One of the great challenges of writing a serial is fitting enough recap of previous story points into each installment that new viewers can catch up without putting so much in that you bore the regulars. A time will come when Dark Shadows gives up recapping altogether, but in these early weeks they are scrupulous about soapcraft.
In episode 11, much of the recapping takes place in a scene between innkeeper Mr Wells (Conrad Bain) and drunken artist Sam Evans (Mark Allen.) The story justification for Mr Wells telling Sam everything the audience might need to know about Burke Devlin and the Collinses is that Sam’s daughter Maggie, who runs the restaurant in the inn, is about to return to work, and Mr Wells doesn’t want her to see her father drunk. He knows that as long as Sam thinks he might have something new to tell him about Burke, he will sit there and drink coffee.
The scene between Mr Wells and Sam is an example of something that becomes ever more important to Dark Shadows as it goes on: good acting trumping not-so-good writing. And good acting trumping bad acting- while Mark Allen is the worst actor on the show, Conrad Bain is phenomenally good. He single-handedly takes what must have looked in the script to be a terribly dull scene and makes it completely absorbing. I can imagine a show entirely composed of him looking into the camera and telling stories, and that show would be great. No wonder he went on to have such a big career in television!
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