Frankenstein’s monster Adam came to life in #485, and has been cooped up in one cage after another ever since. Last week a mate was created for him and given the name Eve. Eve hates Adam, and today tells him that she will kill him as soon as she can. Adam is getting pretty tired of the whole thing.
Adam’s latest keeper is suave warlock Nicholas. Nicholas masterminded the creation of Eve because he hopes she and Adam will make Frankenbabies, founding a humanoid species that will owe its creation to Satan. Adam doesn’t know about Nicholas’ allegiance to the Devil or about his plans, but he is sick of taking his orders. The two quarrel at the beginning of today’s episode. Nicholas quiets Adam by showing off one of his magical gimmicks. Hanging on his wall is a device that is usually a mirror, but that can be switched over to function as a closed circuit television focused on anyone he chooses. Today, he wants to know where his unruly subordinate, vampire Angelique, has wandered off to.
Nicholas and Adam look into the mirror, where we see Angelique at the bedside of an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. She is about to bite Peter/ Jeff, contrary to Nicholas’ rules for her diet. We zoom in, and the scene from the mirror takes over our own screen. After a moment, Nicholas is there too, stopping Angelique and scolding her for disobeying his nutrition guidelines. It’s too bad we didn’t see Nicholas step into the mirror, like Buster Keaton in Sherlock, Junior, but you can’t have everything.
After Angelique obeys Nicholas’ command to leave Peter/ Jeff’s apartment, Nicholas puts Peter/ Jeff back to bed. He casts spells on him to cause him to forget his encounters with Angelique and to heal from the effects of them. While he was doing this, my wife, Mrs Acilius, was talking to the screen, pleading with Nicholas to cast a spell on Roger Davis to give him some acting ability. Shortly after that, Mr Davis delivered some more lines, making it instantly clear that Nicholas had no such power.
Back at Nicholas’ house, Adam is fuming that Nicholas switched the mirror back to reflecting mode just as the show was getting interesting. In the room with him, and she is too bored for words. The two of them have a rough physical confrontation, and Adam locks her up in the basement. Eve has the memories and personality of Danielle Roget, an eighteenth century homicidal maniac whom Nicholas conjured up to animate Eve. He first brought her out of Hell in a ceremony he conducted in this basement; when Adam takes her there, she is terrified he will send her back. Eve is so impatient with Adam’s naivete that it is startling to see her overestimate his knowledge of the situation.
Nicholas comes home and has another chat with Adam. Angelique enters the room and announces that it is almost dawn. Nicholas dismisses Adam. Angelique expects to be punished for her unauthorized attacks on Peter/ Jeff, but Nicholas tells her that he has a job she will like. He wants her to bite old world gentleman Barnabas Collins and enslave him. Since Angelique has been obsessed with Barnabas since the 1790s, this assignment delights her.
*Peter/ Jeff is fully dressed, in a coat, tie, and shoes, by the way. That’s the bedtime uniform for young men in Collinsport, as for Angelique’s other victim, the recently unemployed Joe Haskell.
Vampire Angelique wants to take part in an experiment. The experiment is modeled on one in Hammer Studios’ 1967 film Frankenstein Created Woman. A mate will be created for patchwork man Adam by a process that involves draining the “life force” from a person into a female body made up of parts salvaged from several cadavers. Angelique wants to be the “life force” donor.
Angelique knows that when Barnabas Collins donated his “life force” to Adam, he not only survived the process but emerged cured of the vampire curse she had herself placed on him 172 years before, when she was a wicked witch. She is hoping that if she follows his lead, she too will be freed to walk in the daylight.
Angelique has been snacking on an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. Peter/ Jeff is working on the experiment as a lab tech. She keeps demanding that he run the experiment with her as the “life force” donor. He keeps explaining that he’s just there to set up the equipment and has no idea how to operate it. The only person qualified to do that is mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Angelique says that no one else must be involved, and gives Peter/ Jeff 24 hours to become an expert on the process.
Meanwhile, Adam visits heiress Carolyn in her bedroom. He describes their relationship in terms that show a far greater maturity than she has seen from him before, and she calls him an “amazing creature.” The word “creature” wounds him. We hear his thoughts in a voiceover monologue, the first time Dark Shadows has used this device in mid-conversation. It is quite unnecessary; Robert Rodan’s face tells us everything we need to know about Adam’s feelings. Carolyn certainly sees that she has hurt Adam, and scrambles to make up for it.
Carolyn gives Adam a bright green sweater, and he bursts into tears. He says that no one has ever given him a gift before. Carolyn does not know about Adam’s origin, and is puzzled by this remark. He tells her no one is as nice as she is, that he wants to be her friend forever and never to hurt her, and rushes out of the room, overwhelmed by his emotions.
