In the outer room of the Tomb of the Collinses, Sam Evans and Dr Dave Woodard recap the story so far. In the hidden chamber on the other side of the wall, vampire Barnabas Collins and mad scientist Julia Hoffman eavesdrop on their conversation. When they hear how close Evans and Woodard have come to discovering their terrible secrets, Julia squirms and Barnabas looks shocked.
Busted.
When Dr Woodard mentions that Julia had used the word “supernatural” in a conversation with him, Barnabas nearly blows their cover. He grabs Julia by the throat and she lets out a yelp. Sam hears this, Woodard does not. Woodard suspects that there are ghosts at work in the area, but he cannot believe that Sam’s hearing is better than his, so he dismisses the idea.* He notices the plaque marking the burial site of Sarah Collins, 1786-1796, and says out loud that the little girl named Sarah whom everyone has been looking for lately is the ghost of that Sarah.
Evans and Woodard leave the tomb, and Barnabas resumes raging at Julia. He opens his old coffin and pushes her head into it, asking if she wants to spend eternity confined there. She talks him down with warnings of what would happen were he to kill strange and troubled boy David Collins.
Woodard goes to the great house of Collinwood, where he questions David. Woodard is much more forthcoming with what he knows than he has been in any previous conversation. David listens closely, trying to find out what he knows. But Woodard’s questions are all about David’s friend, Sarah. David doesn’t know that answers to many of Woodard’s questions, and Sarah has sworn him to secrecy about much of what he does know. So the only new piece of information Woodard learns from David is that Julia was lying to him the other day when she said that she hadn’t given much thought to Sarah. David tells him that she asks him about her all the time.
Julia comes in and tries to stop Woodard questioning David. He ignores her and asks another question, then warns him to stay away from the Tomb of the Collinses. When he tells David that whatever secret Sarah told him about the tomb is also known to someone else, and that that other person is very dangerous, David is horrified. When he was trapped in the hidden chamber last week, Barnabas and his servant Willie entered. David hid from them in Barnabas’ old coffin and eavesdropped on a conversation in which Barnabas dropped a huge number of clues about his secrets. Since Woodard started his questioning of David with a reference to the unknown person who has been terrorizing the area since April, David now has reason to believe that Barnabas is that person.
David leaves the room, and Woodard asks Julia what she was trying to prevent him from finding out. She refuses to answer any of his questions. She hears the sound of dogs howling, and knows that it means Barnabas is getting ready to kill someone. Knowing that she has very little time to try to prevent David’s murder, she cannot focus on Woodard’s questions. For once, she can’t think of any lies that will hold him off. Her reason for being in town, so far as Woodard is concerned, is that she is a doctor treating Sam Evans’ daughter Maggie, Barnabas’ former victim. When she won’t answer his questions, he takes her off Maggie’s case.
Julia goes to Barnabas’ house. She finds him on his way out the door, on a mission to kill David. She opposes him, and he declares that nothing can stop him. At that, the wind blows the doors open. It extinguishes some of the candles in the room. The strains of “London Bridge” begin playing, and Barnabas and Julia realize that Sarah, who in reality is the permanently nine year old ghost of Barnabas’ little sister, is in the room. Barnabas cannot leave. Julia says with satisfaction that nothing can stop him- “except one little girl.”
The whole episode is very strong from beginning to end. Julia is usually so much in charge that the only suspense is what she will choose to do, but throughout this one she is scrambling to bring Barnabas under control. When her final attempt fails, Sarah’s intervention comes as a thrilling surprise.
The performances of both Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall stand out today. Hall is as powerful a presence playing a character who controls nothing as she usually is playing a character who controls everything. And few could match Frid’s ability to appall us with Barnabas’ plan to kill a ten year old and seconds later to elicit tears by calling out to his beloved little sister.
When Dark Shadows began, one of the most important relationships was that between matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. Liz and Roger each had a terrible secret to hide. In the work of hiding, they embodied opposite extremes. Liz was motivated to conceal her secret by a fear that she would damage the reputation of the Collins family and the fortunes of its members. Her morbidly intense concern for the family’s position both made her a prisoner in her home and gave her a certain air of nobility. Roger’s motives for hiding his secret were wholly selfish, and he was a symbol of lack of family feeling. So much so that he squandered his entire inheritance, jumped at a chance to sell the ancestral seat to his sworn enemy, and openly hated his own son.
Since Roger was living in Liz’ house as her guest and working in her business as an employee, it fell to her to rein in her impossibly irresponsible younger brother. But the very quality that led her to try to exercise authority over him undercut her efforts to do so. Liz’ devotion to the Collins family compelled her to try to keep Roger on the strait and narrow path, but that same devotion prevented her from taking any action against him so harsh that it might actually deter him from misconduct. Further, her own secret compromised her moral authority and kept her from engaging with anyone outside the family. So she wound up less as a commanding matriarch than as a bossy big sister.
Liz and Roger both let go of their secrets, Roger in #201, Liz in #270. Roger is still far from heroic, but he no longer gives Liz the nightmares he once did. Liz is still mindful of the family’s good name, but there is nothing keeping her from following through on whatever orders she might give. So Liz and Roger’s Bossy Big Sister/ Bratty Little Brother dynamic is no longer a productive story element.
Now, the show is reintroducing the same dynamic with another pair of characters. Mad scientist Julia Hoffman is conducting an experiment which she hopes will turn vampire Barnabas Collins into a real boy. When Barnabas threatens to murder her, she becomes impatient and tells him to stop being ridiculous. When he threatens to murder other people, she threatens to discontinue the experiment unless he starts behaving. He usually responds to Julia’s orders by pouting, sulking, and giving in to her.
In the opening scene, Julia was in Barnabas’ house. He told her that he was likely to kill Roger’s ten year old son David because he thinks David might know that he is a vampire. Julia demanded that he leave David alone, prompting him to walk out of his own house. She then followed him to the old cemetery north of town, where Barnabas heard her footsteps in the distance and she hid behind a tree.
