January 2024 – Page 3 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 398: The only real witch there is

Wrongly suspected of witchcraft, bewildered time-traveler Vicki has found refuge in the home of young gentleman Barnabas Collins. Vicki doesn’t know it yet, but last night Barnabas married a woman named Angelique. Vicki knew Angelique when they were both working in the home of Barnabas’ family, Vicki as a governess, Angelique as a lady’s maid. Unknown to almost anyone, Angelique is the real witch and is glad Vicki has fallen into taking the blame for her evil deeds.

Angelique herself is in the dark about Vicki’s presence in the house. She chances upon Vicki in the morning. Angelique is the only character in the segment of Dark Shadows set in the year 1795 to address her as “Vicki”; everyone else insists on calling her “Victoria” or “Miss Winters.” Since we have known Vicki since the first episode, and we know that her friends call her “Vicki,” hearing her use that form of the name tells us that Angelique has presented herself to Vicki as a friend.

Angelique tells Vicki that she and Barnabas are now married. If Vicki had learned anything from the long string of failures to adapt to the mores of 1795 that have brought her to her current state, she would respond to this by lowering her eyes, curtsying, and saying “Mrs. Collins.” But instead, she reacts with a blank stare. Angelique asks what if she is merely startled by the news, or is shocked. Vicki resumes babbling, still calling Angelique by her first name, still referring to Barnabas by his.

Not only is Vicki continuing to flout the modes of address conventional to the period in which she finds herself, she seems genuinely unaware that a newlywed might be disturbed to stumble upon an attractive young woman her husband is hiding in the house. After a minute or two, it occurs to her to ask Angelique if she wants her to stay. Angelique says that because Barnabas is the master of the house, it is not for her to object. Vicki responds by jumping into her face and exclaiming “But you’re the mistress!” Even after that, she keeps on with her first-naming of Barnabas and Angelique and shows absolutely no sign of awareness that Angelique might be concerned about the nature of Barnabas’ attachment to her.

Downstairs, Angelique asks Barnabas about Vicki. He asks incredulously if she is jealous. Barnabas didn’t visit Angelique in her bedroom on their wedding night and she knows that he tends to make free with servant girls, since that’s how they met. Even so, he can’t figure out why Angelique might be unhappy to find that he has Vicki stashed in the house. It really is a shame Barnabas and Vicki didn’t marry, just imagine what oblivious children they might have had. They might have been the progenitors of a whole line of Detective Frank Drebins.

Later, Angelique has a spell she wants to cast on Barnabas’ aunt, repressed spinster Abigail Collins. She summons indentured servant Ben, whom she has enslaved. She orders Ben to steal Abigail’s hair ribbon from her night-stand. Ben is horrified by the command. It would have been bad enough if he had been caught sneaking into one of the gentlemen’s bedrooms, but he might have been able to talk his way out of that. If he is found in a lady’s bedroom, he’ll be lucky if all that happens is that he’s sent back to prison for several years. Impatient, Angelique tells him not to get caught.

Abigail does catch Ben in her room with the hair ribbon in his hand. She was the first to suspect witchcraft at Collinwood, before there even was any. Ben begs her not to ask him any questions, but she isn’t having it. She presses him, and he says that the witch sent him. She demands he say the witch’s name, wanting to hear him say “Victoria Winters.” He is about to say “Angelique” when we see her, in the Old House, cast the spell that causes him to choke. This scene takes about a minute to make all the points the story needs, but goes on for several times that long. That doesn’t hurt a thing- Clarice Blackburn and Thayer David were such a pair of pros that they could hold the audience’s attention for a good deal longer with a lot less to work with. It’s a fine ending.

Episode 397: I’m not sure I should be here, either

Yesterday, the ghost of Jeremiah Collins started to bury wicked witch Angelique alive. Today, we see that he barely got her dress dirty. She’s lying on a mound next to the empty grave when we find her.

This is the one where Angelique marries Barnabas. It ought to be packed with incident. There is a lot of activity, but like the live burial, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s a real disappointment.

