The Beginning, Collection One - Disc 4

Episodes 28 - 35

Airdates: August 3 - 12, 1966


THE PLOT

Vicki has seen the missing bleeder valve from Roger's car, and she now knows that it was David who attempted to kill his own father, and that Burke is innocent. David panics, fleeing with the valve into town. His plan is to sneak into Burke's room and plant the valve there. But when Burke finds him lurking by his room, it isn't long before he figures out exactly what David is up to.

Meanwhile, Vicki finds herself with time again to pursue her quest for her own past. If anyone at Collinwood has answers, they aren't saying. But she does know of one man who hired a private detective to search for the same answers, a man who is willing to share his findings with her: Burke.


THOUGHTS

As the first episodes on this disc unfolded, I started to become a bit impatient with the "car accident" plot. With David going up to plant the evidence in Burke's room, it seemed that the writers were engaging in the time-honored soap opera technique of dragging out a subplot until every bit of entertainment value has long since departed. Then an interesting thing happened. At the end of a lengthy, often charming scene between Burke and David, Burke sends David into the bathroom to wash up... and then walks right to the place where David hid the bleeder valve, pulls it out, and shakes his head at the spot the boy has gotten himself into. With Elizabeth basically admitting that she knows that David is guilty, and his father finding out soon after, a plot turn that seemed to be trying to further extend this subplot instead ends up wrapping it up.

The door is closed firmly enough that the plot feels satisfactorily completed, but we are left on an ominous note. David is far from a sweet, innocent cherub, after all. Roger's warning that he is a troubled boy who is likely to become worse, not better, doesn't seem terribly far-fetched. If his aunt will shield him from the consequences of attempted murder, then why should he consider the consequences of whatever he might do next?


Recasting of the Week

It is a time-honored soap tradition that when an actor either moves on or doesn't work out, the producers don't write out the character. They just change the actor. Wouldn't it figure that not only does that happen startlingly early in this series' run, but it happens with one of the better-acted supporting characters.

Mark Allen is gone, with the role of Sam Evans now played by David Ford. Ford's Sam appears in only one episode on this disc. My first impression is that he is not an improvement, but I'll withhold judgment until I've had a little time to get used to him. I will miss Mark Allen, though, who was quite convincing playing the tortured Sam, and whose booming voice was a good fit for the potentially overblown "poetic" dialogue which, thus far at least, doesn't sound nearly as convincing coming from Ford.


Cast & Characters

One thing the car accident subplot has done, beyond simply chewing up episodes while delaying the trigger on Burke's revenge, is to really focus on David Collins. How odd it must have been, for viewers of mid-1960's daytime television, to witness a 9-year-old boy who not only attempts to kill his father, but who willfully tries to shift that blame onto others, who runs to his aunt claiming that his governess "tried to hurt (him)," and who growls at that same governess - the show's audience identification figure - that he hates her. There's often a pause in David Henesy's performance, and he often looks up at camera - probably a simple matter of getting indications about what he should do. But it helps to create the sense of something "off" about David. He's also almost frighteningly good when he growls his hatred of Vicki. Small children often say they "hate" others. When David wheels on Vicki, though, he truly sounds as if he means it.

Unfortunately, not all of the characters are developing quite so well. Joe Haskell has got to be about the most tedious character imaginable. The show keeps trying to cram him down our throats as a "really nice guy." But his repeated whining about wanting to marry Caroline (the subject of very nearly every scene in which he appears) has passed the point of being potentially sympathetic, and now passed the point of being merely tiresome. At this point, it's downright obsessive.

In real life, Caroline's loving mother shouldn't keep trying to push her into his arms - She should be trying to get him away from her daughter, with police intervention if necessary. I'd half expect him to start going after people with an axe... only I fear Joe will never do anything half so interesting, since being boring appears to be his mission in life. No disrespect to actor Joel Crothers, who has been generally competent in his performance, but Joe ranks highest on the list of characters I would like to see slip off the top of Widows' Hill.


Final Note

The Collinwood sets deserve special praise. The sets representing the entry hall, the drawing room, and the upstairs areas are extremely well-designed, particularly by the often creaky standards of 1960's television. The house's internal architecture - at least with regard to these major areas - is always clear to us when watching, and each set feels like part of the same house. Given that these are the key sets of the series, it is worth observing just what a good job the production team did in creating them.

Unfortunately, I have already come to dread any scene set in "The Blue Whale." That set is almost laughably poor, and the canned music makes the overall impression even worse. It doesn't help that the scenes set in there (frequently ones involving Joe and Caroline) tend to be the weakest of the series. On my relatively new and brief wish-list for the show, top of the list is... Well, top of the list is "Joe Haskell has a tragic accident," but second on that list is "No more Blue Whale."

The show itself remains entertaining. Once the "car accident" plot is tied up, though, the last couple of episodes go by very slowly, with most of the momentum gone.  Hopefully, Burke's true revenge plot will kick in soon, and things will start gathering steam again.


Previous: Episodes 19 - 27
Next: Episodes 36 - 44


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