dark shadows every day – Page 5 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 750: Hold back the night

Magda at Jenny’s grave. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The name “Magda” was first mentioned on Dark Shadows in #642, broadcast and set in December 1968. At that time, the residents of the great house of Collinwood had noticed unaccountable goings-on, and as they often do they held a séance to appeal to the spirits of the dead for guidance. The spirit they reached in that one identified herself as Magda. She repeated two things- “My curse!” and “He must not return!” Magda said enough to suggest that she had cursed someone and regretted doing so, and that she knew that the Collinses were threatened by the return of someone from her own period, but that was all. Since the Collinses of 1968 had never heard of anyone associated with their house named Magda and could find no record of such a person, those suggestions remained vague and useless to them.

They meant a good deal more to regular viewers. We already knew that the malign ghost of Quentin Collins had appeared in a room in the long-deserted west wing of the great house, that children David Collins and Amy Jennings were falling under the ghost’s influence, and that Quentin lived at Collinwood near the end of the nineteenth century. We therefore assume that Quentin is the one who “must not return!,” and that Magda, whoever she was, must have known Quentin and therefore also have lived sometime in the 1890s.

Among the participants in the séance was Amy’s older brother, mysterious drifter Chris Jennings. Chris broke the séance off before Magda could go into enough detail to help the others. The show had long since established that the person who ends a séance prematurely is the one who harbors a dreadful secret that the voice from beyond might uncover. Even the characters have caught on to this pattern; they treat Chris with suspicion. They do not know what we do, that Chris is a werewolf. So he is indeed under a curse, and we can take it that his curse originated when Magda placed it on one of his ancestors.

Over the next few months, Quentin’s power steadily grew, and at the same time Chris’ periods in his animal form grew longer and more frequent. These two developments moved in such close tandem that we had to suspect that there was some causal relationship between them. This suspicion was reinforced when, in #683, another ghost associated with Quentin, that of a tall, thin, blonde woman named Beth, led Chris to what proved to be the unmarked grave of an infant. That infant was wearing an amulet meant to ward off werewolves. The records of the silversmith who made the amulet showed that it was commissioned and paid for in 1897 by Quentin Collins and Beth Chavez. Thus we learned that a werewolf was active in the area of Collinwood when Beth and Quentin were alive, and that they cared about a baby who died at that time. The logical inference would be that the curse under which Chris labors originated at that time, that Beth and Quentin had something to do with it, and that the baby was related to someone who became one of Chris’ ancestors.

Now, the show has become a costume drama set in 1897. Quentin and Beth are alive. Beth is a maidservant who first came to Collinwood in the train of Quentin’s estranged wife, Jenny. Quentin left Jenny and was banished from the house the previous year; word was put about that Jenny responded to the desertion by going away and leaving no forwarding address. When Quentin returned to Collinwood in #701, he was surprised to find Beth still on staff, and he set to work trying to seduce her.

In #720, Quentin discovered that Jenny had not in fact gone so far away as he and everyone else had been led to believe. She turned up and stabbed him. He then learned that Jenny had become violently insane when he left her and that his sister Judith and brother Edward had responded to her illness by locking her up in a room hidden inside the great house. They kept Beth in their employ because she was the one entrusted to care for Jenny.

Now, Beth has given in to Quentin’s charms. The other night Jenny was hiding in Beth’s room while Beth and Quentin shared a tender moment, and she reacted by coming at them with a knife. Quentin disarmed Jenny, restrained her, and then put his hands around her throat. While Beth pleaded with him to stop, he choked Jenny to death. He keeps protesting that, because Jenny at one point had a knife, this was an act of self defense, but the audience and Beth both saw what happened, and she won’t agree with him any more than we will.

Edward and Judith have decided to shield Quentin from the legal consequences of his actions, and in the village of Collinsport the will of the Collinses supersedes the laws of the state of Maine. But Quentin finds no comfort in his immunity from criminal prosecution. Just hours before he murdered Jenny, Quentin discovered that he knew nothing about her origins. He thought she was some kind of Anglo, but she was passing. She was actually a Romani woman. Her sister is one of the neighbors, broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi.

In Wednesday’s episode, Edward convinced Magda the police and courts would do nothing to punish Quentin, and so Magda threatened to place a curse on him to avenge Jenny’s death. Edward, a rational-minded modern man, dismissed Magda’s threat as “words.” But Beth and Quentin know things about the universe they occupy that Edward does not know. When Beth heard Magda’s threat, she looked wide-eyed at Quentin, walked backwards away from him, and ran off. Quentin, who is obsessed with the occult, was immediately terrified, and has been dissolving into a puddle ever since.

