How much time passed in the series?

[Nelson Collins]

For example, the first four episodes cover the evening Vicki arrives in Collinsport and the following day.

In the 1795 story, IIRC at Vicki's trial at one point it is said she arrived in October and the trial was being held in January.

I wonder, has anyone posted here or online somewhere a day-to-day timeline of just how much time passed in the present, 1795, 1897, etc.?

[Pansity]

For example, the first four episodes cover the evening Vicki arrives in Collinsport and the following day.

In the 1795 story, IIRC at Vicki's trial at one point it is said she arrived in October and the trial was being held in January.

I wonder, has anyone posted here or online somewhere a day-to-day timeline of just how much time passed in the present, 1795, 1897, etc.?

I don't know one way or the other if this is posted on line, and 1897 is the only storyline I have seen often enough to comment on.  However, 1897 I know did give enough dates to be able to track it.  Going strictly off the top of my head, I believe it was established that the opening scenes (the vultures gathering for Grandmamamamama's death) was stated as either February or April, with the last scenes established as being December of the same year.  Mention of dates was scattered here and there throughout the storyline, so certain events can be pinned down.

[Luciaphile]

I haven't gotten very far with them, but I had started keeping a count of the time lapsed on the show in my Idle Thoughts columns. For instance, Vicki technically spent about 15 days in Collinsport but the show had aired over a perioid of months. Not sure if that's what you're asking or not.

[retzev]

I haven't gotten very far with them, but I had started keeping a count of the time lapsed on the show in my Idle Thoughts columns. For instance, Vicki technically spent about 15 days in Collinsport but the show had aired over a perioid of months. Not sure if that's what you're asking or not.

I'd love to see an estimate of how much time was supposed to have elapsed in each time period. Considering all the continuity discrepancies, probably a chore to figure.

I've also been wondering if there's a record of how many episodes were aired for each time period. Maybe one of the Almanacs has a list?

[TNickey2003]

Other cases in point of how much time really did pass in the series:

Episode 478-482.  Episode 478: [spoiler]Evening: Dr. Lang renders Jeff Clark unconscious with a nasty looking hypodermic and straps him to a table.  At 4 a.m. Cassandra causes Maggie to have the Dream.  The next scene in that episode switches back to Dr. Lang with Jeff strapped to the table where he's telling an unconscious Jeff " You should be honored... It will be through your eyes that Barnabas Collins will see...etc.".[/spoiler]That had to have occured BEFORE Maggie's dream even though it came in the scene FOLLOWING the Dream.

Episode 479 begins with Barnabas knocking on the door of Lang's laboratory room, and ends with [spoiler]Lang threatening Barnabas with a pistol if he picks up the phone and calls the police. Then there are the following episodes where Julia discovers Lang's experiment and flakes out seeing the headless body threatens to call the police, at which point Barnabas has to shout " Dave Woodard! Remember Dave Woodard!" in a desperate attempt to dissuade her from making that call. Then the scene where Barnabas catches Cassandra eavesdropping on his and Julia's conversation on the terrace at Collinwood, Julia coming to Lang's house and reluctantly erasing Jeff's memory of the evening's events....[/spoiler]It seems all these events in the following episodes would have had to take place  BEFORE Maggie's dream in Episode 478.  A bit confusing!

And also 100 episodes or so latter in the Adam storyline there's the subplot in which [spoiler]Willie locks Maggie in the Secret Room of the Collins Mausoleum to save her from being used as the sacrificial lamb in the Make-Adam-a-girlfriend experiment[/spoiler]  (Episodes 583-599).

During those episodes a whole lot happens:  [spoiler]The failed experiment with Carolyn, Carolyn's supposed death, the appearance of Leona Hetridge (? I forget the woman's last name), Adam going off the deep end, acting like a twerp, kidnapping Vicki, threatening the Collins' family with destruction, the creation of Eve, etc...  During all of this time Maggie is locked up in the Secret Room, without any food or water as far as we can see. This begs the question: How much time actually passed when she was locked up in the Secret Room?  Adding to the confusion: when she finally escapes the Secret Room with David's help, she's exhausted, weak, in her night robe. After her visit to Joe's apartment where someone (obviously Nicholas Blair) erases her memory of her being kidnapped, she's back at her cottage, fully dressed, looking healthy and well as if she had never been locked up at all without food or water. How within the short space of a few hours did she fully recover physically from that ordeal ( that's when she has Barnabas come by to pick up the portrait sketches her dad had done of Barnabas...having no memory at all of seeing Willie for 3 or 4 weeks or so).[/spoiler]

Just a few instances of confusing time passage in DS.

[Lydia]

I think the timing of Vicky's trip to 1795 (November? to April) suggests that the characters in the present were involved in a groundbreaking physical trial of a new concept,  Hibernation by Seance, but I can't imagine why they would bother, given that winter in Collinsport never amounted to anything anyway.

[Nelson Collins]

I haven't gotten very far with them, but I had started keeping a count of the time lapsed on the show in my Idle Thoughts columns. For instance, Vicki technically spent about 15 days in Collinsport but the show had aired over a perioid of months. Not sure if that's what you're asking or not.

