Episode 754: A place with special people

Twelve year old Jamison Collins has run away from the unspeakably horrible boarding school where he has been imprisoned, and erstwhile lady’s maid Beth Chavez thinks he might be in the woods on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. Beth knows that her boyfriend, Jamison’s uncle Quentin, is in those woods. She also knows that Quentin is a werewolf, so she has gone out with a gun to protect Jamison from him. She does not know that the gun will stop a werewolf only if it fires silver bullets, so she is in trouble when she comes face to face with Quentin in his lupine form.

Luckily for Beth, Jamison’s father, the stuffy Edward, and his distant cousin, the mysterious and recently arrived Barnabas, happen by. They distract the werewolf, and Barnabas beats him with the silver head of his cane. The werewolf runs off, and Barnabas gives chase. Edward calls him back. Edward tells Barnabas he will need a gun to fight the werewolf, and Barnabas replies that the head of the cane will be enough. Edward demurs, saying that will work only once. Barnabas can’t very well tell the quotidian Edward that silver is the only weapon that is effective against werewolves, still less that he learned this while fighting a werewolf in the year 1969 and that he has traveled back in time to 1897 to stop the werewolf curse at its origin. Even if he somehow convinced Edward of this lunatic story, he would only increase the likelihood that a further uncanny truth would be revealed, namely that he himself is a vampire. So Barnabas helps Edward carry Beth back to the great house on the estate.

There, Barnabas decides that Jamison has probably gone to visit his mother Laura, who is staying in the groundskeeper’s cottage due to her estrangement from Edward. Indeed, we have seen Jamison there, talking with Laura about going away from Collinwood with her. Barnabas suspects what the audience is in a position to know, that Laura is an undead blonde fire witch who periodically incinerates herself and her children so that she, but not they, may rise and live again as a humanoid Phoenix. Another iteration of Laura was on Dark Shadows from December 1966 to March 1967, when the show took place in a contemporary setting. When Laura tells Jamison about the place to which she will take him, longtime viewers will hear echoes of what that other Laura told her son David in #140 about a land that “some call Paradise.”

A bat squeaks outside the window of the cottage, and Barnabas materializes inside. They haven’t tried this effect in quite a while. When they did it in #341, they superimposed the image of Barnabas in the wrong place on the screen, so that he looked like he was about four feet tall. That Mini-Bar was not very intimidating. But they get it right this time, and it makes for an effective moment.

Laura emerges from the bedroom, and is indignant to see Barnabas. He bluntly tells her that he knows she is a mortal threat to her children, Jamison and his sister Nora. He tells her he will take them from her. She says she is sure that he is capable of “tricks,” but says that she has some of her own. She causes him to suffer intense heat. He recovers, and a groggy Jamison comes staggering out of the bedroom. Barnabas grabs Jamison and sets out for the great house. When Laura again mentions her “tricks,” he replies menacingly that “You have not known mine!” Laura vows to have her revenge.

The original 1966-1967 Laura story was the first plot on Dark Shadows to be driven by a supernatural character from beginning to end, and it did involve some confrontations between Laura and the ghost of the gracious Josette. But it was nearly as slow-paced, understated, and heavily atmospheric as were the relatively naturalistic stories that preceded it. That other Laura was the right menace for a show like that. She did not come with the established imagery of familiar movie monsters like vampires and werewolves, nor was there any reason to expect her to generate a lot of violent confrontations or special effects. Despite her association with fire, Laura was a cool presence on screen. She fit with a sedate tone and appealed to an adult audience interested in the long arcs of character development. When the 1897 Laura zaps a vampire who himself just fought a werewolf, there is no coolness anywhere. The show is meant primarily for children now, and they want the heat action and imagery generate when they are packed tight into each minute. Diana Millay is certainly up to the job, though it is a shame she doesn’t have the same opportunities she had in early 1967 to display her gifts for dry comedy and subtle psychological drama.