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Post by Trace on Mar 30, 2017 1:50:01 GMT
Okay I feel a bit bad that I didn't really enjoy House of Despair. I DID really enjoy the characters and their interactions and all the acting was excellent as always but I found this plot didn't really engage me and I was definitely a bit lost. I would say if this was my introduction to Dark Shadows I may not have continued. I also felt maybe things felt a bit rushed here too. At the very least I can say since I knew the characters from other audios I still enjoyed hearing from them even if I wasn't engaged by the plot. Maybe it's because I am coming in as a Dark Shadows audio fan not someone familiar with the TV series (beyond the basics) Well as the next 2 are written by Scott I am looking forward to them even though these would be quite early stories for him. Haha!! You shouldn't feel badly--that's the fun of a group listen....hearing everyone's reactions, the pluses and the minuses! And I can't say this with certainty, but I THINK you may like series 1 better as it goes along and you hear the next three. They really build on each other, and now that you've gotten the intros that perhaps were a tv series summary (and lost you on occasion), that confusing info may now prove rather irrelevant because eps 2 thru 4 will just build on each other more than on the tv series.
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Post by coldlazarou on Mar 30, 2017 4:45:57 GMT
That intro speech by Quentin is pretty much scorched into my mind, as i ploughed through the entire show on DVD before finally picking up the full-cast series, and the BF promo at the end of a lot of the discs had Quentin's opening monologue, Maggie's "Poor people - barely people at all...", Willie's "They're like me - they're broken", and of course Angelique's cackle and "I am reborn!" scarred into whatever the audio equivalent of retinas are.
That Joseph Fox musical score (best used to maximum effect, in my opinion, in That Graveyard Scene in The Ghost Watcher) is still wonderful, giving the season a lovely haunting elegiac tone. I can understand people thinking it may not be the best introduction story for newcomers to DS, as it is more of a reintroduction to our main characters, but it worked wonderfully for me. Quentin's return after his long period of self-exile, his reunions with Maggie and Willie - i still listen to it with a wistful smile on my face like i'm meeting old friends for the first time in ages, even though i'd only met these characters in the year and a half or so before i first heard the story when i leapt head first into the Shadowsverse and never looked back.
I do recall being slightly baffled by the whole Angelique resurrection part, as she was of course still alive when we last saw her in 1970 or '71. Did Mr Manning's memory confuse him with her being killed in 1840 (where we last technically saw her)? Timey-wimey deady-witchy. I guess the Tony & Cassandra audios might clear up this little anomaly, but i've only heard the first two of those...
Strix is an intriguing, if somewhat shadowy and elusive villain, but most of all the story is an effective way of reuniting our cast - including the core triumvirate of the wolf, the witch and the vampire (and averse to recasts though the team is these days, i don't think anyone would argue with Andrew Collins taking on the mantle of Barnabas marvelously) - and setting the scene for the tales to come.
Three Strigian death-birds out of five.
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bobod
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Post by bobod on Mar 30, 2017 9:38:08 GMT
Isn't what he said "all gone now"? - which works both as "gone away" for those still alive and "dead" for those not.
I don't know for certain what Stuart was planning, but I've never heard of ANY plans for this to actually be a 'sub-plot' that was going to have any traction, it's just a reason for them not to be there.
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bobod
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Post by bobod on Mar 30, 2017 9:47:16 GMT
Okay I feel a bit bad that I didn't really enjoy House of Despair. I DID really enjoy the characters and their interactions and all the acting was excellent as always but I found this plot didn't really engage me and I was definitely a bit lost. I would say if this was my introduction to Dark Shadows I may not have continued. I also felt maybe things felt a bit rushed here too. At the very least I can say since I knew the characters from other audios I still enjoyed hearing from them even if I wasn't engaged by the plot. Maybe it's because I am coming in as a Dark Shadows audio fan not someone familiar with the TV series (beyond the basics) I'd never direct a DS newbie to these early plays straight away. I'd get them to have a good grounding in more accessible ones first and only then once they knew more lore would I suggest those ones. And, based on what you're saying there, they could still be a bit thrown.
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bobod
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Post by bobod on Mar 30, 2017 9:58:01 GMT
I do recall being slightly baffled by the whole Angelique resurrection part, as she was of course still alive when we last saw her in 1970 or '71. Did Mr Manning's memory confuse him with her being killed in 1840 (where we last technically saw her)? Timey-wimey deady-witchy. I don't know why Stuart put Angelique in that position, but I doubt it was because he mistakenly thought she already was. It'll have been because 'it makes a good story and we can always go back and reverse-engineer it later if that makes a good story too'.
cf The Haunted Refrain and The Darkest Shadow.
