Discuss - Ep #0481

[Watching Project]

Robservations #481

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #0481

[DarkLady]

We get one of the great line fluffs of the series when Barnabas tells Julia through the study door, Remember someone. Addison Powell saves his bacon here as Lang murmurs, Dave Woodard. Finally Barnabas gets it right: Julia, remember Dave Woodard.

GH is a real trouper and stays in character. That terrible reminder is more than enough to make Julia hang up the phone, defeated.

Later, Barnabas and Julia meet by the fountain to continue their argument. The practical Julia asks him, Have you thought about where you’ll go once you stop looking like the portrait in the foyer? No one will recognize you. I’m sure I can solve that problem, Barnabas replies a little impatiently. In another unwitting but tremendous step forward, he tells Julia, I will entrust whatever wealth I have to you. You will keep it for me, he says, sure that she will.

Immediately after, we have a fun scene where Barnabas grabs the eavesdropping Cassangelique. Later she summons poor Tony, which gives Jerry Lacy another chance to wear his Bogart trench coat (which I do like). And speaking of clothes, when Barnabas is at home later he is wearing a shorter and less cumbersome dark red brocade dressing gown.

Meanwhile, under Cassangelique's spell, Tony makes a beeline for the House by the Sea and finds the door unlocked. For somebody with such a whopping big secret, Eric Lang is notably lax about security--unless Cassange has smoothed the way for Tony.

[MagnusTrask]

Julia should not be spazzing out.   She should be seriously alarmed, afraid, rattled even, but... Then again, maybe the whole situation is crashing in on her, after she took on such a dangerous project with Barnabas in '67, and it's worn her down.   She started out supremely confident, but all the conflicting feelings and loyalties and morality have over time shredded her nerves, understandably.

The blooper of all time is in this ep., and I saw it before hearing any fan mention it, so I thought I was hallucinating, seeing this for the first time as an adult a few years ago.   

Much of all this drama is unnecessary... all Lang had to do to quiet Julia was to tell her up front, from the beginning, that he could go back to using dead parts to finish the creature.   Julia contradicts herself for the sake of cheap drama, first saying she won't tell, then saying she'll do everything she can to stop the experiment, before going out the door.   And Lang doesn't get the gun out again, for some reason.   Seventh mention of the word "vampire", by Julia... should I stop counting now?

Barnabas sputters out that Ang could be destroyed by "catching" her at a crossroads, in the dead of night.   They actually throw in an acknowledgement, if not an explanation, of Ang not controlling Trask in 1795, because "it wasn't safe at the time".  I guess they were afraid that the question was about to pop into the viewers' minds.   Actually, it all was working out for her, without her having to control him.   Peterson doesn't recognize the name of Trask, so maybe he isn't a descendant.  Good for him, refusing to kill Lang, even in a trance.

[dom]

Barn & Lang talk Julia back from over the edge once again. But Julia only promises not to inform the police. She tells them that she will do everything in her power to stop the ‘experiment’. Cassandra eavesdrops on Barn & Jules discussion re: the plan/experiment and its implications and risks. Barn busts her but we know she’s heard enough to ruin everything. You’d think Julia would be more suspicious of Cassandra, I for the life of me cannot figure out why she doesn’t believe she is Angelique, or have I missed something? Cass summons Tony to Collinwood and directs him to steal Lang’s talisman. Lang, prompted by a phony phone message arrives at the Old House. Barn figures out that Cass has orchestrated Lang’s being there. Upon learning that Lang does not have the talisman on him Barn decides that they should go to Lang’s office to get it. Meanwhile, Tony retrieves the talisman from Lang’s desk and the episode closes with Cass, talisman in hand, smiling in victory.
 
