Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Return of VICTORIA WINTERS?


In January, BIG FINISH slipped a major announcement into listing about their upcoming releases for 2013. In addition to revealing the names and titles of most of this year's episodes, the press release also had this to say:
"The Wicked and the Dead, returns to the range for The Lucifer Gambit, a story that also sees the return to Dark Shadows of an actor - and character - yet to have featured in the audio series..."
Now, the roster of original actors from DARK SHADOWS yet to appear in a Big Finish release is relatively small. Fans have been speculating about the identity of this actor and character. Is it HUMBERT ALLEN ASTREDO? The actor hasn't made an appearance in a Big Finish audio drama, but his most famous character played a major role in a recent release. Is it DAVID HENESY? Pffft. Don't hold your breath. I get the impression HENESY has about as much interest in revisiting DARK SHADOWS as most people do in repeating the third grade.

As you can see, the list is pretty short. So here's my guess: VICTORIA WINTERS.

While ALEXANDRA MOLTKE hasn't had much interest in acting since stepping away from DARK SHADOWS in the 1960s, it's entirely possible Big Finish was able to convince her that recording dialogue for one of their audio adventures would be a fun way to spend the afternoon. Also, it would go a long way toward appeasing fans.

Still, there are a number of other actors (and characters) with dangling plot points that are worth re-visiting. Victoria Winters poses her own storytelling problems because her "mystery" was entwined with so many other characters, not to mention that they killed the character off screen. My hope might be misplaced, but hell ... Big Finish was able to coax JONATHAN FRID out of retirement to reprise Barnabas Collins one last time, so anything's possible.

Still, the return of Victoria Winters is a long shot. The safe money is the return of Robert Rodan as ADAM, which has some amazing possibilities. In fact, it would probably make for a much more interesting story than tacking on a happy ending to the unresolved tale of Victoria Winters.

8 comments:

David Elijah Nahmod said...

Neither Adam's nor Victoria's stories were properly resolved on the TV series.
Big Finish should rectify both.

DavidXBrunt said...

Robert Rodan has appeared twice in the fullcast audios. Whilst it's true he hasn't appeared in this range of audios he's not new to Fig Bin. I'd love to hear what happened to Adam next, mind.

How about Mitch Ryan as Burke (he survived the plane crash and was hailed as a god by a tribe of Aztecs)?

I believe Diana Millay hasn't been well recently but there's so much they could do with the Pheonix.

Cousin Barnabas said...

Which episodes was Rodan in? I must have missed those ...

None of this rules out the return of Betsy Durkin, or even Carolyn Groves, to the role of Victoria. But I think fans would react badly to such casting.

Anonymous said...

Robert Rodan returns as Oswald Gravner in The Rage Beneath and also plays the man that Quentin speaks to on the train when returning for The House of Despair.

Anonymous said...

Vicki was always my favorite but it always bothered me that she was so helpless and clueless ALL THE TIME and that her story line was side tracked. By the time they decided to wrap it up, it was an after thought. I'd love to see Vicki return not as the girl who got in the shadows but as a woman who now knows how to use them. She'd be strong, confident and would understand what was going on around her!

DavidXBrunt said...

Would it be Vicky if she was 'strong, confident and would understand what was going on around her'? That'd be like having an episode of Diff'rent strokes in which Arnold had no need to verbally express his inability to follow the course of his brothers conversation in the form of a question,.

Cousin Barnabas said...

See, I think Victoria IS strong. She jumped on a train headed god-knows-where to take a job with some really creepy people (who constantly put her life in jeopardy) all in the name of acquiring knowledge. I don't think an actress needs to go all Linda Hamilton for her character to be considered "brave."

Anonymous said...

Vicki was definitely brave. Aside from going all the way to random Maine for the hopes of tracking down her parentage, let's not forget when she stopped Laura Collins and shot Noah Gifford.

I just found her to be so pathetic at times because the authors needed some damsel in distress, which is why I think it wouldn't be out of character for her to have some backbone.

Let's not forget how much Josette changed in between the show and Final Judgement.

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