Discuss - Ep #0411

[Watching Project]

Robservations #411

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0411

[dom]

Barnabas is one pissed off dead man! Nice angry acting on Frid's part. Great makeup to 'show' the change. Ding dong the witch is dead. And a well deserved death it is.

Barn with Ben -- fantastic. Love the new dynamics between the men. Ben convinces Barn to trust him with his secret. I absolutely loved that Ben approached Barnabas face to face instead of cowering or running in fear. I know I am making too much of it but it was a beautiful act of faith and friendship.

LOL, poor Ben is always in Joshua's path and getting chewed out and accused of wrongdoing. Great acting as usual between Edmonds & David.

Barnabas looks downright creepy with the blood on his lips, chin, neck and clothes. I can't remember ever seeing that before this episode. And again, Thayer David floors me, in this scene when he gets near hysterical with the knowledge that Barn needs to drink the blood of living humans to survive. I got choked up. Another engrossing episode superbly acted. I am actually starting to like this story-line.

[MagnusTrask]

Barn with Ben -- fantastic. Love the new dynamics between the men. Ben convinces Barn to trust him with his secret. I absolutely loved that Ben approached Barnabas face to face instead of cowering or running in fear. I know I am making too much of it but it was a beautiful act of faith and friendship.

Not making too much of it at all, though you may be thinking it wasn't so pre-meditated and don't think we should give them credit.  Since it's so good an episode, I don't think any good drama here is accidental.

Welcome back, Barnabas!   There's a crouching,  visible stagehand with them in the crypt...  What a fast, powerful, efficient strangler Barnabas now is.   In my first adult viewing, I remember being fairly stunned that Ang was actually killed, and that abruptly, and with her corpse being shown in close-up with eyes open, something I thought I remembered never seeing on TV in the 60s.


Great acting from Mr. Frid, which he clearly put thought into ahead of time.   He's not innocent, living Barbabas nor is he half-insane, twisted wretch Barnabas in 1967.   Great "new vampire" voice.  If there was also a "new vampire" smell, this was left to our imaginations.

I think Joshua forgot all about what had precipitated Ben's flight, the nonsense about Abigail and her ribbon, what with everything that had just happened, and was far too embarrassed to admit to it, and so just re-instituted Ben as involuntary employee of his.

I must say, excellent appearance out of thin air by Mr. Frid, in front of Ben later.  He must have been practicing.   I can't believe that that effect actually worked and was credible, this one time.   B: "I learned that I cannot survive without blood."  Big news flash, Barnabas... tell that to the doctors of the time, dirty bleeders....   One of the major DS scenes, Barnabas with blood all over his face, in shock... that part was inspired.   He was too overwhelmed to clean it off.   He was like a traumatized car accident victim, only he'd had to cause the horror.   I was also very surprised by this when viewing it for the first time as an adult, because I remembered a vampire with a bloody face being something we never saw before the 70s, perhaps in Hammer films.

[DarkLady]

What can I add? This is one of THE best episodes ever, in some ways the grand climax of the entire series. The scene with Barn and Angelique is absolutely riveting, first as he acts with horrifying strength and speed to seize her. Then, with relentless and implacable logic, he works out for himself almost everything that has happened to him--and the ultimate result for Angelique, whose pitiless creation strangles her quickly with only one hand. I was truly jolted the first time I saw this, and the later scene where Ben finds her in Barn's coffin, her eyes staring up sightlessly.

Fantastic job by JF, who, yes, clearly thought ahead about these scenes. Once the 1795 storyline got started, he must have known that some moment like this would come, even if he didn't know the details. Fabulous new-vampire voice indeed, and I can well believe that he now exudes a new, feral odor  as well.

Outside the room, Ben hears everything--and stands his ground when Barnabas emerges. Ben is a veteran of the Revolutionary War, so we already know he is a brave man. I love the massive understatement of Barnabas's comment, Everyone thinks I’m dead. Your presence here constitutes a problem for me. But Ben promises to be loyal, and somehow Barnabas knows Ben is willing to risk his life to prove it.

Joshua is actually (for once) abashed when Ben insists he was saying a prayer for Mr. Barnabas. You may stay, Joshua says grudgingly, but report to me in the morning. And don’t try to run away again, he warns. [And so begins the long tradition of insomniac servants at Collinwood.]

I haven't been able to watch these eps., but I remember that this was the best materialization ever as Barn suddenly appears in front of Ben. JF does a great job with Barnabas's shock, bitterness--and shame.

Again, absolutely outstanding work by all concerned.

[MagnusTrask]

Fabulous new-vampire voice indeed, and I can well believe that he now exudes a new, feral odor  as well.

I enjoyed all these remarks DL, but I feel obligated to point out that I was kidding about the "new vampire smell" (a la "new car smell").   You're right though, I wonder what slight odd odor change there might be.   I wouldn't have thought first of an animal like a wolf or bat, but something to do with the radical alteration in body chemistry and processes.   Much of his body just may have ceased to function, or the organs are running on different "fuel" in a different way.

[DarkLady]

Well, then, MT, the joke's on me!  Really, I don't mind a bit and meant it as a tribute to JF's amazing performance.

Regarding Barnabas's blood-soaked state: It's interesting to compare the frame grab in the Robservations for this episode with the frame grab from the new movie. TV Barnabas has what I think is the right amount of blood--not overwhelming, but enough to tell us what he's done. And JF's expression of amazement and self-loathing is absolutely perfect. I know there are fans of the film here, but I found the amount of blood all over Barnadepp to be just plain gross. I haven't seen the movie, but I can hope Depp is acting somewhere under all that gore. And true, this was TV Barn's first meal ever but movie Barn's first meal in a couple of hundred years.

[alwaysdavid]

Barnabas realizes he is dead and Angelique reveals he can only live a night. And now Angelique had not thought out her curse or she would have reaized that she would be a victim. A bat flies out when Josette enters the tomb. Joshua doesn't question the candles in the tomb. Barnabas talks somewhat off and taller than Ben when he appears to him and reveals that he would rather be dead. All the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy and thats probably where they were stolen.

[MagnusTrask]

Ang was certain she would die in a few moments, when she cursed Barnabas, so being a victim of the curse wasn't an issue for her.

[alwaysdavid]

That's right I forgot she was thought dead. Even though I've never seen anything but some excerpts of this story, I did see the nighttime version and the differences are interesting.