Yesterday, Quentin fell into a trap Magda set for him and brought a curse upon himself. Today, Magda stands with her husband Sandor by Jenny’s grave, watches the full Moon rise, and recites an incantation specifying that Quentin’s male descendants will suffer from the same curse he does. So far as Magda knows, Quentin does not yet have any descendants, male or female, and so that proviso is just an abstraction for her.

We know more than Magda does. Not only have returning viewers heard her spirit say that she regrets the curse and been led to the conclusion that it fell on Chris Jennings, but even those who are watching the show for the first time today know that Quentin and Jenny are the parents of twin infants whom Judith is paying a Mrs Fillmore to raise in her home in the village of Collinsport. Mrs Fillmore’s name was first mentioned in #707, and it comes up today when Judith is firing Beth.

Judith explains to Beth that, since Jenny is no longer around, she no longer has any work to do at Collinwood. She indicates her dissatisfaction with Beth, and says that it is only through Edward’s influence that she included a severance payment with her letter of dismissal. Beth mentions her task of taking money to Mrs Fillmore to pay her for taking care of Jenny and Quentin’s children; Judith does not see a need to retain an employee simply to carry an envelope full of cash to the village every now and then.

Beth objects that Judith is terminating her employment because she has become involved with Quentin; Judith takes that as an opportunity to castigate her for the impropriety of that relationship. Joan Bennett plays Judith’s reaction to Beth quite effectively; in a comment on Danny Horn’s post about the episode at Dark Shadows Every Day, “Rev Velveteen” writes:

I wanted to mention a Judith Collins, er, Joan Bennett acting moment I found particularly entertaining here. When she’s giving Beth the boot and the servant attempts to “innocently” inquire as to why she’s being let go, Judith turns around and gives her SUCH a look! Huge eyes, a stifled gasp, then bright pursed lips…Her expression goes from incredulous (Are you freaking KIDDING me?) to amused (Just how stupid does she think we are?) to triumphantly satisfied (Fine, we shall just both play out this little charade and I’ll soon be rid of you.) Her chin goes up as she turns away snarkily-“Let’s just say that now Jenny’s gone, your services are no longer needed,” which everyone on and off screen knows is a total lie. It’s such a sweet piece of work by Ms. Bennett, I need to keep an eye out to see if she repeats that expression because it just sums up the whole character of any Collins she plays when as the perpetual straight man, she’s faced with yet another absurd situation. And is also just stunning in that gorgeous green dress.

Comment left by “Rev Velveteen” at 12:43 am Pacific time, 25 June 2020, on Danny Horn, “Episode 750: Gypsy Ascendant,” 18 October 2015, Dark Shadows Every Day

Yesterday, Judith gave the penniless Quentin $10,000 on condition that he leave Collinwood forever and induce Sandor and Magda to do the same. Quentin had hoped to use the money to bribe them into forgoing Jenny’s vengeance, but they only pretended to take it to lure him into bringing the curse on himself. Magda contemptuously threw the cash at him after he did so.

Quentin has told Judith that Magda took the money and agreed to go. Today, Magda comes to the house to ask for Jenny’s things. Judith starts in with lecture about how she must go at once, since she and Sandor have been paid so well to leave, and Magda reveals that she did not take the money. Enraged at Quentin’s childish lie, Judith demands he return the $10,000. He tells her to sue him, and stalks off. Judith fumes, knowing that she has been cheated and that she cannot assert her rights without creating the public scandal that she fears above all else.

Quentin finds Beth packing Jenny’s things. He tells her he has to leave tonight, and announces that she will be coming with him. She responds in a mild tone that she doesn’t seem to have any say in the matter. She tells Quentin that she has lost her job, and says that she will give him her decision in the afternoon.

Sandor comes for Jenny’s things. Quentin offers him the $10,000 all for himself if he can lift the curse. He says he doesn’t know how. Quentin says he will give it all to him if only he will tell him what form the curse will take. Sandor shakes his head at Quentin’s desperation and says that knowing that would be of no benefit to him.

As night falls, Quentin goes to Beth’s room. She agrees to go with him, but insists on running a personal errand first. Even though she just told him that they have to be honest with each other, she will not tell him what it is. She is still honoring Judith and Edward’s decree that Quentin must not know that Jenny gave birth to his twin children after he left her, and that they are in Mrs Fillmore’s care.

