Hi -- I was glad to see that this topic was still active. Leaving out the gory details, I got sick soon after posting on this thread, apparently never got over it properly and had a second bout of THE RESPIRTORY INFECTION THAT WILL NOT DIE which still has me home from work on temporary disability. Haven't felt up to coming over and posting till now. Just wanted everyone to know it was neither the company nor the conversation that's kept me quiet since the beginning of the year.
Interesting discussion about the hero's quest in the previous two comments - I have always looked at Barnabas in that role, and hadn't thought of Quentin in that way.
The way I look at it is similar to the differences between Luke and Anakin Skywalker. Barnabas is more like Luke -- the good decent person who ends up facing his demons through situations not of his making. Anakin has a lot in common with our rash, self absorbed, devil take the consequences Quentin. He caused his own fall through his own acts, his own tragic flaws. Both are on the Hero's Journey but take very different paths due to their differing personalities.
The mind switch with Petofi was superbly acted by both Selby and T. David, but it's no wonder that it took a psychic like Pansy Faye to keep them straight. I mean, you have Quentin possessed by Petofi confronting Petofi possessed by Quentin and... oh, never mind.
Yes they did a great job with that. I keep meaning to look up the respective production dates to see if Trek's "Turnabout Intruder" ep with Kirk mindswitched with a woman came before or after this storyline.
Hate hate hate modern (1970) PT Quentin. He acted more like a Q-child than a man.
That was definitely a waste of an interesting character. Given the nature of the Leviathan threat, AND the fact that Quentin had supposedly been searching for the cure to his curse since 1897 coupled with his preexisting supernatural knowledge, he should have had WAY more to do. It would be very surprizing to me if in all that time he hadn't increased his knowledge of the supernatural markedly, not to mention develop contacts with as much if not more knowledge than he had.
I keep getting this evil mental image of Stokes calling in his old doctoral advisor, one Dr. Henry Jones Jr. And Indy happening to be an old buddy of Quentin's from some supernatural scrape or other.....
I love the 1995 crazy Quentin; he was very fun to watch, and it seemed like payback for having driven poor Jenny mad.
The thought that occurs to me is if the guilt drove him mad that time, why didn't he have a complete breakdown after 1897? If he wasn't a poster boy for post traumatic stress disorder I don't know who would be. And at that stage of the game he was self aware enough to know it was all due to him and, as he says in the scene with Beth's ghost, he can't forgive himself. Seems like a recipe for going mad to escape memories he couldnt bear, at least to me.
I still consider some of Quentin's drunken reactions and lines to be harrowingly funny. His drunken reactions to Magda were priceless! Early Quentin 1897 was by far one of the most wittily written characters ever to grace the screen on DS. He was the intellectual equal of a rather sharp Judith, could trade barbs with Edward and seduce the apron right off any barmaid in Collinsport!
Two great points there -- this Quentin is one of the most INTELLIGENT characters written on DS. Once things started happening, he immediately started reasearching and trying to reason his way out. Of course from beginning to end of 1897 they also show him as articulate and quick witted as well as someone who thinks on his feet.
As to the drinking, Selby does an excellent job acting that. It makes me think of something I was once told by a friend who was a child actor, and whose Dad was a Broadway actor for many years. The trick to acting drunk is not falling over the place. Many play it as a sober actor desperately trying to portray drunken behaviour. A good actor (and Selby apparently uses this techinque) is to play a drunk person desperately trying to convince the world they are sober. That's exactly what I see when I see that scene with Magda on the stairs.
Jeannie
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