One particular weak spot in the episode is the officiant at the wedding, the aptly named Reverend Bland. Actor Paul Kirk Giles does what he can, but as soon as the Rev’d Mr B realizes that something unwholesome is going on he declares that he is getting out of the place. Apparently his conception of the duties of a pastor consists of avoiding people who might need help confronting the spiritual forces of darkness. It doesn’t matter- Bland’s squeamishness disappears after Barnabas orders him to stay and perform the wedding.

After the wedding, Angelique returns to her bedroom. There is a gift that hadn’t been there before. Opening it, she finds a music box. The music box was a big deal in 1967, when Barnabas was a vampire and he thought that a woman who listened to it would turn into his lost love, the gracious Josette. This is the first time we have seen the music box during the segment of Dark Shadows set in 1795. In 1967, Barnabas told various stories about the origin of the music box, but the one thing that remained consistent was that it was meant for Josette.

Angelique finds the music box. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas and Josette were engaged when the 1795 segment began, but that ended when Josette and Jeremiah conceived a mad passion for each other and eloped. Unknown to Barnabas, that was the result of a spell Angelique cast in hopes of getting Barnabas for herself. Barnabas responded to the elopement by killing Jeremiah in a duel. He has told Angelique that he still loves Josette and always will, but that he knows there can never again be anything between them. Moments after he had told her that, Angelique agreed to marry him. Evidently it was to be a sham marriage.

Jeremiah’s ghost has been railing at Angelique for raising him from his grave, and apparently he wants to be avenged by making the sham marriage even shammier. When Barnabas comes into the room, he sees the music box, explodes in rage, and storms out.

In life, Jeremiah never knew that Angelique was behind his and Josette’s passion. He has evidently learned that and other of her secrets, and is using them against her. Perhaps Angelique put more of herself into him than she intended.

On The Collinsport Historical Society, Patrick McCray says that this is an important episode because Barnabas and Angelique’s wedding is the basis for some developments much later in the series. That’s true, but by the time he’s talking about the show isn’t very good any more. So I consign it to the ranks of the “Stinkers.”

Episode 396: The doll and the pins

Well-meaning governess Vicki is wrongly suspected of witchcraft and needs a place to hide. Young gentleman Barnabas takes her into his house. In her gratitude, Vicki tells Barnabas the truth about herself. She is a time-traveler, yanked back to this year 1795 from her native 1967 by forces she does not understand. Indentured servant Ben enters the room and Vicki leaves. Mystified by her story, Barnabas asks Ben if he thinks Vicki might be a witch after all.

It is exciting when Vicki starts confiding in Barnabas. She has utterly failed to adapt to her new environment, and has none of the abilities she would need to scam her way into a secure place there. She has ended up as an obstacle to story development and an irritating screen presence. If Vicki isn’t going to lie competently, she may as well tell the truth. But that turns out to be a dead end as well- there is no use for Barnabas to make of the information she has given him.

Barnabas doesn’t repeat Vicki’s story to Ben- he just reports that she said something utterly bizarre. What Barnabas does not know, but Ben does, is that there really is a witch in the house- it is Barnabas’ bride-to-be Angelique. Angelique has enslaved Ben, so if he found out Vicki’s secret she would as well, and would be able to use it against her as she frames Vicki for all of her own crimes. Ben proclaims to Barnabas his absolute certainty that Vicki is not a witch, but since he can’t tell anyone about Angelique, this only puzzles Barnabas. Barnabas is further baffled when Ben says he hopes that Barnabas’ marriage to Angelique brings an end to his troubles.

The other day, Angelique tried to solve a problem of her own by raising a corpse from its grave. This was the late Jeremiah Collins, uncle of Barnabas and his best friend until, under the influence of Angelique’s spell, he and Barnabas’ fiancée Josette eloped together. Barnabas responded to that by challenging Jeremiah to a duel. Conscience-stricken, Jeremiah decided to let Barnabas kill him and told Josette that she would be free to marry Barnabas once he was dead.