This woman holds a medical doctorate and is qualified in two unrelated specialties.
Barnabas enters the Tomb of the Collinses. Julia confronts him there, insisting he tell her what secret about the place he is keeping from her. He demands that she leave and threatens to kill her if she does not. He tells her that he ought to stash her corpse nearby, “along with”- then interrupts himself. Regular viewers know that Barnabas killed seagoing con man Jason McGuire in #275 and buried him in the secret chamber inside the tomb in #276. Jason has barely been mentioned since, not once in any scene featuring Julia. When she asks Barnabas what he is talking about, he says “Never mind.”
Julia presses Barnabas with “You’ve shared all your other secrets with me. You have no choice but to share this one with me too.” The logic of this statement eludes me, but all Barnabas can do when Julia has made it is to walk backward away from her, staggering into a corner and pouting at her.
Barnabas, stunned by the force of Julia’s reasoning.
Meanwhile, Sam and Dave are walking through the cemetery.
No, not that Sam and Dave. Local artist Sam Evans and addled quack Dr Dave Woodard have noticed that a series of odd occurrences have taken place in the vicinity of the tomb lately and have come to the cemetery to investigate. They run into the old caretaker, who delays them with his usual warnings about the unquiet spirits of the dead.
Alas, the final appearance of Daniel F. Keyes as the Caretaker.
Back in the tomb, Barnabas is telling Julia everything she wants to know. He lets her into the secret chamber and explains that he was imprisoned there in a coffin for many years, freed only when the luckless Willie Loomis accidentally released him to prey upon the living. Julia listens, showing pity as Barnabas recounts his woes.
Barnabas finds David’s pocket knife, proving that the boy was in the chamber and convincing Barnabas that he must kill him. He takes the knife close to Julia in a gesture that might be threatening, were its blade intact. The broken blade negates the threat and emphasizes Barnabas’ powerlessness before Julia. Since 1967 was the heyday of Freudianism in the USA, it is likely that many in the original audience would have seen it not only as a useless tool, but also as a phallic symbol. As such, not only its brokenness, but also the fact that it was made to be carried by a little boy, would make the point that Barnabas brings no sexual potency to his relationship with Julia. Her own behavior towards him may be childlike, but in her eyes he is a smaller child than she is.
Julia protests, claiming that someone else might have left the knife there. Barnabas dismisses her assertions, but does not regain control of the situation. As they prepare to leave the chamber, he kneels and she stands over him, watching him open the panel.
On his knees before her.
They hear Sam and Dave approach. (Still not the cool ones.) They scurry back into the secret chamber, as David had done when he heard Barnabas and Willie approaching the tomb in #310. They listen to the men discuss the facts that have brought them to the tomb, and grow steadily more alarmed as they realize how close they are to discovering Barnabas’ terrible secret.
This is the first episode not to include any actors who were signed to the show at the time production began. The character of Sam Evans was at that time played by a loud man called Mark Allen; Allen’s last episode was #22, taped on 12 July 1966, and David Ford’s first was #35, taped on 29 July. The Caretaker was introduced in #154, Barnabas in #210,* Dave Woodard in #219,** and Julia in #265.
*As the hand of stand-in Alfred Dillay- Jonathan Frid wouldn’t appear until #211. Though the portrait he sat for was on screen in #204, and was identified as that of Barnabas Collins in #205.
**Played by Richard Woods. Robert Gerringer took over the part in #231.
Strange and troubled boy David Collins got himself trapped in the secret chamber of the old Collins mausoleum in #310, and everyone has been searching for him ever since. Most of them want to get him home safe, but his distant cousin, Barnabas, has a different agenda. He suspects that David has learned that he is a vampire, and is determined to be the first to find him so that he can kill him.
Friday, David got out of the secret chamber and walked outside, straight into Barnabas’ hands. Today, we open with a reprise of that scene. After Barnabas greets his young cousin with a richly sinister “Hel-lo, David!,” he questions him sharply. He expresses dissatisfaction with David’s answers, then tells him that because no one is at home in the great house of Collinwood, he will be taking David to his own house. David grows more and more uncomfortable. Just as he is coming to be really frightened, the voice of local man Burke Devlin calls his name.
When Burke reaches them, David throws his arms around him and Barnabas squirms guiltily. Burke dislikes Barnabas, and gives him a suspicious look while he and David explain what has happened. When Burke says that there are people at home in the great house, David flashes a look of alarm at Barnabas. Barnabas says that no one had answered when he knocked on the door earlier, so he assumed everyone had joined the search. The two men take David home.
There, David eats a sandwich in his room while his father Roger asks him where he has been. This conversation is just magnificent. Roger is trying to be stern, but is such a flagrantly neglectful father that David knows full well that he can’t be bothered to punish him. So while Roger puts a series of pointed questions to him, David ignores him and muses aloud about Barnabas. “Barnabas is mysterious, isn’t he, Father?…You know, we don’t know anything about him. He just showed up one night.” Roger keeps urging David to forget about Barnabas and start answering his questions, but gets nowhere. Louis Edmonds and David Henesy were both talented comic actors, and they worked well together, so it’s no surprise this scene is laugh-out-loud funny.
Along with the comedy comes the thrill of a potential change in the show. In his post about this episode, Danny Horn writes: “It’s a great moment. It’s like the ‘logical explanation’ spell was suddenly broken, and David just realized how bizarre his life is.” The structure of Dark Shadows’ storylines has been that someone has a terrible secret, they are deep in denial about the extent to which the secret is deforming their lives, and when they finally let go of their secrets they are free. So matriarch Liz had a terrible secret that kept her from leaving her house for over eighteen years, she revealed the secret in #270, and now she’s happy to go anywhere. She’s on an extended visit to Boston at the moment. Roger had a secret connected with an incident for which Burke went to prison years ago and he spent all his time making a fool of himself as he struggled to keep it hidden; he admitted the truth in #201, and since then he has been a carefree fellow who can make anyone laugh. So the Collins family curse that Barnabas embodies is made up chiefly of denial, and it can be defeated by facing facts. If David has seen through all the lies and is willing to reckon with the truth, he has the power to bring everything to a conclusion. So when he says that Barnabas “just showed up one night,” we catch a glimpse of what it would be like if the entire series came to its ultimate climax.