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Post by omega on Mar 30, 2017 10:08:01 GMT
Isn't what he said "all gone now"? - which works both as "gone away" for those still alive and "dead" for those not. I don't know for certain what Stuart was planning, but I've never heard of ANY plans for this to actually be a 'sub-plot' that was going to have any traction, it's just a reason for them not to be there. It was a rather ambiguous line, but at the time the story was written the last that was seen, and indeed known, of Chris Jennings was him simply not appearing after one episode during the Leviathan and 1970 Parallel Time arcs due to Don Briscoe's poor health. Julia is also mentioned, and she turns up a couple of years later in a notably different but unspecified state (which presumably Bloodline will shed more light on and possibly one of the short stories). Speaking of Bloodline, I wonder what stage production is at. I'm not asking for anything about plot, characters or actors (I'll let Big Finish cover that), but just curious about how close to recording it's at. The missing family thing is mentioned again in The Christmas Presence, and {Spoiler}{Spoiler} Carolyn says in her letter that the family remains scattered. Her letter states "that we are out there, and when the time is right we will return." I've interpreted this to mean that there was a plan for bringing the Collinwood residents back.
Bloodlust does imply that their delayed return was due to the influence of the Hand of Petofi, since both David and Carolyn knowing deceive Quentin while under the Hand's power. It could simply be I'm seeing aborted story arcs where there were none at all.
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Post by omega on Mar 30, 2017 10:12:12 GMT
I do recall being slightly baffled by the whole Angelique resurrection part, as she was of course still alive when we last saw her in 1970 or '71. Did Mr Manning's memory confuse him with her being killed in 1840 (where we last technically saw her)? Timey-wimey deady-witchy. I don't know why Stuart put Angelique in that position, but I doubt it was because he mistakenly thought she already was. It'll have been because 'it makes a good story and we can always go back and reverse-engineer it later if that makes a good story too'.
cf The Haunted Refrain and The Darkest Shadow.
Whenever I've listened to The Crimson Pearl before I'd watched the early point of the 1897 arc, I'd assumed the segment with Angelique and the Dark Lord was just before Quentin raised her. Because I hadn't seen the aforementioned episodes, I didn't have the context provided in the scene and indeed that context passed me by. Crimson Pearl is another one that shouldn't be recommended to someone new to Dark Shadows, which may have been part of the problem. The main reason I got it in a Big Finish sale was because Matthew Waterhouse was in it.
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bobod
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Post by bobod on Mar 30, 2017 10:27:44 GMT
Yeah, I know. But I think the line is perfectly 'fudgeable' as it stands.
I *think* you are. I think these are just 'keeping them written out' lines rather than 'putting pieces in place for their return' lines.
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 30, 2017 10:31:27 GMT
Strangely enough Angelique being brought back to life was one of the few things I didn't find confusing. Maybe because I didn't know she wasn't in that position at the end of the TV series I could just accept it. I did feel everything was happening a bit fast though for the start of a new series.
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Post by omega on Mar 30, 2017 10:35:19 GMT
I *think* you are. I think these are just 'keeping them written out' lines rather than 'putting pieces in place for their return' lines. So like the Third Doctor stories where the Brigadier is in Geneva, or the Fourth Doctor landing somewhere bumpy, wet or otherwise difficult for K9 to traverse. It is easy to imagine Roger and Elizabeth wanting to take some time far away from Collinwood considering everything they've been through there. Manslaughter cover-ups, snooping governesses, unwanted houseguests with a penchant for blackmail, unexpected wives with magic powers and supernatural forces like Quentin's ghost and the Leviathans would be enough to drive any sane person from Collinwood. One definite recurring element that was dropped was the possibility of Barnabas's personality being affected by the body he was wearing. This was confirmed in The Legend Reborn to be something used to explore Barnabas as a character in this new situation, yet isn't fully developed and forgotten by Kingdom of the Dead.
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Post by omega on Mar 30, 2017 10:42:51 GMT
Strangely enough Angelique being brought back to life was one of the few things I didn't find confusing. Maybe because I didn't know she wasn't in that position at the end of the TV series I could just accept it. I did feel everything was happening a bit fast though for the start of a new series. That's what a pilot has to do though. Establish the characters, their inter-personal relationships, narrative and tone. With only four one hour stories instead of 13 forty-five minute episodes some rushing would have been necessary. Personally I didn't find it rushed. Part 1 introduced us to most of the characters and the general situation. Episode 2 developed it and brought Angelique in. Episode 3 provided bad guy exposition and the main characters fighting back.
