Tag: chiasmus

Episode 290: The work itself

It’s chiasmus week on Dark Shadows. Chiasmus is when the last thing that happens in a story resembles the first thing that happened. Usually that causes the audience to look back on that first thing in a new light. Sometimes chiasmus gets very detailed, and the first several things are mirrored by the last several things.

On Wednesday, we began with well-meaning governess Vicki asleep in vampire Barnabas Collins’ house on the estate of Collinwood. Barnabas crept into her bedroom and stood over her, but did not bite. Then it was morning, and Barnabas’ sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie delayed Vicki as she was leaving the house. Vicki took our point of view with her to the great house on the estate, where we started to see events through the eyes of visiting mad scientist Julia Hoffman. That episode ended with Julia going to Barnabas’ house. Willie delayed Julia entering the house, and Barnabas and Julia met. Their scene was tense, but Barnabas did not use any of his powers against Julia. That chiasmus marked the transition from Vicki to Julia as the audience’s main character to identify with.

On Thursday, we began with Barnabas spying on Vicki through her window, then entering her bedroom and standing over her while she slept. He again left the room without harming her. We ended with Julia spying on Barnabas through his window, then entering his house, opening his coffin, and looking at him. The parallel is completed when we see today that she left the coffin room without harming Barnabas. That chiasmus showed that Julia is capable of turning the tables on Barnabas.

Today’s episode begins with a reprise of yesterday’s cliffhanger, showing Julia gasping when she opens the coffin. So returning viewers suspect that it is likely to end with Barnabas in Julia’s room, and the suspense comes as we try to figure out how he will get there and how she will escape his malign power.

We see Julia in the drawing room of the great house talking to her friend, addled quack Dave Woodard. Dr Woodard says that her failure to report to him on the progress she has made with their common patient, Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, coupled with her presence at Collinwood, a hundred miles from the hospital where Maggie is, has forced him to remove Maggie from her care. Julia lies to him, claiming that she has no progress to report and that the whole thing is impossibly boring. This somehow convinces Dr Woodard to leave Julia on the case.

Julia is at Collinwood pretending to be an historian studying the old families of New England, and Vicki has volunteered to help her in her research. Now Vicki is terribly afraid that if she gets involved in what Julia is doing, she will become involved in things that are too interesting for her to handle, and she wants to withdraw before she forever loses contact with tedium and drabness.

Barnabas tells Vicki that she has nothing to fear from “the past,” which at this point on Dark Shadows means the plot. While he is reassuring her, the set catches fire. We hear fire extinguishers and other noises in the background, but Jonathan Frid and Alexandra Moltke Isles don’t break character for an instant. The scene is a dreary one, marking as it does the doom of Vicki as a major part of the show, and the lines are poorly written, but they are absolutely committed to their work.

Barnabas does not believe Julia’s cover story, and is quite sure she represents a threat to him. He meets with her in the drawing room to reiterate his refusal to cooperate with her project. When Julia says that she is particularly interested in his “namesake”- actually himself- Barnabas airily asserts that he was by all accounts a dull fellow. Julia may have been able to sell that line to Dr Woodard on this same set a few minutes ago, but Barnabas doesn’t make any impression on Julia with it. The two of them continue to argue as they pass from the drawing room through the foyer. The dialogue isn’t really any better than what Barnabas and Vicki had in the previous scene, but because Frid and Grayson Hall have a lively relationship to depict- two people who each of whom knows more about the other than they are willing to say, and each of whom knows that the other knows much of what they are holding back- they make their whole sparring match seem to glisten with wit and style.

Barnabas agrees to meet Julia at his house the next evening. After he leaves, Julia tells his portrait that she can’t wait that long for their next encounter, and she knows he can’t, either.

We cut to Julia in her bedroom. Vicki pays a visit, during which we hear another depressing conversation about Vicki’s newfound fear of narrative relevance. Julia assures her that “There is nothing for you to fear.” After Vicki leaves, Julia looks at her clock and sees it is a quarter to one in the morning. We dissolve to the foyer, where the hall clock reads 2:00. Barnabas appears in Julia’s bedroom and approaches the bed, where he prepares to uncover Julia. We then hear Julia greeting Barnabas by name. She emerges from the shadows on the other end of the room, and tells Barnabas she has been waiting for him a long, long time.

Julia greets her long-awaited visitor. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Episode 289: Hold back the dawn

A storm is keeping everyone awake at the great house of Collinwood. Well-meaning governess Vicki is having a particularly hard time falling asleep, since she has the feeling someone is staring at her. When heiress Carolyn comes into Vicki’s room, Vicki points out the window and asks Carolyn if she sees a figure standing behind a tree. Carolyn doesn’t know what Vicki is talking about. We cut to the yard, but we see a figure crouching in the bushes, not standing by a tree.

