Episode 1030: As though I had touched death

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard is fretting about her brother Quentin’s childish behavior. Quentin’s wife, the former Maggie Evans, has left the house abruptly, without her purse, and has been away for some time. Liz is sure something bad has happened to Maggie, but Quentin refuses to look for her.

Liz tries to interest Alexis Stokes, identical twin sister of Quentin’s late first wife Angelique, in Quentin and Maggie’s troubles. She does not know that the person she is talking to is not Alexis at all, but Angelique herself. Angelique rose from the dead, murdered Alexis, and took Alexis’ place as a permanent houseguest in the great house of Collinwood as part of her plan to win Quentin back. To that end, Angelique is conspiring with a man she knows as John Yaeger. He has abducted Maggie and is holding her in a dungeon out in the country, hoping that after enough time alone with him she will forget all about Quentin and fall in love with him.

“Alexis” is pacing around the drawing room while Liz talks about Maggie and Quentin. She is half listening when she approaches a window and sees Yaeger waiting outside. She suddenly tells Liz that she is going to go out herself and look for Maggie. Liz tells her this is too dangerous, but she rushes out. She confers with Yaeger in the gazebo.* Yaeger is despairing of his plan, much to Angelique’s annoyance.

Angelique, alias Alexis, sees Yaeger at the window. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

There is no such person as Yaeger, any more than there is a living Alexis Stokes. The man is really Cyrus Longworth in disguise. Maggie and Quentin think of Cyrus as a friend, a mild-mannered scientist who means well, though he is sometimes strangely naive. Cyrus has developed a potion which changes his appearance so drastically that not even those who know him best can recognize him when he is under its influence. After Cyrus tried to rape Maggie last week while disguised as Yaeger, he threw the potion away. But he then transformed spontaneously, without drinking it. Since he cannot re-Jekyllize himself without it, we are left wondering if he will remain in his Yaeger form permanently. We may also wonder what he will do if he reverts to his usual appearance in front of Maggie. He has admitted to himself that he and Yaeger are not separate people, but still seems to want to hold onto some sense that they are. He can’t very well do that if Maggie knows he is the one keeping her locked up.

Liz stays in the drawing room after “Alexis” leaves. Roger Collins enters and helps himself to some brandy. Liz picks up with her brother where she had left off with “Alexis.” Roger doesn’t even pretend to care about Maggie. He was fixated on Angelique when she was alive, and cannot forgive Maggie for not being her. He is glad Maggie is gone, and nothing Liz says about her can stir his interest. Joan Bennett and Louis Edmonds played different versions of these characters starting in #1, and it is always great to see them together.

Angelique has a problem of her own. She can stay out of the tomb only so long as she finds living bodies to drain of their warmth. She’s already killed three people that way. The first two were Alexis, whom she is successfully impersonating, and a handyman named Fred, who was expected to leave town anyway. Neither of them has been missed. The third, lawyer Larry Chase, caused puzzlement when his ice cold corpse was found in front of her, but as an isolated occurrence no one seems to have found a way to start solving that puzzle. So “Alexis” is not currently suspected of being a vampiric creature.

The need for warmth suddenly comes over Angelique. She goes to the drawing room and huddles in front of the fire. Roger sees her and remarks on how much she, “Alexis,” reminds him of Angelique. She says she doesn’t want to talk about her sister, then approaches Roger and embraces him. He says he feels terribly cold. She asks him to kiss her. That’s all it took to kill Fred and Larry, and a lot more contact than it took to kill Alexis. Roger is about to do it when Liz enters. They break their clinch and Angelique makes haste to go out. Roger is still feeling extreme cold, but he has no idea his sister just saved his life.

We see Angelique in the apartment of her (step?)father, Tim Stokes. She tells him she killed some stranger on her way over. By this time, his body will have been discovered, so cold that it will be assumed he had been dead for days. She tells Stokes that it was his occult prowess that enabled her to return from the dead, and asks if he can free her of her heat vampirism. He says that he cannot, and that he is so much the greatest expert in this sort of thing that there is no point in looking for anyone else who might be able to do so. She presses, and he mentions that someone else was involved in the process. She demands to see this person; he tells her the person is in the back room of the apartment. She eagerly goes to the door, unbothered by his pained refusal to accompany her.

Stokes’ apartment is laid out like the apartment of Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes, his counterpart in the parallel universe where Dark Shadows was set for its first 196 weeks. Two people had important connections with that other Stokes’ back room. One was Frankenstein’s monster Adam, who was last seen going in there. Adam’s creation was a means of freeing another vampire of his curse; longtime viewers may therefore wonder if we are about to meet his counterpart. The other was Paul Stoddard, ex-husband of Liz’ counterpart, who was attacked and killed in that room by a murderous shape-shifter who, like Cyrus Longworth/ John Yaeger, was played by Christopher Pennock. Perhaps whoever is waiting for Angelique in the room is somehow connected with Cyrus/ Yaeger.

There are other possibilities. Angelique’s counterpart in the other continuity was for a time subordinated to suave warlock Nicholas Blair. We have not seen a counterpart of Nicholas here; my wife, Mrs Acilius, thinks that we will meet another Nicholas tomorrow.

*Which she pronounces “ga-ZAY-bo,” a bit of Collinsport English Lara Parker introduced way back in #489. It’s fun to hear it again.

Episode 1029: Listen to an enemy

Last week, a man who refused to identify himself cold-called Maggie Collins and told her to meet him secretly in a dark alley near the waterfront. Once she got there, he grabbed her and set about raping her. Only when one of Maggie’s old school friends happened by was he interrupted and she rescued. Today, the same man calls Maggie and tells her to meet him secretly on a cliff in the woods. This time he identifies himself as Cyrus Longworth, whom she did not recognize during his previous attack on her and whom she still regards as a friend, so she agrees. Once she gets there, he approaches her. He is disguised as “John Yaeger,” an imaginary person whom he creates by taking a potion he made to change his appearance. The Yaeger disguise is effective at concealing Cyrus’ identity, but Maggie does recognize him as the same man who trapped her the last time she fell for this. He takes her prisoner and locks her in a dungeon in the basement of an old farmhouse he obtained yesterday by murdering its rightful owner. He tells her she will come to like it there.