We end with David still in his room, telling well-meaning governess Vicki that he feels someone evil is watching him. We cut to Barnabas in his own house, staring out the window at the great house in the distance, thinking his sinister thoughts. David’s feeling should be familiar to him- when his mother, undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, was staying in the cottage in the estate, she often stared out her window and caused David to have nightmares.
Laura was a threat to David because the basic conditions of her existence drove to kill her son. Barnabas’ threat to him is a result of circumstances that were always likely to arise, but that might not have, and that might yet be changed. So when Laura was on the show, the suspense was how she would be destroyed before she could kill David. Now with Barnabas, there is a question whether he will try to kill David at all. So the suspense is more complicated, and there are more options for pacing. The plot doesn’t have to be either glacial or rapid, as it did with Laura, but can move at any of a variety of speeds depending on which of the many possible directions they decide to take the story.
In our house, we watch Dark Shadows on Tubi, a free advertiser-supported streaming app. As we click on each episode, we see a summary reading “Freed from his grave after 200 years, a tormented vampire returns home to protect his loved ones in this classic gothic daytime TV series.”
That “tormented vampire” is Barnabas Collins. In the opening scenes of today’s episode, Barnabas is talking with Julia Hoffman, a mad scientist who is trying to cure him of vampirism. They are discussing the missing David Collins, the ten-year old boy who is the last bearer of the Collins family name. This ardent protector of family announces that he must be the first to find David, because he is going to kill him. He tells Julia that he’d been “getting very fond” of David, but that he is pretty sure the boy knows that he is a vampire, so he will have to choose survival over “sentiment.” When Julia objects, Barnabas smiles and tells her that he might also be killing her and his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie soon. He invites her to inform Willie of this fact.
Barnabas goes to the great house of Collinwood, where he visits well-meaning governess Vicki. Vicki is worried sick about David, to whom she is devoted. She regards Barnabas as a dear friend, and he enjoys spending time with her. He has some vague intention of killing Vicki so that she will rise as his vampire bride, and may get around to doing that once he has killed David, Vicki’s fiancé Burke, and maybe Julia and Willie. Perhaps what he is determined to “protect his loved ones” from is aging- with him around, it seems unlikely anyone is going to get much older.
Vicki unwittingly tips Barnabas off as to where David is. David is trapped in the secret chamber inside the Collins mausoleum in the old cemetery north of town. Vicki doesn’t know that this chamber exists, but Barnabas was confined there for 170 years. So when she tells him that the doddering caretaker of the cemetery thought he heard voices coming from behind the stone walls of the outer chamber, she thinks she is giving evidence that the old man has lost his mind. Barnabas, however, knows different.
David learned about the chamber from the permanently nine year old ghost of Barnabas’ sister Sarah. Sarah has been showing up a lot lately, and yesterday we saw several characters starting to admit that she must be a supernatural being. It is Sarah’s friendship with David that has led Barnabas to believe that he knows he is a vampire. In fact, she did not tell him about this, but David did overhear a conversation between Barnabas and Willie which gave him enough clues that he could probably figure it out.
When Barnabas arrives at the cemetery, he meets the caretaker and has a confusing conversation that is straight out of vaudeville. On his Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn compares it to “a summer stock production of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, where Abbott is being played by Count Dracula.” At one point Barnabas is so exasperated with the caretaker that he nearly blurts out that he is Sarah’s brother. That’s the second time in the episode a character almost blurts out a word that would make a major change in the show- towards the beginning, Julia came within a breath of saying “vampire,” a word we have not yet heard on Dark Shadows.
Meanwhile, Sarah appears to David. He asks her how she got into the sealed chamber, and she replies “I can get in anywhere.” David is dissatisfied with this answer, but doesn’t really seem surprised to see her. He seems to know that she is a ghost, and to be holding off on using the word in her presence in the same way that Julia is holding off on using the word “vampire” with Barnabas. It’s just sort of indelicate to use a label people haven’t told you they like. Maybe Sarah prefers to be called a Phantom-American, and it would be this whole big thing if you called her a “ghost.”
Sarah shows David how to open the panel. He does, and when he looks back she is gone. He expresses irritation with her for “hiding,” which is rather strange- he was trapped in the chamber for days, so clearly she wasn’t hiding there the whole time. She must have made her way in through the solid walls. Even if David hasn’t figured out that she is a ghost, he must know that she can get out the same way.
David walks out of the mausoleum, directly into the hands of his cousin Barnabas. It was obvious that he would, but that obviousness is not a problem- on the contrary, it comes with a sense of inevitability that leaves us dreading what Barnabas is going to do to David.
I think that’s too simple an interpretation to cover everything we’ve seen Sarah do so far on the show. It is true that she never really gets anyone out of danger. She helped Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, escape from Barnabas when he was about to kill her, but that escape led directly to her imprisonment in Julia’s hospital. She broke Maggie out of that hospital before Julia could complete her evil plan to keep her in a state of total psychological collapse, only to lead her directly to Barnabas. She prevented Barnabas killing Maggie in her bed, but left him determined to strike again if Julia failed to keep her memory from returning.
