Barnabas' restoration of the Old House...

[MagnusTrask]

Jeremiah could be only a few years older than BC in 1795 and be "middle-aged" since BC was already in his 30s I think.    Great youthing of Barnabas, whivch they forgot how to do with Bramwell apparently. 

The age difference between BC and Sarah always struck me as a cool bit of period detail.    Didn't that happen in rich families back then?  I have no idea where I think I know this from.

[michael c]

the distance between collinwood and the old house seems to change as often as the year of josette collins' death.

it changes from being about half a mile away to just across the lawn according to that episode's storyline needs.

i just watched the episode where it first appears and here it had to have been some distance away from collinwood because vicki had been there for several weeks at this point and had never seen or even heard of it.
considering how much time she spent snooping around in the early days that's saying something.these episodes b.t.w. have excellent exterior shots with alexandra,david and thayer all wandering around the woods and the house.

sometimes however characters can move between the two houses in record time.case in point.

[spoiler]i recall one episode in 1967 where vicki,carolyn and julia are in the drawing room.carolyn offers to make some coffee.julia siezes the opportunity to place vicki under hypnosis,lead her to the old house,show her barnabas in his coffin and lead her back to collinwood in the few minutes it would have taken carloyn to make the coffee unless she was supposed to have harvested and roasted the beans herself.[/spoiler]

as for the 30-odd year age difference between barnabas and sarah i always thought that was kind of ridiculous.

[FireRose]

as for the 30-odd year age difference between barnabas and sarah i always thought that was kind of ridiculous.

It really depends on the age Naomi was when she had Barnabas. It wasn't uncommon for girls to be married off before they were 15 years old in the 1700s.

Taking that into account. Joshua didn't seem all that fond of Naomi. So it wouldn't be to hard to reason that after Barnabas was born. Joshua and Naomi might not have shared a bed anymore. Joshua may have gone other places for his entertainment.

Then one day Joshua changed his mind.  Hence came Sarah so many years later.

If say Naomi was 15 when she had Barnabas. She would have been about 45 when Sarah was born. So it isn't impossible for a thirty year age difference to seperate children in a family.

So when Barnabas was 30 and Sarah was 10. Naomi would have been 55 years old.

That is if my math is correct. It really depends on how old Barnabas was suppose to be on the show.

FireRose

[FireRose]

So when Barnabas was 30 and Sarah was 10. Naomi would have been 55 years old.

That should have been when Barnabas was 40 and Sarah was 10. Naomi would have been 55 years old.

I think.

Sometimes Dark Shadows is confusing when one tries to use reason to explain what the writer's were doing within the storyline.

FireRose

[Mysterious Benefactor]

If we can go by Parallel Time (and a case could be made that we can because everyone in PT seems to be the same age as their RT counterparts), then DS established that Barnabas was born in 1770. So, even though Frid was in his 40s, Barnabas was apparently only 25 when he was cursed. (Well, unless he was born in early January and already turned 26 before then. After all, the only time we ever saw birthday celebrations on DS was in dreams when children were dying.  )

[Raineypark]

.    Didn't that happen in rich families back then?  I have no idea where I think I know this from.

It happened frequently in all families back then, rich or not.  The simple fact was that child-birth was very dangerous.  Women of all classes got pregnant more often, and died more often than is usual today.   Once a mother was gone, men had little choice but to marry again, not only for his own companionship, but also to provide a mother to his children.

The age difference between Barnabas and Sarah has no significant historical explaination.  Frid was just too mature a man to play the brother of a child as young as Sarah.

[BuzzH]

If we can go by Parallel Time (and a case could be made that we can because everyone in PT seems to be the same age as their RT counterparts), then DS established that Barnabas was born in 1770. So, even though Frid was in his 40s, Barnabas was apparently only 25 when he was cursed.

I have said for YEARS that fans need to FORGET that Frid was 42 when he accepted the part of Barnabas.  Josette was in her 22nd year when she died.  I think Barnabas was 25 or 26, MAX.  It's called 'suspension of disbelief' folks.  Get over the fact that Frid was 42 and try and imagine him as a 25 year old.

As for Jeremiah supposedly being the 'middle-aged' uncle pre-1795, well, everything was changed in 1795 from what had been established already, including the fact that Jeremiah brought Josette to CW as his bride and that Barnabas was teaching her English and fell in love w/her.  The pre-1795 Barnbas is an arrogant SOB who only seems to care about himself and his own pleasures.  He cares not that he stole his 'middle-aged' uncle's wife.  But by the time 1795 occurs, we see a VERY different Barnabas, one who is sweet, gentle, kind, considerate, loving, naive etc...a real pussycat.  Quite a difference from what we were originally led to believe about him.

Now, about the age difference between Barnabas and Sarah.  We only assume there were only 2 children produced by Joshua and Naomi.  It's entirely possible that there were several children in between them that didn't survive.  Children often died before reaching adulthood in the 18th century.

