?--she is greeted by supernatural disturbances: loud noises, lights that go on and off, etc. Has Daniel started his program of revenge by terrifying his daughter-in-law? Pennock certainly has fun chewing the scenery while killing her. Has he changed the course of history? What would have happened in 1897 without her?

Morgan does have a big head, but maybe because the writers decided to give him artistic talent. In Catherine's subsequent conversation with Parallel Daphne, PDaphne mentions Catherine's mysterious great romance. HE's been gone for five years, Catherine argues, but PDaphne insists there are rumors that he is coming back....

After finding Gabriel's empty wheelchair in Edith's room, Daphne races downstairs and finds Gabriel waiting for her in the drawing room--on his feet??? *shiver*

[Joeytrom]

To me, this is the episode where 1840 starts to fall apart, with Edith dying.

I didn't like that they introduced Parallel Time 1841 at this point (though they probably had to get the audience adjusted to the change) as it has an intrusive feeling while watching a several month storyline wind down.

1840 is the only time travel storyline where the ending overlaps with the beginning of the next storyline.

[Janet the Wicked]

Not a good verdict for Quentin, but I’m glad we don’t have to see Judge Vail again. At least I hope we don’t.

Love, love, love Gabriel. He’s sinister, he’s evil, sneaky and light on his feet.

Did you notice that bust upstairs in the window? What a place to put a statue. Every time the lightening flashed, it looked like a man was looking in the window. Creepy.

[DarkLady]

Isn't that the very same bit of statuary that Gerard tried to kill Julia with in 1995?

[Janet the Wicked]

It may very well be. It certainly was spooky.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The busts aren't the same.

[Lydia]

Hurrah!  We got our first look at parallel time 1841.  How we got there was sort of clunky, though:  Daphne heard piano music playing in the east wing.  Has nobody before heard piano music coming from the east wing?  Suddenly I'm wondering what sounds might have been heard from the east wing when parallel time Angelique was alive in the 1960s.

John Beal had a whale of a time delivering the verdict on Quentin.  Despite the fact that Charles Dawson (whom I continually want to call Nicholas Blair) delivered a superbly entertaining case, I find it hard to believe that the judges actually fell for it.  But then, we haven't heard a word from Judge Mustache and the third judge, whom I call in my mind Judge Scalpworthy, for no really compelling reason.  I suppose it's reasonable to suspect that Judah/Gerard made sure that judges were chosen who would be favorable to the prosecution.  It would be cheating, but that wouldn't bother Judah Zachery.

Daphne goes to Edith's room, sees Gabriel's empty wheelchair, and roams the house still calling for Edith.  That seemed a little odd to me.

I count nine actors in today's episode: Jonathan Frid, David Selby, John Beal, Kate Jackson, James Storm, Christopher Pennock, Terry Crawford, Lara Parker, and Keith Prentice.  That's not as many as there were in the very first episode, but it's still quite a lot for Dark Shadows.

[MagnusTrask]

Am I nutty, or is Bobblehead subject to wild mood swings?   Whichever side seemed to have just made a good point, he'd seem to throw himself into approving of that side in the case.   When Q1 managed to remember a reason to object to Dawson when defending himself, B would go, "Yes indeed, Mr. Collins, you are indeed correct!!!" or something.   It seemed ludicrous to me that this judge delivered his verdict SO vehemently and self-righteously, when things had been going back and forth so much during the trial.

[DarkLady]

Daphne goes to Edith's room, sees Gabriel's empty wheelchair, and roams the house still calling for Edith.  That seemed a little odd to me.

Even odder is the fact that she seems to have no idea of proper governess behavior. She should be calling for "Mrs. Collins," not "Edith." But then again, she committed the unpardonable breach of falling in love with her employer, who has just been convicted of witchcraft and been condemned to death. No wonder she's a bit addled.

[Gothick]

No matter what the events or how strenuously the writers attempt to convince one otherwise, the idea of a man being found guilty of practicing Witchcraft in a 19th century court of law is utterly and irretrievably preposterous.

But even worse than that is the proposed sentence, which was clearly outlawed by our constitution, no doubt supported by a number of legal statutes.

And that's all I have to say on the matter.

G.

[Lydia]

Gothick, is beheading indeed clearly outlawed by the Constitution?  I know that capital punishment is not clearly outlawed there.  As for beheading in particular, since the guillotine was, I believe, originally supposed to deliver relatively merciful death, I doubt that beheading would be outlawed even under the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

If you're thinking about witchcraft as a form of religion and therefore protected by First Amendment rights, I think that when it comes to killing people via witchcraft, the First Amendment might not apply.  And here's the thing that always catches my mind like cloth on a nail: in our world, it is understood that you cannot kill people with witchcraft, and therefore witchcraft trials are silly.  But in the Dark Shadows universe, we know that you can indeed kill people with witchcraft, and therefore a witchcraft trial is not in and of itself silly.  It's only silly when a Trask decides to get involved.

But I'm thrilled that you're posting in the Watching Project!