Professor Stokes

[FangFan]

Okay Harry, I get your point and have to say that it was exciting to see the original actors in those spots in the movie, but that doesn't mean I wanted to see them in regular roles. I grew up in the 1960's and remember all those shows as well, but it just seems like its time for a new generation to take over the reins. Let's see if the show takes off before we start casting cameos.

[Carol04]

Cameo appearance can but subtle,one could be the nurse at the hospital desk, as the fan of the original you asked was that Lara Parker at that desk? Was that Andrian Paul giving directions to The Blue Whale?

[FangFan]

You right on target Carol. That type of cameo is exciting for the original fans. That is what I liked about the Lost in Space movie and would like to see in the new show.

The core cast, however, should be played by new actors.

[Carol04]

The core cast should be the present 2004 actors.

Maybe David Selby could be professor of the occult they need to ask his advise for example.

Jonathan Frid could recite the opening as Victoria Winters meets the family of Collinwood....

He may be eighty-one, he still has a nice reading voice.

[Tori]

The reason I’d love to see David Selby or John Karlen on this show is because it would be fun! They are both great actors and very fun to watch. As to making it “New” what’s so wrong with enjoying some of the original flavor? If the idea wasn’t good the first time why remake it?

This is a remake, and I for one want to see the characters be similar to how they were envisioned when they were first created. I want to see the relationships of the original characters stay the same. They should retell the Barnabas story for sure and there is nothing wrong with telling the same story over and then adding new things to it. The writers have lots of story lines to choose from; all they need to do is fix some of the inconsistencies. Then they can drop the less interesting story line (Adam and Eve, Leviathans, etc.) and add new story lines.

Tori

[Carol04]

On the internet interview John Karlen did express, that he would love to be in new Dark Shadows. He would play himself or his old character Willie Loomis or anything at all.

I see John Karlen being a tv announcer about the vampire attacks.

[Harrypr]

I think I'll add one reason to include origional cast members that will be understood by all. Over the years Dark Shadows has remained dear to our hearts, in a way when we watch our VHS tapes or DVD's, we are transported back in time alongside the Collins family. Over the years many DS stars have passed away: Joan Bennett, Grayson Hall, Louis Edmonds, Joel Crothers, Michael Stroka, Dennis Patrick, Virginia Vestoff, Clarice Blackburn, David Ford and Thayer David. On a bright note, Jonathan Frid is 81 years old and stll works in plays and does Shakespearre & Edgar Allan Poe readings (Thanks to Carol for this corrected info on Jonathan). We actually have very few other major DS stars left. Nancy Barrett, Kathyrn Lee Scott, Lara Parker, David Selby and John Karlen are the names that come to mind. Seeing them pop up in Coillinsport from time to time would certainly put a smile on my face. Of course the new WB Dark Shadows must concentrate on its new cast. Thats the way it should be. But if John Karlen comes staggering out of the Blue Whale one night and bumps into Barnabas and looks puzzled, I'll be right there with him... Harry

[Carol04]

Jonathan Frid is 81 and he is not retired, he played a priest in Canada Play which was last fall 2003. He does Frids Friends and Fiends quoting Shakespearre and Egar Allen Poe. He has his own webiste.

http://www.jonathanfrid.com/

This is Jonathan Frid's Official Website, all that he has done in last forty plus years, and what is recently doing now.

[Michael Evenden]

Whom Can You Not Cut?

I've been musing a bit on characters that HAVE to stay (IMHO, of course) and characters that story can be told without. Having *****ed long and loud about the forced poverty of characterization that came with the more streamlined storytelling of House of Dark Shadows and the 1991 series--and I'm still firmly convinced that the limited time could and should have been used better in the latter to fill characters out in more colorful detail--I think I'm obliged to admit that lots of surgical cutting out of anything unnecessary would also be a part of filling the remaining characters out more satisfactorily.

So we need to be tough with our feelings here--having liked something in the past may not be enough reason to keep it. You have to ask what the essential functions of the characters are and whether some of those functioons can be concentrated in one.