[michael c]

of course all of this could simply have been a case of the producers being caught between a rock and a hard place.

they hired sharon smyth to play a ghost long before anyone knew that sarah would eventually become a flesh and blood character playing opposite frid.so when the storyline traveled back to 1795 they had no choice but to use her and hope audiences wouldn't question the age difference.

what's also funny is that kids at that age grow very quickly.so by the end of the 1795 storyline sarah looks much older than she did when her ghost first appeared in 1967.

[arashi]

I have said for YEARS that fans need to FORGET that Frid was 42 when he accepted the part of Barnabas.  Josette was in her 22nd year when she died.  I think Barnabas was 25 or 26, MAX.  It's called 'suspension of disbelief' folks.  Get over the fact that Frid was 42 and try and imagine him as a 25 year old.

I think Frid did an excellent job of lending a genuine youthful charm to his character in 1795, that really did make me forget his real age. I think the agedness and the coldness in him comes from spending nearly 175 years cursed as a vampire and locked in a coffin. He still would have woken up every night for those years hungering for blood and not being able to get out. Pretty horrifying if you think about it.

[BuzzH]

what's also funny is that kids at that age grow very quickly.so by the end of the 1795 storyline sarah looks much older than she did when her ghost first appeared in 1967.

This is so true!  I can't believe how much David Hennesy has grown up, before our very eyes in fact, from the pre-Barnabas eps to PT 1970.  He looks, acts and SOUNDS so much older than the early days of DS.

I think Frid did an excellent job of lending a genuine youthful charm to his character in 1795, that really did make me forget his real age. I think the agedness and the coldness in him comes from spending nearly 175 years cursed as a vampire and locked in a coffin.

This is a good point.  In 1795, he was, in a way, almost childlike w/his naive ways.  Actually pretty UN-worldly, IMHO, for a guy who had at least traveled to the Carribean on business and been exposed to different cultures etc...After becoming a vampire, and this after all the bad things that happened to him like [spoiler]his fiance jilting him literally at the alter, and w/his beloved uncle no less, caused him to develop an 'edge' to his personality.  He started to see the bad in ppl, and life.  Then throw the vampire curse in and nearly 200 years trapped in a coffin, and it's no wonder he wasn't a stark raving lunatic by 1967's release by Willie.  Well, actually, he WAS for a time, his kidnapping and torture of Maggie being the prime evidence of that.  But by the time he was 'cured' by the experiment, he'd regained some of his softness and compassion, as evidenced by all the good he did trying tirelessly to help ppl, most particularly his family.  But he still had that 'edge' to him.[/spoiler]

[stefan]

I have said for YEARS that fans need to FORGET that Frid was 42 when he accepted the part of Barnabas.  Josette was in her 22nd year when she died.  I think Barnabas was 25 or 26, MAX.  It's called 'suspension of disbelief' folks.  Get over the fact that Frid was 42 and try and imagine him as a 25 year old.

I have no problems with the middle-aged Frid playing a 25 year old (and I agree that was probably Barnie's age at the time) but ... there is also the point that, again, his smoky soulful and somewhat hurt brown eyes are really those of someone who has lived some. So, sometimes it's hard to get a grip on Barnabas' personality and actions. If it were a genuine 25 year old punk playing the 25 year old Barnabas I think our perception of him and what he did, might be a little clearer. However, I adored Frid's 1795 performance and very happy with what I was able to get out of it. Some beautiful readings and tense gothic emotions that will probably never again be repeated on telelvision.

* edited by mod

[retzev]

Wasn't Barnabas 27 when "it" happened?

[BuzzH]

Wasn't Barnabas 27 when "it" happened?

I don't recall that an actual chronological age was ever mentioned for Barnabas.  The only reason we know Josette's is because of her tombstone.  Can't recall if they had birth & death years on Jeremiah's tombstone, I'd have to go back and look.  But I always felt that he and Barnabas were only 1-3 years apart in age.  It *was* established on camera that they were close in age by Jeremiah after [spoiler]Angelique makes Barnabas choke and Vickie sees how concerned Jeremiah is for his nephew.  She comments that she'd always been led to believe (by the 1960's Barnabas) that he and Barnabas were not close.  He angrily says that even though they are uncle & nephew, they were "the same ages" (I think btw that this was a blooper on Anthony George's part, I believe the line was actually "because we are the same age" and he blooped and added the 's') they were more like brothers.[/spoiler]

Anyway, blooper aside, I accepted it and took it to mean that they were close in age, but maybe not the SAME age.

[Miss_Winthrop]

During the 1700s middle age was a lot younger than what middle age is considered today.  Take 'Emma' by Jane Austen for example.  Emma was 21 and George was 37 and was considered pretty much into middle age. I believe he was 16 when she was born and fondly recalled holding baby Emma in his arms.  Now 21 years later, they discovered that they loved one another.  Even Emma at 21 was almost past her prime marrying years.  Consider 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen.  The heroine, Anne Elliott was all of 27 almost 28. A younger sister had already been married for years.  Anne may have been readied for the role of care giver even though her older sister Elizabeth had not yet married either.  Elizabeth who was considered so much more worthy of a suitable marriage than Anne didn't even have half the charm that Anne possed in her little finger. I'm  surprised that Naomi even had the title to the house in her name unless it was a wedding gift to her from Joshua.