Quentin keeps saying there is no time left to do anything but run. We might wonder why he didn’t stop by Beth’s room earlier. She is on her way out the door when Quentin cries out and collapses in severe pain. Regular viewers recognize Quentin’s pains as the same Chris had when he turned into a werewolf. When we see the rising moon and hear the baying of the hounds, we know who Chris’ forebears are, and why Magda came to regret her curse.

Episode 744: Sometimes he makes himself invisible

The House by the Sea

In September and October 1967, well-meaning governess Vicki and her depressing boyfriend Burke wanted to buy a long-disused property that everyone referred to as “The House by the Sea.” Collinsport is a coastal village, so many of its houses would lie by the sea, but at that point only that one was so designated on Dark Shadows. It was important that The House by the Sea lay on the other side of Collinsport from the great estate of Collinwood. When it was first introduced, matriarch Liz was eager to go there, signaling that the show was done with an old and unproductive theme presenting Liz as a recluse. And Burke was willing to live there with Vicki, whom he is determined to get away from Collinwood and the Collins family.

The house belonged to the Collinses, and the show suggested that it might be haunted in such a way that if Burke and Vicki lived there they would become possessed by the unquiet spirits of its former occupants, Caleb Collins and his wife, whom we know only by the initials “F. McA. C.” When Liz found in #335 that for legal reasons she would not be able to sell Vicki and Burke the house for a few years, the whole story vanished without a trace. We did not hear the phrase “The House by the Sea” again until #679, in January 1969.

At that point, the show was in fact running a story about ghosts taking possession of the living, a coincidence that leads me to wonder if the writers were making an inside joke about a story that was in the flimsies early in 1967, that was reflected in the talk about “The House by the Sea” that autumn, and that went nowhere. At the beginning of January 1969, strange and troubled boy David Collins was intermittently possessed by the ghost of his Aunt Liz’ great-uncle Quentin, and when Liz questioned him about some of his odd doings he made up a story about The House by the Sea to persuade her that he was just being silly.

In between those two stories, we did hear a great deal about another place called “A House by the Sea.” From #549 in August 1968 until #633/634 in November, this house was rented by suave warlock Nicholas Blair. At first it was said to be located at some distance from Collinwood, and it seemed that it might be the house Burke and Vicki had been interested in. But as we saw it, we could see that it was in quite a different architectural style. And as time went on, the house moved closer and closer to Collinwood. After a while, the opening narrations referred to it as “Another house on the same great estate.” That did not stop Big Finish Productions from conflating Vicki and Burke’s “The House by the Sea” with Nicholas’ “A House by the Sea” in their 2012 drama The House by the Sea, but the houses remained distinguishable on the show as of early 1969.

Now, Dark Shadows has become a costume drama set in the year 1897. Well-meaning time-traveler/ bloodsucking fiend Barnabas Collins has gone to that year, when Quentin was a living being, in hopes of preventing the events that made him into the all-destroying evil spirit of 1969. Barnabas does not have the slightest idea what those events were, and in the absence of that information he has decided that the best course of action is to antagonize as many people as possible.

Among the enemies Barnabas has made is the evil Rev’d Gregory Trask, head of a boarding school/ abusive cult called Worthington Hall. Another of Barnabas’ new enemies has, for reasons of her own, burned Worthington Hall to the ground. Trask has captivated the current mistress of Collinwood, spinster Judith Collins, and in #739 Judith offered Trask the use of a “small house on the estate” as a temporary base for the school until she can finance the restoration of the previous site. Today, Judith instructs a servant to take steps to prepare “the house by the sea” for this purpose.

Perhaps this means that Trask’s cruelty center will occupy the house Burke and Vicki wanted to buy. That Judith said it was “on the estate” would suggest that it is the one where Nicholas lived, and they have decided that so few people remember the dead-end storyline of autumn 1967 that they no longer need to keep the two houses distinct by calling only one of them “The House by the Sea.”

No More Knife

While Quentin was haunting Collinwood in late 1968 and early 1969, he showed himself to be a peculiarly corporeal sort of ghost. In addition to the usual ghostly business of materializing and dematerializing inside closed rooms, possessing children, and making noises resound from everywhere and nowhere all at once, he also poisoned one person, choked another, and came and went through a secret passage. Occasionally this served to show that Quentin’s power started small and grew steadily until he was irresistible, but it also left the impression that Quentin simply enjoyed feeling like he had a body. Now that we see Quentin as a living being, the impression that he revels in the flesh is frequently confirmed.

Quentin’s estranged wife Jenny has gone mad and is being kept prisoner in the great house by Quentin’s sister Judith and brother Edward, with the assistance of a couple of the servants. Quentin learned of Jenny’s continued presence at Collinwood only when she escaped and stabbed him a few weeks ago, and he still can’t figure out where in the house she is locked up. He has vowed to kill her once he does find her.

