Discuss - Ep #0464

Robservations #464

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0464

LE recites the end of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" very nicely. Vicki watches, wearing yet another drab and shapeless sleeveless dress. At least she has a scarf around her neck. Julia comes in, looking especially spiffing with perfect hair and makeup and a beautiful dark blue dress. Roger addresses her as the countess DuPres, puzzling her and alarming Vicki.

Welcome, Professor Timothy Elliott Stokes! He and Ben are my favorite TD characters. The professor inherited Ben's shrewd smarts and has enhanced them with advanced education. He is impeccably dressed--one can imagine Ben getting nicer clothes as soon as he could afford them. Barnabas does a double take when he sees the professor. Stokes--whose manners and way of speaking are as impeccable and precise as his appearance--offers to shake hands. Barnabas hesitates a moment before accepting--but only because he has to suppress a slight smile of recognition.

Stokes mentions his ancestor's sudden change of circumstances and explains, Joshua Collins freed Ben and gave him a sum of money and full title to a plot of land just north of the village. Ben settled there, educated himself, and worked his farm till he died in his seventh-fifth year. [spoiler][This means he would have died in 1830--but a long time from now, we will see him still alive in his eighty-fifth year in 1840!][/spoiler] Thus Barnabas learns at last that his father kept the promise he made so long ago--and even did more. But Barn has a bad moment when Stokes says he's investigating the rash of sudden deaths in 1795.

But Barnabas lies to Julia, who once again threatens to expose him….

Strange idea of Barnabas's, that burning A's painting would end the curse.   Welcome Elliot.   Bite #2 of Vicki.   I'm not sure much is happening in this episode, but it's well made in such a way as to make us feel as if a lot is happening.

I always thought that Thayer David was the most versatile actor on DS (Nancy Barrett comes a close second).  Compare Matthew Morgan to Ben Stokes, two very similar looking characters whom the audience is utterly unable to confuse.  [spoiler]And sometimes I forget that it's Thayer under all that wooly Count Petofi jazz.   [/spoiler]

It’s ‘something’ to think that so much heartache has transgressed in this very drawing room at Collinwood. How can Barnabas take it? Not to mention living in the Old House. I personally think the portrait of Angelique is hideous so all this talk about it’s beauty and being angelic is driving me up the wall. Wow, first Roger calls Julia “countess” and then Professor Stokes shows up. Then Vicki remembers all about Angelique – how exciting! Thayer looks very heavy; I didn’t expect it. Anyway, Stokes tells Barn his is an occultist. Fascinating! I love every bit of this. Julia discovers Barn’s bite on Vicki’s neck and confronts him about it. Julia’s still got the biggest pair in Collinsport – threatening Barnabas with exposure.

Random thought:  Vicki doesn’t recognize Stokes as MM anymore - only Ben (or so it appears). We learn via Prof. Stokes that Ben ended up doing well for himself and that made me feel great. I imagine that Barn felt good about it too – that Joshua kept at least that promise.

When Pr,Tim  Stokes comes to the door Vickie says he looks like someone she once knew. Matthew or Ben?  Stokes reveals he is devoted to the occult. The Old house has been aged again, but without all the in repaired damage in the Hall that seemed out of place considering it was supposedly restored. Barnabas tells Vickie they will go away together for all time. Hopefully they can stand each other that long.

This conceit of having Vicki comment on the physical resemblance of people from the past and their counterparts in the present never worked for me, partly because it was applied so inconsistently.  Why, for instance, does Vicki notice the similarities while Barnabas never does? The closest he ever comes is linking Burke with Jeremiah at one point. It's not like Barnabas thinks, "Damn, it's Mom and Dad," when he first meets Elizabeth and Roger. And Roger certainly doesn't see any echo of Matthew Morgan in Professor Stokes when he meets the latter in this episode.

It would have been better for everyone to just ignore the physical similarities and just have the audience suspend their disbelief which is pretty much SOP for DS anyway.

It's a concept that continues throughout the series. Sometimes it actually works rather well (Tom/Chris and Angelique/Alexis). Other times (David/Tad and Hallie/Carrie) it really doesn't.

I agree that, when it was used for dramatic purposes, it could be quite effective.

What I objected to the most was when Vicki first arrived in 1795 and stopped dead in her tracks every time she bumped into a new character, declaring in tones of amazement, "_________________ {fill in the blank with name from person in the 20th Century}." It became almost comical after awhile. I wanted to respond each time, "Yea, we get it that the new characters are being played by actors who played different roles in the present. We really don't have to pretend that they are actual doppelgangers of the future characters." In this case, the concept wasn't used for dramatic purposes and just became silly and annoying. Luckily, by the time of their second trip to the past (1897), it had been largely dropped.

Yeah, it's a cheat if they keep calling attention to the resemblances, implying some fascinating mystery about that is going to unfold, explaining everything, and then they do nothing with it.  That was 1795.  Imagine it without Vicki doing that at all though... viewers may have needed a little spoon-feeding with this very first time trip.

It was a relief in 1897 when they silently expect us to accept that the resemblances don't exist-- we just think they do because it's the same actors.  It's a bit abstract, but viewers got it.