Some say that Sarah is really an avatar of Barnabas, that she is his conscience roaming free in the world. Julia explicitly proposed this interpretation on screen in #302, and Sharon Smyth Lentz says that it is direction she was given when she was playing Sarah. So it was an idea that the writers meant to develop, but I don’t think it covers everything either. A guilty conscience can lead a person to take actions that will lead to his own exposure, but the likeliest way Sarah’s latest actions will lead to Barnabas’ exposure will be if he kills David and is caught. That doesn’t really sound like “conscience.”
Dark Shadows is, in all its phases, the story of the great estate of Collinwood and the accursed family that lives there. I would say that, whatever else Sarah is, she is a symptom of the curse that Barnabas also embodies. For several weeks, Barnabas has had a tendency to lie low and keep quiet, letting the curse fester silently and pull the Collinses and the community around them deeper into its power by imperceptible steps. Sarah disrupts all of his plans, prompting him to act and forcing into the open more and more evidence that spiritual forces of darkness are at work.
But for all the inconvenience she represents to Barnabas, Sarah is no more an opponent of the curse itself than he is a protector of family and friends. On the contrary, she presents a different version of the curse. She confronts the living characters with facts they are desperate to avoid facing. If they continue on the form they have set so far, most of them will react to the evidence of otherworldly dangers by digging ever deeper into denial. If they do that, even Barnabas’ destruction would not really free them from the life-draining evil that engendered him.
Well-meaning governess Vicki and vampire Barnabas are on the terrace of the great house of Collinwood. Vicki’s charge, strange and troubled boy David, is missing, and she is upset. Vicki is weeping on Barnabas’ shoulder.
Heiress Carolyn and hardworking young fisherman Joe show up in the nick of time to prevent Barnabas biting Vicki and giving her a role in the main storyline. They report on their fruitless search for David. When they mention that David had been looking for mysterious girl Sarah, Barnabas becomes alarmed.
In recent episodes, many characters have been trying to find Sarah, in hopes that she will be able to tell them who abducted Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. In two conversations about Sarah, Vicki has kept quiet about the fact that she saw a girl matching her description in Barnabas’ house. She is sure her friend Barnabas is innocent of any wrongdoing, and does not want anyone to suspect him in connection with what happened to Maggie. But her concern for David drives that thought out of her mind, and she tells Joe and Carolyn what she saw.
Meanwhile, Barnabas goes home and tells his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie that they must find David. Barnabas knows that Sarah is the ghost of his little sister, and he is afraid she may have told David that he is a vampire. When Willie asks what Barnabas will do if he finds David, Barnabas makes it clear that he plans to kill him.
David is about ten years old, and he is the last bearer of the Collins name. Dark Shadows fans sometimes ask what would happen if any of Barnabas’ plans had ever succeeded. I think his fell design for David answers that question- he would annihilate the Collins family and turn their estate into a hellscape cut off from the world of the living. In July of 1970, the show will give us an extended vision of what would happen were another supernatural menace to achieve that result. We will also get a glimpse of an alternate version of Barnabas driving towards the same objective when House of Dark Shadows hits theaters in October of 1970.
That was a possible outcome for a feature film, but a continuing series could hardly go down that road. And lately, Barnabas has seemed too harmless to bring it about. Even first-time viewers have already seen him fail to bite someone who was actively pressing her neck towards his fangs. So it doesn’t really seem that David is in all that much danger. Indeed, Barnabas is well on his way to becoming a comic villain. We see the action through his eyes as he scrambles to keep his lies in place, and see him devise one cockamamie scheme after another, all of which fall apart. He is something like Wile E. Coyote operating in extreme slow motion.
Before Barnabas and Willie can leave in search of David, there comes a knock at the front door. It is Joe and the sheriff asking to go through the place looking for David and Sarah. The episode becomes pure comedy from that point on. On his Dark Shadows Daybook, Patrick McCray analyzes it as situation comedy; on Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn analyzes it as farce.
While Joe searches upstairs and the sheriff searches the main floor, Willie keeps jabbering about how awful it would be if they went into the basement, where they might discover Barnabas’ coffin. Barnabas keeps shushing him. Both Barnabas and Willie panic a little more visibly each time the rooster crows, reminding them that Barnabas is running out of time to get back into his coffin.
When Joe and the sheriff do ask Barnabas to unlock the basement door so they can search there, Barnabas is cornered into claiming that he lost the key. They are openly incredulous, and he squirms as he elaborates on his assertion. He gives even lamer excuses when Joe offers to break the door down and then repair it. Finally, Carolyn lets Barnabas off the hook when she comes running with word that a boy meeting David’s description has been seen on the beach. Joe and the sheriff rush out, just in time for Barnabas to find shelter from the sunrise.
Both Danny Horn and Patrick McCray wrote fine blog posts about this episode. I have a few things to add to what they’ve said.
When vampire Barnabas Collins and his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie approach the Tomb of the Collinses, strange and troubled boy David hears them talking about mysterious little girl Sarah. Since Sarah had made him promise to keep her connection to the place secret, he opens the panel to the concealed chamber she had shown him and hides there. To his horror, he hears Barnabas order Willie to open the panel. Still trying to keep Sarah’s secret, he hides in the coffin in the center of the chamber while Willie and Barnabas walk around it. He hears them talk about Barnabas’ relationship with Sarah and Willie’s discomfort with the chamber.
They don’t mention that Barnabas is a vampire, or that he was the one who imprisoned Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl In Town. But they say enough that David should be able to figure out all of Barnabas’ secrets. Once he has heard Barnabas say that he was left to comfort Sarah after their dog was put down, it isn’t much of a leap to conclude that Sarah is his little sister. And once he’s heard Barnabas ask Willie if he is frightened by the “contents” of the chamber, he should know that there is something in there more than can be seen at a first glance.
In episodes #301 and #306, we were reminded of Jason McGuire, whom Barnabas killed and forced Willie to bury in the floor of this chamber. We also saw the chamber itself in #306, so that regular viewers would be sure to think of Jason’s grave. If David should repeat Barnabas’ comment about the chamber’s “contents” at the right time, Jason might yet be exhumed. So Barnabas has created an extreme danger to himself with his big mouth. Since it does not seem that Dark Shadows could continue if either Barnabas or David were to destroy the other, we are in suspense as to how they will get out of this situation.
