Oh, goodness, it feels good to bet back here after being inundated with work!
Well, that being said, I think the one thing I didn't care for with regards to the '91 series was that it lacked the subtlety of the original. A case in point is that it took months and months to even use the word "vampire" after Willie sprang Barnabas (how I just loved the way Julia, during the tense early, mutually distrustful doctor/patient relationship with Barnabas would say: "what.....you are"). But in the new series, in an effort to speed things along, Barnabas gets sprung and, zis-boom-bah, ala House of Dark Shadows, half of New England's police officers are running around with crosses, hammers and stakes. Beyond that, I found it fairly entertaining and was sorely disappointed when it got cancelled. It wasn't perfect; almost all elements could've been better, but when it comes right down to it, so what? Okay, okay, so I wasn't thrilled that Maggie's '91 incarnation went back to the original crusty Eve-Ardenish type girl, if Eve Arden was "nineties-fied". But you can't have everything. Having the remarkable Jean Simmons play Elizabeth Collins Stoddard more than made up for that in my heart.
Gerard