Jenny is on the loose again today. Judith has a close call in the drawing room. She finds Jenny there. Jenny menaces Judith with a knife; just as she gets Judith into a helpless position and it looks like she is about to stab her to death, Jenny picks up a candlestick and knocks Judith unconscious. Shortly after, Quentin comes in and finds Judith recovering from the blow. Judith tells him what happened. He gets a gun and goes out to hunt Jenny down.

Jenny makes her way to the Old House on the estate. She knocks on the door, and Barnabas answers. They introduce themselves to each other. His name means nothing to her; he arrived only nine weeks ago, long after she lost her marbles and was consigned to a hidden cell. No one has told her that Judith invited a distant cousin from England to stay in the Old House. But Barnabas knows exactly who Jenny is, and he listens to her every word and watches her every move with vivid interest.

Jenny announces that she has come to find Quentin. Barnabas says that Quentin is not there, and invites Jenny to search the house. As she walks through the front parlor, Jenny announces that “Sometimes he makes himself invisible.” That line will strike a chord with regular viewers who remember the ghostly Quentin of the 1960s, though Jenny is apparently thinking of a psychotic break she had earlier in the episode when she hallucinated his voice coming from various pieces of furniture in the drawing room. Nonetheless, Jenny is confident that she will know if Quentin is nearby.

Jenny talks about her “children”; Barnabas visited one of her former cells, and saw that there were dolls there. He asks twice if the children she is talking about are dolls, and each time she angrily insists that she has real live children and that they are in her room at Collinwood. She sings a lullaby in a minor key; she forgets the lyrics halfway through, and asks Barnabas if he knows them. She has a lovely voice, and he seems to be sincere when he says he is sorry that he cannot help her finish the song.

As Jenny talks about her children, it dawns on Barnabas that she may in fact have had children who were taken from her. His reaction to this is an important moment. In 1969, Barnabas learned that in 1897 a baby died and was buried in an unmarked grave on the grounds of Collinwood with an amulet meant to ward off werewolves. So far in his trip back to that year, he has found no babies and there is no werewolf. His response to Jenny’s talk of her children looks like a man making a wild surmise. If the baby in the unmarked grave was one of Jenny’s children, the werewolf must be coming very soon.

Jenny is sitting on the staircase for part of this conversation with Barnabas. Ever since Barnabas first met David in #212, he has had his most human moments while standing on the floor and talking to people on that staircase, and his talk with Jenny is an outstanding example. He talks to her very gently. Perhaps he has the presence of mind to try to befriend someone who might be useful to him, but whatever he is thinking he shows a real warmth.

Jenny tries to stab Barnabas; he takes the knife from her. She cowers in a heap on the floor, wailing that now he will kill her. He throws the knife in the fire and tells her she has nothing to fear. Of course, a metal blade could not harm a vampire, so it was easy enough for Barnabas to remain unruffled during the attack.

Barnabas vetoes Jenny’s demand to search the basement, where his coffin is, and takes her upstairs to a bedroom once occupied by his lost love Josette. In 1967, he restored that bedroom to the condition it was in when Josette lived there, and for some reason he has done the same this time. By the time they get to Josette’s room, Jenny thinks that she and Quentin are on their honeymoon and that Barnabas is a bellhop. She apologizes that she has no money to give him as a tip.

Jenny looks into the mirror and is revolted by the terrible person she sees there. Barnabas points to an assortment of lady’s toiletries and assures her that the terrible person will go away if she uses them. He locks her in the room and calls for his servant Magda.

Jenny is so crazy we can never be sure what she will make of any set of facts she encounters, and Barnabas is, for once, keeping his thoughts to himself throughout his scene with her. But however much ambiguity may be built into Barnabas and Jenny’s interactions with each other, there is no question what Marie Wallace and Jonathan Frid are doing. She is supposed to play Jenny without restraint, and she makes the most of that opportunity to be larger-than-life. He also seizes his chance to show what he can do when he has time to really learn his part. He is not only letter-perfect with his lines, but also subtle and precise in his characterization of Barnabas’ reactions and intentions. It is a fascinating performance.

Jenny hears Barnabas calling Magda’s name. She not only repeats it, but also says the name of Magda’s husband Sandor. Magda and Sandor have been in the Old House for quite some time, well before Barnabas showed up and forced them into his service, so it is no surprise that Jenny remembers them. It is interesting that she seems to have strong feelings about them, though. Before she left the great house, Jenny was talking to herself, saying that her father was “a king in India.” Sandor and Magda are Romani, and the Romani people originated in India. Their ethnicity may be what brought that part of the world to Jenny’s mind.

