Alexandra Molkte voice over: "Night has fallen on the great estate of Collinwood in Parallel Time, a world similar to our own, but with strange and fascinating differences... Here, Carolyn and Victoria Stoddard are the daughters of Collins Matriarch Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard…"
The picture changes to a day scene.
"I'm sorry," She starts again. "Morning has suddenly risen over the Old House... Uh, where was I? Oh, yeah, another reality… Yadda, yadda, yadda… and Maggie Evans is the Governess to young David Collins. Maggie is in love with Quentin, the cousin of Elizabeth and…"
The first picture returns.
"I was right before." She tries again. "Night blankets the great escape...Estate..." She corrected herself. "…which is also the home of Barnabas Collins, now freed of the curse which exiled him to an unholy existence as a member of the undead. Barnabas is married to his beautiful and mysterious wife Angelique…."
The morning scene comes back.
"All right..." She tries again. "A brief eclipse had attacked the estate as a certain actress starts getting hostile at the director. Meanwhile, in the grand drawing room... yadda, yadda, yadda... You can pick it up from there."
In the Collinwood drawing room, beautiful heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard sat reading her book peacefully on the sofa before the fireplace mantel as the portrait of Jeremiah Collins looked down upon her. She looked up at him and felt the implausible feeling her ancestor's brother was mentally undressing her and buttoned another button on her blouse. Thinking about it another minute, she changed her mind and unbuttoned it again then one more with a light little grin. At the desk, the family governess Maggie Evans sat preparing the lessons of Carolyn's cousin, David. Things were momentarily serene as the attractive blonde heiress felt a hand grab her long blonde hair and pull her head back against the sofa. Her cousin, David, emerged dressed in khakis and holding a plastic knife to her neck.
"Die Commie bimbo!"
"David, you little maggot," Carolyn screamed. "Let go of my hair!"
"David," Maggie barely responded. She just continued writing complacent to the event. "At least wait till the bleach weakens the roots. It'll come out easier then."
"What are you insinuating?" The blonde heiress pushed her cousin back, dropped her book and rose to her feet to confront her cousin's governess. "Are you implying my hair isn't real? I'll just have you know that everything on my body is original!"
"Isn't there a shelf life on those things?" Maggie looked at her breasts.
Carolyn dropped her jaw and started pulling on Maggie's hair, and Maggie started clawing back. Behind them, David whipped out a small camera and started taping the melee. He knew he could get up to a thousand dollars for each tape on the Internet if they started tearing at each other's clothes. He taped their fight as they nearly knocked over the desk then stumbled backward to the window seat.
"Carolyn, Maggie..." Carolyn's older brunette sister, Victoria Winters Stoddard, came running and stopped the fight. She put her arms between them and pushed Carolyn back then braced Maggie off to the side. "Please, can't I do one voice-over without you two killing each other? We have to live with each other here. We're friends. Carolyn, you're my sister and I love you. And Maggie, I..."
"How did I end up with Mary Poppins as a sister?" Carolyn screamed as if she was losing it.
"Please, Vicki," Maggie sighed and rolled her eyes while fixing her hair as David waited for the fighting to restart. "This doesn't concern you."
"You're not even dating!" Carolyn added.
"I am so!" Vicki insisted.
"Oh please," Carolyn added again. "You went through Burke, Peter, Jeff, Tom Jennings, Barnabas and Richard Garner, and he even asked to get out of the series!" She had just made it personal.
"You're going down, blondie!" Vicki started choking her. Maggie watched for just a moment cheering on the fighting.
"Get her! Get her!" She then flashed back on a guy she once very much liked, bent her arm back and patted her elbow. "And this is for taking Joe Haskell!" She jumped back into the fracas aiming for the blonde head, but accidentally got Vicki in the back. They were fighting like teenage girls again and David loved it! Carolyn had Maggie in a headlock as he restarted filming again. At that moment, Quentin Collins appeared and stood in the drawing room doors and watched the three ladies tearing at each other as a slight grin appeared on his lips.