The experiment to build a female Frankenstein’s monster began after Adam told Barnabas that if he were not given a mate, he would murder everyone in the great house of Collinwood, including Carolyn. The scene in Carolyn’s room shows that this threat is a hollow one. On Friday, Adam dropped in on suave warlock Nicholas, who put him up to extorting Barnabas and Julia, and told him he loved only Carolyn and was ready to tell Barnabas to forget about the experiment. Nicholas talked him out of that, promising him that he would make it possible for him to have both his mate and Carolyn if only he would do everything he told him to do.
Angelique returns to the lab. Peter/ Jeff isn’t there, but Adam is. She tells Adam that he is breaking his word to Nicholas. Nicholas did not in fact tell Adam to stay away from the lab, but he did give Angelique that command. Adam is skeptical of Angelique, but he has no reason to stay in the lab or to throw her out. So he leaves her there.
Soon Peter/ Jeff is back. He keeps trying to explain to Angelique that he has no idea what he is doing, but she puts herself on the table and insists he start right away. While he throws switches, she moans.
Danny Horn’s post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day details the similarities between this scene and the way TV variety shows of the period presented “psychedelic” rock and roll acts such as The Doors. Danny’s commenter “PrisoneroftheNight” (a.k.a. Marc Masse of the intermittently available blog Dark Shadows from the Beginning) points out that The Doors themselves were likely aware of the similarity, as witness a voice that can be heard at the eight second mark of track 11, disc 2, of the CD release of The Doors in Concert calling similar visual effects “Dark Shadows time!”
Danny doesn’t say anything about Lara Parker’s rendering of Angelique’s experience on the table. On Dark Shadows Before I Die, John Scoleri says that Angelique “seemingly enjoys the experiment (because we’ve seen her shriek in pain, and this definitely was not the same),” to which his sister Christine adds that Peter/ Jeff “seemed to be pressing all the right buttons.” When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius noticed Peter/ Jeff’s uncomprehending reaction to Angelique’s moans and remarked “Yeah, yeah, we know you’ve never heard a woman make those sounds.”
Two of the four actors in this episode, Nancy Barrett and Roger Davis, are still alive as of this writing. I believe it is the first episode to have a cast that all survived as late as 2021. Robert Rodan died in that year, and Lara Parker in 2023. I don’t know if there are any episodes that still have all-surviving casts. (UPDATED: #751 does!)
Well-meaning governess Vicki is engaged to marry an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. Vicki knows that Peter/ Jeff has some kind of job that keeps him busy during the day. She does not know that he has been spending all night working at a second job. He is helping to build a Frankenstein’s monster. This second job is unpaid; his incentive is that if the monster is not built, an already existing Frankenstein’s monster named Adam has said that he will kill Vicki and everyone else in the great house of Collinwood.
As we open today, Peter/ Jeff is bitten by vampire Angelique. After Peter/ Jeff regains consciousness, Angelique starts giving him orders. He ignores them, and she bites him again. After that, he seems dazed and agrees to do whatever she commands. She wants him to hook her up to the body under construction and to use her “life force” to animate it. He tells her that he doesn’t know how to do that, and that the body isn’t ready to come to life in any case. Turns out she needn’t have bothered.
Meanwhile, Vicki gets some news. Roger, brother of matriarch Liz, tells her that he wants to send Peter/ Jeff on a six-week training program along with two junior executives from the Collins family business, and that if he works out there will be a job for him at the end of it. Vicki is dazzled by the offer.
Peter/ Jeff comes by. Roger meets him alone in the drawing room to make the offer. Peter/ Jeff can neither leave the Frankenstein project nor tell Roger about it. He has to turn the offer down without explanation, leaving Roger offended. Vicki then asks Peter/ Jeff what he was thinking, and he can’t explain the situation to her, either. She is frustrated that she tells him everything about herself, but she can’t get any information from him. She says that the offer must have represented a “family decision” on the part of the Collinses, implying that Peter/ Jeff’s refusal will reflect badly on both of them in their eyes.
When Dark Shadows started in June 1966, Vicki was its chief protagonist, Roger its most menacing villain, and the Collinses’ business interests a major part of the story. Vicki receded to the margins after her most interesting storyline, her difficult relationship with her charge David, was resolved in March 1967, and by that time Roger had become harmless and the business had long since ceased to be a source of interest. When we hear Roger talking about a job for Peter/ Jeff, for a moment it seems that he and the business might once again be important, and that Vicki might again have something to do with the plot. Vicki’s disappointment in her beau reminds us that the character doesn’t really have a place on the show any more.