After Barnabas and Willie leave, David gets out of the coffin and finds he cannot open the panel from the inside. Willie had used a gadget hidden in the stairs to open it, the first time we have seen this device. As David starts to panic, he hears the strains of Sarah’s signature tune, “London Bridge.” He turns away from the panel, looks at the blank walls of the chamber, and starts calling on Sarah.
In his post, Danny Horn asks “Has David just figured out that Sarah’s a ghost?” I think it’s more complicated than that. In #288, David happily considered the possibility that Sarah might be a ghost, and throughout the series he has been on easy terms with several ghosts. So I think he has assumed she was a ghost all along, and was just too tactful to bring it up when he was talking with her.
Back in the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki is on the terrace, worried about David’s disappearance. Barnabas peeks at her through the gate, as he would do if he were not allowed to look at her. Then he just walks up and starts a conversation with her, leaving us to wonder what the whole peeping-Tom act was about.
Vicki is so concerned for David that she starts crying. Barnabas tells her to put her head on his shoulder, which she does. He seems to be trying to restrain himself, but she has such a long, pretty neck, and it’s right there, and he’s so very thirsty…
As Barnabas lunges in to bite her, my concern and sympathy is challenged as I ponder her almost athletic lack of awareness. Of course, I’ll inevitably side with the person getting her throat ripped out… but it won’t stop me from wondering why she’s practically painting a landing strip on her neck. Vicki? You have a generation of young people idolizing you.
Today, the discussion isn’t even a metaphor. No, she’s not asking for it. No one is. So, what is the message that we’re supposed to take away from a dangerous conversation like this? For a person constantly asking questions about everything — and never understanding what she hears — Vicki is the picture of unawareness. Evil is evil. An attack is an attack. And awareness is power. Ironic that her would-be attacker, Barnabas, is frequently even more unaware than is she. However, if anyone on a soap paid attention at all, the stories would last ten minutes. But that’s the point. The more the characters lack focus, the more we learn its value. David is the most aware character on the show, and in this episode, he learns the most he ever will in one night. Pity it’s from inside a coffin.
That part of the discussion is too much metaphor to ignore.
Patrick McCray, “The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 22,” The Collinsport Historical Society, 22 August 2018.
Again, I think it’s a more complicated. I think we have to analyze Vicki’s behavior at three levels of intentionality. First, there’s the in-universe level, the sort of analysis of her motives another character in the same story might give if they had the same information we do. If that character saw Vicki’s depressing fiancé Burke angrily telling her she was crazy for saying that she had seen and heard things that we have also seen and heard, refusing to give her even the most basic information about himself and airily dismissing her questions as a morbid preoccupation with “the past,” and telling other people that her imagination will “run wild” unless he monitors and controls her, they might very well think that Vicki is tired of Burke’s abusive ways. To that character, there would be nothing “athletic” about Vicki’s failure to suspect Barnabas- it is perfectly natural for her to want to think the best of a man who has always been pleasant and respectful to her, unlike the blatant villain she is supposed to marry.
The second level of intentionality is of Vicki’s usual function in the narrative. Up to this point, every storyline has come to its climax when Vicki found out what was going on. She is still the audience’s main point of view character, and as such she naturally tends towards the center of the action. All of the action lately has been in the vampire story, so we expect her to involve herself deeply in it. In the first weeks, when it was possible that Barnabas, as the second in a parade of supernatural nemeses, would be destroyed and make way for a third as undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins had made way for him, we expected Vicki to be the one who drive the stake into his heart. Now that it is clear he is on the show for the long haul, we are expecting Vicki to become his victim, and presumably to become a vampire herself. As the protagonist, she is actively working to get more deeply involved with Barnabas. She hasn’t yet resorted to “painting a landing strip on her neck,” but she did invite herself to spend the night at Barnabas’ house in #285 and #286, and it wasn’t her fault she left in the morning still having all her blood.
Vicki the unappreciated fiancée wants only a friend who will respect her; Vicki the protagonist wants to be part of the main story. The tension between the incompatible goals of these two aspects of Vicki is expressed in the third level of intentionality, which Alexandra Moltke Isles expresses in the choices that make up her performance. Mrs Isles takes every opportunity to show that Vicki is more strongly drawn to Barnabas than to anyone else, most definitely including Burke. That attraction brings the character back to life. After a few days when she was trying to submit to Burke’s abuse and ignore “the past,” Barnabas asks her to intercede with Burke on his behalf and she comes roaring back, an assertive character who will not give an inch even when Burke makes some good points.
It is the sight of this strong Vicki that introduces a conflict into the audience’s feelings. On the one hand, we don’t want to lose her, and if she does not become a vampire, it’s hard to see a future for her on the show. On the other, it would be a terrible betrayal for Barnabas to repay her trust in him by doing such a thing to her. All the more so because we’ve spent so much time seeing Vicki become close to David, and if she follows the pattern set in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, vampire Vicki will be a threat to all children.
Our sadness at that betrayal would be a deep emotion of exactly the kind soap operas are supposed to create. That so shocking a crime would lead to a more meaningful and more suspenseful story and a richer part for our favorite character would guarantee that we would surprise ourselves by forgiving Barnabas for it and cheering when he and Vicki become a couple. So, I think a savvy audience watching Dark Shadows up to this point would have to expect to see just that story play out.
Strange and troubled boy David is peering into his crystal ball.* David’s cousin Carolyn tells him it is time to go to dinner. He tells her he is looking for his friend, mysterious little girl Sarah. Sarah has been driving the story of Dark Shadows for weeks now, and the ratings keep going up. Not only does she get viewers to tune into their television sets, she even gets Carolyn to start watching the crystal ball.
