Discuss - Ep #1092

[Watching Project]

Robservations #1092

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

Re: Discuss - Ep #1092

[alwaysdavid]

Another David VO. Julia lets Maggie go to the vampire with no back up and promptly loses her.
Hallie and David talk on the stairs a lot.  Barnabas is now in the woods and stumbles over his lines horribly.
Julia comes in and harshly chastises the teens to go to bed. Barnabas finds Maggie on the ground and she needs a transfusion. He and Jula talk about his being exposed because of the other vampire. The teens babble about the ghosts and then see themselves in the playhouse. So,it seems that the teens will somehow become doll like and live in the dollhouse? They have also appeared to have died in prior episodes which seems to contradict that they will be possessed by the teen ghosts who want to live again. I wonder if there was a plan or it was lets redo the turn of the screw and write whatever.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

There was a plan. But David Henesy's decision not to do DS anymore put a big crimp in it after the move to 1840.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

There was a plan. But David Henesy's decision not to do DS anymore put a big crimp in it after the move to 1840.

Well, since Dan Curtis had previously brought in new actors to replace the original actors portraying Sam Evans, Matthew Morgan and Victoria Winters, I wonder if DC gave any thought to replacing David Henesy with another young actor?

Could you see Bill Mumy, Kurt Russell, Jay North (just kidding!) or one of the other young, male actors of the late 1960s taking over as David Collins on Dark Shadows?

PS Almost anyone, except for Barry Williams or Christopher Knight, please!  Oy vey!!! 
 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I guess DC didn't think of recasting. Maybe he was afraid of a fan backlash like the one that happened with the recast Alexandra Moltke as Vicki because he felt David Henesy was similarly so identified as David as she was with Vicki. Or maybe he hoped Henesy would eventually change his mind.

I've always suspected that the fact that Henesy began high school in September of 1970 may have had a big influence on why he decided to leave and only agreed to do two eps of 1840. Switching to high school is always a major step in a young teen's life. But I could just as easily be wrong. Though there's also that supposedly he never really liked acting and it was his mom/manager who had him pursue it...

[Bob_the_Bartender]

In a previous thread, we discussed that Joan Bennett, Nancy Barrett and Louis Edmonds were the only three actors to appear on Dark Shadows from the start to the finish of the show.

David Henesy almost made it to the conclusion of DS and KLS left in September of 1970 (I believe), with just over six months to go on DS.

I read in one of Kathy Resch's DS Concordances that Nancy Barrett was thinking about leaving the show in early 1971.

[alwaysdavid]

  I didn't realize that he had left the show. They didn't seem to use him much in the last years. I could see where being a teenager and playing with children's toys would not be very cool.

[Uncle Roger]

Jeanne Avery (David's mom) said at the 2002 festival that David wanted to live with his father for a while, which was one of the reasons that he left the show. They did keep him around on a recurring basis. He makes a couple of appearances as Tad in 1840. Avery was an actress turned astrologer and wrote several books on the subject. She also managed to debunk a few of the stories that painted her as a shrew of a stage mother.

I remember reading that Nancy was considering leaving DS in a soap magazine in 1971. She said that the show was impossible to follow at that point and that it made her lazy in terms of acting technique.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I read in one of Kathy Resch's DS Concordances that Nancy Barrett was thinking about leaving the show in early 1971.

I remember reading that there was a time when NB was thinking of leaving but Grayson Hall persuaded her to stay. So I wonder if that happened in 1971 or if NB had also been thinking of leaving at an earlier time and that earlier time may have been when GH persuaded her to stay?

One thing that is certain from what I've read is that Loius Edmonds was definitely going to leave in 1971 - and apparently the plan was to kill off Roger in the manner that is described in Sam Hall's TV Guide projection of what happened to the characters after DS went off. Some of what SH wrote was indeed planned for the show had it continued.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I could see where being a teenager and playing with children's toys would not be very cool.

The interesting thing about that is that at some point Tad will mention something to the effect that he doesn't know why he keeps coming to the playroom because he's too old for everything there. I'm sorry but I can't recall which ep it is.

[Uncle Roger]

Wow! With Louis Edmonds, David Henesy, Kathryn Leigh Scott gone and Joan Bennett scaling back her appearances, that would have left Collinwood pretty empty. Just Julia, Quentin, Carolyn and Hallie. No wonder they tried so hard to hang onto Frid.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

One thing that is certain from what I've read is that Louis Edmonds was definitely going to leave in 1971 - and apparently the plan was to kill off Roger in the manner that is described in Sam Hall's TV Guide projection of             what happened to the characters after DS went off. Some of what SH wrote was indeed planned for the show  had it continued.

I did not know that Louis Edmonds was planning on leaving DS in 1971.  If I can recall Sam Hall's TV Guide projection, Angelique was going to be involved in Roger Collins' "departure" from Collinwood.  This would have been a big mistake, imo.  Dark Shadows without the proud and pompous Roger Collins would have been like The Honeymooners without the affable and zany Ed Norton!

In addition, Sam Hall wrote that Quentin was searching for a man named Count Petofi, who might be able to finally free Quentin from the werewolf's curse.  Yet, in the way that Mr. Hall wrote this part of the projection, it seemed as if Quentin was learning of Count Petofi for the first time.  Clearly, Quentin was well aware of the notorious Count Petofi from Quentin's own extensive dealings with the evil count in 1897.  Maybe I misread that part of Mr. Hall's piece?

Alas, what might have been on Dark Shadows beyond April of 1971.  Somehow, after Barnabas returned to the Old House after hearing Roger Collins' speech at the opening of the Collinsport Historical Society in town, I suspect that Barnabas would have been quite shocked to see Angelique waiting for him there in the Old House drawing room, sipping a sherry with a devilish gleam in her eye. 


PS  It was great to read that Maggie and Joe, two of Dark Shadows' most decent and well-liked characters, were eventually reunited and were married, living happily ever after (which was extremely rare on DS!).