alexandra moltke isles – Page 13 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 142: Firelight is not for looking closely

A few times in the early months of Dark Shadows, writers Art Wallace and Francis Swann found themselves in a corner. The story could move forward only if a character took a particular action, but they couldn’t come up with a reason to explain why any character would take that action. So they had the character do whatever it was simply because it was in the script, and hoped the actors or director or somebody would come up with sleight of hand to conceal their desperation.

Since well-meaning governess Vicki was on screen more than anyone else, she was the one most often required to behave without motivation. Sometimes, Alexandra Moltke Isles finds a way to make Vicki’s behavior intelligible in spite of the writers. The scenes in which Vicki tries to befriend her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins, are Dark Shadows‘ premier example of good acting trumping bad writing, and there are smaller examples as well. But there are three times in the Wallace/ Swann era- in episodes 26, 38, and 83– when Vicki simply looks like an idiot. This “Dumb Vicki” will appear more and more often as the series goes on, and will eventually ruin the character and do grave damage to the show.

Some weeks ago, Wallace and Swann were succeeded as the principal writers of the show by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein. Sproat was a cut below Wallace and Swann, and Marmorstein was far less talented even than Sproat. Today, we get a succession of Dumb Vicki moments resulting from basic incompetence on Marmorstein’s part.

Vicki is visiting her friend Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. Maggie has shown her a canvas that her father, drunken artist Sam, was possessed by an unexplained force to paint. Sam hates the painting and is surprised as he watches it take shape under his brush, but is powerless to stop working on it. It depicts Laura Collins, mother of David. Laura is shown as a winged figure, nude and engulfed in flames.

Sam has had several scenes in which he was shown in closeup delivering speeches about his hatred for the painting and going through convulsions while spooky music plays on the soundtrack. He has also had scenes with Maggie and with Laura’s husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, in which he tries to explain what is going on with him and the painting. Yesterday, Maggie recapped much of this to Vicki, sharing the suspicion that Laura is somehow responsible for Sam’s compulsion to paint the picture. Since the show has also given us loads of hints that Laura is connected to the supernatural, this all adds up to a very heavy-handed way of telling the audience that Sam is possessed.

Once you can say that your characters are possessed by unseen spirits, you get a lot of extra latitude as to what constitutes motivation. Once they have shown us that he is possessed, all we need to know about Sam for his actions to make sense is that he has some kind of connection to Laura and that Laura has some connection to the supernatural. The results of the possession hold our interest as we compare them with other events in the story and look for a pattern we can fit them into.

As far as the supernatural beings responsible for the possession go, we don’t need much information at all about their motivation. Far less than for human characters. Most audiences have more or less definite ideas as to what human beings are and what makes them do the things they do. We’re more flexible as to what supernatural beings are, and are willing to spend a long time searching for coherence hidden in story elements that don’t seem to have a logical connection once we have seen that there are uncanny forces in operation.

To get the benefit of that audience participation, a writer does have to show that supernatural forces are at work. Today, Vicki seems to be possessed, but there is no scene showing us that this has happened. Vicki looks at the painting and says she wants it. Asked why, she says she doesn’t know. Nothing she says makes much sense, or much impression.

Three seconds of Vicki staring at the painting while we hear a theremin cue on the soundtrack would have sufficed to tell us that she was falling under a spell. Not only don’t we get that, Mrs Isles never gets a chance to show us what is happening to Vicki. When Vicki first looked at the painting, she was partially obscured, standing behind Maggie; examining it later, she has her back to the camera. During her dialogue with the loudly agitated Sam, only a few brief shots focus on her. Sam gives Vicki the painting. When Maggie says she wonders how Laura will react when Vicki brings the painting into the house, Vicki mumbles that she doesn’t know.

Vicki struck dumb. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Had we seen Vicki falling under the spell, the result could have been a powerful moment. As a supernatural storyline goes on, the mysterious forces behind it spread their influence from one character to another. The first moment in this one when we could see that sort of contagion at work is when the powers that have been controlling Sam take hold of Vicki. To hide that moment from us is to hide the whole development of the narrative arc.

Moreover, that this particular development takes place on this set among these characters is quite significant. When Vicki and Maggie first met, Maggie told her that she was a jerk for taking a job at the great house of Collinwood. She told Vicki that Collinwood was a source of trouble for the town of Collinsport. As the weeks went on, Maggie and other Collinsport natives made it clear that a big part of that trouble comes from the ghosts and ghoulies that are housed in Collinwood and that threaten to break out and take over the town. This will indeed become the major theme of the show in the years ahead.

Now Vicki has lived in Collinwood for over six months, and the only ghosts she has seen are the friendly, protective spirits of Josette Collins and beloved local man Bill Malloy. The first time a supernatural being does something frightening to Vicki is in the town of Collinsport, in Maggie’s own house.

Indeed, the Phoenix storyline is the only one in the whole series to invert the usual pattern of Collinwood as hell-mouth and Collinsport as a beleaguered outpost of normality. There are other storylines where evil powers came from far away, from across the sea or from another dimension, and settled in Collinwood before spreading out to threaten Collinsport, but in this story the source of the disturbance is Laura. While she may tell David in episode 140 that she comes from one of the realms described in the legends of the Holy Grail, that origin applies only to her uncanny side. When Laura first came to town, she had told Maggie that she was originally from Collinsport, and in episode 130, Laura’s estranged husband Roger, and Roger’s sister, reclusive matriarch Liz, had mentioned that Laura’s family had moved away from town.

The episode also leaves us on our own trying to figure out what Vicki is thinking. Regular viewers might take some time during the commercial break to puzzle it out, put it in the context of what we’ve seen previously, and wonder if Vicki is in a stupor because she too is possessed. That might help us to get through the rest of the episode, but if we are to feel a live connection to the character we have to understand what she is feeling while we are watching her. A theory we come up with after the fact is no substitute for empathy we experience during the scene. And of course people tuning in to Dark Shadows for the first time will simply think that Vicki is some kind of idiot.

Many fans of Dark Shadows, especially those who haven’t seen the first 42 weeks of the show or who didn’t see them until later episodes had given them fixed impressions, blame Alexandra Moltke Isles’ acting for Dumb Vicki. But today’s scene in the Evans cottage shows how deeply unfair that is. If an actor doesn’t have lines to deliver, she can’t use her voice to create a character. If the camera isn’t pointed at her, her body language is no use. And if the director is telling her to play the scene quietly while the others are going over the top, she’s likely to fade into the background. Without even a musical sting on the soundtrack to support her, there is nothing Mrs Isles could have done to communicate to the audience what Vicki is going through in this scene.

It is easy for me to denounce Malcolm Marmorstein, since his scripts are so often so bad. I am reluctant to place a share of the blame on director John Sedwick, since I am always impressed with Sedwick’s visual style and usually with his deployment of actors. But I can’t believe anyone would have stopped him pointing a camera at Mrs Isles at the appropriate moment, giving her a chance to play her part.

Back at the great house of Collinwood, David and Laura are sitting by the fire. David asks his mother about her old boyfriends. He wants to know if she ever dated dashing action hero Burke Devlin. She admits that she did. When David lets on that he wishes Burke, rather than Roger, were his father, Laura squirms. We’ve had a number of indications that Burke might in fact be David’s biological father, and Laura is alarmed that David is raising the topic.