Peeping Drac. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The crouching figure is vampire Barnabas Collins, and he looks ridiculous. Barnabas has been meaning to bite Vicki for weeks now, and keeps getting sidetracked. Earlier this week she even invited herself to spend the night in his house, and come morning she still had all her blood.

After Carolyn leaves the room, Vicki goes to bed. Barnabas finally materializes and approaches her bedside, but again can’t bring himself to go through with the bite. Instead, he opens the music box he gave her and disappears. The music awakens her.

Carolyn comes back in and tells Vicki the power is out. Vicki says she doesn’t understand how the music box could have been opened while she slept, and says she had a feeling that something dangerous had been in her room. Barnabas’ pusillanimity makes him dangerous indeed to Vicki- if she doesn’t get a place in the vampire story soon, Vicki will be at risk of becoming irrelevant to the show.

Vicki and Carolyn go downstairs and find Julia Hoffman awake and reading some old books. Julia is a mad scientist who has learned that Barnabas is a vampire and has come to study him, but she has told the family that she is an historian working on a book about the old families of New England.

Julia questions Vicki about Barnabas. She had learned about Barnabas in her capacity as a doctor treating his previous victim, Maggie Evans, and Vicki’s answers explain what Maggie meant when she remembered that she heard “a tinkling melody” and smelled a “sweet fragrance” during her captivity. As Julia continues to probe, Vicki becomes upset and hastens back to her room. Vicki has been Julia’s main advocate in Collinwood, as she was the main advocate for Dark Shadows‘ first character derived from Professor Van Helsing, Dr Peter Guthrie, who helped in the fight against undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins last spring. Julia’s unbothered reaction to her angry departure suggests that she isn’t planning to take Vicki into her confidence and doesn’t think she needs her help.

Julia and Carolyn chat for a moment, then go back to bed when the power comes back on. John Scoleri has a fine summary of this part of the episode: “So in Collinwood they drink coffee when they can’t sleep, get up when the power is off, and go back to bed once it comes back on. Maybe they’re all vampires…”

At home in the Old House on the estate, Barnabas is staring out the window feeling sorry for himself. Julia sneaks up near the window. She listens to him talk to his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie.

Barnabas tells Willie to go to Portland, Maine to buy some necessities and to come back as soon as possible so that he can keep Julia away from the house. He says he is worried about who Julia really is and what she wants. He tells Willie that the sun is about to rise, so he might as well leave right away while Barnabas goes to the basement.

Once the front parlor is clear, Julia opens the window, a process we see from the inside. Just three weeks ago, we saw seagoing con man Jason McGuire enter through the same window. Jason would fight Willie, go to the basement, find Barnabas in his coffin, and be killed.

Julia has made sure Willie is gone, but she does go to the basement. Like Jason, she finds Barnabas’ coffin, opens it, and sees him inside. We see her reaction. For the first time, there is a trace of fear on her face.

Julia sees it. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Julia is now the first person to learn that Barnabas is a vampire otherwise than by becoming his victim. As the episode began with Barnabas spying on Vicki through her window, then entering her room while she was unconscious and looking at her, so it ends with Julia spying on Barnabas through his window, then entering his inner sanctum while he is unconscious and looking at him. This chiasmus suggests that Julia is capable of turning the tables on Barnabas. It remains to be seen whether the parallel will be complete, and she will choose to leave him be as Barnabas left Vicki be, or she will try to do something against him.

Episode 287: Entering the past

In the first year of Dark Shadows, every major storyline came to its climax after well-meaning governess Vicki found out what was going on. Now, the only ongoing storyline is centered on vampire Barnabas Collins. If Vicki finds out Barnabas is a vampire, she will lead an effort to destroy him, as she led an effort against Dark Shadows’ previous undead menace, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. Barnabas is a hit, bringing far and away the biggest ratings Dark Shadows has had. So we are in suspense as we wonder how Vicki will find out about Barnabas, and in another kind of suspense as we wonder how they will manage to keep him on the show after she does.

As we open today, we see an intriguing possibility. Vicki is staying over at Barnabas’ house, sleeping in the bedroom of his lost love Josette. Barnabas is standing over her, about to bite. If he does, perhaps he will turn her into a vampire. Then we might find out what kind of vampire Vicki could be. Perhaps she would be like Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, who became the “Bloofer Lady” and preyed on the small children of the East End of London. Since Vicki’s whole thing has been her role as protector of strange and troubled boy David Collins, it would be a heartbreaking reversal to see her become a threat to David. And perhaps she might emerge as a rival to Barnabas. He is a lackadaisical vampire, who was on the show for 13 weeks before he got round to killing anyone and even then it wasn’t a premeditated murder. Maybe Vampire Vicki will be the killing machine who shows Barnabas how it’s done.