Yikes! I thought this ep was pretty bad because the cast and crew didn’t seem to have it together. And when that wasn’t distracting me, I was pretty bored. Hall was the only cast member on her game today – there wasn’t even a close second. Story-wise, a big shucks at Cass learning that there is a plan and so quickly gaining the upper hand. The ten-year-old DS fan in me was very upset with that development. Never mind Barnabas always winning (as stated by temporarily defeated Julia), Angelique has a pretty good track record so far. You’d think the talisman would have protected Tony from Cass or at least have broken the spell once in hand. And, one might think that Cass would not be able to even hold the talisman. I liked the dialogue between Barn & Jules on the terrace. Three major video glitches, two with loss of dialogue – anyone know if the DVD contains said glitches? The first while Lang spoke of his experiment to Julia in his office, and another was during the terrace scene (Barn/Jules) and then another when Cassandra was waiting for Tony on the terrace. (BTW, if you’re not satisfied with just giggling at A. Powell as Lang, he is also a hoot to watch in fast motion – in case you are really bored and have nothing else to do.) Has Julia always worn nail polish – or is this part of the new Julia? Barn’s red robe – love it.
 
Just wondering - does it peeve anyone to hear the opening voice-over person reference themselves in the third person or at all– it bugs the shit out of me. I think Magnus referenced this a bit ago.

[MagnusTrask]

LOL re hyperLang dom, I'll have to try him on FF.  I'm ALWAYS bored...  Julia probably is suspicious of all the more extreme claims from Barnabas and Vicki about time travelling witches casting spells in 1968 Collinsport Maine...  She hasn't witnessed any of that.   She can view Barnabas's problem as mainly medical, and she can accept his true age and accept his early history, but all that can be seen in relatively scientific and unsupernatural terms, if one wants to.   Julia hasn't really acclimated to the wacky world of 1968 DS yet-- she doesn't know a supernatural free-for-all is coming.   A witch following Vicki through time?  She's reserviong judgment as we all would.  She's pissed at Barnabas generally too, and very skeptical of what she's hearing from him.

Voiceovers in the third person... it doesn't bother me, it's just sort of curious, especially from Moltke, who told us for over a year:  "My name is Victoria Winters."  It works better when the actor can drop her/his character voice.   Sometimes I can't tell when it's Lara or Jonathan speaking at first, and Thayer always sounds like Thayer, but does VOs without character inflections.

[MagnusTrask]

PS--  I think it's odd and perhaps interesting storytelling we're getting at this point, in that Barnabas is the central figure everything revolves around now, he's the "protagonist" in the sense of being the main actor and focus, his desires, goals, and threats to his well-being are what DS is about now.... yet he's not the good guy yet.   He's still a bastard, though one who's toying with reforming a bit.   Isn't that weird?   Viewers can accept it if they saw him in 1795, before the curse, but I wonder what new viewers thought.   Those who were in fact murderers and bastards I'm sure enjoyed it (they watch TV too!)....

OR... maybe it's no problem.  Maybe we need much more of this kind of thing, stories in which we don't necessarily have to go along with the main character's morality.   Maybe the audience in general would stretch themselves and grow a bit more, exposed to these complexities.  Maybe stories like these work, and viewers aren't thrown by them... TV producers just think they would be.

[dom]

I don't know how this fits in, but I feel as though this is fast becoming a kiddie soap at this point. And I think it might pay to factor it in when trying to evaluate.

[alwaysdavid]

Barnabas plays the Woodard card and shuts Julia up. I was surprised that Barnabas caught Cassandra eavesdropping on them.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Three major video glitches, two with loss of dialogue – anyone know if the DVD contains said glitches? The first while Lang spoke of his experiment to Julia in his office, and another was during the terrace scene (Barn/Jules) and then another when Cassandra was waiting for Tony on the terrace.

On the DVD it looks like there are cuts with the first two - no glitches. And it's hard to tell with the third if the switch from Cassandra to Tony's arrival was a cut or an intentional transition because the music was already trailing off when it happens. However, I checked the '80s syndicated version of this ep (I don't own the MPI tape) and the glitches you mention are indeed in it. In fact, the close-up of Tony that is contained within the third glitch is nowhere to be seen on the DVD.

[dom]

Thanx MB.