Dark Shadows first became a hit in May and June of 1967, when it was set in a different universe. We saw Maggie’s counterpart held prisoner by vampire Barnabas Collins, who had the lunatic idea that if he tortured her in the right way her personality would disappear and that of his lost love Josette would take its place. Maggie escaped from Barnabas; her memory of his crimes against her was mind-wiped away, and she became quite fond of him. The show eventually decided to run with Barnabas’ idea, building more and more connections between Maggie and Josette. Late in 1969, another character played by Kathryn Leigh Scott actually did turn into Josette. By the time we crossed over to the current continuity ten weeks ago, the original Maggie and Barnabas were an item.

The feature film House of Dark Shadows retells the story of Barnabas’ imprisonment of Maggie. Principal photography on that film just wrapped a few weeks ago. So it is front of mind for the production staff. The dungeon Cyrus has prepared for Maggie is made of the same panels representing brick walls that indicated the dungeon where Barnabas kept the other Maggie. Moreover, Cyrus has stocked it with some of Maggie’s belongings, including the silver brush and mirror that had once belonged to Josette which Barnabas provided to the Maggie of his universe. So the horror of seeing Maggie in the dungeon, at the mercy of the loathsome Cyrus, is compounded by the thought that the show might possibly do what it did with Barnabas, and have Cyrus’ plan work. Longtime viewers can all too easily imagine Maggie deciding she loves Cyrus, disgusting as he is.

Fortunately for the audience, Cyrus meets someone today whose involvement in the plot assures us that his plan will not be a straightforward success. This person knows him as John Yaeger; he knows her as Alexis Stokes. In fact, she is Alexis’ twin sister, the late Angelique Stokes Collins. Angelique rose from the dead, murdered Alexis, and took her place as a permanent houseguest at the great house of Collinwood. Maggie and her husband, drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins, own Collinwood. Angelique was Quentin’s first wife, and she wants to be reunited with her widower. When she meets Cyrus, she decides to encourage him in his designs on Maggie.

Angelique gets that old gleam in her eye. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Angelique’s counterpart in the original continuity is a wicked witch whose plans always misfire. As they are unraveling, they usually add a madcap quality to the proceedings which makes a sharp contrast with the unrelieved bleakness of Maggie’s time in Barnabas’ dungeon. Though this Angelique is utterly evil, we can hope she will spare us that dreariness.

Episode 1028: Those detestable traits of his

Mad scientist Cyrus Longworth developed a potion that changed his appearance so drastically that even people who knew him well cannot recognize him when he is under its influence. He used this disguise to carry out beatings, rapes, and murders. Now, he has spontaneously transformed in front of his fiancée, Sabrina Stuart. Cyrus had fooled Sabrina into thinking that his disguise was a separate person named “John Yaeger.” Sabrina had reason to hate Yaeger and fear him. She was shocked to learn that Yaeger and Cyrus were one and the same, and Cyrus ridiculed her for her continued attachment to him. Nonetheless, Sabrina pledged to support Cyrus come what may, and she does keep his secret today. Even after he threatens her with the sword in his cane, a threat which seems all too real since Christopher Pennock holds the prop too close to Lisa Blake Richards’ face when he pops the sharp blade out, she still stands by her man.

Cyrus has slipped into the great house of Collinwood and entered the master bedroom. He is watching the lady of the house, Maggie Evans Collins, while she sleeps. Cyrus tried to rape Maggie in a dark alley last week, and apparently he has decided to finish the job while she is in her own bed. At the last moment, Maggie’s stepson, strange and troubled teen Daniel Collins, enters. Cyrus hides behind the curtains while Daniel asks for his father.

Cyrus has ot chosen a particularly good hiding place. The light is on him, and he is directly in Daniel’s line of sight. It is preposterous enough that an armed intruder as physically prepossessing and as unscrupulous as Cyrus would hide from Maggie and Daniel, and this slip emphasizes that Cyrus, however much he may revel in the harm he has done as when in his disguise, is basically a coward.

Hey Daniel, notice that very tall man peeking out from behind the curtains directly in front of you? Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Daniel has been bitterly hostile to Maggie up to this point. Today they are suddenly great friends. He says sadly that he sometimes gets a premonition when something evil is about to happen in the house, and that he has such a premonition now. She talks to him affectionately, so softly that we can’t tell whether she is calling him “Daniel” or “Dan,” and touches his hair. Regular viewers have seen these two actors play friends in the first 196 weeks of Dark Shadows, when the action took place in a different universe and they were various other characters. It’s good to see them pick up where they left off, and exciting to think of what they might be able to do to breathe more life into Maggie’s stories. Alas, this is the last time we will see Daniel.

Later, Cyrus meets with someone we’ve never seen before. The closing credits will identify this man as Aldon Wicks. Cyrus says he wants to buy an old farmhouse from Wicks. He is particularly interested in a room in the basement, which he wants to outfit with an extra-heavy door. Wicks puts the door Cyrus wants on the room. When the time comes to pay up, Cyrus asks Wicks a bunch of questions, the answers to which all imply that no one knows where he is or will miss him if he disappears. So Cyrus stabs him to death with his cane. That’s certainly one way to cut costs on a real estate transaction.

The opening voiceover is delivered by associate director Ken McEwen. In the first 54 weeks of Dark Shadows, every voiceover was delivered by Alexandra Moltke Isles in character as well-meaning governess Victoria Winters, whether Vicki was in the episode or not. Between them and today, the narrator has always been an actor who appears in the episode. McEwen was drafted to appear in a few episodes as lawyer Larry Chase when Don Briscoe’s health problems caught up to him and forced him to leave the cast. Maybe they gave McEwen a contract to appear in three episodes more than turned out to include parts for Larry, and that explains his voice responsibilities in this one, #1079, and #1082.

A third pair of videotape editors are credited today, Carl Pollack and Fred Labib, joining the teams of Indra Sadoo and Chuck Gardner and Dan Rosenson and Robert Steinback.