House of Dark Shadows bids fair to have cut the character list down almost as far as it can go, if not too far: Barnabas, Maggie (standing in for Victoria), Julia, Willie, Jeff Clark, Elizabeth, Roger, Carolyn, with brief work by Daphne Budd (the Collins' secretary, Barnabas's first kill), Sheriff Patterson, and Professor Woodard.

Of this list, being entirely ruthless, I could cut Jeff Clark (I miss Vickie/Maggie having a choice between a mortal lover and a vampire, but there's an element of giving her a big strong man to save her here that I think would be better served by forcing Vickie to face her battles on her own strngth and smarts; besides, how do you make Jeff Clark anything other than the cardboard boyscout who saves the girl?); I could cut Roger, who has no essential function in THIS story--Maggie/Vicki could be brought in because David is orphaned and Elizabeth has taken him in.

Now, to turn from HODS to a series, whom would you absolutely have to add? To me, and I'm sorry to say it, you can get along without Maggie--her principal story function in the OS was to be another damsel in distress, and I think that if you need that you should go to Carolyn, who frequently has far too little to do (between d-in-d gigs of her own--she could even take up the medium/psychic functions that Maggie provided in 1991 (rather the way Carolyn was becomnig more psychic as the series ended). Joe Haskell was good eye candy and provided a glimpse of the kind of people who work for the Collinses, and let Carolyn be a bad girl by seducing him after Daphne's death--but as soon as he was poised to do something consequential in the plot, Angelique killed him. I think you can do without if you have to. I've aleady said, with regret, on the "Sarah" thread that I think you can do without her--I think it would be just as strong or stronger for Barnabas to be greeted by another ghost from his past who calls up his conscience--his mother, his father, Ben, or--my choice--Josette. There should be servants in the house, but they needn't be Mrs. Johnson (and when they moved to that humongous set for 1991, didn't they need more than a housekeeper/cook to keep the estate livable?)--so you could elaborate the cast here just a bit.

Professor Stokes was added so that in addition to Julia who could talk about Barnabas's medical condition you could have an expert in the supernatural in cahoots with Barnabas to help explain stuff and move the plot along as new monsters arrived. (And Thayer David was such a great caricature of a professor--that three-piece suit, the slicked-back hair, that monacle! Oh yeah--JUST the way college professors dress. Yes indeed.) Well, maybe that's absolutely necessary, unless you want Julia to suddenly become a psychic researcher as well as a leading hematologist who's handy with hypnotism (and what was that about, by the way?). If you had to scrimp, you could make Wllie a sci-fi and fantasy fan who has somehow heard of every kind of ghostie--that might be fun, actually. And sometimes Carolyn the budding psychic researcher could pitch in depending on how "in the know" regarding Barnabas she had to be on a case-by-case basis. Maybe Professor Woodard, who--in the HODS and 1991 plots had to die--could be the psychic researcher at the college (because small colleges in Maine always have a department of psychic research) and Carolyn or even Wilie could have been taking classes from him and could take over after his death. So maybe there's a way to do without him, narrowly.

More later.

[zahir]

Somebody did a very funny little "interview" videotape with Dr. Julia Hoffman at the last DS Festival I attended--one that quietly referred to Julia's many specialities. Blood specialist. Drug designer. Hypnotist. Therapist. Historian. M.D. Heh heh. Got a chuckle.

As of now we have Barnabas, Victoria, Liz, Carolyn, Roger, David, Julia, Angelique, Joe, Willie and Sophia (evidently Kelly is not a regular). That's a little high, IMO, but we'll see. It reminds me a bit of DS9 and that worked well, and remember the whole structure of this show is focussed on conflict between the regulars rather than with guest stars. Look at the possibilities...

Victoria VS David
David VS Carolyn
Carolyn VS Liz
Liz VS Roger
Roger VS Sophia
Sophia VS Joe
Joe VS Willie
Willie VS Barnabas
Barnabas VS Julia
Julia VS Angelique
Angelique VS Victoria

And that's without doubling back along the chain! What about Victoria VS Julia? Or Carolyn VS Joe? Sophia VS Barnabas?

