A brilliant critique, as always, Luciaphil.

My favorite comment on the character of Olivia/Amanda comes in a wonderfully played little scene between "Grant" and the lady herself.  At some point, completely frustrated with Olivia's antics, Grant bellows at her:  "Maybe I don't know at the moment who I am.  I don't think YOU EVER knew who you are!"

It kind of sums Amanda up in a nutshell.

Gothick

Hi again Maine Girl,

Cheep Productions did a gloriously demented series of parody episodes of Dark Shadows.  The production values were actually rather stunning, given that these were totally fan written, acted, and produced.

I won't print any names due to the understandable desire of the fans involved for privacy, but the actor who plays Julia (a very talented young man who has Grayson's vocal inflections and mannerisms down to a T) is hysterical!  And he plays Barnabas, too!

One of the shows was called Save Our Cemeteries.  If memory serves, the plot revolved around a (sadly perpetually off-camera) scheming Count Petofi's plot to bulldoze the Eagle Hill Cemetery and turn the premises into a peep-show.

There was another one where Julia had cured Barnabas and he had to learn how to sleep in a bed again.  He kept sliding out, while wearing the cutest bat-printed pyjamas.  At some point Julia shows up in a Madonna outfit and performs a slinky dance to one of those early 90s sexaholic songs of hers.  I literally nearly died laughing!

Ah, the memories.

Steve

well, MB, I guess it's a case of YaBB-a dab-a TWO!

you know I've been dying for a chance to say that...

Steve

I happened to have the show on briefly this a.m. and nearly fainted at the glamorousness of Grayson's appearance in episode 1.  The tailored coat (thank you Ohrbach's, you FINALLY found something that did not make Our Favorite Doctor look like the Last of the Frumps!), the gorgeous scarf (looked chocolate brown from where I was sitting), the hair, the makeup, the earrings--the tout ensemble was the SUMMIT of perfection!

Joan looked really superb, as well.  I hope both ladies went out for lunch that day and amused themselves with the clank of dropping jaws all round.

Hope they both ordered lots of expensive dishes and charged it all to Dan Curtis!

Gothick

From the montage, I take it that Liz's Leviathan Nightmare was aired today (but maybe it was yesterday).  What did folks think?  Although entertaining to watch, I always find myself clueless as to just how it's meant to accomplish the results of the dream.

Beautiful shot of Joan's horrified face in the funhouse mirror. Even in a state of shock, Liz manages to look stately!

Gothick

That Sandy Dennis movie was called Something Evil and directed by Steven Spielberg.  He did it shortly after the much-ballyhooed Duel (which I never saw, the subject matter sounded intensely boring to me).  Darren McGavin was in it, and so was Johnnie Whitaker (who was on Family Affair, the Sebastian Cabot/Brian Keith vehicle).

I remember it vividly too, but haven't seen it since the early 70s.

I'm afraid the use of the pentagram-on-the-floor in the Summer of 1970 sequence wasn't any more accurate than the use of it we just saw, but the incantation was fun.

It was wild that they were doing all this stuff in 1969/1970.  In Maryland, at least, this stuff was very exotic.  Every week I would go to the library for more books to tell me about what I was seeing on Dark Shadows.  It had such an impact upon my imagination.

Gothick

Hi Julia, do you mean from the current (Leviathans) storyline? They are luscious together.  And then there's a scene where Briscoe and Selby are together and they both have big, tousled hair and look teasingly rumpled.  That really makes Gothick's mojo buzz.

Hope you can get tapes of next week's shows!  As I recall, there are some great scenes from the shows later in this week, as the good doctor tries to "help" Grant Douglas with all his problems.

Gothththth

Hi Prof. Stokes,

Generally, the Pentagram represents the forces of Protection.  It has a lot of other, esoteric uses as well, but that is its most "generic" use.

The kind of thing Paul tried to set up in his room does require some work beyond just lighting the candles to activate.  The fact that he neglected to mark off the borders between the points with a circle was a sign that he really had not a clue what he was doing.

At least, though, it did shut up that annoying voice-over.  The whole thing seemed like Sat. Night Live does Dark Shadows.

Goithick