Episode 1027: A look of surprise

Vampire Barnabas Collins discovers that the woman introduced to him as Alexis Stokes, identical twin sister of the late Angelique Stokes Collins, is in fact Angelique herself risen from the grave. He confronts Angelique, and the two find themselves at a stalemate. Angelique calls her stepfather, Tim Stokes, tells him who she really is, and enlists his help against Barnabas. Angelique’s widower, drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins, comes home to the great house on the estate of Collinwood and refuses to have an adult conversation with his current wife, the former Maggie Evans, about his temper tantrums and other bad habits that are ruining their marriage.

Meanwhile, mad scientist Cyrus Longworth, who has been conducting a Jekyll and Hyde experiment on himself, transforms into his Hyde form in front of his fiancée Sabrina Stuart. She tries to reason with him, and he responds with a lot of sneering and threats. Cyrus sneaks into the great house and lets himself into the master bedroom while Maggie is asleep there. He tricked Maggie into meeting him on the waterfront last week, and tried to rape her there. Apparently he has decided to make another attempt.

Writer Joe Caldwell takes a surprising approach to tying this big bundle of disparate content together. In each encounter, he has the characters talk about the way they are looking at each other. This sounds extremely unpromising, like a recipe for the dullest possible essay about literary theory, but when they put the script on its legs it works well enough.

Barnabas learns Angelique’s secret by going to her old bedroom in the east wing of the great house and staring really hard at the eyes in the portrait of Angelique that hangs there. “Alexis” comes running in, wailing that he is staring into her eyes and it burns. Barnabas goggles at her and she admits to being Angelique come back to life. He refuses to explain his powers of remote viewing.

The eyes of Angelique S. Collins. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Angelique telephones Stokes, who was named in #981 as her father but whom we see for the first time today. He thinks she is Alexis. He wearily tells her there is no point in the two of them having a conversation. She tells him she has something to tell him about Angelique, and he comes right over.

In her room, Angelique identifies herself to Stokes. He is overjoyed that the twin he liked is alive. She tells him that when she rose from the grave, she drained the warmth from Alexis’ body, killing her. Stokes frowns and says he didn’t want Alexis to die. He seems genuinely sad for a period. I timed this period; it lasts precisely four seconds. That season of mourning complete, Stokes and Angelique are again beaming and laughing and moving about in a circular pattern that looks very much like a dance around the May pole.

This scene includes some deeply puzzling information. Stokes says that he was stepfather to Alexis and Angelique. The other day, Angelique told Barnabas that her family’s burial grounds is the final resting place of her namesake, a woman named Angelique who came to Collinwood in the late eighteenth century as a domestic, and that another servant at Collinwood in those days, Ben Stokes, was her several times great-grandfather in the male line. Perhaps Angelique’s remarks about Ben and her namesake are being retconned away, but there doesn’t seem to be any point in doing so.

For its first 196 weeks, Dark Shadows was set in an alternate universe. The show insists on calling the current continuity “Parallel Time.” Stokes’ counterpart in the other universe, Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes, is a descendant of his version of Ben, though that Ben never married his coeval Angelique. Professor Stokes is an expert on the occult and a good guy, and it was he who first explained the theory of “Parallel Time” when characters started catching glimpses of it through a warp in Angelique’s bedroom here. Now the same warp is making the original continuity visible to the current characters, and it falls to Tim Stokes to explain the same theory to his (step)daughter. The Parallel Time phenomenon, like Barnabas’ remote viewing of Angelique through her portrait, is a case of one-way visibility. When the warp occurs, people can see into the other universe, but the people they are watching are not aware of them.

Shortly before dawn, Stokes lets himself into the Old House on the estate, where Barnabas is staying. Barnabas sees Stokes in the parlor. Barnabas asks Stokes who he is and what he is doing alone in someone else’s house at such an unusual hour. Stokes responds to these questions as he sees fit, then asks if he and Barnabas have met before. He characterizes Barnabas’ look upon seeing him as one of recognition. Barnabas replies that on the contrary, it was the shock of non-recognition. One does not expect to see a stranger in such circumstances. This little conversation about the act of seeing turns out to be the main part of the scene.

Quentin shows up in the master bedroom and stares at Maggie while she sleeps. She wakes up and is relieved to see that he is back. Then they have their frustrating little conversation. Maggie may as well have kept sleeping; at least Quentin wasn’t making things between them worse when she didn’t know he was there.

After he attacked Maggie on the docks, Cyrus threw away the potion that turns him into his Mr Hyde form, which he calls “John Yaeger.” He does not have the means to make more of it, since he murdered the chemist who alone was able to supply one of the key ingredients. He uses the same potion to re-Jekyllize himself, and since he had already transformed spontaneously once before it seems pretty reckless to throw it out. Sabrina is with Cyrus in his laboratory when the transformation happens again. She is horrified to discover that Yaeger, whom she has met and has reason to hate, is in fact Cyrus in disguise.

In the other universe, Sabrina’s counterpart was engaged to another murderous shape-shifter, a werewolf named Chris Jennings. When the other Sabrina saw Chris change into his lupine form, her hair turned white and she lost the power of speech for several years. This Sabrina is more resilient, and she tries to reason with Cyrus. He keeps telling her how dumb she is, then leaves. At the end, we see him standing where Quentin had stood earlier, at the foot of Maggie’s bed, watching while she sleeps. We hear his internal monologue as he tells himself “Now, John Yaeger, now!”

This episode was made not long after the feature film House of Dark Shadows finished principal photography. The very large number of story points crammed into its 22 minutes may show the influence of that production. It wouldn’t be unusual to see this much action in two reels of a theatrical release, but it is far more than we are accustomed to seeing at 4 PM on weekdays.

Episode 1026: The spectacle of Barnabas Collins trying to prove anything

Maggie Evans is depressed about her marriage to drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins. In #1016, Maggie was getting ready to call a lawyer so she could put an end to their joyless union, but she changed her mind and decided to give it one more try. That has not worked out, and she has gone from contemplating divorce to attempting suicide. She is about to fling herself to her death from a window high in the great house of Collinwood when Quentin’s sister Elizabeth Collins Stoddard enters the room and talks her out of it. For its first 196 weeks, Dark Shadows was set in an alternate universe, which is in some ways a mirror image of this one. This incident is a case in point. In the original continuity, it was Liz’ counterpart whom people kept interrupting while she was trying to do away with herself,* so she takes the reversed position in this universe.