Upstairs, Liz is taking clothes out of her closet and talking about them with her daughter Carolyn. They jar longtime viewers when they look at a particular dress and reminisce that they bought it on a trip to Boston. For the first 55 weeks of the show, Liz was a recluse who hadn’t left home since Carolyn was an infant. I suspect Liz had worn that dress during that period, and wish I’d looked for it when we were on those episodes during this watch-through. There certainly hasn’t been enough time since then for the trip to Boston to evoke the nostalgic tone in which they describe it, or for the dress to have fallen so far out of fashion that the ladies agree it is time to throw it away.
The Liz-is-a-recluse story was never exciting, and once they ditched it the show was quick to give us scenes of Liz happily going out. It is sometimes said that Dark Shadows is what Star Trek would have been if they had replaced space travel with agoraphobia, and Liz’ seclusion was the first exploration of this topic. Following the deep cut into the early days of the show in Roger’s offer to Peter/ Jeff with a moment when such a prominent part of its first year is simply forgotten is so typical of this period’s episodes that I wonder if some of the dialogue was written by uncredited contributors who weren’t up to date on bygone story points.
Carolyn is glad that Liz, who just recently escaped from a mental hospital, is taking an interest in her wardrobe. Liz lets her down hard when she says that she wants to get rid of as many belongings as possible in the short time before her death. Carolyn tries to tell her that she isn’t dying, but Liz refuses to listen. She demands that Carolyn promise to have an open casket at her funeral.
Liz was in the mental hospital because of a psychological disturbance with which Angelique afflicted her some months ago. When she did that, Angelique was a witch. Since then, Angelique has been stripped of her witchly powers, killed, and brought back to the world as a vampire. You might think Angelique’s spells would all have been broken when she was de-witched; that has been the pattern on Dark Shadows previously. For example, when blonde fire witch Laura vanished in #191, the spell she had cast that caused Liz to mope around and be obsessed with death until she was sent off to a hospital was broken. Longtime viewers wonder if Liz’ continuing obsession with death and her paranoid fear of being buried alive are natural symptoms of the trauma Angelique put her through, and if she just needs better therapy than she was getting in the hospital.
Liz has a dream. It opens with Angelique looking directly into the camera. Angelique is wearing the same costume she wore in the scene with Peter/ Jeff and laughing. When Liz knew Angelique, she never dressed that way, she wore a black wig, and so far as the audience knows she never let Liz hear her signature evil laugh. So it seems that Liz’ current troubles are indeed a part of Angelique’s ongoing spell.
Facing us, Angelique tells Liz that she will be plagued by her obsessions until she dies. This is enough to trigger PTSD flashbacks in regular viewers. Twenty weeks ago, in #477, Angelique was looking at us when she described “The Dream Curse,” an abysmally repetitious, ultimately pointless storyline that dragged on for months. Joan Bennett was a fine actress and a great star, but there was only so much even she could do with a character who just mopes around and talks about death, and Dark Shadows has already made her do it more than once. In a comment on Danny Horn’s post about this episode, I wondered if Angelique couldn’t have cast a spell on Liz that isn’t just a retread of one we’ve seen before, and suggested one that would give her “a compulsion to put on a top hat and tails and sing and dance.” Here’s an animated gif of a cartoon showing Joan Bennett’s sister Constance dancing with Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford; it has more entertainment value than did the entire Dream Curse, and might serve as a consolation to those of us left shaking by Angelique’s threat to clog up the story again:
Suave warlock Nicholas Blair has a job for a woman. Talking to his subordinate, vampire Angelique, he says that the job must go to “the most evil woman who ever lived.” At this, Angelique breaks into a smile, then raises her head proudly. Nicholas then says, “Someone like Lucrezia Borgia.” At this, Angelique’s face falls, and she protests that Lucrezia is dead.
Angelique, flattered when she thinks Nicholas is describing her as “The most evil woman who ever lived.”
Nicholas brushes this objection off, saying that “The spirit of evil can be made to live again.” Longtime viewers may have been wondering whether Lucrezia Borgia would make an appearance, since her name has come up more than once. In #152, sarcastic dandy Roger insulted his sister, reclusive matriarch Liz, by comparing her to Lucrezia; in #178, Roger insulted his niece, heiress Carolyn, in the same way; and in #523, Carolyn brought up Lucrezia to insult Angelique, whom she knew when Angelique was calling herself Cassandra and was married to Roger. Perhaps we might have imagined some kind of story where Roger turns out to have some kind of supernatural connection to Lucrezia.
