Vampire Barnabas Collins and mad scientist Julia Hoffman have come unstuck in time and found themselves 25 years in the future, in the year 1995. The great house of Collinwood is in ruins. They are trying to find someone who can tell them what happened after they left in 1970.
They meet Carolyn Collins Stoddard Hawkes, who has changed her name to Carolyn Fredericks. Carolyn now lives in an old shack on the beach. She is offended that Julia and Barnabas look the same as they did in 1970. She refuses to answer any of their questions and orders them to leave her house.
During the day, Barnabas takes shelter in his coffin in the secret chamber hidden in the old Collins family mausoleum. Julia leaves the mausoleum and finds Carolyn waiting outside. Carolyn warns her that she and Barnabas must leave the area. Julia goes on her way, and occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes comes out of the shadows and talks with Carolyn. Carolyn had seemed to be drifting in and out of lucidity while talking to Julia, but she is crystal clear while she and Stokes discuss the need to get rid of the new arrivals.
Julia goes to the county building and tries to get the clerk to answer questions about what happened in 1970. He is frightened by the mention of the date and claims that there are no records of any kind from that year. She finds Stokes in the corridor outside the clerk’s office. She greets him joyously. He tells her to go away, lest he and others be “forced to act.”
After nightfall, Julia and Barnabas decide to visit a man named Victor Flagler, whose name the clerk had mentioned. As Barnabas and Julia leave the mausoleum, Stokes and the clerk watch them go and speculate as to their destination. Evidently the secret chamber is no longer secret at all.
Victor is in his 30s; he has a framed picture of his wife Jeanne that appears to have been taken during the Coolidge administration. Some fans complain that everyone in the 1995 segment dresses in clothes that might have been found at Ohrbach’s in 1970, but I don’t think that’s a problem. The Collinses of Collinwood had a stranglehold on the economy of the village of Collinsport in the 1960s, and if they were annihilated in 1970 and their assets left to rot it stands to reason people in the area would still be wearing the clothes they bought then. But the antique style of this photograph really does take me out of the show:
Victor initially resists having anything to do with Julia and Barnabas, but finally tells his story. He and Jeanne went into Collinwood on a dare, believing it to be just a big empty house. They felt an evil presence there, and something pushed a heavy object from the top of the foyer stairs onto Jeanne’s head, killing her. When Victor found that Jeanne was dead, he heard laughter resounding through the house.
Barnabas and Julia go back to the mausoleum, only to find that the door to the secret chamber is standing wide open. They wonder who knows about it.
The clerk’s name is Ed. He is played by Ronald Dawson, who also appeared in #910 as art restorer Henry Osmund. This is Ed’s only episode, and Dawson’s final appearance. It is also Victor’s only episode, and Cliff Cudney’s final appearance. Cudney played a zombie in #963, 964, and 965. Both Dawson and Cudney have much better chances today to show us what they could do than those earlier parts afforded them. Indeed, all the actors are on top form. All roles played by Nancy Barrett are serious contenders for the title Best Character Ever, and in her scene with Barnabas and Julia in the little house on the beach, we can see that Carolyn Fredericks will be no exception.
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