Frankenstein’s monster Adam has threatened to go on a murder spree unless old world gentleman Barnabas and mad scientist Julia build him a mate. He has further demanded that heiress Carolyn donate the “life force” that will animate his bride. We open today with a reprise of yesterday’s ending in which the experiment begins and immediately goes wrong. Julia announces that unless the mate comes to life in the next sixty seconds, Carolyn will die. They show us a clock. Sixty seconds pass, and the mate doesn’t come to life. So I guess Carolyn is dead now.
When we return from the opening titles, Adam insists on taking Carolyn from the laboratory. Julia says that Carolyn is in a bad way. Using a bit of Collinsport English, she says that Carolyn’s “pulsebeat” is decreasing. Alarmed, Barnabas asks if she might die. Julia reluctantly admits that it is possible. Evidently the opening titles wiped their memories clean of her earlier statement about the sixty seconds that would determine Carolyn’s fate.
Adam and Carolyn share a scene in the upstairs bedroom. Robert Rodan and Nancy Barrett do a wonderful job of acting, enough to save the episode from the “Stinkers” label. As Carolyn describes what she saw while she was unconscious during the experiment, images of sculpted pieces depicting body parts are superimposed on the screen over her face. She says she “saw something in the fog… hazy forms, floating in the air. They began to take shape. A collection of dead things, disconnected, coming toward me, wanting something from me-wanting life. My life!” The superimposed images don’t lead to anything, anymore than anything else in the episode does. But they are typical of the bold visual artistry of director Lela Swift, and evocative of the sort of thing you would see in the more ambitious low-budget films of the period.
Carolyn loses consciousness just before Julia comes in with her medical bag. Julia pronounces Carolyn dead. Adam goes to the basement, where he tells Barnabas he is ready to start his murder spree. Barnabas tries to stop him, and Adam easily beats him down. Adam storms out of the house, passing Julia in the foyer on his way to the great house of Collinwood. Barnabas staggers upstairs and tells Julia what happened. She goes upstairs to retrieve her bag so she can treat his wounds, and finds that Carolyn’s body has vanished from the bed.
Dark Shadows Commentary 