Nicholas continues teasing Angelique, bringing up the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, alleged serial killer and blood drinker of the 16th and 17th centuries. Angelique calls that lady “a vile woman,” in a tone that suggests she knew her personally. From November 1967 through March 1968, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and Angelique was its chief villain. She was not a vampire then, but a witch. Her spells were very powerful, but she was quite clumsy in her use of them, suggesting that she was a young woman new to witchcraft. Perhaps this line is meant to open the door to a retcon, one which will make it possible to tell stories about Angelique set in even earlier periods than the 1790s segment.
Nicholas agrees that the countess was “a vile woman,” and repeats that epithet as the first in a list of her qualifications for the job he has in mind- “ambitious, cunning, devious, unprincipled, decadent!” He finally concludes his teasing of Angelique and tells her that he will not hire her for the job. She is disappointed, as one of the benefits of the job is release from vampirism. She leaves the room. In the corridor, she flashes a smile which regular viewers recognize as a sign that she is going to defy Nicholas and try to seize what he would not give her.
The Only Filthy Way It Could Be Done
The job is an unusual one. Nicholas has persuaded Frankenstein’s monster Adam to confront old world gentleman Barnabas Collins and mad scientist Julia Hoffman with a threat. If Julia and Barnabas do not repeat the procedure that created Adam and produce a woman who will be his mate, Adam will kill everyone in and around the great house of Collinwood. Subjected to that extortion, they undertake the project.
The procedure not only involves building a body from parts of corpses and running electrical charges through it, but also requires that the body be somehow connected to a person who will serve as its “life force.” It is energy drained from this person that will animate the body. Barnabas was Adam’s “life force.” Before the procedure, Barnabas was a vampire. Serving as Adam’s “life force” put his vampirism into remission. Nicholas talked about this with Angelique, raising her hopes that he would let her escape from vampirism the same way, only to dash those hopes cruelly.
Julia completed the experiment that brought Adam to life after the death of another mad scientist, Eric Lang. Lang had built the body and the apparatus, and had left detailed notes. Julia had studied those notes for some time before she knew which switches to throw and which dials to turn. Under Adam’s threat, Julia has rebuilt the apparatus in Barnabas’ basement and she has a cadaver there which she is using for parts. Barnabas has ordered his servant Willie to help with the grave robbing. Barnabas has also enlisted the aid of Lang’s former grave robber, an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. The equipment needs a lot of tending, and Peter/ Jeff is the lab tech on that detail.
A Nice, New, Clean Slab of Flesh
Peter/ Jeff is by himself in the basement lab when Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes walks in. It’s news to Peter/ Jeff that Stokes is aware of the project, but he tells him that he knows everything about it. Stokes stays so calm as he examines the apparatus and looks at the cadaver that one supposes he must know a great deal.
Stokes asks Peter/ Jeff how the equipment runs when Barnabas’ house has no electricity. Peter/ Jeff says that Julia installed a generator. This must be some unusual kind of generator, since it runs in absolute silence. Later in the episode, Stokes will have a conversation with another character about how Barnabas doesn’t have a telephone.
When Barnabas was a vampire, he didn’t want meter readers or other workers dropping by unannounced and he had no use for modern conveniences. So of course he did not connect his house to the electric grid or to telephone service in those days. As for other utilities, it is a fairly prominent bit of lore that vampires cannot tolerate running water, so of course he wasn’t going to have any plumbing. But he’s been unvamped for almost six months now, so he may as well just update his house. Stokes’ lines today lampshade the problems he creates by refusing to do so.
Another unannounced visitor interrupts Stokes’ conversation with Peter/ Jeff. It is Adam. He is upset to find Stokes in the lab. Stokes once took Adam in and taught him English, and in those days Adam considered Stokes to be his best friend. But Stokes shocked Adam when he broke the news to him that he was an artificially constructed man, and has thoroughly alienated him by trying to talk him out of the violent lifestyle Nicholas has persuaded him to adopt.
Adam goes on a self-pitying rant when Stokes tries to reason with him. Peter/ Jeff interrupts and tells Adam something Stokes left out of his birds and bees talk, that he was built out of parts of dead bodies. Peter/ Jeff taunts Adam about this in a speech that is full of such gems that I suspect it was written, not by the credited author of today’s script, Gordon Russell, but by Russell’s frequent uncredited collaborator Violet Welles. Welles’ name will start to appear in the credits in 711, and fans of the show recognize the sparkle that marks her dialogue.
Peter/ Jeff tries to stab Adam. Adam easily disarms him and holds the knife at his throat. Stokes tells Adam that without Peter/ Jeff the project will be delayed. Adam then flings Peter/ Jeff to the floor. Peter/ Jeff is played by Roger Davis, an actor who had a big television career and was irritating in every part. Mr Davis is so annoying on Dark Shadows that Mrs Acilius and I can’t be the only ones who are disappointed when Adam doesn’t kill his character off the show and who cheer when he throws him to the floor.
