Question about Summer 1970

IMHO- the writers particuliarly russell and welles, thru in the towel in post 1969 storylines----its a shame because what a waste of acting talent doing poorly written plots.....

last night as i was watching the progression of this storyline i was startled when there were a few references to the long forgotten miss winters.

[spoiler]when barnabas is trying to find out if david in possessed he asks him a few questions that david would know the answer to.he asks him about his mother(the never mentioned laura!)and about who his governess was before maggie.

later when hallie needs to find some contemporary clothing for daphne she digs up some "ridiculous" cloths that once belonged to a governess there.a "victoria something".[/spoiler]

a rare nod to a departed character.usually once they're gone they never get mentioned again(laura,burke,joe,sam...).

like most shows i think they seem to run out of ideas

jennifer

Though 1995 was brilliant, summer 70 & 1840 was a poor rehash of what went on in 1897.
Worse, it was dull, ignored many parts of the show's established history & didn't tie up loose ends.

Maybe they didn't care anymore?

David

just the atmosphere of d.s. is enough to hold my attention in general.

but,yeah,this storyline has to be the one i'm the most dispassionate about.some storylines have me glued to my seat but i could easily have this on in the background as i do other things.maybe i'm just burned-out on the whole thing.

perhaps because the previous two storylines(leviathan and parallel time)had been so super-specific to the plot the continuity errors were a bit easier to overlook.but this is just sort of "regular" collinwood so they really stand out.

compared to all that is on the telly these days i say BRING BACK DS!

jennifer

More on the Summer of 1970-

I finally made it to this part of the series in the boxsets, and was pleasantly surprised (so far) that my previous recollection of this storyline was wrong. So far I find it pretty damn engrossing. There's a current of terror running through the house that Julia and Barnabas are trying to find, but is already affecting David, Hallie and Quentin. Julia and Barnabas know something is up and keep finding out about the "clues" after the fact, which must be pretty damn frustrating. This however is disguised by a pleasant day-to-day atmosphere in the house when something ghostly isn't going on. It's been a long time since we've seen the family sitting around reading, sewing, having tea or going on picnics.

Quentin is again an interesting character here. He's been heavily forewarned about Daphne and what the future holds for  both him and the family. He knows she's going to lead to the destruction of everyone around him, but one meeting and he's almost completely under her sway. He doesn't disclose to Julia or Barnabas that he has in fact seen her, he questions the children in a round-about way if they've seen her themselves, and then lies about his actions when caught searching for more information about her. He's already obsessed.

Daphne I love. She's so beautiful! I wonder if the scene in the graveyard was a turning point for her. (Anyone else notice that Gerard's grave was missing and replaced with Thomas Jennings?) It'd been 130 years since anyone had shown her any genuine affection, and I imagine Gerard has been feeding her hate all this time. After she drops the knife she looks startled and confused. I barely remember 1840 so I can't comment on the dynamics of character relationships there vs. the present. For example, is it known prior to the trip to 1840 that Daphne & Quentin were an item? Or were they? (Don't answer that! I want to see for myself).

The playroom itself I see in a different light, now having seen some of the episodes aagin. It's not that David and Hallie want to hang out there. At first they go to look for it as a lark, something teenagers would do, searching out sealed rooms and family secrets. (Although you think David would have learned his lesson the first time!) But once they find it they are compelled to return to it by forces outside their control. As for Tad and Carrie, they seemingly grew up in that room together, so with the house in turmoil after Tad's return from sea, they may have used it as a refuge from the family and a reminder of calmer and happier times. Even though they probably weren't calmer or happier times, but they have the filter of childhood to look back through.

I still don't understand how the playroom and the closet seemingly exist in the same space. Perhaps the door on the closet was once the door to the playroom. If they took the door off the playroom before they sealed it up and put it on another doorframe, maybe sometimes when that door was opened it would act as a portal to the other room it once guarded.

I ended disc 2 last night with the return of Roxanne. I have a feeling things are about to take a different swing, but I'll see as I go along.

interesting assesment arashi.

while i did start to lose interest during this storyline i can appreciate what you said about the "pleasant day-to-day" atmosphere at collinwood.it's true.i appreciated that appearance of normalcy during the early part of the leviathan storyline as well as parallel-time.

with all sorts of monsters coming out of the woodwork during 1968/69 a return to a slightly more "normal" atmosphere at the house(of course with an undercurrent of terror)was welcome.

The playroom itself I see in a different light, now having seen some of the episodes aagin. It's not that David and Hallie want to hang out there. At first they go to look for it as a lark, something teenagers would do, searching out sealed rooms and family secrets. (Although you think David would have learned his lesson the first time!) But once they find it they are compelled to return to it by forces outside their control. As for Tad and Carrie, they seemingly grew up in that room together, so with the house in turmoil after Tad's return from sea, they may have used it as a refuge from the family and a reminder of calmer and happier times.

Exactly!

1995-1970-1840 is a jumble of things for me that I know wouldn't make sense if I were to look further into it, so I don't.    Were they actually walking into Rose Cottage when they entered the playroom in Collinwood?    Or was the room a temporary part of Collinwood every time the kids entered it?   What if Mrs. Johnson was getting a towel and the rooms switched?   Was the Stairway just another crazy room or were the phenomena connected?    And the Parallel Time room... lots of crazy time and space rooms in the same general location.    Why'd they leave the towels behind when they closed down the wing?  Were they haunted too?

When I first saw Summer 1970, actually during Summer 1970, the one thing I kept thinking was how the stories rapidly came and went.  Whereas we were use to a single plot going on for months (1897 lasted almost nine - 3/4 of a year), suddenly, in the space of one years, we're dealing with the Leviathans, Parallel Time, Future Time, Gerard and Daphne's ghosts, and getting whisked back to 1840.  Here it comes; there it goes, on to the next.

Gerard

1995-1970-1840 was one long storyline, though.