Houston, We've Got Color!

EPISODES 291-300

Julia makes a bargain with Barnabas; she'll try to cure his "condition" if he spares her life. It turns out Julia has always been after such a case. Barnabas agrees after much persuasion.

Things get a bit complicated when Maggie escapes from the Windcliff Institude (with the help of Sarah the ghost) and ends up in Collinwood. Barnabas is intent on killing her but Julia steps in just in time and makes Maggie forget about the whole captivity by hypnosis.

Maggie's back to normal and Julia uses a strange, shiny medallion to hypnotize her whenever she shows signs of remembrance. Not satisfied with it, Barnabas tries to kill Maggie one night but he retracts upon hearing his sister Sarah's ghostly singing.

Meanwhile Vicki falls in love with a random old house close to ocean. The property belongs to the Collins family and Liz is happy to sell it to Burke as soon as she sorts out some legal issues. Burke and Liz find the place a bit cold, literally and figuratively but Vicki, Carolyn and Barnabas find it romantic. Barnabas also spends some mysterious time upstairs when they visit it one night.

With the house almost bought, Burke proposes to Vicki who says yes after initial hesitation. Meanwhile Julia warns both Barnabas and Vicki against spending time with each other. She even threatens to expose him if he keeps obsessing over her. Not minding this, Barnabas plans to kill Burke.

Joe's blue blue eyes...or are they
green?

Ok first of all everything aside, the show is finally in COLOR!!!! I can't stop myself from watching and watching. It turns out Vicki had blue eyes!!! And so did Joe..I haven't realized that in black & white~ They even put a whole "should I pick the blue dress or the pink dress" scene just to emphasize how much color we have!! I wish I could say "So long B&W" but some episodes are still like that due to the fact that their master tape copies being lost...oh well, I'll value them as the gothic roots of the shows but there better not be a lot! (And how ironic was that the episode right after the first color one was in b&w). My younger brother, who takes a peek at the show every now and then said the color ruined the whole atmosphere but what does he know right?

Anyways, I'll try to be cool and go on with the ranting about this set of 10 episodes~

One weird chick

That Julia Hoffman is a weird woman. I know I told this before but the more I watch the more puzzling she becomes. She has been fascinated by the concept of life & death ever since her medical school days and has been dying to make such a contribution to the world of medicine. Such here being the case of Barnabas Collins of course. She explains his condition as a blood cell disorder and begins her experiments of curing him with what appears to be blood transfusion. Now I have some friends who are medical students themselves and I don't ever remember them being so romantic about these things. Maybe I should encourage them into creating zombies and such. 

It is also interesting that nobody in the show has used the word "vampire" so far. He's been called "undead", "eccentric", "supernatural", "condition" but never the word vampire. I'm all ears and will happily announce that first instance here.

Lovers reunited

It's so nice to see Maggie normal again. That poor ever-smiling girl has recently been reduced to a pale bedspread but finally she's out of it. Her reunion with Joe was heart warming (and in B&W..hmph!). I positively hate Julia when she uses that medallion thingie on Maggie but it's for her own safety I guess. And it's good to know Julia is at least defending Maggie and Vicki against Barnabas; she has work ethics and she's no Dr. Frankenstein...yet!

Ball of sunshine and garlic

Poor Sarah..

Julia's eternal sunshine operation has also erased her from Maggie's memory and now that girl is sad, lost and friendless. Still hurt feelings doesn't stop her from preventing Barnabas' almost attack on Maggie.  Clearly Sarah's presence is effecting Barnabas' performing and maybe her goodness can be the antidote to his badness. She's like garlic to his vampire if you pardon the comparison. They don't say oldies but goldies for no reason.

Burke pops the question here*

And ding dong..once again with the wedding bells. The other day we were discussing which Burke we like better on the comments section and I have to admit, this one is better for Vicki. I can't imagine her getting married to the previous Burke. Vicki the minx also admits her feelings for him ever since they met. So, she's been faking it with Carolyn all along when she said again and again she didn't have feelings for Burke. Good for you Vicki, you may look naive and cuddly on the outside but on the inside you're as sly and cunning as the rest of us.

*How awesome is this new garden/terrace set. But seriously, is it a garden is it a terrace, what?

Speaking of Carolyn, I think she's taking it pretty mature don't you think considering her last two boyfriends have found happines with other women right after breaking up with her. Makes me wonder what Buzz is up to. I shall never forget him.

Barnabas spies on the smooch couple

On the other hand, Barnabas is taking it like a bitch. With Julia talking down to him, even Willie giving him the pity look; it ain't easy being a vampire in love. Now when it comes to relationships, I too can be possessive and jealous but the dude is seriously delusional. He's taking Vicki's innocent interest in history and relics as sweet love. I guess they didn't have the concept of mixed signals in his century. 

Speaking of which, the bickering of Barnabas the gentleman and Burke the modern man was sensational (Now if there's one thing we know about Burke it's that he loves "heat"). Too bad Barnabas tries to solve every conflict with a murder. Sorta like Matthew.

There seems to be something fishy about the new old house. Even Liz's legal papers had "NOT TO BE SOLD" written on them. I wonder why..And why is it so chilly in there?

Anyway, I hope Barnabas doesn't rain on Vicki's parade although I have to admit she's lost some feminist points when she declared her marriage to Burke will finally put an end to her search for identity as she'll be Mrs Burke Devlin. Tsk tsk.

Alright, with this out of the way, I'm going back to the wonderful world of multicolors!~