Most of the episode is devoted to the activities of a visitor from the main continuity, Barnabas Collins. The only thing Barnabas has a motivation to do is to try to get back home, but he seems to have decided he’d rather meddle in the problems the people in this alien universe are having. He suspects that the houseguest at Collinwood who is generally accepted as Alexis Stokes, identical twin sister of Quentin’s late first wife Angelique, is in fact Angelique herself risen from the dead. He also suspects that Maggie’s suicide attempt was the consequence of spells Angelique cast on her.

Barnabas is right about these things, but his grounds for believing them are thin. Angelique’s counterpart in his universe is a wicked witch who has long been the bane of his existence, and so he simply assumes that a woman with her face and voice will be the same. But for three weeks, Alexis really was staying at Collinwood, and Angelique really was in her tomb. Alexis looked and sounded exactly like Angelique. We saw that, while Alexis may not have been a one-dimensional innocent, she was not a witch and was not a direct threat to anyone’s life or liberty. Had Barnabas met Alexis before Angelique came back to life and murdered her, he would have had exactly the same suspicions about her that he has now about Angelique. It is purely a matter of luck that his suspicions coincide with the truth.

In the main continuity, Barnabas’ best friend and most frequent accomplice in his many crimes is mad scientist Julia Hoffman, MD. Julia’s counterpart here is the housekeeper at Collinwood. Miss Julia Hoffman is as devoted to Angelique as the original Julia is devoted to Barnabas. As the first Julia shows great reluctance when Barnabas is about to murder someone and shows even greater efficiency in getting rid of the bodies afterward, so this Julia protested yesterday that she would have nothing to do with Angelique’s plan to drive Maggie to her death, but was waiting outside the room when she was about to jump.

After confronting Julia and Angelique, needlessly revealing to them his suspicions, Barnabas decides to get some hard evidence. So he goes to Angelique’s old bedroom and stares really hard at the portrait of her that hangs there. She is in another part of the house, but grows agitated. She runs to the room and screams at him to stop staring into her eyes. He breaks into a triumphant… not grin, exactly, it’s more of a simper. It may be the only triumphant simper ever seen. That suits the occasion. He knows he was right, but Angelique knows that he knows, and it is not clear what he either can do to fight her or what reason he has to want to fight her.

Barnabas’ triumphant simper. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Jonathan Frid’s invention of a facial expression previously thought to be impossible is one of several bits of conspicuously good acting in this episode. He also gets to deliver brief enigmatic responses to a number of questions, such as “Perhaps” and “Did I?,” and he makes each of those words materialize in space in such an arresting way that even his scene partners can’t help but show how impressed they are. As Liz fussing over Maggie, Joan Bennett shows a maternal quality that brings her hitherto undefined character into a very sharp focus. Grayson Hall also adds greatly to Hoffman’s depth. Standing by while Maggie is trying to kill herself, she is bland and detached. When she tells Angelique that it really is better for them that Maggie did not succeed, she is the opposite, torn between a number of emotions, including relief that she has avoided responsibility for a death.

Angelique has several comic lines, for example a wistful lament that she doesn’t get to see Maggie’s corpse mangled on the rocks below her window. And she puts real fervor into her spellcasting directed at Maggie. My wife, Mrs Acilius, remembered that when Lara Parker first joined the cast she wished she were playing an ingenue, so much so that Frid had to keep reminding her that she was the villain. But now she has settled in and become part of the group. So when Angelique abuses Maggie, Parker and her friend Kathryn Leigh Scott turn into two little girls playing make-believe, and they have so much fun at it that they are irresistible to watch, no matter how miserable Maggie is.

*For example, in #266, #267, and #268, and #569.

Episode 1025: Go to the window

Maggie Evans Collins is upset. Her husband, drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins, has stormed out of the house yet again, as usual for a reason he refuses to explain to her. Quentin’s brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, taunts her with invidious comparisons to Quentin’s first wife, the late Angelique. Housekeeper Julia Hoffman keeps setting Maggie up to remind Quentin of Angelique, one of the most reliable methods of triggering his tantrums. Worst of all, but unknown to Maggie, Angelique herself has come back to life and is casting spells on her. Angelique murdered her identical twin sister Alexis and took Alexis’ place as Quentin’s houseguest. Maggie is desperate for a friend and keeps behaving as if “Alexis” were one, leaving her exposed to attack. We end today with Maggie standing at an open window, hearing Alexis’ voice urging her to jump. The angle makes it look like Maggie is already in her coffin and is opening its lid.

Maggie looks for escape. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Every Day.

Dark Shadows was unusual among soap operas in that Friday’s episode was often the least eventful of the week. This one is a case in point. It doesn’t feel slow, though. The dialogue is well-crafted and expertly delivered, leaving us with the feeling that we are getting to know Maggie and each of her tormentors better with each scene.

Episode 1024: Chance and Mrs Stoddard are identical twins

When Dark Shadows began in June 1966, its biggest draw was movie star Joan Bennett as reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Liz was highly capable, and Bennett made her compelling to watch. When in #25 Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, grudgingly complimented her on her “neat way of managing people,” we could see that he was putting it mildly. But the show didn’t handle Liz’ storyline very well, and she soon became a blocking figure. As the owner of the estate of Collinwood and of the Collins family businesses, as a central player in all the stories they had started with, and as the powerful personality Bennett had created, Liz was such an important part of the show that when she became a brake on the action, there was a constant danger that it would be impossible for anything to happen ever again.

The arrival of Roger’s estranged wife Laura Murdoch Collins in #123 marked Dark Shadows’ transformation into a supernatural thriller. By the time Laura went up in smoke in #191, her story had absorbed two of the four original narrative themes, “The Revenge of Burke Devlin” and well-meaning governess Vicki’s growing friendship with strange and troubled boy David, and had undercut whatever interest we might still have had in the other two, the mystery of Liz’ decision to become a recluse and Vicki’s quest to learn her true identity. The emerging Dark Shadows 2.0 had little room for Liz, and she subsided to the margins. When the show traveled back in time and became a costume drama from November 1967 to March 1968 and again from March to November 1969, Bennett played other characters and was able to make a substantial contribution, but Liz would never again be a suitable vessel for her great talents.

For the last eight weeks, the show has been in another time travel segment. Now it has traveled, not back in time, but sideways. They are in an alternate universe. The show insists on calling this universe “Parallel Time.” It is 1970 here, as it is in the original continuity, but a different 1970 where people with the names and faces we already know are living very different lives.

The Elizabeth Collins Stoddard of Parallel Time is not the mistress of Collinwood or an effective businesswoman. This Liz entrusted her inheritance to her brother Roger, who turned out to be just as feckless as his counterpart in the original continuity. As the penniless Roger we met in 1966 lives in Liz’ house as her guest and works in Liz’ business as her employee, so this Liz and Roger both live at Collinwood as the dependents of their brother, drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins.

In the original continuity, Quentin was not Liz and Roger’s brother, nor did he own anything. We got to know him when Dark Shadows was set in 1897, and he was a charming rogue, the younger brother of Judith and Edward Collins, who like Liz and Roger were played by Joan Bennett and Louis Edmonds. So the parallel lines representing the two versions of 1970 take a bit of a swerve into that other epoch.

Today, Liz is busy organizing a costume ball to be held in the great house of Collinwood. They had such a ball every year at this time when Quentin was married to his first wife, the late Angelique Stokes Collins, and Liz thinks that having another one would be the perfect occasion for Quentin to introduce all of his friends to his new wife, the former Maggie Evans. Liz needs help getting this party going. She comes bustling into the drawing room today and addresses herself to Angelique’s identical twin sister, Alexis Stokes, announcing that the party is tonight and 14 of the guests have failed to RSVP. She bemoans her inability to get anything organized and pleads with Alexis to help her. Alexis agrees to do so and excuses herself from a chess game she had been playing with Barnabas Collins, a man who recently showed up and introduced himself as a distant cousin of the Collinses of Collinwood.

Quentin enters the drawing room and orders Liz to cancel the ball. She says that it is too late to do that. Quentin stalks off and goes outside. Liz turns to Barnabas and asks him to reason with Quentin. Barnabas is unsure that he is the right person, but he goes to the door anyway. He opens it just in time to hear Quentin peeling away in his car. Maggie appears at the head of the stairs and asks if Quentin has gone. Barnabas has to say that he has, and Maggie looks crushed. Liz is unable to help in any way.

Later, Liz returns to the drawing room in the middle of a conversation between Quentin and Maggie. She is carrying an enormous decanter containing some sherry and congratulating herself on calming the cook’s nerves by her bartending. Quentin excuses himself to go get into his costume.

Liz brings the party. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Liz finds that Maggie has not yet chosen a costume. She urges her to do so at once. Maggie says she supposed that Angelique always picked out her costume weeks in advance. Liz knows that Maggie is intimidated living in Angelique’s shadow, and does not know what to say in response to that remark. She quickly changes the subject. She brightens, and says that Alexis has brought many lovely dresses down from the attic. She urges Maggie to go to Alexis’ room and choose one of them.

As the time for the guests to arrive comes near, Liz and Barnabas meet in the foyer. A portrait of the Barnabas Collins who died in 1830 hangs on the spot on the wall next to the front door where earlier this week we had seen a metal doodad that looks like a coat of arms. Barnabas is wearing the same outfit, and looks just like the man in the portrait. Liz is wearing a dress of the same vintage. She is overjoyed, and tells Barnabas that the period suits him. He thanks her, and returns the compliment. Quentin is wearing a blue federal coat; Liz and Barnabas tell him that he, too, is suited to the early 1800s. Alexis comes downstairs in a blue dress, and she receives the same commendation. Lastly Maggie makes her appearance. When Quentin sees her dress, he becomes very tense. He tells her to take it off, orders her never to wear it again, and smashes his glass on the floor. The camera pans from Barnabas’shocked expression to a flickering look of pleasure on Alexis’ face; Liz stands between them, and unfortunately we only see the top of her head.

What Liz does not know is that the person she thinks is Alexis is in fact Angelique risen from the grave. Angelique murdered Alexis, took her place, and is conspiring with housekeeper Julia Hoffman to drive Maggie and Quentin apart. The story is a souped-up version of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca, in which the dead first wife is not only a memory that triggers anxiety in her successor but a supernatural being who rises from the dead to torment her directly. There is a scene with Maggie looking out the window of the drawing room that is an exact recreation of a shot in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film of Rebecca, and when Angelique and Hoffman trick Maggie into wearing the same dress Angelique wore to last year’s ball, prompting Quentin’s outburst, most grownups in the original audience would remember the same thing happening to the second Mrs de Winter in that film.

Angelique is the villain, and Maggie is the heroine. Still, we rather like Angelique. The sister-murdering is bad, of course, but Quentin is such a lousy husband that she is doing Maggie a big favor by trying to bring their intolerable marriage to its end as soon as possible. For example, today Quentin finds Maggie reading his old love letters to Angelique. He might justifiably have objected that those are private and say he wished she’d asked before reading them, but he doesn’t do that or anything else one adult would do when disappointed in another. Instead, he flies into a rage, accuses her of a variety of things she hasn’t done, and orders her to, and I quote, “Go to your room!”

Later, in the room they share, Quentin is still scolding Maggie for failing to admit that she was lying about how she found the letters. We know she had in fact told the truth. When she tells him so, he dismisses her with a shake of the head. When she brings up the fact that it is the anniversary of his wedding to Angelique, he shouts that she is forbidden to discuss the subject, then storms out and slams the door. This is when he goes downstairs, tells Liz to cancel the party, and drives away. We have never seen Maggie have a happy day with Quentin. He sometimes manages to be pleasant in the intervals between his tantrums, but even then he can’t let go of his habit of talking to Maggie as if she were a child and he were her somewhat weary guardian. If Angelique can hasten their final split, Maggie will owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.

Barnabas is not in fact a descendant of the man whose portrait now hangs in the foyer. He is a visitor from the main continuity. Angelique’s counterpart there is his great enemy, so it is fun to see him talking with this Angelique and playing chess with her.

David Selby has a problem with one of his lines, when Quentin winds up saying “I wonder where I got the illusion that an hour or two alone would settle one’s all of problems.”  This is a fairly minor stumble by Dark Shadows standards, but it comes when Angelique is in closeup and Lara Parker’s left eyelid twitches when she hears “one’s all of problems.” That reaction is worth a laugh.

Episode 1023: The lady wanted a certain piece of information

Barmaid Buffie Harrington sees a man assaulting a woman in the alley next to the tavern. She recognizes the man as ruffian John Yaeger. Yaeger used to buy Buffie gifts, then beat her and laugh at her bruises. She recognizes the woman as her childhood friend Maggie Evans. Maggie moved away from the village of Collinsport when she was very young, and came back recently as the wife of Quentin Collins, drunken sourpuss and master of the estate of Collinwood. Buffie orders Yaeger to unhand Maggie. He sneers at the women, threatening to make a stink if they go to the police. Buffie stands her ground, and at length Yaeger backs down and leaves.

Buffie and Maggie see Yaeger off.

Maggie goes to Quentin’s friend Cyrus Longworth in his laboratory. She tells Cyrus that Buffie rescued her from Yaeger. She asks Cyrus if it is true that Yaeger is his friend. Cyrus looks pained, and says that for some time he has considered Yaeger his enemy. Maggie had never seen Yaeger before; she was at the docks because he called her anonymously and promised her some information relevant to her suspicion that Quentin murdered his first wife, Angelique Stokes Collins. Nor did he identify himself to her. Buffie did not call him by name. So Maggie and Buffie must have had a conversation afterward in which she told him who Yaeger was and that he and Cyrus are connected to each other.

What neither Buffie nor Maggie knows is that Yaeger does not exist. He is simply a disguise Cyrus assumes when he wants to hurt someone. Cyrus never meant to tell Maggie anything about Quentin; he called Maggie to meet him at the docks because he wanted to rape and abduct her. Cyrus has devised a potion that causes his hair to turn darker and sprout all over his body, his shoulders to broaden, and his skin tone to change. John Yaeger is the alias he uses when in this disguise. After Maggie leaves, he tells himself that he and Yaeger are the same person, and that he is responsible for all of Yaeger’s crimes. He smashes up his lab equipment and burns his notes. All he really needed to do was pour out the potion. One of the essential ingredients is a compound he can’t make himself. He murdered the only known supplier, so once it is gone, it will be gone for good.

Cyrus is only the first character today to use Maggie’s need for information about Quentin to trap and hurt her. Quentin’s brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, keeps baiting her with references to the cause of Quentin’s current fit of bad temper. She finally insists he tells her what he means, and he says it is the anniversary of his wedding to Angelique.

The other character is Angelique herself. Unknown to any other character in today’s episode, Angelique has risen from the grave, murdered her identical twin sister Alexis, and taken Alexis’ place as Quentin’s houseguest in his mansion, the great house of Collinwood.

Maggie turns to “Alexis” for information about Quentin and Angelique’s marriage. When she asks if Angelique often wrote her when she was living in Florence, “Alexis” replies “Not often, but when she did she made up for it.” We know this is a lie, and Maggie should too. When the real Alexis first came to the Collinwood, housekeeper Julia Hoffman asked if she received the letter she sent informing her of Angelique’s death. She said she did not. It turned out that the last address Angelique had for Alexis was in Tangier, a city she had left some time before moving to Florence. Maggie takes “Alexis'” statement at face value, and also believes her when she says that Angelique wrote only of how wonderful her marriage to Quentin was. Further, she believes that Angelique was telling the truth in those supposed letters. Since her own marriage to Quentin has been miserable from the first day we saw them together, this depresses Maggie.

Maggie goes to sleep, and Angelique casts a spell to send her a dream. In the dream, Maggie goes to Angelique’s old bedroom and opens a hidden compartment in a small table. She finds a packet of letters there. She wakes up, goes to the room, and finds not only that there is such a compartment but that it does contain the letters. Presumably she will read these and add to her misery.

As Yaeger’s former punching bag and current blood thrall of vampire Barnabas Collins, Buffie is central to two of the ongoing stories. When she rescues Maggie, we can assume that they will renew their friendship, putting her close to the heart of all the other stories. The episode thus promises to usher in the Age of Buffie. But in fact, this is the character’s final appearance.

I suspect that the writers and producers were impressed with Elizabeth Eis’ performance and expanded Buffie’s part beyond what they originally intended. There were several cast members whom Dan Curtis Productions was contractually obligated to use in a certain number of episodes per month, and for the first weeks of the current segment most of those were off in Tarrytown, New York, doing principal photography on the feature House of Dark Shadows. That gave the show a greater flexibility with new performers than they have now that those people are back.

Moreover, the writers projected the plot out thirteen weeks at a time, in documents divided into 65 parts for the 65 episodes of that period. These projections were known in the soap opera business as “flimsies.” The show would scrap its plans completely when a story drew a different reaction from the audience than they had expected, most famously when Barnabas was introduced in April 1967 and was such a hit that they dropped the original idea to stake him at the end of a number of weeks. But Buffie isn’t that kind of a hit, and with the return to the jigsaw puzzle they have to solve every day to get the name actors their required appearances, the writers have to stick close to the flimsies for a while. By the time they could find room for Eis, the story had moved on and Buffie was no longer particularly relevant. Eis will be back later, when the show is set in a different version of Collinsport, playing a character who shows up in only three episodes.

Episode 1022: Do any of us know where our dreams come from?

Angelique Stokes Collins, late wife of gloomy sourpuss Quentin Collins, has risen from the grave, murdered her identical twin sister Alexis, and taken Alexis’ place as Quentin’s houseguest in his mansion, the great house of Collinwood. Impersonating Alexis, she has been busy with a lot of cackhanded schemes to drive a wedge between Quentin and his new wife, the former Maggie Evans. As recently as yesterday, Quentin and Maggie were keeping their cool and showing signs that they might catch on to what “Alexis” was up to, but today they both melt down completely. Quentin has a fit when he sees Maggie reading a book about witchcraft that Angelique left in the drawing room, and Maggie goes to Quentin’s friend Cyrus Longworth to ask some questions about Quentin’s role in Angelique’s death.

Cyrus is pretty nutty himself. He is a mad scientist who has developed and become addicted to a Jekyll and Hyde potion. When he drinks it, his appearance changes so drastically that even the people closest to him cannot recognize him. Thus disguised, he goes by the name “John Yaeger” and indulges his sadistic impulses.

Cyrus assures Maggie that Quentin did not murder Angelique. She leaves his laboratory feeling relieved. She forgets her gloves. He picks them up, and spends eight seconds rubbing them on his face, sniffing them, and looking ecstatic. Eight seconds is quite a long period to devote to that particular pastime.

Buffie Harrington comes to Cyrus’ lab. When he is masquerading as Yaeger, Cyrus’ favorite hobby has been beating Buffie and ridiculing her. She has a self-destructive streak that led her to submit to that treatment. Unknown to Cyrus and unmentioned in today’s episode, Buffie has a new dominator. Vampire Barnabas Collins has bitten her, made her his slave, and ordered her to find out whatever she can about Yaeger from Cyrus.

Buffie is very much in charge of her scene with Cyrus. She runs through a long list of emotions- anger and impatience with Cyrus, attraction to him and pity for him, contempt for Yaeger and admiration for him, pity and anger towards herself, all portrayed clearly and convincingly by Elizabeth Eis. Returning viewers who realize that Buffie is on a mission from Barnabas to get Cyrus to tell her what he knows about Yaeger will be impressed that Buffie is as good an actress as Eis was. She is looking for the note that will crack the glass holding Cyrus’ secrets, and striking each one perfectly.

When Buffie finds out that the gloves are Maggie’s, she mentions that she knew Maggie when they were growing up in the village of Collinsport. She says that Maggie was always a special person, obviously destined for greater things. Looking at herself in the mirror, Buffie says that Maggie probably doesn’t hate herself when she sees her reflection. Buffie may still be acting, trying to elicit Cyrus’ sympathy, but we don’t see his reaction when she says these things, only two images of her face. And her words do fit with the self-destructive streak she has shown in her relationship with “Yaeger.” Not only Elizabeth Eis’ extraordinary good looks, but also her forceful and intelligent manner, make it shocking to see Buffie looking at herself and hear her saying such things. The show never explains where Buffie’s urge to destroy herself came from, but Eis makes us both believe that it keeps overwhelming her and wish that she could escape it.

Buffie doesn’t like what she sees.

Cyrus stops by Collinwood to return Maggie’s gloves. When she sees him, Maggie brightens up and starts moving fluidly from the hips up in a way that suggests sexual attraction. She is disappointed he won’t stay. Considering how close Cyrus got to Maggie when they were in his lab and how he gazed longingly into her eyes until she asked him if something were wrong, it’s hard to see how he can fail to find her excitement encouraging.

Cyrus drinks his potion. Once Yaegerized, he telephones Maggie. He refuses to identify himself, but says that if she meets him at the docks at 6 PM sharp he will give her information about Angelique’s death. Maggie is initially appalled by the idea of a strange man asking her to meet him at the docks, but she is still carried away with the suspicions Angelique planted in her mind that Quentin is a wife-killer. She can’t resist.

Yaeger is at the docks when Buffie happens by on her way to work at the Eagle tavern. She speaks to him. He jeers at her until she leaves. Cyrus keeps telling himself what Buffie told him in their scene today, that Yaeger enjoys life. All I can say is that there are far more enjoyable things to do with a beautiful young woman than to beat her, insult her, and drive her away. Yaeger seems to me to be an utterly miserable sort, as strongly bent away from life towards death as is Buffie.

Maggie shows up shortly after Buffie has gone. Yaeger doesn’t tell her anything she doesn’t know. He moves in close and starts talking about wanting her favors. She says she will be going, and he grabs her from behind. He puts his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams while he does a series of pelvic thrusts. His facial expression gets more and more distorted until his tongue pops out.

Cyrus, in his “John Yaeger” disguise, rapes Maggie. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

I suppose Cyrus/ Yaeger is rather an intelligent depiction of a rapist. He craves cruelty for its own sake. Any sexual thrill he may get is a side effect of the pleasure he derives from hurting women. Cyrus is engaged to a lovely young woman who is devoted to him, his lab assistant Sabrina Stuart. Sabrina’s name doesn’t even come up today. When Buffie was under his influence, she would have gone along with just about any sort of relationship he wanted to develop, either as Cyrus or in the guise of Yaeger. All he wanted to do was use her as a punching bag and then laugh at the bruises he left on her. Maggie is clearly attracted to Cyrus today, and however loyal she may be to Quentin is at the least available for some very pleasant flirting. But all Cyrus can think to do is to conceal his identity so that he can humiliate her in the alley where the streetwalkers pick up their johns.

The conceit that Cyrus and Yaeger are different people helps writer Joe Caldwell make today’s script into an essay about rape. Had Maggie recognized Cyrus in the alley, he might have claimed that he took her earlier response to him to be an invitation to sex. It is certainly easy to imagine a husband as uncharitable as Quentin taking such a claim seriously. But when Cyrus disguises himself as Yaeger, he shows that he has no wish to accept an invitation of any kind from Maggie. All he wants is to avoid punishment for the crime he is planning to commit against her. Indeed, when she sees Cyrus as Yaeger, Maggie shows nothing but distaste and a desire to flee. Cyrus evidently prefers those reactions to the enthusiasm Maggie showed for him when he was being sweet and friendly.