Peter/ Jeff gets up and leaves the lab. Adam demands Stokes bring him back to resume working. Knowing how violent Adam is, Stokes follows Peter/ Jeff to the great house of Collinwood. Peter/ Jeff is meeting his fiancée, well-meaning governess Vicki, there, planning to take her out for a date. Stokes tells him that they will be in grave danger from Adam unless he goes back to the lab at once. Peter/ Jeff looks out the window, and sees Adam peering in. Adam actually opens the window and reaches into the drawing room while Vicki and Peter/ Jeff are there; it is hard to understand how Vicki doesn’t notice him. Peter/ Jeff makes an excuse, and goes back to the lab.
We see him back at work. The camera pans up to a mirror. It holds on the mirror for several seconds while we see Angelique’s reflection. Previously, they have stressed that vampires do not cast reflections. There have been several moments when actors have missed their marks or other production faults have occurred that left us seeing a vampire in a mirror, but this is obviously intentional, and it is jarring to regular viewers.
Angelique’s reflection
Angelique and Peter/ Jeff talk for a moment, then she bites him. Evidently she plans to enslave him and use his access to the laboratory to force her way into the role of “life force” for Adam’s mate. So far, almost every victim of a vampire we have seen has been left unable to do the work s/he was doing before being bitten, so regular viewers might suspect that Angelique’s ploy will simply incapacitate Peter/ Jeff from helping with the project. This expectation becomes all the more substantial when we remember the many times Angelique’s schemes have blown up in her face. The less likely it seems to us Angelique will succeed, the less effective this week-ending cliffhanger will be.
When Dark Shadows began in June of 1966, hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell was dating flighty heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard. The two of them were bored beyond words with each other. They only kept going out because Carolyn’s mother, reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, was determined that they should get together, and neither of them wanted to disappoint her. For months, we were subjected to one scene after another of Joe and Carolyn having nothing to say to each other while we waited for Liz to give up on them.
Joe and Carolyn finally called it quits in #84, and shortly afterward Joe started seeing Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. The audience has been rooting for Joe and Maggie ever since, but because there are too few obstacles to their romance for them to have a storyline of their own, we sometimes go months at a time without seeing them together.
Now, Joe has become the blood thrall of vampire Angelique, and Angelique’s master Nicholas has designs on Maggie. If Nicholas and Angelique were ordinary criminals and she were blackmailing Joe or had hooked him on drugs, this would be an archetypal soap opera situation. The supernatural twist makes it specific to Dark Shadows among the daytime serials of its period, but the story is still so deep in the genre’s wheelhouse that it is no wonder they’ve spent three days in a row luxuriating in it.
There’s a lot of emphasis on bachelor’s quarters this time out. Maggie lives alone, but we see so much of and hear so much about her late father’s paintings today that it feels as if the Evans cottage is still his house and Maggie is still his little buddy. That makes her relationship with Joe feel all the more urgent. She is waiting to make a home with him so that her adult life can begin.
We see Joe’s apartment as well. It is apartment 24, the default number for a Collinsport bachelor pad. Dashing action hero Burke Devlin lived in suite 24 at the Collinsport Inn in the first year of the show, and Humphrey Bogart-esque lawyer Tony Peterson lived in apartment 24, presumably in some other building, in the fall of 1967. Joe is sitting in his apartment 24 and staring at a glass of booze when Maggie knocks on the door. She tells him that his boss called her at home and told her that Joe hasn’t shown up at work lately. If Joe doesn’t call soon, he’ll have to fire him. Joe says he won’t call the boss, since he can no more explain the nature of his trouble to him than he can to Maggie.
We also see Nicholas’ house. Even though he is keeping Angelique on the premises, Nicholas is very much a bachelor. He peers into his magic mirror and sees Willie Loomis, servant to old world gentleman Barnabas Collins. Willie is asleep in his room in Barnabas’ house. The only other time we saw Willie’s room was in #328, when Barnabas framed Willie for terrible crimes he had himself committed against Maggie. Now, Nicholas uses his mirror for a magical video call with Willie. He interrogates Willie about an evil plan of his that is playing out in Barnabas’ house.
On Dark Shadows Before I Die, John and Christine Scoleri caught this screenshot of Nicholas making an unfortunate gesture while he is telling Maggie what he thinks of Willie:
Suave warlock Nicholas Blair is furious with his subordinate, vampire Angelique. He had ordered Angelique to summon her blood thrall, hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell. While Joe was out of the way serving as Angelique’s breakfast, Nicholas would be making time with Joe’s fiancée, Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. Much to Nicholas’ dismay, Joe turned up at Maggie’s house.
