What's with the new entrance???

[A.I.Collins]

Hey guys!....Adra here

  On today's episodes I was surprised to see Barnabus and Julia entering Josette's room from the opposite side with the double doors.When did this come about?...I've never seen it used before.I thought it was supposed to be a closet or something.It drives me crazy when they switch things around like that and expect viewers to act like it's been that way all along.Just another thing we all have to love about Dark Shadows.
By the way, where do those double doors in the old house drawing room lead to anyway???

Adra

[Gothick]

I've always thought the double doors off the OH drawing room led to a narrow, twisting passageway, which, ultimately, took one back to the kitchen.  Presumably there was a dining room off the drawing room, beyond which was a more regular kitchen area, although in the 18th century even in homes as wealthy as the Collins' I believe a lot of the cooking would have happened along a long fireplace in the main room.

What you mentioned with Josette's room happened a couple of times during PT with Angelique's room (the PT room).  You'd see people walking into the alcove in which the bed was situated and then here a slam as if there was a door through there.  From the layout, however, there obviously wasn't.

I think it all has to do with blocking shows on an unbelievably tight schedule, in a really tight studio space, and sometimes moving the actors around to accommodate cameras that were set up to move into another shot on another bit of the set.

G.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey gang,

Maybe Barnabas mistakenly hired Mr. O'Reilly, the notoriously inept contractor of "Fawlty Towers" fame.

Barnabas (being as "parsimonious" as Basil Fawlty) had hired O'Reilly to install another doorway inside of the secret room, behind the bookcase in the Old House drawing room.  Yet, in true O'Reilly "thick-as-a-brick" fashion, O'Reilly broke through the wall of Josette's room/shrine on the second floor of the Old House, much to Mr. B.'s consternation.

Bob the Bartender, who'd like to see Norm and Steve devote an entire episode of "This Old House" for a tour of the intricate and fascinating architectural design of THE original Old House.       

[A.I.Collins]

Adra here,

   Thanks for the info Gothick.and to Bob...lol...i like the way you called Josette's room a shrine.I have never looked at it that way...but it's true when you think about it.

Adra

Virginia Vestoff is on the way~...YAY!!!!

[Gerard]

Was it Josette's room?  (I was too emotionally wrapped up in the other storyline - you know which one - to really notice.)  It didn't seem like it to me.  But then, I really wasn't paying too much attention today with regards to Daphne.  Please excuse me now while I head to my own room (at least I think it's my own room) to do some much-necessary grieving.

Gerard

[Gothick]

Gerard, perhaps some jasmine perfume will help remind you of your lost love.  And why not try playing a pretty tune on this sweet little music box?

A friend told me that when the current run is finished, Sci Fi is going to start again from Episode 1. I really hope that's the case.  I noticed more missing episodes on my tapes from 1966, and I want to see all those shows--and that includes some of KLS' finest moments on the series!

G.

[Julia99]

it did seem like it was a closet when Barnabas was hiding in there with his silver bulleted gun awaiting Tom Jennings. . .

[Raholt]

This same entrance (the doors anyway) will be used as the entry to a room in the East Wing of Collinwood, later on in the latter part of the 1840 sequence.

I will admit that this part has always been baffling to me, since the original door to Josette's room was also there, as Daphne almost exits by way of that door at one point.  The only thing I can figure was that there was some kind of constrant with the set, the position of it or the use of another set that did not allow for them to set up the hall outside the doorway, which was needed for the scene, on the side that the original door to Josette's room is on so they made this change for this segment.  I know it was tight quarters on that stage and that might have had something to do with it.

Raholt

[Cassandra]

On today's episodes I was surprised to see Barnabus and Julia entering Josette's room from the opposite side with the double doors.When did this come about?...I've never seen it used before.I thought it was supposed to be a closet or something.

Those doors have baffled me too.   And I wonder if this is the way that Josette had slipped out when she snuck off to marry Jeremiah in 1795.  Since everyone was downstairs in the drawing room waiting for her,  we know that she didn't use that route to exit the house.  So, perhaps those doors lead to a passage way outside of the house.

By the way, where do those double doors in the old house drawing room lead to anyway?

I've always assumed that this led to the kitchen.  I remember a scene during the 1795 storyline where Angelique is waiting behind those doors with a toddy for Ben to come and retrieve and give to Jeremiah (with a potion of course)   Later on, we see Ben enter through those doors and give Jeremiah the toddy as he sat in the drawing room.  This led me to believe that those doors lead to the kitchen area.


Cassandra

[franimal]

A friend told me that when the current run is finished, Sci Fi is going to start again from Episode 1. I really hope that's the case.  I noticed more missing episodes on my tapes from 1966, and I want to see all those shows--and that includes some of KLS' finest moments on the series!

Oh I do hope so!!  Is this a "reliable source"?   

c'ya

franimal

[denise]

I always thought 18th century kitchens. especially in estates like Collinwood, had separate buildings. Risk of fire and all that.

[Gerard]

I think you're right, Denise.  When I was in Jamaica, I toured Rose Hall, the manor house on the plantation once owned by Annie Palmer, the infamous "White Witch of Rose Hall".  (I wonder if she was a partial inspiration for the character of Angelique?)  Although the mansion has been fully restored, the kitchens, which were in a separate building, are gone, save for the foundations.  The structure was connected to the house via a tunnel, the partial foundation of it also remaining.

Oh, and of course, Rose Hall is "haunted" by several ectoplasmic critters.  Our tour guide told us of "encounters" other tour guides, tourists and locals have had with the perpetual visitors, including showing a photograph in which the ghost of a slave appeared.

Gerard