Discuss - Ep #0345

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #345

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0345

[DarkLady]

Even though I don't think much of Burke Lite, this point in the story is always so sad. Poor Vicki.

The other big event is that Barnabas tells Julia the story of how he lost Josette. Barnabas orders Julia to get her coat. Still treating her like a servant, he doesn't help her into it. But when they get to Widows Hill, he seems to be hoping that Josette's ghost will reach out to him.

It is interesting that Barnabas adheres to the original story line, with Josette married to the much older Jeremiah when her eye wanders toward Barnabas. Very, very soon all this will be ditched in favor of the story that is familiar to us all today, but it might have been interesting to see how the original would have played out.

When Vicki arrives at the cliff and Barnabas dismisses (the only word for it) Julia, Vicki thanks him for being such a good friend. Well, I try to be to those who mean a great deal to me, he answers, lowering his eyes with (for now, anyway) uncharacteristic modesty.

[dom]

I remember some debate over whether or not Barnabas caused Burke's plane to crash but at this point he seems to be totally innocent of that crime. I can't remember if something changes in the storyline that might lead us to believe differently. It will be interesting to keep an eye out for that development if it does exist.

I enjoyed Grayson's Julia challenging Frid's Barnabas' romanticizing of his relationship with Josette, asking if Josette ever came to him *willingly*, etc., on both the acting and storyline levels. 

Yeah, DarkLady, dismisses is *the* word all right, it made me laugh out loud, especially Barn using *my dear* in his brush off.

I expected to be moved by the events in this episode, but, well, honestly, I pretty much felt nothing. Most of the acting was subpar, IMO. I couldn't even summon up the muster to start the topic. Maybe, it was a case of *Friday burn out* on my part. The unintentional comic relief was the only thing I really enjoyed.

[dom]

Oh, I meant to ask, is Barn's telling of the Josette story in this episode jibing with the first telling from the earlier episode where he tells the story to Carolyn and Vicki in Collinwood's drawing room during the big lights-out storm scene? (Am I remembering that correctly?)

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yes, it all jibes with the backstory for Barnabas that Art Wallace came up with.

[spoiler]I've always thought it was a brilliant stroke on the writers' parts to have Joshua supplant the truth with his own version of events and to have them laid down as the "facts". But even at that it doesn't explain away why Barnabas was so off about his own life. Though, of course, DC believed the audience would have completely forgotten about what was said about the events of the past, and probably even who said what, so he thought he could easily get away with the radical changes made in the 1795/96 storyline.  [/spoiler]

[Joeytrom]

Barnabas may have been going over his past constantly in the chained coffin where it got to the point of insanity and he started to believe a different version happened, until Vicky returned to the present.

[spoiler]Even then he still remembered Phyllis Wick[/spoiler]

[MagnusTrask]

[spoiler]Even then he still remembered Phyllis Wick[/spoiler]

[spoiler]For awhile... later he comes to remember Vicki in 1795![/spoiler]

[alwaysdavid]

Mrs. j hears the plane hs gone down. Why they would be reporting on a flight into the wilds of South Am. In a remote Maine town seems odd.  Barnabas feels Julia sees Josette as a rival.  There're is lots of talk about the starless, moonless night.  It adds to the atmosphere of doom. Joan has a hard time with her lines. I like the original Josette storyline. It would have been interesting to see it played out. The copyright is now 1967. Apparently they figured this out sometime during the strike.

[DarkLady]

I've always assumed that Mrs. Johnson had a little radio in the kitchen, and that she heard a news bulletin that interrupted her favorite listening (probably from the 1940s?). Plane crashes were big news then as now--maybe even bigger than now, because the Brazilian jungle was even more remote in those days.

[Roland]

The "groovy" pattern on Liz's dress reminded me of that joke wall on "Laugh-In." 

Barnabas is really a pretty disreputable opportunist at this point. He moves in on the newly grieving Vicki with lightning speed. I kind of wish that he would have said something like, "Excuse me, but what is this 'plane' you all keep talking about?" but, I guess, by this time, he had become fairly familiar with the technological products of the modern world.

I laughed at his snide, dismissive comment to Julia early on in the episode, implying that public demand for her journals might turn out to be slightly less than she imagines.

[dom]

I am entertained by (and I miss) the snide remarks and general bantering of the earlier years.

I suppose it would be easy to establish that once Liz started getting out of the house and off the grounds - her wardrobe was updated, though I might be wrong.

Barn was so unlikable, I just don't understand why he was swooned over en masse. When I starting watching Barn was more or less a hero. This was during the Petofi arc. When I saw the beginning I was shocked and appalled by the character.

I don't remember if Barn was ever heartbroken FOR Vicki during this time, but I would have expected it.

[MagnusTrask]

I was bordering-on-appalled, dom, when I finally saw 1968 (as an adult anyway, and I don't remember it from childhood), after being familiar with both 1967 and 1897, and finding the writers making a gradual transition for Barnabas, between villain and hero, expecting us just to shift our attitude gradually.  I mean, there were no huge life-changing transformational moments.  It's as if they expected our attitude toward him to morph into a positive one, for no particular reason.  I'm sure they expected this partly because of the huge fan base Jonathan had acquired.  Plus, we'd seen innocent Barnabas in 1795.