[k. caorli]

As I wrote once elsewhere one way to keep the cast from expanding too far, when [ and if ] it gets to the werewolf story I think that the present day bearer of the curse aught to be Joe or less probably Roger.The latter would require some alteration to the curse but might Roger a major plot thread down the road. He'd probably already bear the curse at the time of the pilot though it need not be revealed if so.Yet maybe the rumour of the werewolf aught to come in fairly soon if Roger or Joe bore the curse. If the former it may have been one reason his marriage failed.Were it the latter it could complicate Carolyn's relationship to Joe.I thought of him because in the original Joe was Chris's cousin. It wouldn't be hard to make him Quentin's modern descendent assuming the family's history is anything like previous versions, which it may not be.Right now we don't even know there will be a Quentin, though if the show gets on the air and lasts long enough I think we will see a werewolf.The problem as I noted before is that if one of the core cast members is the werewolf that should already be true at the start unless the curse begins in the present day. The only alternative might be a change wrought by meddling in time travel.Maybe Barnabas goes back to the 1890's [?] to save David as in the original but the werewolf curse was not part of the original timeline and only occurs because Quentin lived when he'd originally died. By this I'm assuming that Quentin died at a point equivalent to his being stabbed by Jenny in the flashback, before Magda cursed him. I also suspect that Roger may be involved with Sophia, secretly ala Maggie in 1991. Curtis may have learned to avoid the anger of the fans by not using a previously established character but retaining the dynamic of a secret younger lover for Roger. If so she may end up being the resident psychic too.If that's the case she equates as much to Maggie [1991] as to either version of Mrs. Johnson.At least it would give her something to do in the plot aside from making up rooms or carrying trays of food or drink.And what is her relationship with Willie? We know she got him the job but why? They seem unlikely to be related, though you can never be sure. Was she his girlfreind prior to Kelly and will he turn to her after Kelly dies and becomes a vampire? That would cause conflict with Roger were he and Sophia involved......

[Michael Evenden]

I enjoy watching others--and myself too--letting our minds wander through the story possibilities--that's what fans do. Fandom is inherently creative, I think, even if it can get unhealthy (present and familiar compoany excluded, of course).

I think one of the real challenges of writing Dark Shadows is actually linking the soap-opera passions to the supernatural: Angelique is the spurned lover of many a soap, but her witching powers give her jealousy some teeth; Barnabas is as rejected and guilty a loner as Byron's Manfred ever was--but he's vampire; Quentin is a rich ne'er-do-well, but his indiscretions get him cursed as a werewolf--he has acted like an animal and now he can't stop becoming one. I really think Dark Shadows works best when the magic is a metaphor for the person or the emotions.

Thus, my huge frustration with the whole endless 1845 scenario, with who's going-to-get-Samantha the most drawn-out question nobody ever asked--in an endless triangular love squabble, the supernatural had to come in from the outside, in the form of Judah Zachary's head. After all the searching, we find out that Gerard Stiles was never the problem--the evil that leads him to haunt the place is from Zachery; why, then, didn't Judah Zachery haunt Collinwood so we could have taken a breather from the endless non-events of the rest of the story.

So now that we know that they're planning for a Maggie, it would be good to imagine a supernatural scenario that can evolve from her--picking up from where 1991 let off, she could be long-distance possessed by Roger's ex; or she could bring a supernatural secret with her--the cat people thing, maybe, or psychic hallucinations that make her something of a fortune teller. . . .

I think the point is--and this is why i like JOE as the werewolf--poor old Joe was kind of a sitting duck for girl vampires and not much else (dude in distress)--I'd be happy if at the arrival of a certain birthday the werewolf thing just hit him. (Let's wait and see what kind of an actor he is before we dream up this actor as Quentin , , ,

So I'm all for economy of actors as well as economy of magical storythreads . . .

[Carol04]

Anthony Stewart Head would be great as Professor Stokes.

[Collinwood]

Originally posted by Carol04
Anthony Stewart Head would be great as Professor Stokes.

I think that the acto being so closely associated to Giles it would be construed as a Buffy rip-off.

[Carol04]

Maybe not.

Anthony Stewart Head might not want to do it, He likes living in England and does not like to travel to work, this is the reason why he left Buffy.