Magda and Sandor are out. The sun is rising. Barnabas leaves a note for Magda, and goes to his coffin for the day. Quentin enters, brandishing his pistol. He finds the note and a key, and goes upstairs. We close with him standing outside Josette’s room. He and Jenny talk to each other through the locked door. He tells her that he is coming to her and that they will never be separated again.

In a comment about Danny Horn’s post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, David Pierce makes an interesting observation:

My favorite line was from Quentin to Judith when he wants to know how Jenny escaped: “What, did she leave by fasting and prayer?” He was misquoting Jesus from the New Testament, Matthew Chapter 17, verse 21 “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”
David Pierce, comment left at 12:01 PM Pacific time 13 January 2021 on Danny Horn, “Episode 744: Crazy Little Thing,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 9 October 2015

Quentin does paraphrase the Bible quite often, a habit which, combined with his penchant for Satanist ceremonial practice and his gleeful libertinism, suggests that he won’t pass up any potential source of delights.

Episode 742: Barnabas, Quentin, and the advantage of being seen together

We open in the cottage on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood, where the rakish Quentin Collins has triumphantly confronted his sister-in-law and sometime lover, Laura Murdoch Collins, with a telegram from the authorities in Alexandria, Egypt, declaring that she died in that city the year before. Laura points out that the fact that she is standing in front of him and breathing would tend to limit the credence such a document might be expected to command. Quentin hadn’t thought of that. He looks puzzled for a moment, then says that even if no one else is convinced, he is now sure that she is dead.

Laura, unable to believe that Quentin really is this stupid. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Viewers who have been with Dark Shadows from the beginning will particularly enjoy this exchange. Another iteration of Laura, also played by Diana Millay, was on the show from December 1966 to March 1967, when the dramatic date was contemporary with the broadcast date. In those days, the authorities in Phoenix, Arizona, kept sending messages to the residents of the great estate of Collinwood concerning their reasons for believing that Laura was dead. Most of those messages were received with a laugh, then with irritation that a bunch of brain-dead bureaucrats wouldn’t stop pestering them with reports that were obviously false. But there were a few times when characters took them with an inexplicable seriousness. It’s a relief to see that this part of the show, set in the year 1897, will not include any of those jarringly foolish reactions.

Quentin and Laura argue about her children. She wants to take them and leave Collinwood; he asks what she will accept instead. Quentin’s pretense that he would have anything to offer her that might be tempting so amuses Laura that she doesn’t bother to be insulted. When he says that he will give her money, she laughs. The penniless Quentin says that he will steal any amount she names. He claims to “have powers.” Before Laura returned to Collinwood in #729, we twice saw Quentin take part in unholy summoning rituals on this set (#711 and #718,) each of which did result in communication with the spiritual forces of darkness. It does seem to be a bit of an exaggeration for him to claim to “have powers,” though. Especially so when he is talking to someone whom he believes to have transcended death.

A male servant comes to the door. Quentin believes this man to be Laura’s lover, and nearly says so today. In fact, Quentin has severely underestimated Laura in every way. She did die in Alexandria. But she has also died in other places, at other times, and will do so again. She is an undead fire witch who periodically incinerates herself and rises from the ashes as a humanoid Phoenix. The man is not her lover in any human sense. Rather, one of the ways she keeps herself more or less alive is by draining heat from his body in a kind of dry vampirism.

Quentin leaves Laura alone with the servant. Opposite David Selby, Diana Millay had shown her gift for dry comedy to great advantage. Once he exits and she is alone with the servant, her manner shifts abruptly. She suddenly starts overacting and sounding false. I think that is down to the actor who plays the servant, Roger Davis. Mr Davis was notoriously abusive of his female scene partners, and she has to play her scene in his arms. It would have been difficult for anyone to relax sufficiently to give a good performance when she was stuck in that unenviable position.

Laura is not the only vampiric presence at Collinwood these days. Time-traveler Barnabas Collins is the old-fashioned blood-sucking kind, and we see him rise from his coffin. He summons his blood thrall Charity Trask to come to him at the Old House on the estate. Charity comes. Several of Barnabas’ female victims have gone through a particular series of stages. First, they are elated at their new connection with Barnabas, and want to devote themselves to him as slavishly as possible. Then, they become reluctant to go on serving as his breakfast, and make anguished protests about wanting to return to their previous lives. Finally, they rebel. Charity has entered the second stage. She says that her father expects her. