Angelique.

New poll for DS forums.

I like Lara Parker's analogy that Barnabas and Angelique were DC's "Big Guns," so I feel that, whenever needed, Angelique would recover her prominence in the storyline.  Think of the variations on a theme: The girl from Martinique, the B*tch in the black wig, the lethal woman in white, the ambivalent anti-heroine of 1897, The woman scorned in 1970, Double Trouble in PT, revealed and redeemed from the damned in 1840 and romantic heroine in PT 1840.  That's one heck of a ride!

Petofi

i've been thinking about this topic alot myself lately so it's interesting that it should come up now.

i just completed dvd set 18(the first half of the leviathan episodes)and i was surprised that angelique appeared in only two out of fifty episodes since the storyline returned to the 'present' after the 1897 storyline.
she wasn't quite as prominent during 1897 as i thought she would be either.

there was just something about the nature of the character that prevented angelique from becoming one of the regular,day-in-day-out-in-almost-every-episode-characters.

she needed to do her work and then she disappeared for extended periods of time only to reappear later unexpectedly and usually in some different guise.unlike other supernatural characters like barnabas and quentin who got worked into the day-to-day operations of the show(whether it made sense or not)angelique required some element of surprise.

so i guess her importance wavered back and forth during the run of the show(except during 1795 when she was key).

I divide the DS experience into two eras, the Victoria Winters era and the Barnabas era. I take no position as to which era was better because I love both. Angelique was critical to the Barnabas era as she was the third leg of an important love triangle. Her and Doctor Hoffman both loved Barnabas but showed it in two completely different ways and this is what created the intensity of the stories. This was complicated by the fact that Barnabas seemed to love every other young thing except these two. The result seemed to be that no one was very emotionally satisfied.

Angelique was critical to the Barnabas era as she was the third leg of an important love triangle. Her and Doctor Hoffman both loved Barnabas but showed it in two completely different ways and this is what created the intensity of the stories. This was complicated by the fact that Barnabas seemed to love every other young thing except these two. The result seemed to be that no one was very emotionally satisfied.

A very good observation Jeffrey!  They both vied for his love, attention, whatever...and he couldn't have cared less about them, in THAT sense I mean.  I believe that in his own way, he *did* love Julia, but not in a romantic sense altho [spoiler]he comes VERY close to that, IMHO, during the 1995 Flashforward plotline.[/spoiler]

It would have been fun to have Lara & Grayson have an all out CATFIGHT over him, maybe end up in a fish pond ala Dynasty, LOL!  As it is, we had to settle for [spoiler]a good old fashioned bitch slap from Jules to Angie during the Dream Curse plotline.  It will have to suffice![/spoiler]  

I don't think I've watched enough of the show to give an opinion but it does appear that Angelique remained a very important force throughout Dark Shadows. And I'm glad she did, the character was fantastically written, highly original and well acted. They couldn't go wrong with her. My only complaint is that they tied her to Barnabas too much which annoyed me more than anything and that instead of fully utilizing her poential as the lead villaness or villan, they kept  bringing out new monsters - totally uneccessary with Angelique around.