Angelique explains that she did summon Joe, but that old world gentleman Barnabas Collins was with him and persuaded him to leave before she could take a bite. Since Nicholas has, for reasons of his own, forbidden Angelique to harm Barnabas, he has no choice but to accept that explanation. Angelique teases him about his interest in Maggie. Nicholas used to be very harsh with Angelique about her lingering human attachment to Barnabas, and she is hugely amused to find him chasing Maggie. Her amusement fades when he tells her that if she doesn’t bring Joe back tonight, he will not allow her to return to her coffin at sunrise.
Back at the Evans cottage, Joe is pleading with Maggie to keep him from leaving. “You’ve got to watch me tonight. Be with me. Don’t take your eyes off me. Don’t let me get away like I did this afternoon. If I start to leave, just take something — hit me over the head. Do anything you have to, to keep me here with you!” He keeps telling her that he needs her, that he belongs with her, and that it is his last chance. He hears Angelique’s voice and yells back to it; Maggie is bewildered.
Joe asks Maggie for two sleeping pills. She says that the pills she has are very strong. He says that if he can be knocked out until morning, he might be all right. It is daytime television and it is 1968, so while Joe sleeps on the couch, she goes into her bedroom and closes the door. Angelique’s voice finally wakes him, and he goes.
Nicholas knocks on the door. He apologizes for disturbing Maggie at 4 AM. He explains that he had a strange feeling she was in danger. She tells him about Joe, and says she is glad Joe is sound asleep on the couch. He breaks the news to her that the couch is vacant. While she is looking away, he allows himself a self-satisfied smile.
This episode features the first appearance on Dark Shadows by an actor of color, and the only speaking part any non-White performer ever had. (CORRECTION: Mr Nakamura, played by Sho Onodera in #903, has a couple of lines.) This fact is made even more depressing because that performer fits so perfectly into the show that a first time viewer would assume she had been a major player from episode #1.
Beverly Hope Atkinson plays an unnamed nurse who meets suave warlock Nicholas Blair when he is trying to make his way into a hospital room occupied by Tom Jennings, a victim of one of Nicholas’ evil schemes. She firmly refuses him admittance. When Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, enters and asks to see Tom, the unnamed nurse smiles brightly and says “Of course, Maggie!” in a tone that makes it sound like they’ve been friends all their lives. She then shuts the door before Nicholas can follow. He asks her why Maggie can go in and he cannot, and she tells him sternly that Maggie has permission from the doctor.
I have a fanfic idea about Atkinson’s nurse that I originally posted as a comment on Danny Horn’s Dark Shadows Every Day. I can’t find it there, but here is a copy of it:
In the first 42 weeks of the show, when the supernatural was in the background and the stories were slow, it would have been easy to have a couple of tea party scenes at the Evans cottage where Maggie and her lifelong friend, Unnamed Nurse, recap whatever is going on. Those scenes could have led to a whole exploration of the tension between the working-class people in the village and the jerks in the big house on the hill. That in turn could have led to the introduction of Unnamed Nurse’s family, headed by Unnamed’s parents, Mr and Mrs Nurse, including her brothers, Young Mr Nurse and Master Nurse, and her sister, Moody Miss Nurse. We could then have seen the ancestors of the Nurse family in each of the flashback segments and analogues of them in Parallel Time.
At some point in my musings about this idea, I decided the family should be named “Wilson” (if I had a reason for this, I’ve forgotten it, but I now think of Atkinson’s character as Nurse Wilson,) and that in a flashback segment we should learn that they are descended from free persons of color who settled in Collinsport before the Civil War and were the first proprietors of the Collinsport Inn. Some wicked deed by a member of the Collins family knocked them out of the entrepreneurial class long ago, and they’ve been working their way back up the socio-economic ladder ever since.
We met Maggie in #1 as the waitress at the diner in the Collinsport Inn. She, her late father Sam, and her fiancé, hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell, have been Dark Shadows‘ main representatives of the people in the village. Her house, the modest counterpoint to the mansions on the Collins family’s great estate, has been familiar to us from the beginning, and is the place where we have seen most vividly what the Collinses’ doings have meant for the people who work for their businesses and live in their town. So, as a frequent visitor there, the nurse could have given a whole new dimension to the drama, showing that it isn’t just one family whose lives hang in the balance, but that a whole community is exposed to the consequences of what happens on the hill.