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 30, 2017 11:26:30 GMT
I don't agree that you have to introduce every character in a pilot especially one where you have a limited length of time as this story did.
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Post by omega on Mar 30, 2017 11:31:50 GMT
I don't agree that you have to introduce every character in a pilot especially one where you have a limited length of time as this story did. Barnabas doesn't appear until the end, and Ed and Susan Griffin get more attention in the fourth story.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2017 16:39:47 GMT
By the time I heard this for the first time I already knew the show, probably seen about a third of it, and had heard most of the other DS releases so it was never close to being my first experience of the show. I hadn't reached Quentin on screen but knew him on audio. I'd followed the advice of people on-line and stuck to "accessible" stories first rather than doing them in release order as we would with other ranges at BF. My goodness, the recommended listening order that was posted was indispensable. I must have referred to it a hundred times.
Of course, we start -as seemingly any version of DS must - with a train steaming into town. Having Quentin and not Barnabas as the entry into this works well. Barnabas never works as well for me as a protagonist wheras Quentin is much more suited for the role. I guess with having a recast Barnabas it makes sense not to have him front and centre ahead of the actual TV leads too. Normally I wouldn't think that should be a factor but Stuart aimed the show much more at the choir than the casuals and figured getting the TV cast to lure the listener in before dropping the recast would be a good idea.
What I just can't get around is that this must be at best confusing and at worse impenetrable for total newbies to the show. If you were to start with release 1.1 - and common sense says why wouldn't you? - you'd get a much worse introduction than starting with releases out years later. When Joe and Davy made an effort to give us jumping on points and have new characters so any information aimed at them - say the Cunninghams - also informed the listeners. It makes the exposition more palpable when it's a new character learning about the place. That's really missing here. Here we have characters who have long histories sharing info with each other that they shouldn't need to - does Quentin need to say "My family, Willie...the Collins family"? No...Willie knows who they are but we get clunky lines like that because the typical device of "a stranger in town" isn't used.
I appreciate Trace saying this release worked well if the range is still going years later, but I think Bobod's point that Joe's work to make it more accessible and get it crossing over to non-fans is why we're still getting DS in 2017 and not really anything to do with the early stuff. If the whole lot of audios was in this style with few concessions to new listeners, I don't think we'd have any DS now. Look at what Kim says, as someone only familiar with some audio and not TV it wasn't working for her and wasn't accessible. That's more telling than the rest of us who have seen the show and know the characters stories well. Sure, you can google for info but it's a bit sad that you'd need to just to keep up with the very first release.
There's also not a great sense of location here. Quentin just thinks about Willie...and Willie appears. The first place he goes in town and Maggie is there. That sort of storytelling might have been necessary when the TV show only had limited sets to use but on audio the scale and scope of the town could have been expanded. I do, however, quite like that the ease of the regulars coming together so easily gives it a very dreamlike quality. There's actually a lot of nice tone in this when you are familiar enough to not be lost and there's more structure here than many of the early Dramatic Readings. There's a melancholia around the characters, a real sense of loss. Now, DS characters are never the cheeriest but they're downright maudlin for large chunks here, it's a lovely gothic mood. I wouldn't like it all the time but there's a real sense of decay here that I love.
It's nice to set up the regulars so soon - we have the supernatural Trinity at Collinwood, the regular townspeople at the Whale and the tweeners of Willie and Maggie all within an hour. Though the storytelling for a fresh range is questionable, the pacing and the introduction of characters works well. We've got our major cast ready within this one disc. Job done. Strix is a nicely wicked one-off villain for the piece and the voice is suitably creepy though.
The music is great, very mournful and evocative. Perfectly suited for a piece like this and the range in general. And great to know the jukie at the Whale still has the same handful of 7" records.
Overall though, even as someone who knows DS well, this is clunky with a real messy middle act. Essentially the more supernatural it gets, the more of a cluster it is. The small-scale intimacy at the start with Quentin is the best part. Luckily that's closer tonally to where the range would go. Eventually.
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Post by Trace on Mar 31, 2017 2:35:45 GMT
Strangely enough Angelique being brought back to life was one of the few things I didn't find confusing. Maybe because I didn't know she wasn't in that position at the end of the TV series I could just accept it. I did feel everything was happening a bit fast though for the start of a new series. And I was extremely familiar with the entire TV series, and Return to Collinwood, and yet, calling Angelique back to the land of the living didn't seem unusual to me at all! Two reasons--it happened all the time, AND, 12 years have passed since the series end. ANYTHING could have happened between 1971 and 1983, and we had no other audios yet to fill in the gaps. So, there's nothing unusual going on.
