Jonathan Frid is a great actor! The people who say they don't understand how anyone found him sexy can't have watched much of the show. Ben Cross, from some of the articles I've read, didn't seem to want to play Barnabas this could be one of the reasons some people didn't like him as Barnabas and why his portrayal wasn't that good.
The writer's missed lots of the things that made the original great, but the show was getting better. I also wonder would people have been okay with Roger and the actress who played Maggie having an affair if she wasn't playing Maggie but a different, new character instead. I don't know the ages of the actresses who played Carolyn and Maggie at the time, but they didn't appear to be very close in age. Maggie looked about ten years older than Carolyn, so their being friends didn't seem likely, and they never showed them being friends on the show either, they just mentioned that Sam thought she was going to visit Carolyn when Roger picked her up. They let you know that Sam didn't like Roger, but then they didn't tell you why.
Carolyn was such a tramp, and her pursuing Joe after her cousin's death made her really icky.
Elizabeth was written as a nonentity. She never did anything. The costume party was just inappropriate with the death of Daphne Collins just a short time before it. If the writers wanted the party in the show they should have had it before they killed Daphne. I also didn't like that they killed her in the first place. She was the only person that they had developed on the show other than Barnabas and Vicki, and I didn't like that whole House of Dark Shadows scene at all anyway.
The show also failed in not developing the other actor's characters. The show could just as well been called Barnabas Collins, vampire.
I thought that David was creepy, but at the same time he seemed so vulnerable and sad.
Does anyone else think that if Sony released this show with a better DVD, and put extras and commentary, and advertised it well that it might help get a new version on television, and perhaps get the original back on TV too?
Misa