Nancy Barrett was taken ill not long before shooting began for this episode, and she was replaced in the role of Carolyn Stoddard by Diana Walker. Miss Walker had her sides letter perfect; her only flub comes when she delivers a line in a level conversational tone, and a moment later has to apologize for shouting. She doesn’t seem to have much idea of what was going on in the story, though. Her Carolyn is a calm, practical-minded homemaker of the sort you might find on another daytime soap of the period, not someone who is keeping a stray Frankenstein’s monster in the spare room. Besides, Miss Barrett is probably Dark Shadows’ most reliably entertaining performer, an impossible act for anyone to follow.
Aside from the two actors who at various times filled in for Vince O’Brien in the famously disposable role of Sheriff Patterson, I believe Miss Walker is the only person to have served as a substitute for a temporarily unavailable cast member. Many times, the makers of the show went out of their way to rearrange the shooting schedule or rewrite scripts to avoid substitutions. Many of the show’s fans were extremely young and extremely intense, so I suspect Miss Walker’s mail after this appearance would have included some ugly items that would have confirmed the producers in their reluctance to call up the reserves.
Today is the last time we see Jerry Lacy as lawyer Tony Peterson. Mr Lacy will be back in other roles. In 1969 and 1970, he and Diana Walker were reunited in the original Broadway cast of Play It Again, Sam, in which Mr Lacy scored a triumph with the same Humphrey Bogart imitation that is the basis of Tony’s character, while Miss Walker played Sharon and understudied Nancy.
Dark Shadows Commentary 
You mentioned yesterday that Nancy Barrett gave one of her few poor performances in her crying scene. Since she was out due to illness today, I wonder if she was coming down with whatever and that contributed to the performance.I know they moved heaven and earth to write around an actor who was out temporarily, but Carolyn was practically necessary to give exposition on Liz’s condition to Tony. The only two other characters that could even possibly have done so were Viki, who I’m not sure ever had a scene with the character of Tony and would have no reason to confide in him or Roger, who just plain wouldn’t have fit the role at all. Concerned about Liz, sure, telling Tony one of “the help” about his concerns, not on your life. Plus, the whole scene was set up yesterday with Carolyn. The writers really had no choice but to sub in someone.
It is interesting that paths crossed again in Play It Again Sam. The world of soap operas and Broadway were intertwined at the time. I will miss Tony, one of the, if not the last standing normal person on the show. He was a heck of a lot better than certain characters that the show decided were the love of Carolyn’s life, nothing against Christopher Pennock, he was fine.
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I’m sure you’re right. And of course I agree about Jerry Lacy, he was excellent in all his roles.
Pennock was a fascinating case. He had some acting skills when he was first on the show, but he did not know how to relate to the camera. As a result, I could not tolerate Jeb. But he improved steadily with each role, and by the end of the series he was one of my favorites.
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