The front door opens, and David and Laura are glad to see their friend Vicki. They are intrigued by the package Vicki is carrying. David begs to see what’s inside. Laura, in a light and cheerful voice, tells him that if Vicki wanted him to see it, she would have shown it to them. He continues to beg. Vicki says “All right!,” and unveils it. When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius exclaimed “All right!?,” appalled at Vicki’s nonsensical decision to yield to David’s pleas despite the cover Laura was giving her. Again, the idea that Vicki’s weird decisions and vague, distracted manner might be symptoms of possession was somewhere in our minds, but since nothing had been shown to give direct support to that idea our emotional reaction suited a Dumb Vicki moment.

As Maggie had suggested she might be, Laura is horrified to see herself depicted in this fiery image. David is thrilled- he had been plagued by a recurring nightmare, one he had described in detail to the deeply concerned Vicki, in which his mother stood in a sea of flames and beckoned him to join her. He asks how Sam knew about his dream- did he have the same dream? Vicki mumbles that he didn’t, that he didn’t know anything about the dream or even why he was painting the picture. The audience may have wondered why Vicki didn’t remember the dream until now- the explanation that fits best with the story is that she has been possessed by the same spirit that possessed Sam, but with so little attention given to Vicki as she was reacting to the painting some very insightful critics have taken it as another Dumb Vicki moment.

David points to a white space in the painting, one the shape of his own head, and asks what goes there. Vicki mumbles that she doesn’t know, and that Sam himself didn’t know. David is delighted with the painting and wants to hang it in his room. He asks Vicki to give it to him. Vicki tells him that his mother will have to rule on that question. Laura hates the painting and tries to talk David out of hanging it, but he is nothing deterred. She finally caves in.

While David goes upstairs with the painting, Laura asks Vicki what she was thinking bringing such a terrible thing into the house. Vicki says she doesn’t know- something just came over her. That goes to show that the writer wanted us to think that Vicki was possessed, which in turn makes it all the more exasperating that he didn’t let us in on it at the appropriate time. The fact that we know the writer wants us to have a reaction doesn’t mean that we actually have it. Confusion pushes people away from a story, and merely intellectual explanations offered after the fact don’t draw us back in.

Vicki, seeming to regain some of her brainpower, goes to David’s room and tries to talk him out of keeping the painting. He dismisses her concerns immediately, without even changing his delighted manner, and hangs it on his wall. Looking at it, Vicki admits that it looks like it belongs there.

Laura enters, and tells David she has changed her mind. She thinks it would be bad for him to have such an image on display, and asks him to get rid of the painting. David responds by threatening never to speak to her again. Laura has just been reunited with David after years of separation, and his initial reaction to her return was confused and traumatic. So it is understandable that she capitulates to this extortion.

It is more surprising that Vicki responds by turning away and wringing her hands after Laura leaves. Usually Vicki scolds David after he is nasty to people, and she has been on a particular mission to break down the barriers between him and his mother. If it were clear that Vicki was under the influence of a spirit and was not herself, this uncharacteristically diffident response might have carried a dramatic punch, at least for regular viewers. As it is, it slides past as yet another Dumb Vicki moment.

Back in the Evans cottage, Sam comes back from his usual night of drinking at the local tavern. Maggie is infinitely weary of her father’s alcoholism, but does smile to hear him reciting poetry and talking about a seascape he is planning to paint. At least he’s happy. Sam goes to his easel to start that seascape, only to recoil as he realizes that he is in fact painting another version of the picture of Laura in flames.

David is asleep in his room. The painting starts to glow. Then Laura’s painted likeness is replaced with a video insert of her face. The insert grows and grows, and David screams for it to stay away.

Night-time visitor. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Maggie’s suspicion that Laura is behind the portrait fits with the many signs the show has given us of Laura’s uncanny nature. Laura’s reaction when Vicki brings the painting home, though, shows us that what has been happening to Sam does not serve Laura’s interests, any more than David’s nightmare did.

I think there are three possible explanations for the origin of the compulsion Sam had to paint the picture, the compulsion Vicki had to claim it, and David’s nocturnal disturbances. It could be that by exposing David time and again to the image of him following her into flames, Laura is gradually wearing down David’s resistance to a horrible idea that will lead to his destruction. In support of this interpretation, we remember the first night Laura was at Collinwood. She was calling David’s name in a quiet voice at the window of her cottage, far from the great house. Yet the sound of her voice penetrated David’s mind as he slept. He writhed on his bed, and went into the nightmare. Laura’s objection to the painting militates against this explanation.

When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius suggested a second reading. There might be a lot to Laura. Maybe in addition to the physical presence in the house that wants David to come away with her, there is also a ghostly presence that wants to warn him and everyone else of the danger that implies. That interpretation would fit with David’s sighting, the night Laura first came to the house, of a flickering image on the lawn that looked like Laura. David longed for that Laura to come to him, but reacted with terror when he saw the fleshly Laura in the drawing room. Perhaps there are two of her, and one is trying to protect David from the other. It is also possible that the two Lauras are not aware of each other, or even fully aware of themselves. So this interpretation is easier to reconcile with apparently contradictory evidence.

Vicki’s involvement suggests a third possibility. The ghost of Josette Collins appeared to her and comforted her in episode 126, and an eerie glow had emanated from the portrait of Josette when David left Laura alone in the Old House yesterday. Laura was alarmed to hear that David was interested in the ghosts of Collinwood, had not wanted to go to the Old House, and lies to David when he asks if he saw any sign of Josette’s presence. Perhaps Josette is intervening to thwart Laura’s plans, and it is her power that is benumbing Vicki today. Josette’s previous interventions have been intermittent and subtle, suggesting that it is difficult for her to reach the world of the living. So if she is preparing for a showdown with Laura, we might it expect it to take her some time to recruit her strength.

Again, this is the kind of search for patterns that an audience will gladly go into once you’ve let them know that there are supernatural forces at work in your story. Since Josette has been in the background of the show from week one, has appeared repeatedly, has a set devoted to her in the Old House, and has established connections with both Vicki and David, we might expect her to be the first of the uncanny presences we think of when we enter a supernatural storyline. That she is a tutelary spirit presiding over Collinwood brings it into sharp focus that the estate is under assault from a supernatural force emanating from the town of Collinsport. Today’s failure with Vicki kicks Josette’s ghost out of the spotlight, and that is one of the major faults with the episode.

Episode 140: Some call it Paradise

On his blog Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn discussed the soap opera term “supercouple”:

This is the thing that people miss when they talk about soap opera couples. Two characters don’t have to be in love with each other to be a “couple” — although they often are, which is why people think that’s the definition.

Two characters are a “couple” when a scene with them together is way more interesting than a scene with them apart. It makes absolutely no difference whether they love each other, or hate each other, or they’re partners, or best friends. Kirk and Spock are a couple. Ernie and Bert are a couple.
Dark Shadows Every Day, Episode 473: The Twin Dilemma

By Danny’s definition, Dark Shadows‘ first supercouple is well-meaning governess Vicki and her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins. Most of the storylines the series started with- Vicki’s quest for her origins, dashing action hero Burke Devlin’s quest for revenge on high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, reclusive matriarch Liz’ insistence that certain parts of the house never be entered, the doomed romance between flighty heiress Carolyn and hardworking young fisherman Joe, etc- either dribble away to nothing or never really get started. But Vicki’s attempt to befriend David is interesting every time we see the two of them together on screen.