Hazel Roy is billed as costume designer for this episode. Mrs Roy died in 2010, no doubt still embarrassed by David’s shirt.
Hardworking young fisherman Joe comes to the house. Joe is also looking for Sarah, and asks if David can help find her. He explains that Sarah might know who abducted Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. David says that he knows where Sarah is, but that it is a place he promised he would keep secret. He offers to go himself and bring her back. Joe is all for it, but Carolyn points out that it is after dark, David’s dinner is getting cold, and that his source of information is something he saw in his crystal ball. Joe backs down.
David recognizes the urgency of the situation. He sneaks out of the house and goes to the secret place, the Tomb of the Collinses in the old cemetery north of town. Sarah is indeed there. When David asks if she knows who abducted Maggie Evans, she replies that all she knows is that she has a friend named Maggie.
David takes that at face value. Regular viewers cannot be so sure. We know that Sarah is a ghost, and that she returned to the Earth after her brother, vampire Barnabas Collins, was loosed to prey upon the living. We do not know whether Sarah knows that she is a ghost or that Barnabas is a vampire. Nor do we know what she remembers from one apparition to the next. Clearly she remembers the people she has spent time with, but we can’t be sure if she remembers that Maggie told her that her father’s name was Evans and where she could find him. She might be telling the truth when she denies knowing anything more than Maggie’s first name, or she might be lying to protect Barnabas from exposure.
My wife, Mrs Acilius, compares Sarah to a superhero. Like a superhero, Sarah shows up, does what needs to be done to meet the immediate need, and disappears. You could almost say that she “lives in the moment,” if that were not the opposite of what ghosts do. Maggie needs a friend, Sarah shows up and befriends her. Maggie needs to escape from Barnabas, Sarah arranges her escape. Maggie needs to escape from mad scientist Julia Hoffman, Sarah breaks her out and leads her home. Barnabas needs to be stopped from killing Maggie, Sarah stops him.
Playing catch with David, Sarah throws the ball wide, and he ducks to look for it. When he looks up to complain that she threw it where he can’t find it, she has disappeared. Evidently all that needed to happen was that David had to go to the tomb- she has accomplished that, so she goes back to her rest.
David looks for her in the tomb and in the secret room. As he is about to leave, he hears voices approaching. He must honor Sarah’s secret, so he looks for a hiding place. The only place he can find is the tomb, so he stays inside.
The voices are those of Barnabas and his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie. Willie had seen Sarah through the window of their house** in the opening scene, and Barnabas has decided to come to the tomb where Sarah was buried in hopes that she will appear to him.
David realizes that Barnabas and Willie are coming into the tomb. He hides in the secret room. Little does he know that Barnabas is an expert on this room- he was trapped in a coffin there for a century or two, until Willie accidentally released him in April. That old coffin is still there, and when David hears Barnabas order Willie to open the panel he hides inside it.
We don’t know an in-universe reason why this was what needed to happen. We do know that Barnabas has been so harmless lately that the vampire story is running out of juice, so we can see why the writers would want to create a situation where Barnabas decides he has to kill David. But it is so mysterious what Sarah’s motives are or whether she is the kind of being who has what we could recognize as motives that the episode leaves us in suspense, not only as to how David will get out of danger, but what we will learn about her as a result of the incident.
*The crystal ball was a big deal for a while after dashing action hero Burke Devlin gave it to David in #48. He hasn’t really used it since #82, and Burke has since lost his connection to the plot, been recast with a less interesting actor, and turned into a hopeless schlub. It’s hard to see any way back into the story for Burke, but maybe there is hope that the crystal ball will again be a focus of interest.
**Willie was polishing the chandelier when he turned to the window and saw Sarah. Evidently he had seen her reflection in the crystal. So Sarah is twice detected today through scrying.
Fake Shemp Burke Devlin is starting to suspect that there is something odd about old world gentleman Barnabas Collins. He suspects that Barnabas is not from England as he claims to be. More darkly, he is considering the possibility that Barnabas might be the one who abducted Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, and held her prisoner. As it happens, the audience knows that he is correct in both of these suspicions. We also know more- that Barnabas is a vampire.
Burke has hired investigators to probe into Barnabas’ past. Barnabas told him he lived near London with a cousin named Niall Bradford. Burke’s investigators have found that the last time a man of that name lived in London was 130 years previously. Dark Shadows has been going back and forth for months on whether Barnabas lived in the 1830s or in the eighteenth century. Yesterday they seemed to commit themselves to the earlier date, but now we’re back with the 1830s.
Burke asks Maggie’s doctor, addled quack Dave Woodard, to show him all of her medical records. Woodard protests that medical records are confidential. He then tells Burke everything he knows about Maggie’s case.
Burke calls on Maggie. She is back home, apparently well, but suffering from amnesia covering the entire period of her captivity. Unknown to any of the characters we see today, Maggie’s psychiatrist Julia Hoffman is a mad scientist in league with Barnabas, and she has wiped Maggie’s memory clean of any information that might threaten to expose him. Burke talks with Maggie and her boyfriend, hardworking young fisherman Joe, repeating everything Woodard told him a few minutes before.
Maggie and Joe tell Burke that she has had a few visitors since she came home. Maggie blithely mentions that Barnabas was one of those visitors. Burke is startled to hear this, and Maggie repeats that Barnabas dropped in to pay his respects.
During the fourteen weeks when Dark Shadows was driven by undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, Burke saw extensive evidence of supernatural doings. But he lately he has decided that he lives in the kind of world where the show took place in its first few months, where there might be hints of ghosts in the background, but all the action came from flesh and blood humans subject to the usual laws of nature. Since it doesn’t occur to him that a person might have powers like Julia’s, Maggie’s calmness when talking about a visit from Barnabas seems to prove that Barnabas is innocent.
Burke learns that Barnabas has been to see Maggie.
