Madam Findley is definitely a favorite.  Garth Blackwood makes me laugh, I love how he says "ARRRR!"  I would have thought he would be more popular with today's fans because of all the Pirates insanity around those Johnny Depp films.

I was just compiling (for a friend who wants to show it to a class he's teaching) a selection of clips relating to the use of the I Ching on the series, and I finished it off with Wanda Paisley's memorable I Ching encounter.  I really, REALLY wish Wanda Paisley had become a semi-regular.  I think she would have made a much more interesting "girlfriend" for Quentin than that drip, Amanda Harris.  Men like Quentofi, in the 1890s, tended to have more than one woman in their life anyway; there was the respectable lady friend and then the girl who was around to take care of their, uh, manly needs.

cheers, G.

Did they run hoDS in letterbox?

I adore Return of the Vampire.  Fabulous film.

G.

Mysterioso darling, I have just awakened from the dead faint into which I passed when I read that you had NEVER seen The Night of the Demon!

Look for a PM from me at some point.  I'll make a tape of the movie and mail it to you!  It's one of my all time favorite films, and I am sure you will adore it.

I thought the origin (or oblique inspiration, at least) of the Dream Curse was a famous tale by E. F. Benson (author of the Mapp and Lucia novels), "The Room in the Tower."  I presume that Google will reveal that it is available online through the Gutenberg project or some such.  It has the central conceit of a dream that keeps going "one step further" and there are intimations of vamprisim, as well... Most excellent reading for the Season!

cheers, G.

I loved Connie's (as yet unfinished, alas) novel in which Quentin and Julia were a couple.  After reading it, I watched their scenes together again and I could definitely see the chem.  Grayson and Selby were very fond of one another (as platonic friends) in RL and I think it shows onscreen.

G.

I've always wondered whether the switch to 1795 occurred because of the costumes that were available for rental for that storyline; although I think Sarah's tombstone always read 1795.

G.

The character's most famous line was variations on "You have BETRAYED me!!" and people don't think he was a drama queen???

*shrugs*  chacun a son gout!

G.

Hi Para,

generally, any effort to make the "facts" of the Dark Shadows narrative fit an internally consistent structure is doomed to failure.  There was really no effort made to establish continuity as the story evolved (or unraveled!), mainly because Dan Curtis was the de facto "head writer" on the show and would change the direction of the plot on a whim (and, if the screenplay writers protested, he'd ask them "Well, are you writing the show or aren't you?  I can get other people to write this show if you're not interested!).  There was also the problem that they were writing it all very much on the fly and they usually didn't have time to go back and check through the voluminous scripts of bygone years (though Sam Hall did keep a set at home).

To answer your questions:

[spoiler]1.  Rose Cottage was identified as "the old Magruder property" in 1970.  I see no reason why it would not still exist in 1971 since Gerard's ghost never haunted the grounds in '70 because of the change of history, so he would never have used magic to burn it as we saw in the Summer of 1970 storyline.  However, bear in mind that sometimes even when the characters went back to change history, some of the events that SHOULD have been changed still happened.  Thus, when they came back to 1969, Liz and Amy and others still had memories of Quentin's ghost haunting the grounds, even though he never died so the haunting should never have happened.

2.  The Stairway in Time was created by the 1840s Quentin Collins (not the same as the 1897/1960s Quentin.  Check out an online document called The Dark Shadows FAQ for further lore about it.  It basically follows the whim of the writers!

3.  Gerard dies at the end of 1840.

4.  Professor Stokes finds out that Collinwood was saved as a result of his, Barnabas, and Julia's actions in 1840, when he returns to 1971 with them.

Overall, the 1840 storyline has more conflicts with pre-existing continuity than any other story--mainly because it came at the end of the show so there was more story around for it to contradict.  I'd say you should feel free to write any story you choose to devise about that plotline.  Nobody could possibly make more of a mess of it than the writers already managed to do on their own! [/spoiler]

Best wishes,

Gothick 

Ned Stuart wins, hands down.

I thought Dirk Wilkins was a character that did work for what Davis could do on a certain level.  The boots helped.  His thesping really went off the cliff after a certain, uh, major life-change for the character *snrk*.  Fun to watch, though. [spoiler]I remember finding it *really* creepy when Dirk was telling the enthralled Judith to come and claim her "reward" for what she had done--the cheesy fangs, crazed look in the heavily mascaraed eyes, and frogmarching phrasing was just so "out there," EVEN for DS![/spoiler]

G.