That is entirely down to the actors. The scripts give David the same viciously hostile lines of dialogue over and again, require Vicki to read aloud from textbooks about the geography of Maine, and lock Vicki up in windowless rooms for what seem like eons. But David Henesy and Alexandra Moltke Isles, with their facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, use of space, etc, create the impression of a relationship steadily growing in emotional complexity and importance. When David finally looks up into Vicki’s eyes and declares “I love you, Miss Winters!” in #89, this body language gives us a context within which we can feel that a plot-line has moved forward. In the months since that statement, David and Vicki have grown closer, and now they are quite cozy.

So much so, in fact, that there is a danger that they might end up recreating the interpersonal dynamic that Liz and Roger model and that will become Dark Shadows’ signature- a relationship between a bossy big sister and her bratty little brother. Liz continually tries to control Roger’s behavior so that he will not be bad, and when her efforts fail, as they invariably do, she covers up for him and shields him from accountability. Earlier this week, as Vicki explained David to himself and he clutched at her for support after he had done shocking things, we could see how after a time they might fall into that pattern.

Today, they seem to put that danger behind them once and for all. David’s mother, the mysterious and long-absent Laura, has come back and wants to take David to live with her. David has wanted this for years, but in the days since Laura’s return has come to be deathly afraid of her. Vicki has met with Laura and arranged to cross paths with Laura when she and David take their afternoon walk. Vicki’s theory, which has quite a bit of evidence behind it, is that David is only afraid of rejection, and that if he can see his mother in a setting where nothing will be expected of him he will start to relax.

The first result of this encounter is that David slips off a high cliff, clinging for his life to a crumbling rock on its edge. This would seem to be a negative outcome. Vicki rescues him, embraces him, and talks him into going to his mother.

Vicki holds David and urges him to go to his mother

David sees that Laura is crying and apologizes to her. They embrace and warm to each other. David, Laura, and Vicki walk back to the house together. David’s father, Roger, and his aunt, Liz, are impressed with the progress Vicki has made.

Dark Shadows began on a sort of 14 week schedule. Coming at the end of the first 14 weeks, episode 70 gave us our first visit to the haunted Old House and our first unambiguous sighting of a ghost. At the end of the third 14 weeks, episode 210 will end with a hand darting out of a coffin and rebooting the show entirely. Today, the conclusion of the second 14 week period is perhaps less spectacular, but in its own way just as pivotal as those other milestone episodes.

With David’s apology for making his mother cry and his resolution to open up to her, he is becoming significantly less bratty. With her handing of David off to Laura, Vicki is renouncing her opportunity to be bossy, and indeed to become a surrogate sister to him. With that danger out of the way and an untroubled friendship established between them, the Vicki/ David arc seems to have reached a logical conclusion. The series will have to find a new supercouple, or a clutch of new storylines, if it is to hold our attention in the long term.

Perhaps Laura and David will be the new pair at the center of the show. They are together at the beginning and end of the second half of the episode, and in between Laura gets some information about David to which she gives an intriguing reaction.

At the beginning of that second half, the five characters in today’s episode share a meal in the kitchen at Collinwood. The richest people in town live in a huge mansion, and this is their dining room:

I suppose Liz and her daughter, flighty heiress Carolyn, lived alone in the house for 18 years, ending with Roger and David’s arrival sometime last spring. So perhaps there is a bigger dining room sealed off somewhere. Be that as it may, the smallness of the kitchen is one of its most valuable features as a set. Scenes there have an intimacy that makes it natural for characters to share important information with each other. Indeed, almost every time we’ve seen the kitchen, we’ve seen someone pick up information that led them to take action that advanced the plot.

Liz and Roger mention that Laura hasn’t eaten anything. Roger follows that with jokes about the cooking abilities of Mrs Johnson, Collinwood’s housekeeper. Laura not eating is a familiar theme to the audience. The first several times we saw Laura she was in the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn. Maggie Evans, keeper of that restaurant, remarked that Laura never ate during any of her visits there, and yesterday she didn’t touch the breakfast Vicki brought her. The emphasis they keep putting on this point is one of many signs they’ve offered that there is something uncanny about her.

After the others have left the little table, Liz exchanges a few words with Laura. She mentions that David is a highly imaginative child, who even supposes that he talks with the ghosts of Collinwood. At this, Laura opens her eyes wide, shifts in her seat, looks straight ahead, and says that that does sound like pure fantasy. Liz adds that he spends a lot of time with the ghosts. Laura glances back in Liz’ direction and says that perhaps now he will spend more time with her.

One might imagine that a long-absent mother, hearing that her son thinks he spends a lot of time in conversation with ghosts, would be concerned for his mental health. A reaction like the one Laura gives Liz might be a sign of such concern. But we’ve had so many hints that Laura is herself somehow connected to the supernatural that this does not seem to be a likely explanation. More probably, her discomfort is a sign that David’s sensitivity to the uncanny and his communication with the ghosts might lead him to learn something about her that she does not want him to know.

Laura and David sit by the fire in the drawing room. Vicki has scolded David for his habit of standing at the doors to the drawing room and eavesdropping on conversations taking place inside. Now, it’s Vicki’s turn to stand on the same spot and eavesdrop on a conversation involving David.

David has asked Laura to tell him about the place she comes from. “Some call it Paradise,” she says. She starts describing a hot, sunny place with palm trees. Her last known address before appearing in Collinsport was Phoenix, Arizona, so maybe that’s what she’s talking about. But as she goes on, the description sounds less and less like that city, and more and more like the places we hear about in the legends of the Holy Grail. The air is always fragrant with the flowers that bloom continually, and the trees are the proper nesting places of a creature that figures prominently in the Grail legends, the Phoenix. David has never heard of the Phoenix, and Laura tells him an elaborate version of its story.

In episode 128, Maggie sat at Laura’s table in the restaurant and Laura told her the story of the Phoenix. When Maggie told her father, drunken artist Sam, that a mysterious blonde woman who used to live in Collinsport had told her that tale, Sam had reacted as if he recognized the story as one Laura used to tell. The version she told Maggie, though, was a relatively brief one, and was by way of an etymology for the name of her most recent hometown. The version she tells David today is much more elaborate. It evokes a whole world, claims that world as her home and therefore as David’s, and invites David to take his rightful place under the sign of the Phoenix.

As Vicki hears Laura reach the climax of the story, a sudden wind blows the front doors open, and a fraction of a second later blows the drawing room doors open as well. Laura looks up and sees Vicki eavesdropping. She is a bit startled to see her, though not as startled as Vicki is to be seen:

After a brief moment- less than a second- Laura turns from Vicki and to the fire. She and David peer into the flames.

Laura turns from the flames and looks at David. The episode closes with her look of satisfaction as she sees her son fascinated by the fire.

The doors have blown open before when the show wanted us to think that supernatural forces are at work in the house. Laura herself may control some supernatural forces, but it seems unlikely that she is the author of this incident. It interrupts her story just as she is declaring that “The Phoenix is reborn!,” her reaction shows that she didn’t know or particularly care that Vicki was eavesdropping, and her turn to the fire would suggest that she is concerned the wind might have extinguished the flames. Perhaps we are supposed to think that Laura’s presence and her plans have stirred up one or more of the ghosts Liz mentioned to Laura after dinner, and that the gust of wind was a sign of their presence. That would in turn suggest that the weeks ahead will feature a conflict between Laura’s uncanny powers and those of the spirits lurking in the back-world implicit in the action of the show.

Episode 139: Are you going to Madagascar?

High-born ne’er do-well Roger Collins walks in on his estranged wife, the mysterious and long-absent Laura, fending off an attempt by his arch-nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, to plant a kiss on her. Roger is equipped with a bolt action rifle.

Great emphasis is placed on the rifle. The most prominent set in all of Dark Shadows is the drawing room in the great house of Collinwood, and it was altered yesterday to put a gun rack on its wall. This will startle regular viewers who remember that in episode #118 reclusive matriarch Liz had to go to the back part of the house to dig up Roger’s almost-forgotten guns. Now, those guns are on display in the family’s main dwelling place and holiest shrine.

It is 1967 and everyone associated with the creative side of the show is connected with the NYC theater world, so there is approximately a 100% chance that we are intended to read these scenes in Freudian terms. The gun is a phallic symbol, but a corrupted, sickened one- it promises, not pleasure and the creation of new life, but pain and killing. In the context of Roger and Laura’s dead marriage, it demonstrates that Roger’s sexual frustration has warped him and led him to violence.

Roger declares that Burke is trespassing on his property and bothering his wife, and declares that no court in the world would convict him of anything were he to shoot Burke to death. He also says that killing Burke would give him great pleasure. Burke asks him why he doesn’t do it, and Laura wearily complains that she had enough of these sort of encounters between them ten years ago.

Laura’s remark comes as a jolt. Ten years ago, Roger and Laura were not a long-separated couple in the process of divorcing- they were not yet a couple at all. As far as the world was concerned, she and Burke were involved with each other, and Roger was a friend who sometimes tagged along on their dates. That was the situation until a fatal hit-and-run accident involving Burke’s car. This is the first time the three of them have been alone together since that night. After the accident, Laura and Roger testified against Burke. He went to prison and they married each other. When Laura says that the way Roger and Burke are carrying on now is the way they interacted ten years ago, she is saying that even when she was ostensibly Burke’s girlfriend the two men were more excited about each other than either was about her. Perhaps Laura was the one who tagged along on Roger and Burke’s dates.

Burke grabs the gun. He and Roger struggle for it. It fires into the ceiling, and Burke tears it from Roger’s hands, flinging it to the floor. Burke picks it up. Roger rants and raves, vowing to kill Burke. Yet he does not make any protest when Burke walks off with the rifle, even though the rifle is a valuable piece of property and a central feature of Collinwood’s decor. Roger can attempt to express his masculinity only in conjunction with Burke. When Burke removes the phallic symbol and silently leaves, Roger is struck mute.

After Burke leaves, Roger and Laura continue to develop the themes of powerlessness and sterility. Having none of the influence over her an ongoing sexual relationship might give him, he complains of her disloyalty to him and of his humiliation in the eyes of those who might see her socializing with Burke. He tries to assert power over her with threats of legal consequences if she goes along with Burke’s plan to reopen the hit-and-run case. Laura agrees that she cannot help Burke without losing the one thing she wants to gain, custody of their son, strange and troubled boy David. Roger completes the image of his own emasculation with a parting remark that he will be happy to see Laura leave with their son “if David is my son.”

There is something of a fault with the production. Neither Laura nor Roger is in a position to bring new life into the world, and we are in doubt as to whether Laura is, strictly speaking, alive at all. Yet as Laura, Diana Millay is quite visibly pregnant, and she will only get “pregnanter and pregnanter” as the story goes on. Her style of acting, her personality, and her looks are so perfect for the part that it is impossible to imagine anyone else playing it, but it was very confusing to present her as an avatar of death and the unreal past when she is such a strong visual symbol of life and the growing future.

After Roger flounces out of Laura’s cottage, she goes to the window and calls to David. We see David asleep in his room in the great house. He is writhing on his bed, hearing his mother’s voice and having a nightmare. Well-meaning governess Vicki wakes David, telling him that it is 10:30 AM.* David tells her that he had the same nightmare he did the night before, in which his mother beckoned him into a firestorm. Vicki tries to assuage his fears, purring lovingly at him, but he is still deeply disturbed.

Roger enters and tells David to come along and see his mother. David flies into a tantrum, insisting that he will not see her and that no one can make him. When Roger threatens to beat him, David clings to Vicki and pleads with her to stop his father from hitting him. Vicki calmly states that “No one is going to hit you,” underlining Roger’s lack of authority in his relationships with both David and the hired help. David runs off.

Vicki sits on David’s bed and tells Roger that she has a theory about David’s behavior. She believes that he really wants to see his mother and that her love is tremendously important to him, but that he has worked himself into his current state because he is afraid she will reject him. This theory has a very substantial basis in fact. When Laura first came to the house in #134, David was extremely eager to meet her, until he suddenly asked Vicki “What if I do or say something to make her hate me?” From that moment on, he has become more and more reluctant to see Laura. Vicki tells Roger that she will work to arrange a meeting between mother and son in a situation where he will not feel pressured to perform in any particular way.

Vicki shows up at the cottage carrying a tray of tea things. Laura is impressed with the breakfast. Vicki shares her idea of arranging an apparently chance meeting during the walk she and David take around the grounds every afternoon beginning at 4:30.** Laura does not eat or drink anything during her breakfast with Vicki, but she does ask a series of questions about David. Vicki enthusiastically tells her every nice thing about him she can think of, leaving out such awkward incidents as his attempts to murder Roger and Vicki herself.

Laura chooses the top of Widow’s Hill for their “chance” meeting. This is rather an odd place considering that it is likely to be getting dark by 4:30 PM in early January in central Maine, and Widow’s Hill is a place from which people famously fall to their deaths. But, Laura is the boy’s mother. Besides, the other option was the greenhouse, and they don’t have a set for a greenhouse, so Vicki goes along with it.***

At the top of the hill, David asks Vicki why she wanted to go there, and starts talking about how dangerous it is. He noodles around at the edge of the cliff, alarming her, but he says he knows the ground so well it isn’t dangerous for him. After a minute, David says it’s boring there and he wants to leave. Vicki scrambles for a reason to stay, and finds a ship on the horizon. That catches David’s attention. He watches it, wanders ever closer to the precipice, and talks about sailing around the world.

That’s when Laura shows up. In episode 2, Roger introduced himself to Vicki by startling her while she stood on the edge of the cliff, nearly prompting her to fall to her death. In #75, Vicki returned the compliment. Now, Laura simply starts talking while David is on the precipice. Shocked to hear her voice, he jumps back.

Laura goes on about how David was always interested in exotic places when he was a little boy. He looks petrified, but does agree that he remembers those conversations. She reaches out and calls him to come to her. He recoils, slips, and ends up clutching the side of the precipice. That’s what’s known as a “cliffhanger ending.”

*In many markets, ABC affiliates ignored the network’s recommendation that Dark Shadows be broadcast at 4:00 PM and showed it at 10:30 AM. Hearing Vicki mention this hour makes me wonder if we are supposed to think of the action of a soap opera taking place, not only on the date of the original broadcast, but at the time.

**4:30 was the time when Dark Shadows ended in markets where the ABC affiliate went along with the network’s recommended schedule. Mustn’t have people outdoors between 4 and 4:30!

***Mrs Acilius pointed out this consideration when we were watching the episode.

Episode 136: Fire all around them

High-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins has summoned the family’s lawyer, kindly old Richard Garner, to the great house of Collinwood late at night. Garner appears in the company of his son and junior partner, instantly forgettable young Frank. Roger announces to Garner & Garner that he is in the worst trouble of his life.