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Post by elkawho on Mar 31, 2017 2:57:43 GMT
When I first heard this audio, I had only heard 1 or 2 DS audios and had never seen any of the TV series. I didn't like it at all and it actually kept me from buying more DS for a while. I did listen to it again a some time later, after I'd seen a little of the series, but that was mostly just to jog my brain when I finally bought the rest of the first season. I don't even remember what I thought about that particular listen, except that now I (sort of) understood why Barnabas is in a different body.
Now after this listen I'm afraid to say that my initial opinion of it stands, but for different reasons. Most of those seem to be in line with @davygallagher. I also felt like the writing/storytelling was clunky and the scenes were poorly put together. I rarely get pulled out of a Big Finish story so totally because a character has to describe what they are seeing/doing. It is usually handled very well by BF writers, yet this happened a number of times in this story.
I do understand that Dark Shadows is pure melodrama, however the amount of over the top tackiness was even too much for me. How many times can Angelique do her evil laugh to know that she is evil? How loud can Willie be while dying? And for how long? There were so many more like those.
Quentin's motivations made no sense throughout the entire story. He talks down to Willie and doesn't listen to him, then realized he's right, and then treats him like an idiot again. I still don't understand why he resurrected Angelique, except that she needed to be in the story. I don't know if she was alive or dead at the end of the series, so that never entered into it for me.
What did I like about it? Andrew Collins. He was great, but was only in the last 10 min or so.
This whole audio sounded extremely amateurish to me. Having heard the whole series, I do remember liking the others in it better than this one.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 31, 2017 3:00:17 GMT
Strangely enough Angelique being brought back to life was one of the few things I didn't find confusing. Maybe because I didn't know she wasn't in that position at the end of the TV series I could just accept it. I did feel everything was happening a bit fast though for the start of a new series. I thought they did a good job providing a lot of the important background (Maggie, Barnabas, and Angelique mainly) but I think even for returning fans a lot might have happened in one story. Of necessity there's so much stage-setting that it probably does end up marginalizing any main plot to some degree. I think the story does an excellent job of balancing being a new adventure and a reunion, but it might well have benefited from being a two- or four-parter? I do understand that Dark Shadows is pure melodrama, however the amount of over the top tackiness was even too much for me. How many times can Angelique do her evil laugh to know that she is evil? How loud can Willie be while dying? And for how long? I think those two are just like that.
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bobod
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Post by bobod on Mar 31, 2017 8:32:05 GMT
Strangely enough Angelique being brought back to life was one of the few things I didn't find confusing. Maybe because I didn't know she wasn't in that position at the end of the TV series I could just accept it. I did feel everything was happening a bit fast though for the start of a new series. And I was extremely familiar with the entire TV series, and Return to Collinwood, and yet, calling Angelique back to the land of the living didn't seem unusual to me at all! Two reasons--it happened all the time, AND, 12 years have passed since the series end. ANYTHING could have happened between 1971 and 1983, and we had no other audios yet to fill in the gaps. So, there's nothing unusual going on. In my on-going first watch of the TV shows (reaching #936 last night), Angelique is the character I have the biggest problem getting a handle on - nothing to do with Lara's performance but because the character is so detached from everything. She gets killed, she disappears, she's not seen for ages and then she turns up via another bizarre means, she has another new crazy agenda, gets the upper hand, loses it, and then she gets killed, and rinse and repeat.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 31, 2017 11:12:37 GMT
In my on-going first watch of the TV shows (reaching #936 last night), Angelique is the character I have the biggest problem getting a handle on - nothing to do with Lara's performance but because the character is so detached from everything. She gets killed, she disappears, she's not seen for ages and then she turns up via another bizarre means, she has another new crazy agenda, gets the upper hand, loses it, and then she gets killed, and rinse and repeat. That's about how I think of it, the path to Hell for Angelique (and Nicholas Blair) must have a revolving door in it. They seem to be doomed to suffer for eternity - unless the Dark Lord happens to think of a chore that needs doing? :-)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2017 1:24:08 GMT
I know some of us have kinda touched on it, but since this is 1.1 - the first DS BF release - does anyone have any ideas, even briefly, on what they might have done instead to kickstart the range, assuming you only had the same actors and characters to play with?
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