The Blue Whale
Joe is sitting alone at a table in the Blue Whale tavern, and he looks terrible. He’s pale and fidgety, looking around and periodically jumping up to peek out the window.
Maggie comes in and joins Joe. At first she is angry with him- he stood her up last night, without so much as a telephone call. She sees how upset he is and her anger is mixed with worry. He pounds on the table while the camera is tight on her. Her startled reaction reminds us of the early months of the show, when Sam was a self-pitying drunk and Maggie was a sophisticated portrait of an Adult Child of an Alcoholic.
After that moment, Maggie gets very quiet. When Joe says with alarm that it is getting dark, she responds that “It usually does, at this time of day.” It’s inherently funny to hear someone make that kind of matter-of-fact statement in response to an inexplicably intense remark, but also poignant to those of us who remember Maggie’s early interactions with Sam. From childhood on, simple rationality must have seemed to Maggie like a joke in the face of the overpowering irrationality at the center of her life.
As it happens, Joe is indeed exhibiting addicted behavior. But he isn’t hooked on alcohol. Instead, he is under the power of a vampire. Angelique, who was once the wicked witch who first made Barnabas Collins a vampire, found herself reduced to bloodsucker status when she displeased Nicholas. At Nicholas’ direction, she bit Joe the other day, and now Joe is desperate to hear her summons and report for another bite. She does call, and he does dash out, leaving a bewildered Maggie behind.
It was at the Blue Whale that we first met Joe, back in #3. Then, he was an upstanding young man who indignantly rejected the attempts of one of the Collins family’s sworn enemies to bribe him into spying against them. We’ve seen him in the tavern many times since then, always as the doughty representative of the wholesome and intelligible world against the sinister and supernatural. For example, in #215 it was a deeply troubled Joe who brought the news to Maggie and others at the Blue Whale that the cows on his uncle’s farm had been somehow drained of blood, news which turned out to be the first sign of vampirism in the area. This is the first time we’ve seen the Blue Whale since #358, back in November, and the first time a scene has closed with the formerly very familiar Blue Whale jukebox dance tunes in even longer than that. Longtime viewers see a loop closing. Joe leaves the place where he has most often shown himself as one who dwells in the daylight and goes down to the deepest dark.
Once Joe is gone, Nicholas enters. He engages Maggie in conversation, and talks his way into the seat Joe vacated. Soon he is doing magic tricks for her and she is agreeing to have dinner with him. He brings up the idea of staying out all night, and she seems amenable. Where is her old friend the nurse when you need her?
The Fix
Joe lets himself into Nicholas’ house, a place by the sea that he is renting from the Collinses. Angelique is there. Joe laments his dependency on her, and asks if she was the one who attacked Tom, whom he identifies as his cousin. Perhaps the son of the uncle whose cows fell victim to Barnabas long ago! She doesn’t bother to deny it. She tells him that they will both visit Tom tonight. She bites Joe.
Joe visits Tom, who has emerged from the coma in which Angelique’s first bite left him. He tells Joe all about Angelique’s attack on him. He says he knows how bizarre the story sounds, but that he hopes that if he has Joe to vouch for him he will be able to make the police take it seriously. Joe gives Tom a few perfunctory assurances, then opens the window. Joe explains that he is doing this because it is hot in the room. Tom does not agree that it is hot, but Joe insists, and Tom is too ill to argue long.
Joe leaves, and we jump forward to 2 AM. The window is still open- apparently no nurse was on duty. Perhaps the hospital thought Beverly Hope Atkinson’s character did such a good job on the day shift that the patients could just cruise along through the night. We hear a bat squeaking, and Angelique appears. She bites Tom.
In Barnabas’ first weeks on Dark Shadows, the show made heavy use of the idea that vampires can enter a lodging only when they have been invited. For example, he went to the diner after hours so that Maggie would have to invite him in, and later went to her house and stood just outside the front door for a noticeably long time before she explicitly asked him to enter. They haven’t done anything with that idea in a long time, but neither have they very clearly contradicted it. Perhaps Joe’s opening of the window is the invitation Angelique needs to make her way into the hospital.
Hardworking young fisherman Joe has always been at his most appealing when he is going out of his way to help a new friend. My favorite example is #58, when strange and troubled boy David asks him for help deciphering a set of tide tables. He drops everything and is completely absorbed in the task.
Friday, we saw Joe’s impulse to help turned against him. Vampire Angelique claimed to be a prisoner of the suave and mysterious Nicholas. He wanted to take her straight to the sheriff’s office, but agreed to let her rest her head on his shoulder first. With that, she bit him, and he was enslaved.