Angelique had ordered Jeremiah to plague Josette and Barnabas with angry demands that they stay apart. We could interpret that simply as puppetry on Angelique’s part. But today, Jeremiah is harassing Angelique and refusing her repeated commands to go back to his grave. He says he was at peace in the earth until Angelique disturbed him. He was content with his decision to forfeit his life, but now he has become something he didn’t bargain for. Maybe it’s the indignity of that change that accounts for his change of personality, or maybe he’s just cranky because he can’t get back to sleep.

Regular viewers will think of a third possibility. In the segments of Dark Shadows set in 1966 and 1967, we saw other supernatural beings, such as undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins and the ghosts of Josette and of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah. These beings looked at first glance like humans, but the more we learned about them the clearer it became that each was in fact a complex of multiple entities, some of which operated independently of and occasionally at cross-purposes with others. As a witch, Angelique might also be a composite being. Perhaps each time she casts a spell, she breaks off a little piece of herself and deposits it within the person she is trying to control. If so, the creature she is trying to send away is not simply Jeremiah, but the body of Jeremiah animated by a chunk of the spirit of Angelique. That would explain why the actions of the risen Jeremiah are characterized by three traits that were alien to the living man, but that Angelique has in abundance- single-mindedness, vengefulness, and ineffectiveness.

Barnabas, Ben, and a clergyman are in the front parlor, ready for the wedding. Angelique takes a long time to come downstairs. Barnabas goes up to her room to see what is keeping her. He finds her terribly upset, insisting that they have the ceremony somewhere else. Barnabas looks in her suitcase, which had a moment before held the clothes she removed to put on her bridal gown. Those clothes have vanished, and in their place Barnabas finds a doll belonging to his little sister Sarah and some pins. Had Barnabas ever seen a horror movie, he would know to interpret this as a clue from Jeremiah that Angelique had caused a recent illness of Sarah’s by sticking pins in her doll, but people didn’t get to the cinema in 1795, so it’s another dead end.

Angelique composes herself and says she will be right down for the wedding. Barnabas leaves the room. The door closes itself, and Angelique cannot open it. Jeremiah enters and tells Angelique she must be punished for disturbing the dead. He takes her to his grave, which is open. Angelique raised Jeremiah some days ago- if the grave has been open this whole time, you’d think someone would have noticed and people would be talking about it. Anyway, he puts her in the grave, and from her point of view we see him throwing dirt into it.

Jeremiah dropping dirt onto Angelique, from her point of view. Screenshot by

This is the first live burial we’ve seen on Dark Shadows. It’s true that the POV shot from inside the grave echoes a moment in #248 when Barnabas, who is in 1967 a vampire, shuts his prisoner Maggie Evans in a coffin and we see him through her eyes, but that coffin wasn’t in the ground.

Barnabas shuts Maggie in a coffin in #248. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Harking back as it does to that shocking moment from Barnabas’ early days on the show, the image of the reanimated Jeremiah dropping dirt in the grave invites us to make a comparison between Jeremiah and Barnabas. In life Jeremiah was a mild-mannered, good-hearted fellow, as is the living Barnabas. The destructive behavior he has exhibited since Angelique raised him from the dead is not only typical of her, but also of what we saw from the vampire Barnabas in 1967. Again, we wonder if the fate that awaits Barnabas is not only something Angelique will do to him, but if everything we saw of him in the months between April and November was what Angelique was doing disguised as him.

Closing Miscellany

Angelique’s repeated commands to Jeremiah today to “Go back to your grave!” find an echo in one of the great moments in the history of Dark Shadows conventions, when Lara Parker used that line to explain the Dark Shadows house style of acting:

“Go back to your grave!!!!!”

When Vicki tells Barnabas the truth about herself, the camerawork makes Alexandra Moltke Isles’ strabismus impossible to miss. Previously they had taken great care to photograph her from angles that would obscure this condition, but we’re going to get another clear look at it on Thursday. Combined with the lousy lines the scripts have given Vicki since the beginning of the 1795 segment, it is hard not to suspect that there was some kind of deliberate effort behind the scenes to push Mrs Isles aside.

Vicki and Barnabas. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This was the first episode of Dark Shadows broadcast in 1968. The copyright date printed on the screen at the end still says 1967. They were several months late before they stopped putting “1966” there, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised they didn’t update it for an episode shown on New Year’s Day.