But Barnabas wimps out. He keeps looking at Josette’s portrait, and slinks out of the room without biting Vicki. If they go on like this much longer, we will stop wondering how and when Vicki will be incorporated into the vampire story and start wondering why she is still on the show.

Vicki is bustling out the front door of Barnabas’ house when his sorely bedraggled blood thrall, Willie, offers to make breakfast for her. He keeps asking her if she sensed anything wrong while she was sleeping, and holds onto the topic until she remembers the dangerously unstable ruffian he was before Barnabas got hold of him. She sternly asks if he slipped into the room while she was sleeping, and he denies it.

Back at the great house, mad scientist Julia Hoffman, pretending to be an historian studying the early history of the ancient and esteemed Collins family, is trying to convince matriarch Liz to cooperate with her project. Liz is too worried about Vicki to pay Julia much attention. Vicki had left for Barnabas’ house after everyone in the great house was asleep, planning to be back before they awoke, but because she felt such profound peace in Josette’s room she overslept. Vicki comes in and explains the situation. Liz seems like she is about to weep for joy, and talks about how wonderful it is that Vicki was with Barnabas. Julia has figured out the truth about Barnabas, and reacts to Liz and Vicki’s swoony attitude towards him with alarm. This is one of the first times someone other than Vicki has served as the audience’s representative while Vicki is on screen.

Julia does not share Liz’ conviction that Barnabas is the best host a girl could hope for
Julia takes a look at Vicki’s complexion and her neck

Vicki backs Julia’s efforts to win Liz over. When Julia says that she is sure she will uncover important information if Liz and “Mr Collins” help her, Liz replies that her brother Roger is even less interested in the past than she is.

Julia explains that she was referring to Barnabas, but the mention of Roger reinforces the concern Barnabas’ failure to bite Vicki raised. When Dark Shadows started, Roger was its principal villain. That all ended, and he hasn’t had a storyline in months. Louis Edmonds was such a talented actor and such a funny person that the whole cast is loose and zestful in episodes that do include Roger, but in terms of the plot he is surplus equipment. Now that Barnabas is driving the story, “interested in the past” is synonymous with “relevant to the plot,” so that when Liz says that neither she nor Roger is interested in the past, she is saying neither of them is likely to make anything happen.

The biggest draw for the first episode of Dark Shadows was that onetime major movie star Joan Bennett was in the cast, but none of Liz’ storylines really clicked, and now all she does is spend a scene or two objecting to plot developments that we all know she won’t be able to prevent. If those two characters could end up on the junk-heap, there is no reason why the same might not happen to Vicki.

Indeed, Julia’s project suggests that Vicki may be heading for the fringes of the story. The last time a researcher was at Collinwood under false pretenses was during the Laura story. As the leader of the good guys, Vicki had advised parapsychologist Dr Peter Guthrie to keep his specialty a secret from Roger and others to reduce the danger that Laura would catch on to what they were doing. Now, Vicki is one of the people from whom the secret is being kept.

After Liz caves in and tells Vicki that, as a favor to her, she will allow Julia to proceed, Julia goes to Barnabas’ house. This gives us a bit of chiasmus. As the episode began with a scene involving Vicki and Barnabas followed by a scene in which Willie delays Vicki’s departure from the house, so it will end with a scene in which Willie delays Julia’s entry into the house followed by a scene between Barnabas and Julia. That structural device is another hint that Julia will be occupying a space where we had expected to find Vicki.

Julia keeps interrupting Willie’s demands that she leave the house with questions that he can’t resist answering. She is impressed that the restoration of the house is so consistently faithful to the period, and asks if Barnabas referred to pictures when they were doing the work. Willie answers with a flat no. She asks how he managed to create something so convincing that it looks like the work was supervised by someone who saw the house when it was originally in that condition in a previous century, and Willie says that he did have pictures. She asks him why he lied to her, and he is tongue-tied. She asks if Barnabas is such a difficult man to work for that he feels he has no choice but to lie, and Willie panics all the more.

Willie is still trying to get out of the trap when Barnabas appears. As usual when he has to talk to a visitor whom Willie has failed to scare off, Barnabas apologizes for Willie’s unfriendliness. He is his usual gracious “cousin from England” self at first, but very bluntly refuses to cooperate with Julia’s efforts. She prods him, and he becomes rather crude. Her amused response to his arrogant remarks leaves him uneasy, knowing that she has made him look foolish and limited the options available to him in future encounters.