Would The Audience Have Accepted AM As An Evil Character? (Was Leviiathon question)

[Lydia]

If AM could only play Vicky, then would they have sent her to 1897 instead of Barnabas?

If that had happened, would Jonathan Frid have played a fifth Collins sibling?  Or would Barnabas have followed Vicky to 1897?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The more I think about it, given her pregnancy and DC's attitude, if AM had remained with the show, it really would have been likely that she would have sat out the 1897 storyline on maternity leave and then returned for Leviathans. Though that still leaves open the questions of what would have happened when it came to 1970PT, 1840/41, and 1841PT? But then, had AM remained with the show, who even knows if those storylines would have taken place because they may have written the show very differently with AM still a part of it. Leviathans may not have even taken place.

[Uncle Roger]

Perhaps, like David Selby, she would have appeared in the different story lines as a marginally different character with the same name. He was always Quentin; she would always be Victoria.

[MagnusTrask]

If AM could only play Vicky, then would they have sent her to 1897 instead of Barnabas?

If that had happened, would Jonathan Frid have played a fifth Collins sibling?  Or would Barnabas have followed Vicky to 1897?

I imagine that purely-of-1897 Barnabas would have been freed, as in 1840.

[IluvBarnabas]

DC really didn't have any way of knowing whether or not the audience would have accepted Alexandra as anyone but sweet Vicki Winters. The audiences of that time might have just have been grateful to have seen her again at all.

I think Alexandra would have been great playing a more darker, if not totally villainous, character had she been given the chance. I say DC was being unreasonable not giving her the opportunity at least. He did so with Joel Crothers and the other actors as already mentioned. There was no reason he couldn't have done so with her as well.

[MagnusTrask]

The ridiculous thing about all this is that DS used as a basic premise for a storyline (or two) the idea of intriguing the audience with opposite versions of familiar characters, with PT.   Of course viewers are ready to see the actors play very different characters.   Why on Earth would A Moltke be a special case?

The audience may THINK it knows what it wants, but it doesn't.   They never would have known they wanted DS, until people decided to make it and broadcast it.   You just worry about doing a good, surprising, inventive show.   Do a show according to what viewers think they want, and you'll have no creativity and no surprises.