...sitting right there in the lower left corner photo of today's montage?

They look like a vaudville act!  And just where the hell IS Tim's left hand?

Very naughty, Pepe.  

Raineypark

.....you know....the ones where Barnabas was there, studying Dream Analysis under the reknowned Herr Doctor Freud?  Amazing, isn't it....that an 18th century man who's spent 200 years in a casket can explain the subconsious and how it creates dreams to a 19th century child?  Where DO you suppose he got that stuff?  Late night brandy-and-cigarette sessions with the estimable Dr. Hoffmann?  ("Hypnosis is all in the wrist, Barn.....if you can twirl that gaudy locket, you'll have 'em spillin' their guts all over the place!")

The dream sequence itself was..........I'll call it 'effective', though 'perverse' is what I really think.  Having a dying child discuss his impending death does not entertain me, regardless of how well it works.

rainey

Oh, you have to be kidding me!!  The Horns?  Magda puts the Horns on Quentin and that's the curse?

PLEASE!!  Every Sicilian on earth knows that gesture and what it means.....only a wife and her lover can 'put the horns' on a husband and the gesture is used by others to indicate that a man has been cuckolded.

Considering that we're talking about Quentin here, who apparently has already boinked every grown female on the estate except Judith (let us devoutly hope ) I find it hilarious that THIS is the gesture the writers came up with.  

Somebody went home and laughed himself silly that night.

raineypark

.....which occured to me while I was in search of "Christmas Carol" tree ornaments: were there ever DS based Christmas ornaments?

I know there was an incredible amount of DS "stuff" back in the day but I don't think I've seen any mention of ornaments.

If they could sell out "Marley's Ghost" and "The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come" in a matter of days....why not the Ghost of Quentin Collins?

raineypark

....there'd be body parts on the carpet and blood on the walls when I caught up with Rachel Drummond.....But not Mrs. Trask!!!

No!....not the saintly and forgiving Minerva Trask....who only wants Rachel to return to the fold....to come back and be a good little teacher again....Never mind a little murder amongst friends....all is forgiven....IF you come back and do what you're told.

HOW SICK IS THIS?  

How many brothers do you suppose Minerva Trask HAS, that she can spare one or two? What do you suppose they told the police happened when they reported the death?  Or did they just toss him down the well and not mention it to anyone?  In either case, how are they going to explain it to the authorities now, if they try to accuse Tim and Rachel?  

And why aren't Tim and Rachel asking these questions?  I can buy being so terrified, or emotionally damaged  that you can't act on your own behalf.....but they DID have the gumption to get away once......did a taste of freedom render them both terminally stupid?

raineypark

Never having watched this storyline before, I was unaware of a very interesting achievement on the part of Mr. Curtis and Company.  I had no idea that, at this point in his ongoing narrative, Dan Curtis would produce his first truly terrifying character.

Certainly, up till now, we've had a plethora of storybook bogeymen to entertain us.  The Vampire, The Monster, The Werewolf and now even The Zombie, are all standard props in the repertoire of horror stories.  At some point, they even slip over the edge and become comic book shadows of the original creatures with which we love to scare ourselves witless.

But now we have on the scene a creature that we CANNOT laugh at, because, unlike the others, he is not a figment of overwrought imagination.  Instead, he is that most horrific thing, the Human Monster, who lives and breathes like the rest of us, but is, in fact, the closest to pure evil any of us can fathom.

Watching today's episode for the very first time, I immediately wondered if, were he producing this series today, Dan Curtis would create this personification of evil: a man who claims to represent God, but instead, represents all that is loathsome, degenerate, cruel and unholy.

I found Jerry Lacy's portrayal brilliant¢â‚¬¦.to the point of being unbearable to watch.  The unmistakable innuendo of sexual abuse, physical cruelty and psychological torture was more than I ever would have imagined being portrayed on a daytime soap opera.  I was frankly astonished by it.

But, after turning it off, and thinking about it at some length, it occurred to me that these are different times, and this was produced 35 years ago.  We were more innocent then.  Or more oblivious.  A story like this would have been viewed (in 1967) as a Victorian melodrama¢â‚¬¦..the sort of thing that "doesn't  happen in this day and age"¢â‚¬¦..except, of course, that it did¢â‚¬¦¢â‚¬¦and does¢â‚¬¦..and almost certainly will continue to.

Given what we are forced to acknowledge of life today,  I very much doubt Gregory Trask would exist in a modern version of this series.  The original Rev. Trask was an archetype of hypocricy and self-importance, narrow-minded enough to believe in Satanism.  He was easy to watch, as he made a fool of himself and paid the price.  

But not THIS Rev. Trask.   He strikes too close to home¢â‚¬¦..he's too immediate and real¢â‚¬¦..the likes of him haunt us in our waking hours, not in our dreams¢â‚¬¦¢â‚¬¦and, for me, at least, he's too despicable to be entertainment.

Raineypark

.....it just happens to be the title of Maeve Binchy's latest novel: "Quentins".

Caught ME by surprise in the local Border's![lghy]


RP