Maggie does say that there is just one memory she has that seems to be connected with her time in captivity. It is a bit of music- “a light, playful tune. A soft, tinkling sound.” She freely admits that it seems unlikely that this would have any connection with such an experience, and speculates that it may have been something she remembered from childhood.
In the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki is listening to the enchanted music box Barnabas gave her. Burke and Vicki are now engaged to be married. He comes to see her, and remarks on the music box. She accuses him of being jealous of Barnabas, and he keeps coming back to the music box. When she opens it for him, he remarks that it makes “a light, playful tune… a soft, tinkling sound.”
The episode ends with Burke listening to the music box and staring off into space. Barnabas gave the music box first to Maggie, then to Vicki, in each case hoping that she would listen to it until its magical quality caused her to believe that she was his lost love Josette. Seeing the look on Burke’s face as he listened, my wife, Mrs Acilius, said “Maybe Burke will start to think that he’s Josette.” Who knows, maybe he and Barnabas could be very happy together.
When new writers start working on Dark Shadows, they do some inventorying of ongoing and disused storylines. When Ron Sproat came aboard in November of 1966, he contrived a lot of scenes that served to mark storylines as “To be developed” or “To be discarded.” Now Gordon Russell has begun to be credited with scripts. He addresses continuity questions with brief lines of dialogue.
For example, for the last forty weeks the show has been equivocating about when it was that Barnabas Collins lived as a human being. Sometimes they say that he died and became a vampire in the 1830s. That fits with the original idea that Jeremiah Collins built the great house of Collinwood for his bride Josette in that decade, because Barnabas is supposed to have loved Josette and hated Jeremiah. At other times, they have pushed Barnabas, Josette, and Jeremiah back into the eighteenth century.
Now Barnabas has risen from the grave. Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has developed a series of injections to cure him of vampirism and turn him into a real boy. When Julia finds that Barnabas has heard the ghostly voice of his sister, nine year old Sarah, she declares that “The injection can wait!” and wants to talk all about Sarah. When Barnabas tries to avoid the subject, saying that Sarah has been dead for nearly 200 years, Julia replies “So have you.” That would seem to nail down that continuity question.
Julia speculates that Barnabas has subconsciously willed Sarah to return to the living, because she symbolizes the kindly side of his nature. There have been a bunch of possible explanations for why Sarah emerged shortly after Barnabas did; evidently this is the one we will be going with, at least for a while.
Barnabas has been looking through an album of family portraits, Sarah’s among them. He tells Julia that he is particularly intrigued by another portrait in the same volume, that of Jeremiah. He says that Burke Devlin, depressing boyfriend of well-meaning governess Vicki, bears a striking resemblance to Jeremiah. This point was first made in #280, when Burke came to a costume party at Barnabas’ in Jeremiah’s clothing and Barnabas was shocked by the resemblance. Barnabas says that he will be a happy man when Burke is as dead as Jeremiah. This tells us, not only that Barnabas is serious about his hostility to Burke, but also that we can expect some connection between Jeremiah and Burke to be developed.
Julia chases Barnabas around his living room until he hangs his head and mutters a promise not to hurt anyone, not even Burke, as long as there is a chance the injections will work. This helps both to explain why Barnabas has been so harmless lately and to reinforce the Bossy Big Sister/ Bratty Little Brother dynamic that is forming between him and Julia.
Julia goes to the great house. Matriarch Liz is under the impression that Julia is an historian writing a book about the old families of New England, and letting her stay in the mansion on the understanding that she is doing research into the Collinses. Liz asks about Julia’s previous books. Julia evades the question, saying that only scholars have ever heard of them. Liz mentions that she was a recluse for eighteen years, during which time she read so widely that she became aware of many scholarly books. Julia seizes on Liz’ reference to her time as a recluse, and asks a series of questions about it. Observing Julia’s facility at deflecting questions she doesn’t want to answer, Liz says that “If you are as nimble with the written word as you are with the spoken, you must be a very interesting writer.” This conversation not only marks Liz’ period of seclusion as an extinct topic, but also shows that Julia’s cover story is not going to be solid enough to cover her operations indefinitely. Moreover, it gives Joan Bennett a chance to show what Liz sounds like when she is smart.
Vicki meets Burke in the courtyard of the great house. She asks him why he’s late. He says he had a meeting with his lawyer, James Blair (a character we last saw in #95 and last heard mentioned in #133.) The reference to Blair tells regular viewers that Burke’s business interests may have something to do with an upcoming storyline.
Vicki asks what the meeting was about. Burke says it was to do with a message from London, then declares he didn’t come to talk about business. At the end of yesterday’s episode, Burke placed a call to London to initiate an investigation of Barnabas, so we know that he has already received some information about him. We also know that he is keeping the investigation secret from Vicki.
Burke brings up the marriage proposal he made to Vicki when last they saw each other. She says that she doesn’t know enough about him to be comfortable making a decision. In particular, she doesn’t know how he made his money or who his business associates are. In response to that, he launches into a speech dismissing those concerns as matters of “the past,” saying that he wants her to think only about “the future.” Considering that Burke won’t even tell Vicki what business he was conducting twenty minutes ago, “the past” that is off limits to her stretches right up to the present. This tells even first time viewers that Burke is a secretive and untrustworthy man likely to drag a wife into some shady enterprises.
It rings even louder warning bells for regular viewers. At this point in Dark Shadows, “the past” is how the characters refer to the vampire arc, which is the only ongoing storyline. Several times, Burke has angrily demanded Vicki renounce interest in “the past,” by which he means her attempts to stay relevant to the plot. As he has made those demands, he has accused her of being crazy when she told him that she saw and heard phenomena that we also saw and heard, in some cases phenomena that Burke himself is in a position to know are real. On Thursday, Burke enlisted Julia’s support in his effort to gaslight Vicki; in that conversation, Julia asked Burke if, when he said Vicki must “live in the present,” he meant that she must live with him, and he confirmed that he did. So Burke’s evasiveness in this scene shows that he is likely to be an abusive husband who will devote himself to controlling Vicki and stifling her contributions to the story.
