Likewise, most of the ladies of DS were considered beautiful and sexy for their time (and many would agree still are to some extent). Plus, as to youth, on average, most of the actresses were about 10 years younger than most of the men on the show. No doubt most of them they were chosen for THEIR physical charms as much as for their talent, and some of them were still new to the profession, thus their perfomances, while enhanced by our nostalgic fondness, often were uneven at best. And hey, what about those miniskirts and sleeveless numbers they were often called upon to wear? (And some who still do?) Plus, a few did modeling on the side. So while some of these "negatives" have been ramped up in the last 20 years or so, we're not talking about a "new" phenomenon, maybe just one that will never be completely overcome.
What do you mean "most of the ladies of DS were considered beautiful and sexy for their time"
They were beautiful and sexy, Nancy Barrett: Beautiful and sexy. KLS: Beautiful and sexy. Alexandra Moltke: Beautiful and sexy. Lara Parker: Beautiful and sexy. Terry Crawford: Beautiful and sexy. Marie Wallace: ditto
And as to sexy hot young hunks: Don Brisco, David Selby, Joel Crothers, John Karlen, Jerry Lacy, James Storm, and Michael Stroka. Mitchell Ryan(Not quite as young, but very sexy) same with Humbert Allen Astredo (Pant, pant), and Dennis Patrick (that Irish brogue was way sexy).
These actors were hot, and they still would be hot in today's TV. Jonathan Frid was sexy, sensual, and mysterious as Barnabas. It is as you said, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are still pretty hot. Frid was hot!
As to the uneven performances they were probably due to the amount of time allowed to rehearse and the one-take that was then shown with all the mistakes, so sometimes they got lucky and the performance was good. Sometimes the performance was fantastic, and sometimes they were glad that no one was ever going to see it again (unaware that it would later be released on video and DVD for everyone to scrutinize all of the performances over and over again).
Misa