It was the black and white Laura Collins eps. They had neat special effects (Laura's giant head appearing to David for one thing), very complex storyline, neat characters, like the Stockbridges, all forgotten later, imaginative suprnaural elements (what exactly was Phoenix Laura?) and other great stuff. As good as Barnabas-the-regular-vampire storylines they were never this great, deep, or imaginative.

i always wondered what started laura as a phoenix. something happend for her to do that. was it by birth? if so, then who started it? was it a curse? who knows?
i too felt that there was a lot more to the stockbridges than we where given.

Also, the great first Laura storyline had most everyone else acting normal still. Soon after Barn showed up they al stopped acting normal and the plots got overly supernatural in theme and feel.

"died by fire"

i loved that little dreranged caretaker. he was perfect in that role.
i always wished that once they started going back in time, that they would have went back to when the stockbridge and murdock deaths occured.

I don't care one bit for the caretaker. But everything else you said, Bry, is true.

i liked that guy. forgot his name. but they had another caretaker later on. another guy assumed the role. he was good, but not as believable as the original one.

That Caretaker just gave out a few facts about the Stockbridges. He was hardly a player in the whole storyline. Nobody to get into at all (in more ways than one). His whole role was unmnecessary in the storyline. He coulda been nicely replaced by a visit of Vicki Winters and Frank Garner to the library.