"Ladies," He mused. "If you're fighting over me, I'd be happy to date all of you, but at least do it right, I can have the mud ready in ten minutes." He turned to David. "Save me a tape." David gave a thumb up. Outside the drawing room, Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard passed through the foyer and glanced in barely acknowledging the fight. For a minute, it didn't seem to register with her. She just kept heading toward the end of the house, but then the image truly hit her brain and she came rushing back. Hurrying back and entering the room, she re-noticed the fighting and began pushing through to break it up.
"Carolyn! Vicki!" She grabbed and pulled up Carolyn who was the lightest and often the instigator. "Maggie! I'm surprised at you three! The three of you are my daughters and..." Maggie suddenly looked at her suspiciously.
"I mean…" Liz restarted again. "One of you has always felt like a daughter to me." She rolled her eyes secretly.
"But I can't take you three fighting like a bunch of..."
"Hookers?" David commented innocently. The three looked at him both annoyed and surprised that he actually used that word.
"I don't need any help." She turned to David and Quentin in the liquor cabinet. "You have to learn to get along..." She did a double take as she realized that both her teenage nephew and Quentin were drinking brandy. Quentin made a face and acted as if he meant to drink from both glasses as the younger man bemoaned the loss.
"Anyway..." Liz continued. "What started this fight?"
"Maggie implied I was easy." Carolyn commented thusly as Maggie secretly reached behind Vicki and hit the short blonde upside the back of her head. Carolyn and Vicki glared at her as if they were a trio of competitive high school girls again.
"Maggie," Liz sighed and turned her back to the sherry on the liquor cabinet. "Carolyn is not 'easy.' She's just popular." Behind her back while she wasn't looking, Carolyn smacked Maggie upside the head. Vicki pinched her to punish her then Maggie extended two fingers and eye-poked Carolyn who reared her fist about to punch Vicki in the stomach, but she dropped her arm the second her mother turned around to pretend to be innocent with Vicki and Maggie.
"Popular?" Maggie responded. "Oh please! The football team retired her cheerleader uniform!"
"Could you keep those merchant marines quiet at night." Quentin came up and whispered to Carolyn secretly. "I'm not getting any sleep with you parading them through the West Wing."
"I can't sneak them in through the window since the Congressman crashed through the trellis." She whispered back.
"Liz..." Elizabeth's brother and David's father, Roger Collins, called through the foyer for his sister as Vicki and Carolyn sighed and departed trapped in their adolescent rivalry. He was carrying papers from his lawyer's office.
"If you have a minute, could you sign this trillion dollar life insurance policy?"
"Roger," Liz sat at the desk as Maggie escorted David back to his lessons. "Another trillion-dollar life insurance policy? I'm starting to think you're trying to kill me."
"Liz!" Roger was taken aback by the accusation. "You are my sister and I love you very much. We've been friends together since childhood. I can't imagine my life without you." He paused and dropped the loving brother act.
"Sign on the dotted line right there..." He pointed on the paper. "By the way, I've had the brakes on your car adjusted for you, and Mrs. Johnson made you a sandwich in the kitchen." He turned a second to the liquor cabinet and turned around with a teacup bubbling over with smoke. "Here's your tea." He grinned his usual conniving grin.
"And where did you get that?" Liz looked at the bubbling brew with one eyebrow perched higher than her other one. "The Munsters?"
"No, course not…" Roger scoffed. "They're on another completely different network. Actually, it's the same special blend Barnabas gives to Angelique." He insisted.
"Barnabas..." On the sofa, Maggie caught David staring at her chest again when he looked back up to her eyes from over his math. "He sure gives me the creeps. I know he's married now, but looking back at the attacks we had a few years ago, I wonder if he could been the vampire who tried kidnapping me."
"A vampire?" Quentin sat in the chair before the fireplace with the local newspaper. Across its headlines read
"Twenty-Third Girl Found Drained Of Blood." He noticed the headline and revised his comment. "It's just a coincidence, and besides, Barnabas isn't a vampire." He insisted. "He's a happily married man. I mean, just because he's gone during the day, avoids mirrors, prefers his steaks extra raw and bloody, keeps a coffin in the basement, names Bela Lugosi as a reference, owns a Team Edward t-shirt and only eats Count Chocula cereal doesn't make him a vampire."
"What does it make him?" Liz asked.
"Eccentric!" Quentin raised his third brandy.