The show is making something of an effort to launch a storyline in which Vicki and Burke will get married and move into a long-vacant “house by the sea” that has some kind of association with Barnabas and therefore with the supernatural. So the parade of red flags that Burke sends marching in front of his proposal may tell us to expect a story in which Vicki, the long-suffering wife confined to a haunted house, loses contact with the world of the living.
Perhaps that is where we will see Burke’s connection to Jeremiah. Maybe Burke will be possessed by the spirit of Jeremiah, and under that possession his abuse of Vicki will intensify. It is also possible that Burke will be revealed as a descendant of Jeremiah. On Friday, the story of Burke’s childhood was retconned, introducing the idea that his father left the family when Burke was nine. Perhaps it will turn out that he did this after he found out that Burke was the product of an extramarital dalliance with a Collins. That in turn might revive another paternity question concerning a nine year old boy. For months, the show hinted that Burke, not Liz’ brother Roger, was the father of strange and troubled boy David Collins. If Burke is a Collins bar sinister, then David can be his natural son and still retain his symbolic importance as the last in the male line of the family.
Whatever the nature of Burke’s connection to Jeremiah, Vicki’s eventual flight from him might lead her into the vampire story. Since Barnabas thinks he wants Vicki to be his next victim, he has been solicitous towards her, and she regards him warmly. My wife, Mrs Acilius, points out a sort of visual pun implicit in the prospect of Vicki choosing Barnabas over Burke. As played by Anthony George, Burke is an astonishingly poor kisser. As a vampire, Barnabas gives what might be called “the kiss of death.” A woman might prefer a single kiss of death to a lifetime of the impossibly awkward kisses of George.
Vicki caves in and agrees to marry Burke, even though he won’t answer any of her questions. They go into the drawing room and announce this ominous news to Liz, Barnabas, and Julia. Barnabas responds by looking off into space and exclaiming “Jeremiah!” Again, whatever relationship develops between Burke and Jeremiah, we know that Barnabas is committed to resisting its influence on Vicki.
Barnabas cannot conceal his dismay. He and Julia leave, explaining that they had planned to spend the evening together in town. Liz remarks that Barnabas was happy when he came, and sad when he left. Still, the idea that he and Julia might be going on a date is enough to keep Burke smiling.
In the courtyard, Barnabas tells Julia that he will give her his full cooperation as she tries to cure him of vampirism. He explains he wants to become human again so that he can prevent Vicki from marrying Burke.
This is rather alarming for the viewers. Dark Shadows became a hit when a vampire joined the cast. If the Burke/ Vicki/ Barnabas story is going to be just another daytime soap love triangle among humans, you may as well watch The Guiding Light. The foreboding dun dun DUNN! that ends each episode has rarely seemed more apt than it does coming on the heels of this grim prospect.
Vampire Barnabas Collins has an idea that well-meaning governess Vicki Winters ought to be his next victim. Vicki has given him one opportunity after another to advance this goal, and he has failed to take advantage of any of them. Now Vicki’s depressing boyfriend Burke Devlin has proposed marriage to her, and she is considering it seriously.
As we open today, Barnabas is telling his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie that he plans to kill Burke immediately. Willie talks him out of this plan, explaining the many difficulties of getting away with that particular crime. I was hoping he would bring up one of my favorite fanfic ideas, that Barnabas could bite Burke and enslave him. That would not only allow Barnabas to use Burke’s money and shady connections to establish his identity more securely, but would also give Burke, who after all used to be a very important character, a memorable storyline before he is written out of the show.
Barnabas says that “Devlin is an obstacle” who “must be destroyed.” Burke is indeed an obstacle to narrative development. Even in the first year of Dark Shadows, when Burke was a dashing action hero played by the charismatic Mitch Ryan, none of his storylines really worked. The show gave up on the last of those storylines forty weeks ago, when Burke formally renounced his pursuit of revenge against the Collinses in #201. Since then he’s been altogether surplus to requirements, and when the woefully miscast Anthony George took over the part in #262 he went from dashing action hero to hopeless schlub.
In recent months, Burke has been unpleasantly sullen whenever Vicki tries to connect herself to the vampire story, gaslighting her with angry demands that she deny the existence of supernatural phenomena he himself formerly knew to be real and infantilizing her with assertions that her imagination will run wild if he doesn’t control her. He is a blocking figure in a plot that is already moving too slowly. As an abusive partner to Vicki, who is still our main point of view character, he is quickly earning the audience’s hatred. So Barnabas is mistaken in saying that Burke “must be destroyed”- the character Ryan created has already been destroyed.
Barnabas goes to the Blue Whale tavern, where Burke is buying drinks for two old drunks who are laughing at his jokes. He and Burke sit at a table and have a conversation in which they compare their relationship to a contest. Burke compares it to a card game played for high stakes, Barnabas to a saber duel.
In later years, Jonathan Frid cited this as his favorite scene in all of Dark Shadows. I always like to see The Blue Whale, I like the moment when Barnabas objects that “You make me sound so evil,” and I’m glad Frid had a good time. But George is too bland for the scene to have a real impact. He was a cold actor who could excel when his character was driving the scene and knew more than he was telling. That ability doesn’t help him here. Burke simply reacts to Barnabas with bewilderment, and George had no real flair for reacting to his scene-mates.
The old drunks leave, and Bob the bartender starts setting chairs up on tables. Burke observes that it’s closing time. Barnabas goes, but Burke stays behind. Apparently he lives in the tavern now. He picks up the pay phone and asks for the international operator. He wants to talk to an agent of his in London. He is going to check on Barnabas’ “cousin from England” story.
Dark Shadows Commentary 