Thanks, and thanks to all the other respondants.  That is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, how much time passed in the "Present," and how much in the various Time shifts.

[michael c]

it's very difficult to say how much time actually passed on the series because of the way it was plotted.

as luciaphil has pointed out a single day/night can last for several episodes.

i think the most striking example of this is the night of the sceance that sent vicki back to the year 1795.
if you remember this "night" actually started with barnabas trying to drive julia insane with the ghost of dr.woodard.this sequence lasted in think for several episodes before we actually get to the sceance.then of course during the months that vicki was in the past only seconds passed in the present.when vicki returns to the present this same night continues for a few more episodes.

so nearly five months went by but it's actually still the same night on the show.that kind of thing makes it nearly impossible to try and establish how much time passed on the series.

[BuzzH]

[spoiler]During all of this time Maggie is locked up in the Secret Room, without any food or water as far as we can see. This begs the question: How much time actually passed when she was locked up in the Secret Room?  Adding to the confusion: when she finally escapes the Secret Room with David's help, she's exhausted, weak, in her night robe. After her visit to Joe's apartment where someone (obviously Nicholas Blair) erases her memory of her being kidnapped, she's back at her cottage, fully dressed, looking healthy and well as if she had never been locked up at all without food or water. How within the short space of a few hours did she fully recover physically from that ordeal.[/spoiler]

They did this again in 1840 when [spoiler]Barnabas is freed by someone, I *assume* Julia and/or Angeliqu/Valerie, from the wall in Trask's chapel where he'd languised for days and was actually near death last we see Trask taunting him through the wall.  Next thing you know, he's freed and gloating about it to Trask, looking fit as a fiddle, clean, fed etc...I'm thinking Angelique made up some curative potion to achieve this, but we never find out why it is he's so okay after his ordeal.  I think he was even in there for like a week or longer because that's about how long Julia was looking for him.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]if you remember this "night" actually started with barnabas trying to drive julia insane with the ghost of dr.woodard.this sequence lasted in think for several episodes before we actually get to the sceance.[/spoiler]

Actually, and I *could* be wrong, it's been a year or more since I watched the above eps, so someone either say I'm right or tell it like it was if I'm wrong, but I *think* the ep where [spoiler]Barnabas has sent the ghost of Woodard after Julia is the night BEFORE the fateful seance episode, or possibly even 2 nights before.  Definately it was in the same week, Collinsport Time, but I don't *think* it was the same night.[/spoiler]Again, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Gerard]

Much of it followed "soap-opera-time," a common way of computing time on daily dramas.  A single event spanning a few hours could take days upon days of episodes to play itself out, while kids went from birth to adulthood in a year's passage and they didn't even have to be a Leviathan monster.

Regarding the passage of time between the present and the past, it seemed to move differently based upon the plot.  While Vicki spent months in 1795/96, only minutes passed in the present, not even enough time for Roger to pour a brandy when the seance was "disrupted."  When Barnabas travelled to 1897, time passed concurrently between the past and the present.  As for 1840/41, it's not exactly clear, but it seems that whatever it was, the drastic changing of history caused the events of Gerard/Daphne's haunting to not have occured at all.

Gerard

[ShadowsAtlanta]

For example, the first four episodes cover the evening Vicki arrives in Collinsport and the following day. 

In the 1795 story, IIRC at Vicki's trial at one point it is said she arrived in October and the trial was being held in January.

I wonder, has anyone posted here or online somewhere a day-to-day timeline of just how much time passed in the present, 1795, 1897, etc.?

DS is one of my all-time faves, but its total lack of continuity pretty much renders the task of tracking time periods futile IMHO.  I mean, even the years in which historical storylines were supposed to have occurred would change from time to time. 

Not that this takes anything away from the series -- after all, it was written and produced in a time when there was no Internet and no DVDs, VHS tapes, or even VCRs.  No one ever thought that people would be rewatching episodes more than once, much less reviewing them 40 years later.

This all just adds to the charm in my book... but I gave up on trying to solve or figure out anything continuity-related with DS a long time ago. 
 

[Gothick]

Well, as Luciaphil has stated, Vicki's initial story took up a little over five months of air time which seemed to represent a little under 3 weeks of "real" C'port time.  Nevertheless, when Vicki arrives in town, it's summer, but by the time Laura arrives (towards the end of the Matthew story) it's close to Xmas.  If that doesn't tell you that they were all living in the middle of a big ol' time-warp, well, I'll buy you a scotch at the High Hat Lounge.

Another thing that is hilarious is that when the night of the seance begins, it is 1967, but after being in "the Pahst" for a few months, suddenly Vicki is talking about returning to 1968.  A firm date for her return is provided in the script when she visits the cemetery and mentions that it is April 2, 1968.   From this point on, the passage of time becomes VERY vague, although I believe in the scripts they included information about how much time was supposed to have passed from one episode to another.

G.

[PennyDreadful]

If that doesn't tell you that they were all living in the middle of a big ol' time-warp

Actually, continuitywise, that would explain all the time and date errors in the series.  It would also explain the existence of the Parallel Time room in Collinwood.  All that endless tampering with time-travel must have caused some "damage."