The Yaeger makeup is not very consistent from day to day. This time, the hairline is so high that he kept making me think of John Cazale as Fredo Corleone. Also, Christopher Pennock’s acting is not up to its usual standard; he overacts so severely that he keeps stumbling over his words. He even botches the opening voiceover. Perhaps he was too nice a guy to really get into a character who is the distilled essence of Rapist. At this point, Cazale had done only one TV show, a guest spot on NYPD, a series made in New York that featured Dark Shadows cast members in about half its episodes. Maybe Cazale would have been available for the role of Cyrus/ Yaeger. He too was a famously nice guy, but was perhaps a more accomplished actor than Pennock and better able to handle a part like this one.

Episode 1021: At the window, looking in

The opening voiceover tells us that vampire Barnabas Collins is about to “find an innocent victim, who will not only add to his grief and guilt, but also to his immediate peril.” Innocent victims can be so inconsiderate that way.

Barnabas has taken barmaid Buffie Harrington back to her apartment. She asks if she can give him a drink. He moves closer, and she takes him in her arms. He takes a drink, all right. She screams and collapses. As she hits the floor, Cyrus Longworth, MD, lets himself into the room and makes eye contact with Barnabas.

Barnabas claims that he ran into the room when he heard Buffie’s scream, which is not one of his more convincing lies. Cyrus insists on examining Buffie. In the nick of time, Buffie wakes up. She agrees with Barnabas that she is fine. Barnabas offers to stay with her. Cyrus does the same, to which Barnabas replies that he must have some business to attend to if he is in this part of town so late at night. Cyrus can’t deny that, and leaves.

Barnabas gives his new blood thrall some quick instructions, including strict orders to stay away from Cyrus. The next evening, Cyrus drops by Buffie’s place again, and she is as cold and unfriendly as Barnabas could have wished. As Cyrus is going, Buffie asks if he has heard from his friend John Yaeger lately. He says he hasn’t, but that she will be the first to know if he does. He leaves.

Barnabas materializes. Buffie is surprised that he was eavesdropping. Now that he knows Cyrus is close to Yaeger, he rescinds his order for her to avoid him. He says that Yaeger knows where his coffin is, and he wants to know everything he can about Yaeger for his own protection.

The next evening, Cyrus is back at Buffie’s. He is surprised she invited him. She says she hadn’t meant to be so rude the evening before. She asks about Yaeger, explaining that she has some things of his and is keen to get them back to him as soon as possible. Cyrus says only that he is sure Yaeger will be back soon. He leaves, and Buffie asks herself why Cyrus is protecting Yaeger.

Returning viewers know what Buffie and Barnabas do not. Yaeger does not exist. Cyrus has developed a potion which alters his appearance so drastically that even those closest to him do not recognize him when he is under its influence. Thus disguised, he calls himself “John Yaeger” and indulges his sadistic impulses. With this episode, the show sets Barnabas and Cyrus on a collision course. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde meet Dracula, here we come.

In the great house of Collinwood, another bizarre imposture is underway. Angelique Stokes Collins, the late wife of Quentin Collins, has returned from the dead, murdered her identical twin sister Alexis, and taken Alexis’ place as a houseguest. Her goal is to alienate Quentin from his new wife, the former Maggie Evans, and return to her previous place as mistress of Collinwood.

“Alexis” has been telling everyone that Angelique was murdered, which she in fact believes herself to have been. Since the coroner’s report ruled Angelique’s death the result of a stroke, Quentin does not take this idea seriously. “Alexis” has managed to persuade Maggie to do so, however, and when first we see them they are having a testy exchange over the question.

“Alexis” is happy to overhear this conversation. When the drawing room doors open, she presents Maggie with a bunch of flowers she has picked from the gardens on the grounds of the estate. Since the estate belongs to Maggie and Quentin, this is rather a childish gesture, but it pleases Maggie. “Alexis” goes to fetch a vase.

Cyrus shows up. Maggie goes upstairs while Cyrus and Quentin go to the drawing room. The men talk about Larry Chase, an attorney who represented both of them. Larry died in the foyer at Collinwood yesterday. At that time Quentin and Maggie were out together, so Larry was alone with “Alexis.” Cyrus says that Larry somehow froze to death in the foyer.

Angelique is alone with the flowers. She casts a spell causing them to shrivel and die. She then turns to the camera, looks directly at the audience, and gives her best “Ain’t I a stinker?” look.

In #346, Barnabas touched a bouquet of flowers, causing them to shrivel and die. That embarrassed Barnabas, as if he had lost control of his gastrointestinal system for a moment. It also alarmed well-meaning governess Vicki, but she never mentioned it again, and it certainly didn’t tip her off that Barnabas was a vampire. This incident shocks and befuddles Quentin and Maggie, but when he brings it up in their bedroom later she has already forgotten all about it and he agrees it wasn’t very important.

Even if it had made as big an impression as Angelique was hoping it would, destroying the flowers would probably not have advanced her goal of making Quentin suspect that Maggie is a supernatural force of darkness. He does notice the similarity to what happened to Larry, but since Angelique was with Larry when he died and Quentin and Maggie were together somewhere else, and since Angelique was in contact with the flowers for far longer than Maggie was, any suspicion it would raise would most logically be directed at herself.

“Alexis” has more success persuading Maggie to suspect Quentin of the murder of Angelique. Maggie has a dream about the séance at which Angelique died. It ends with Quentin choking Angelique. She wakes up screaming that he shouldn’t have murdered his wife.

In fact, Quentin did choke Angelique at the séance, but Angelique has discounted that as a possible cause of her death. She thinks that someone else drove a pin into her head while Quentin was busy strangling her. How the autopsy missed that, she hasn’t told us.

Last week the show credited its videotape editors for the first time, the team of Danny Rosenson and Robert Steinback. Today is the first credit for another pair of videotape editors, Chuck Gardner and Indra Sadoo.

The music under the closing credits sounds quite different than it has the last couple of years. We were wondering if it was an old tape, and then, about halfway through, came the voice that used to end every episode- ABC staff man Bob Lloyd intoning “Dark Shadows… is a Dan Curtis Production.” I was delighted to hear him again, if only on an old recording used by mistake.