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Current Talk '07 I / Re: 1991
« on: February 23, 2007, 03:48:11 PM »
I personally blame the writers and directors for a lot of the clumsiness, one-note performances and odd (or, in some cases TOTALLY LACKING) transitions in the 1991 series. From what I can recall of the circumstances of the time (I was actually living in China when it was being produced and broadcast so this is all very second-hand), I suspect that the real villains were some of the NBC network supremos--"the suits"--who, I seem to have heard, kept interfering and micro-managing. I know I read somewhere that they were the ones who demanded that during the 1790 story, they keep switching back to show what was going on in 1991. That leaves even less time to work out an already crowded & compressed storyline for 1790.
Just to cite a specific example--I just re-watched episode 6 and there's a scene at the beginning of the show between Willie and Carolyn that is a re-staging of a scene originally played in the film, house of Dark Shadows. In the 1991 version, neither actor appears to have been directed, and Barbara Blackburn, who plays Carolyn, doesn't seem to be doing anything at all--literally sleepwalking through the scene. And not in a way that relates to what is supposed to be happening.
At the end of this episode, I find it clumsy, poorly paced and a complete mood-breaker when Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as David comes into the room and makes his little announcement. That scene desperately needed a rewrite but, as seems to have often been the case, they probably ran out of time.
I know that the actors cast in the series were an exceptionally talented group. I have seen Lysette Anthony in other work produced in England and know she has chops. I really feel sorry for her at the embarrassing antics she had to put on as Angelique--it's really at the level of cheap panto. But at least, from what I can recall from an interview I saw from her at the time, she had fun doing it.
G.
Just to cite a specific example--I just re-watched episode 6 and there's a scene at the beginning of the show between Willie and Carolyn that is a re-staging of a scene originally played in the film, house of Dark Shadows. In the 1991 version, neither actor appears to have been directed, and Barbara Blackburn, who plays Carolyn, doesn't seem to be doing anything at all--literally sleepwalking through the scene. And not in a way that relates to what is supposed to be happening.
At the end of this episode, I find it clumsy, poorly paced and a complete mood-breaker when Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as David comes into the room and makes his little announcement. That scene desperately needed a rewrite but, as seems to have often been the case, they probably ran out of time.
I know that the actors cast in the series were an exceptionally talented group. I have seen Lysette Anthony in other work produced in England and know she has chops. I really feel sorry for her at the embarrassing antics she had to put on as Angelique--it's really at the level of cheap panto. But at least, from what I can recall from an interview I saw from her at the time, she had fun doing it.
G.