Roger tells Richard that he wants a divorce from his wife, the mysterious and long-absent Laura. Richard replies that Frank is the firm’s specialist in divorce and will handle the case. Laura is not planning to contest the divorce, so that does not seem to be “the worst trouble” of Roger’s life. Roger is anxious to talk privately to Richard, and sends Frank off to the kitchen with well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki and Frank have been on a couple of dates and would like to go on more, so he is glad to comply with this. In the drawing room, Roger settles in to tell Richard what his “worst trouble” is.

It turns out to be nothing new to the audience or even to Richard. Roger is worried that Laura will help dashing action hero Burke Devlin reopen a manslaughter case from ten years ago. He denies to Richard that he would have anything to hide were the case reopened, and in previous episodes we have seen that Laura has everything to lose and nothing to gain if she helps Burke. So the line about the “worst trouble of my life!” goes nowhere.

In the kitchen at Collinwood, Frank has news for Vicki. Vicki does not know that Laura plans to take her charge, strange and troubled boy David, to live with her, or that Roger is all for this plan. Vicki says that going with his mother might be the best thing for David, but that she would not like to lose her job.

Vicki in the kitchen, worried about losing her job. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Later, talking privately with Roger in the drawing room, she says the same thing. When Roger says that he thinks the family might find some other job for Vicki, she looks tremendously relieved and quickly assures him that she will do what she can to persuade David to go along with the plan.

Vicki is attached to David, but she has also said repeatedly that Collinwood is the only home she has ever known. After a childhood collecting phenomenally bleak experiences as a ward of the Hammond Foundling Home, Vicki finds herself living in a huge mansion and being treated as a member of the family. A person could get used to that. Alexandra Moltke Isles plays her responses, first to the news of her likely dismissal, then of her possible retention, with just the right shading that we can see her concern for David vying with her own material self-interest.

Vicki smiles in response to Roger’s suggestion that the Collinses may find her another job. Screeenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Vicki is our point-of-view character, David is the focal point of many of the stories, and their growing friendship is the one narrative arc that has consistently held our attention thus far in the series. So the idea that both of them will disappear from Collinwood and therefore, presumably, from the show ought to generate at least a little suspense. It doesn’t really, not today.

Roger has called Frank and Richard to come to the house late at night because he wants to meet with them while their actual client, his big sister Liz, is asleep. Liz is determined to keep both David and Vicki in the house, and Richard explicitly says that the firm of Garner & Garner will do nothing against her wishes. So, while there might be exciting surprises brewing, they are not at all likely to emerge from anything being discussed in Collinwood tonight.

There are also some scenes between drunken artist Sam Evans and his daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. Sam is working on a painting that he doesn’t want Maggie to see. Returning viewers will be bewildered by these scenes, since Maggie looked at the painting and discussed it with Sam in episode 129. Sam tells Maggie that he does not like the painting and that some external force he does not understand is driving him to paint it.

The episode intercuts these scenes with Vicki’s report to Roger on David’s nightmare about his mother beckoning him into a firestorm and with closeups of the fire burning in the hearth at Collinwood. Laura is obsessed with fire, Sam is afraid of Laura, and the painting depicts a blonde woman surrounded by flames, so there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that whatever force is driving Sam is associated with Laura. Again, there are plenty of unexplained details as to what this force is and how exactly Laura is connected with it, but the answer to the primary question seems too clear to be a source of suspense.

In place of 131: “A Christmas Carol”

There never was an episode #131 of Dark Shadows. They made a point of giving numbers divisible by 5 to episodes that aired on Fridays, so on days when the show was not broadcast-as it was not broadcast on 26 December 1966- they just skipped the number that would have been used had it run that day.

Since that preemption was the result of Christmas-related programming,* this seems like the place to promote 2021’s big Dark Shadows Christmas event, a dramatic reading of the Orson Welles version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol by ten surviving members of the original cast. Surviving at that time- it turned out to be Mitchell Ryan’s last performance before his death on 4 March 2022; Christopher Pennock had been involved in the early stages of the production, but he would die in February of 2021.

It is irresistible viewing for Dark Shadows fans. It makes extensive use of music from the show- rather too extensive for my taste, but Mrs Acilius liked it, and from what I gather she appears to be in the majority.

The acting is quite good. I was especially impressed by James Storm’s portrayal of Bob Cratchit. I had never seen Mr Storm in anything but Dark Shadows, where he was cast in the preposterously unplayable role of Gerard Stiles, so it was amazing to me to see what he could do when he had something to work with.

Another pleasant surprise was Alexandra Moltke Isles as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Readers of this blog know that I have a high opinion of Mrs Isles’ abilities, but this was her first part in 53 years. I held my breath to see how many steps she had lost in that interval. As it became clear that she could go as deep into her character as ever and pull up a treasure trove of dramatic insight, I was thrilled.

Mrs Isles appeared at one or two Dark Shadows conventions early in the 1980s. During the unpleasantness, she couldn’t very well make herself available for any event where she would be expected to take questions from the floor, but from time to time she sent greetings on video that would be played at conventions. And she sat for several interviews about Dark Shadows over the years. So you can’t say she made herself a complete stranger, but it is still quite a novelty to see her in this setting.

Many longtime fans describe Mrs Isles as the cast member who was least friendly to them when the show was in production, and there may be a reason for that. In the Q & A, she responds to the question about her first encounter with fandom by telling a story about a girl jumping her on the street and trying to rip her hair out of her head. After that introduction, it is remarkable that she’s been around as much as she has.

The person who had been absolutely disconnected from fandom the longest was David Henesy. He stuck with acting for a few years into the 1970s, but never attended a convention or had any connection with any Dark Shadows themed public events until a cast reunion on Zoom in October 2020. His performances as the child characters (he’s by far the youngest member of the cast, a mere 65 years old at the time of taping) are as letter-perfect as was his work in the series.

*A football match, but a football match usually held at Christmas-time.

Episode 127: More like me than the portrait

Well-meaning governess Vicki has been rescued from her ordeal as prisoner of the homicidal fugitive Matthew. Now Matthew is dead, Vicki is home, and dashing action hero Burke is having a truce with his sworn enemies, the ancient and esteemed Collins family, during which they try to figure out what the heck just happened.

Vicki is very clear that she saw the ghost of Josette Collins and that a bunch of other ghosts came and scared Matthew to death. The others aren’t quite willing to accept that, but they don’t have any other explanations.

Vicki tells reclusive matriarch Liz that she saw a resemblance to her own face in the ghost of Josette. The show has been hinting pretty heavily that Vicki is Liz’ illegitimate daughter, and Liz reacts to Vicki’s speculation that Josette might be one of her ancestors with a visible shock. She scrambles to cover that feeling and in her most demure voice (which, since she is played by Joan Bennett, is the most demure voice ever heard) says that if she were that would make her a Collins, “and that hardly seems likely.” She also says that Vicki does not resemble the portrait of Josette Collins.

Vicki says that if you look closely at the portrait, there is a resemblance. And so there is. The eyes are the right distance apart, the nose and mouth are about right, and the coloring is the same. The cheeks and chin are a little different, but considering that it is an oil painting rather than a photograph, it is possible that Alexandra Moltke Isles could have sat for it.

Shortly before Matthew took her prisoner, Vicki had told Burke that because he was her employers’ enemy, she could never speak to him again. That’s gone out the window now. Burke visits her in her bedroom, and they have a nice chat. Liz tells Burke that he can bring nothing but trouble to Vicki and flighty heiress Carolyn, to whom she refers as “the girls” and between whom she pointedly draws no distinctions. Not only is the prospect of a Vicki/ Burke relationship back in the cards, but Liz’ denial that Vicki is her daughter and Carolyn’s half-sister is getting thinner and thinner.

Episode 106: Swann song

At the end of Friday’s episode, dashing action hero Burke Devlin and the sheriff caught high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins digging up a fountain pen from under a rock. It appears to be the fountain pen Roger had stolen from well-meaning governess Vicki. Some think that Roger stole the pen and hid it because it is evidence implicating him in the death of beloved local man Bill Malloy. Today, Roger is in the sheriff’s office.

Accompanied by Richard Garner, the Collins family’s lawyer, Roger talks and talks, admitting that he saw Bill that night, badly injured and face-down in the water. He jumped to the conclusion that Bill was dead, and left the scene without notifying anyone. He also admits that he concealed evidence that he believed the police would find relevant to the investigation. As if that weren’t enough, he admits that he lied to the police time and again, most recently the night before, and is caught in yet another lie when he gives a nonsensical explanation of his plan to meet Bill that night.

Garner makes only one feeble attempt to interrupt Roger’s torrent of self-incriminating remarks. When the sheriff questions Vicki, Garner takes the opportunity to ask her some questions of his own, questions which produce even more information that is adverse to his client’s interests. On their site Dark Shadows Before I Die, John and Christine Scoleri feature commentary on Garner’s performance from a lawyer friend of theirs. Setting aside the utter hopelessness of Garner’s work from a real-world perspective, this friend analyzes his conduct by contrast with the standards set by other TV lawyers:

This brief addendum will review the competence of Garner using a “TV Lawyer Competency Rating” (TVLCR) scale. This WAG scale is based on my estimation of how a general audience might rate a TV Lawyer’s performance. I have supplemented these TVLCR scores with some comments reflecting real-world practices.
http://dsb4idie.blogspot.com/2016/11/episode-106-112166.html

Even by those standards, Garner doesn’t come out very well:

Garner strikes me as the go-to civil attorney for the Collins family who got dragged into this murder case just because they are familiar with him. Based on Garner’s poor competency rating as a TV Lawyer, Roger Collins should fire him and instead reach out to Raymond Burr or Andy Griffith.

Soap operas typically generate suspense by sharing information with the audience that some, but not all, of the characters have. We wonder when the secrets will be revealed, and how those to whom they are revealed will react when they finally get the news.

By the end of today’s episode, all of the characters will know almost everything the audience knows. Even what the characters don’t know, they’ve heard of. For example, Roger and drunken artist Sam Evans have not confessed the guilty secrets they share to any of the other characters, but everyone seems to have figured out more or less what they’ve been up to. Not everyone believes in ghosts, but it’s all over town that Vicki and her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins, have seen ghosts in and around the great house of Collinwood, and even the most skeptical are not in a hurry to hang around the place after dark.

This is the next-to-last episode credited to writer Francis Swann. Swann will fill in for the new writers a week from Wednesday, but today is really the end of the Art Wallace-Francis Swann era of the show. From tomorrow, the new team of Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein will be holding the reins. By bringing all the characters up to at least our level of knowledge about the ongoing storylines, Swann is clearing the decks for Sproat and Marmorstein to set up their own crises and dilemmas.

Swann’s great strength is his ability to give actors room to show what they can do. Today’s episode is a case in point. Just when Garner’s disastrous intervention in the sheriff’s questioning of Vicki has led us to wonder if he’s all there, he has a moment when he opens his eyes wide and looks out the window. As Hugh Franklin plays it, that’s enough to make us wonder what’s on Garner’s mind, and to think he might be about to do or say something interesting.

Of course stage veteran Louis Edmonds thunders delightfully as the wildly indiscreet Roger, and of course TV stalwart Dana Elcar does an expert job of presenting the sheriff as a skilled professional firmly in control of the situation. There might be a crying need for a defense attorney to intervene when a suspect is blabbing as freely to the police as Roger is to the sheriff, but there is no need for a third actor to get in the way of Edmonds’ and Elcar’s interplay. Standing in the background between those two, Franklin occasionally gives a slight facial expression that underlines some point or other, but never upstages them.

In the first half of the episode, Alexandra Moltke Isles’ Vicki has to give some long speeches full of recapping, and in those she takes the character through several distinct shades of discomfort. She begins with diffident nervousness, builds up to frightened indignation, and ends with pure sadness.

Later, flighty heiress Carolyn comes into the sheriff’s office and pleads with Vicki to say that her beloved Uncle Roger couldn’t be a criminal. In front of the sheriff and Garner, all Vicki will say is that the two of them should leave. As Carolyn, Nancy Barrett makes the most of the melodramatic turn, but Mrs Isles takes possession of the scene with her few words spoken in a quiet, husky voice we haven’t heard before. Those brief remarks cap the progression we saw her making in her speeches earlier, and define the mood she is still in during a conversation between Vicki and Carolyn in Collinwood later. Vicki’s feeling for the pity of it all holds the episode together, and leads us back into the texture of the life of the family at the center of the story.

Episode 92: It’s hard to believe there was ever any gaiety at Collinwood

The only episode of the series to take place entirely outside of the town of Collinsport and the great house of Collinwood, this one is set in Bangor, Maine.

Well-meaning governess Vicki has gone to that town in search of information about herself. When she asks her employer, reclusive matriarch Liz, even the most basic questions about why she decided to hire her and how she knew she existed, Liz becomes evasive, then flatly and transparently lies to her. Vicki has found an old document in the house that may shed light not only on the matters Liz has already refused to discuss, but even on her questions about her birth family. Sure that Liz won’t give her any information about the document, she decides to take it to Liz’ lawyers, the firm of Garner and Garner.

Vicki meets Garner and Garner. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Lawyers on soap operas don’t always follow the rules that bind their counterparts in our universe, but at least in this episode Garner and Garner are not going to tell Vicki anything their client does not want her to know. Indeed, the Garners are realistic enough to present a problem. One of them is Frank Garner, a young lawyer who is going to date Vicki for a few months. As played by Conard Fowkes, Frank is very much the sort of fellow you would expect to meet in a law office in Bangor, Maine. In this phase Dark Shadows still has some room for low-key stories and naturalistic acting, but no TV series this side of C-SPAN would be able to accommodate a character like Frank.

It’s a shame Frank isn’t more suited to Dark Shadows. The show urgently needs more young men in the cast. At this point, the only male actors between the ages of 11 and 40 they have who have appeared more than once are Joel Crothers as hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell, Mitch Ryan as dashing action hero Burke Devlin, and Dana Elcar as Sheriff Patterson. Sheriff Patterson is supposed to be older than the 39 year old Elcar, and is coded as an authority figure who is unavailable for dating. So Joe and Burke have to provide the male points on all of the love triangles.

I think Frank could have been saved had he been played by a different actor. However dull the dialogue the writers might give him, he is on screen enough that a sufficiently charismatic performer could have grabbed our attention. And maybe stimulated the imagination of the writers, so that he would have had interesting things to say and do. Harvey Keitel had danced in the background at The Blue Whale in episode 33, and so must have been available for a speaking part on the show. Keitel’s quiet, brooding intensity always convinces an audience that a character who is saying very little is thinking deeply and feeling strongly and planning mighty things. Keitel would have been quite powerful as Frank.