Today, old world gentleman Barnabas pays a call on Joe. Barnabas was a vampire himself for 172 years, and he knows that a vampire is operating in the area. He is deeply disquieted by what he sees of Joe, but does not attempt to diagnose his condition.
Barnabas came to the 1960s when dangerously unstable ruffian Willie opened his coffin in #210. Willie hoped to steal jewels, but was instead bitten and enslaved, becoming a sorely bedraggled blood thrall. Now that Barnabas’ curse has gone into remission, he controls Willie without supernatural means. He wants Willie to dig up corpses so that he and his friend, mad scientist Julia, can build a Frankenstein’s monster. On Friday, Willie tried to refuse, and Barnabas extorted his agreement by describing a scenario in which Maggie, the girl on whom Willie has a crush, might be killed if Barnabas and Julia do not complete their grotesque plan. Willie protests again today that he cannot “rob a grave.” Well he might protest- all of the trouble going on now started the last time he tried it.
The sun goes down, and we return to Nicholas’ house. Angelique rises. She hasn’t been a vampire long, and doesn’t know how to summon Joe until Nicholas tells her. From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and Angelique was a wicked witch. Her spells, including the one that made Barnabas a vampire, so often misfired that it seemed she was new to witchcraft. Viewers who remember that phase of the show and see her today will be quite sure that Barnabas was the first vampire she ever made, and that she is on altogether unfamiliar ground.
While Joe is responding to Angelique’s summons, he crosses paths with Willie in the cemetery. The episode ends with Joe announcing he will take Willie to the sheriff. In itself, that doesn’t produce much suspense. We know that he has no choice but to go directly to Angelique. But since Nicholas is ultimately behind both Angelique’s vampirism and Barnabas and Julia’s attempt to stitch a person together, it does suggest that his skill at manipulating events might ultimately prove to be as faulty as is Angelique’s. Perhaps the next time Nicholas’ pawns bump into each other, there will be consequences that he cannot control.
Barnabas Collins may not be a vampire these days, but he’s still at his best when he gets to be an absolute bastard. He has such an opportunity today. His bedraggled servant Willie Loomis has been refusing to steal corpses from their graves so that Barnabas and mad scientist Julia Hoffman can build a mate for Frankenstein’s monster Adam. At first Barnabas threatens to have Julia recommit him to the psychiatric institution she runs; Willie says he would rather spend the rest of his life as a mental patient than dig up dead bodies, and Julia tells him she won’t send him back to the institution in any case.
When Barnabas learns of this, he gets a sinister gleam in his eye and tells Willie that if Adam finds out Willie is refusing to help in the project, he might kill Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, on whom Willie has a crush. As Barnabas presses this idea on Willie, he seems more and more pleased with himself, and Willie becomes more and more distraught. When Willie finally caves in and agrees to do what he wants, Barnabas looks as happy as we have ever seen him.
Maggie is engaged to marry hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell. Joe has received a note asking him to call at the home of the suave and mysterious Nicholas Blair shortly after sundown. When he does, a woman named Angelique meets him and tells him Nicholas will be back soon. She tells Joe that Nicholas is holding her prisoner. As Barnabas shows to his best advantage when he is a cold villain, so Joe shows to his when he suddenly finds himself with a chance to help a new friend. He is great right up to the moment when Angelique embraces him and reveals the vampire fangs with which she will bite him.
Suave warlock Nicholas is studying a mirror in his parlor. His subordinate, vampire Angelique, enters and comments on his vanity. He invites her to look at the mirror and tell him what she sees. “Only your reflection,” she replies. But the audience also sees the reflection of her hair and forehead. Her line, coupled with the fact that we do not see her whole face, suggests that her reflection was not supposed to be visible. In #288 the idea that vampires do not cast reflections was a crucial plot point. When old world gentleman Barnabas was a vampire, he several times cast the sorts of reflection Angelique casts today, usually as the result of Jonathan Frid missing his mark. Perhaps Lara Parker simply took half a step too many in this scene.
Nicholas’ mirror is no simple reflector. It functions as a closed circuit TV. He uses it to show Angelique the room in the attic where well-meaning governess Vicki is being held prisoner. He lets Vicki go, casts a spell to cause her to forget her captivity, and then tells Angelique that he will be going out.
Angelique asks what she is supposed to do while he is gone- sit in her chair and get bored? He says he couldn’t have put it better himself. When he returns, she is in fact in the chair, sitting still. It’s hilarious that she doesn’t pace, or get a book, or try to see if the mirror gets any other channels.
Nicholas was away visiting Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town, on whom he has a crush. Maggie’s fiancé Joe dropped in while he was at her house. He tells Angelique that Joe is to be the next victim of her vampire’s bite.
Dark Shadows Commentary 