Fowkes brought a light tone to his performance, and that is welcome. Dark Shadows always struggled to maintain a bit of sparkle against the background of a setting so gloomy that in this episode Vicki finds it “hard to believe there was ever any real gaiety at Collinwood.” If that line is meant to raise our hopes that a Vicki-Frank relationship will create a bright new mood, it sets us up for instant disappointment. Frank is cheerful and pleasant enough, but he doesn’t project enough personality to change the feeling even of the shots he is in, let alone of the entire series.

Keitel has never been known for lightness. If you wanted that, you could have turned to another Blue Whale dancer- Frederic Forrest, whom we will see in episode 137. Thinking of the goofy charm that Forrest’s character maintained throughout a movie as heavy as Apocalypse Now it’s easy to imagine a breeze of fresh air running through Dark Shadows. Not only would Forrest himself have been fun to watch as Frank, but he might well have brought out some of the most under-utilized aspects of Vicki’s character. A handful of times in these early months, Vicki is allowed to make jokes, usually in her scenes with strange and troubled boy David. David will not be amused, but the audience can see that Alexandra Moltke Isles is capable of being extremely funny. A relationship between a character played by Forrest and one played by Mrs Isles might have given the writers abundant opportunities to showcase that side of her. A pairing with the earnest, cheerful, but entirely humorless Frank represents a death sentence for Funny Vicki.

Episode 87: She came to us from nowhere, and now it seems she has disappeared into nowhere

Hardworking young fisherman Joe is spending the evening with Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. It’s their first date. Maggie impresses him with her knowledge of ships, and he sings a verse of “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” It may not sound like much, but the actors, Kathryn Leigh Scott and Joel Crothers, sell it so well that we’ll be rooting for Joe and Maggie for years to come. The final moment of the scene comes after Joe leaves. Maggie looks directly into the camera and says to the audience, “Goodnight, pal.”

In the great house of Collinwood, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins greets his niece, flighty heiress Carolyn, on her return home. Carolyn is upset because Joe has broken off their relationship and is having a date with Maggie. The story of Joe and Carolyn was a bore, largely because the two of them never had a scene with any fraction of the sweetness we see between Joe and Maggie today. There was nothing at stake in their quarrels, because they had nothing to lose if they simply gave up on each other.

Roger tells Carolyn that well-meaning governess Vicki hasn’t been seen for hours, and that he promised Carolyn’s mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, that he would sit up waiting for Vicki’s return. Carolyn is worried as well, and asks Roger why he isn’t actively searching for her. He says she’s probably fine. When Carolyn says that people don’t just disappear, he reminds her of family friend Bill Malloy, who disappeared not so long ago, but then turned up. Considering that Bill turned up in the form of a corpse washed ashore by the tide, it is perhaps unsurprising that Carolyn does not find Roger’s analogy particularly comforting.

After Roger persuades Carolyn to toddle off to bed, he makes sure he’s alone (well, alone except for the stagehand in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.)

Once assured that no one mentioned in the script can see him, Roger returns to the drawing room and opens a secret passage we’ve never seen before. After he disappears into it, Carolyn comes to the drawing room and is baffled at his absence.

The suggestion that Carolyn doesn’t know about the secret passage is characteristic of the show. From the beginning, Vicki has represented our point of view. She started off knowing nothing about the other characters, and everything had to be explained to her while she was on camera. If Vicki knows just what we know, Carolyn, who grew up in the house where most of the action is set, can be presumed to know a great deal we do not. When they reveal a secret to us, they can amplify its importance by showing that Carolyn isn’t in on it. They’ve done this several times, mostly in situations having to do with the murky origins of Roger’s feud with dashing action hero Burke Devlin. Carolyn’s ignorance of the secret passage is particularly effective- it’s right there in the most important room of the only house she’s ever lived in. If she doesn’t know about it, it must be a very well-kept secret indeed.

We go with Roger into the secret passage. He shines his flashlight directly into the camera, creating a halo of light around it. This would not seem to be a desirable visual effect, yet we will see it many, many times in the years to come. This is the second appearance of the effect. The first time came when Roger’s son, strange and troubled boy David, was leading Vicki into the abandoned Old House in episode 70. Now we see it when Roger himself is entering another abandoned space, one where he might meet Vicki.

It’s hard to believe that the repeated use of this effect was altogether unintentional.

All the more so because of what follows Roger’s entry into the passageway. His journey through it actually does seem to wind through a very large space. In the opening narration, Vicki had said that the house is made up of 80 rooms, retconning the total of 40 given in the second episode. Roger’s trek up one flight of stairs, down another, up a spiral staircase, around corners, past windows, etc etc, seems like it must take him past enough space for at least that many. Perhaps the sequence would be a bit more attractive with less time spent focused on Roger’s feet, but all in all it is as effective a creation of space as Dark Shadows would ever do. If there had been Daytime Emmy Awards in 1966, Lela Swift would have had every right to expect to win Best Director for conjuring up this illusion of vast, winding corridors without editing or going outside the tiny studio space available to her.

Roger does indeed discover Vicki’s whereabouts. He hears her calling for David from behind a locked door, promising David not to tell anyone he imprisoned her there if he will let her out now. Roger does not simply let Vicki out. Instead, he makes some loud noises, then puts on a ghostly, wavering voice and calls out to Vicki that she is in great danger as long as she stays in Collinwood. He seems to be having trouble keeping a straight face when he makes these spooky sounds. Vicki isn’t laughing, and returning viewers aren’t either- in Friday’s episode, she and we saw the ghost of Bill Malloy in the room, and heard that ghost warn her that she would be killed if she stayed in the house much longer.

Once he’s had his fun, Roger opens the door. After another flashlight halo, Vicki recognizes him. Alexandra Moltke Isles gives us one of the finest moments of acting in the entire series, when Vicki throws her arms around Roger, her bodily movement as smooth as any ballet dancer’s but her voice jagged, and says that “David is a monster, you were right!” Up to this point, Roger has been brutally hostile to his son, Vicki heroically friendly to him. Her determination to befriend David has become so central to her character that hearing her make this declaration makes it seem that she is permanently broken.

Vicki struggles to hold back her sobbing long enough to tell Roger that she saw the ghost of Bill Malloy. That’s an episode-ending sting- Roger wants everyone to forget about Bill’s death, and if his ghost starts popping up he is unlikely to get that wish.

Mrs Isles was a “head actor,” one who found the character’s innermost psychological motivation and worked outward from that. That heavily interiorized style would be one of the things that left her in the dust, along with similar performers like Joel Crothers and Don Briscoe, in the period when Dark Shadows was a hyper-fast paced, wildly zany show about vampires and werewolves and time-travel and God knows what. But in the period when Art Wallace and Francis Swann were writing finely etched character studies, she consistently excelled. In this little turn, she shows that when it was logical for her character to go big, she could go as big as any of the stars of the show in those later days.

Episode 72: Whose eye is she after

Well-meaning governess Vicki sits placidly in her bedroom at the great house of Collinwood, sewing and looking out the window. Flighty heiress Carolyn comes in and loudly berates Vicki for spending the day away from her charge, problem child David. Carolyn saw Vicki coming home as a passenger in a car driven by the family’s arch-nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, and jumped to the conclusion that Vicki was both on a date with Burke and on Burke’s side in his conflict with her family. Vicki is at first bewildered by Carolyn’s rage, and then confronts her with her own record of infatuation with Burke.

This scene shows how well cast Nancy Barrett and Alexandra Moltke Isles were as Carolyn and Vicki respectively. Miss Barrett throws herself completely into whatever her character is supposed to be doing at any given moment, a perfect style for the role of someone who is stormy and unpredictable. Mrs Isles takes a very deliberate approach to her part, working her way from the center of Vicki’s thoughts out to whatever lines she has to deliver. That suits the role of someone who is often baffled by the strange goings-on around her and who gradually gathers the strength to stand up for herself.

Carolyn is on her way to the front door when her mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, asks her where she’s going. Still upset after her confrontation with Vicki, Carolyn snaps at Liz and gives sarcastic answers. Eventually she tells her that Vicki didn’t give David his lessons for the day, that she spent the day with Burke, and that she brought Burke home with her. Alarmed by this report, Liz heads upstairs towards Vicki’s room. Carolyn remembers her latest project, persuading her mother to take Mrs Sarah Johnson onto the domestic staff as a housekeeper. Liz cuts her off, saying that she has no time to think of hiring a housekeeper- all she can think about is firing a governess.

After Liz leaves the foyer to fire Vicki because Carolyn has led her to suspect she might be a spy for Burke, Carolyn picks up the telephone. She tries to call Burke. Evidently the infatuation Vicki had brought up to her is still driving Carolyn to inexplicable actions.

Mrs Johnson is in the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn. In fact, we first see her on the pay-phone there, talking to Burke about her plan to join the staff at Collinwood so she can work as a spy for him. Patrick McCray makes a nice remark about this on his Dark Shadows Daybook:

[P]lanting a spy for Burke Devlin is just the touch of espionage intrigue that Collinwood needs. Finally, someone can actually be the spy that Vicki is suddenly accused of working as. (In the same episode no less, with the irony and subtlety of an anvil landing in your lap.) That kind of duality — especially among the backstairs staff — is a concession to the dramatic thinking that DARK SHADOWS kinda lost over the years. The show gained plot, but it lost those opportunities for characters to reflect one another. As it reached a supernatural frenzy, this earlier, authorial delicacy was a necessary casualty. However, it’s vital to know that a sculpted duality like Mrs. Johnson and Vicki is an instinct buried in the program’s DNA.

I think he paints with a bit of a broad brush when he says that “this earlier authorial delicacy was a necessary casualty.” The frenzied pace of the later years didn’t stop Joe Caldwell or Violet Welles from crafting dramatic miniatures Art Wallace and Francis Swann would have been proud of. While Sam Hall and Gordon Russell were no miniaturists and did often value slam-bang story development over every other consideration, they did take time to show characters in each other’s reflections. Indeed, the whole “1970 Parallel Time” arc is months and months of nothing but “opportunities for characters to reflect one another,” and the actors could often make those reflections interesting (at least the first two or three times you saw them.) Of course, there are also large numbers of episodes written by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein, but you can’t blame their shortcomings on excessively rapid pacing.

Mrs Johnson is a difficult customer for Maggie Evans, who runs the restaurant. She sends a sandwich back because she disapproves of the mayonnaise, and the look on Maggie’s face shows us that the cost of that sandwich is coming out of her paycheck. Mrs Johnson insists her meal be served in courses, demands that Maggie sit at her table, and gives her a tip of 10 cents (I checked- 10 cents in October 1966 would have the same purchasing power as 90 cents in October 2022. You could take that to your local hardware store, buy several nails, and still have enough left to operate a gumball machine.) She declares that the death of her late employer, beloved local man Bill Malloy, was no accident, and that according to the Bible someone will have to pay for it. When Carolyn comes into the restaurant, Maggie leaps at the opportunity to leave Mrs Johnson and wait on her.

Clarice Blackburn must have had tremendous fun playing Mrs Johnson in these sequences. The character is exaggerated almost to the level of what would become Dark Shadows’ “Go back to your grave!” house style of acting, so that there is no need to worry about overacting. Besides, so many performers wait tables that one of the standard responses young people in Los Angeles get when they tell people they are actors is “Great! What restaurant?” So it must always be gratifying to play a character who will show the world what a bad restaurant customer looks like.

As Maggie, Kathryn Leigh Scott also has a juicy role today. We usually see her in one of two settings. Either she is in the restaurant, where she is required to be nice to everyone, or she is at home with her father, drunken artist Sam. As the adult child of an alcoholic, she has a thousand habits designed to keep the mood light. When she is dealing with Mrs Johnson, Miss Scott shows us what Maggie looks like when her Nicest Girl In Town persona is stretched to the max.

When she greets Carolyn, Maggie goes right into the chirpiest version of that persona. It’s a version that brings home the continuity between Maggie’s relationship to her father and her relationship to her customers. She speaks the first few syllables of each of her lines through a laugh. Many Dark Shadows fans complain about that as a habit of Kathryn Leigh Scott’s, but it’s a habit of Maggie’s. And if you start watching the series from episode 1, seeing all the scenes in the Evans cottage between Maggie and Sam, you’ll recognize it as something many adult children of alcoholics do. At the risk of giving away a spoiler, I’ll say that Sam will eventually cut back on his drinking, and some time after that will be written out of the show altogether. But Maggie’s character is formed in these weeks, when Sam is drunk all the time. Some of Miss Scott’s other characters on the show have similar habits, but those are the characters who are presented as Maggie Evans by other means, so they would have to be recognizable as her.

Carolyn tries to explain to Maggie, sotto voce, why Mrs Johnson is so upset, and Maggie drops her Nicest Girl In Town voice completely for a second- “I know who she is,” she rasps. Carolyn has been friendly to Maggie, and is equally friendly when she goes to sit with Mrs Johnson and tries to talk her into taking the job as housekeeper at Collinwood, assuming that her mother will offer it to her. After Mrs Johnson leaves, Maggie tells Carolyn that she has never been able to stand her- “She’s always given me the willies. I don’t know why,” she says, looking thoughtfully off into the middle distance.

Carolyn’s friendliness to the working class Maggie and Mrs Johnson is a welcome relief from her terribly snobbish sneer at Vicki as “Little Orphan Annie” who should “go back to your precious foundling home.” And it’s an opportunity for Nancy Barrett to take her performance from one emotional extreme to another within a single episode.

Back in the mansion, Liz confronts Vicki about not giving David his lessons. Vicki replies that Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, had said that he would tell Liz that he had taken Vicki on a tour of the cannery and had given David the day off. When Vicki hears Liz on the telephone confirming this with Roger, she blows up at Liz. She objects to being checked up on, she objects to being accused of lying, and, turning to look at the last spot where she had seen Carolyn, she objects to being accused of stealing people’s boyfriends. After she is done with her objections, she walks over to Liz. With their backs to the camera, the women quietly apologize to each other. Vicki explains that her protests mark the only way she can go on living in the house. Liz for the first time calls Vicki by her first name. Hearing this conversation when they are looking away from us is remarkably effective at creating a sense that they are sharing an intimate moment- more is happening between the two of them than even the audience can know.

Mrs Isles and Joan Bennett, as Liz, both play a wide array of emotions in their two scenes together, and do so brilliantly. It’s particularly interesting to compare Liz’ startled reaction to Carolyn’s snapping at her in the foyer when she asks her where she’s going to with her startled reaction to Vicki raising her voice at her in the drawing room when she’s been on the phone with Roger. They are two quite distinct startles. We see Liz from behind when Carolyn startles her. From that angle, we see the muscles in the back of her neck tense, signifying anger. That startle gives way to a parental sternness. The startle Vicki provokes is shown in profile. Liz pulls back a little, suggesting guilt. It leads to a rapid retreat.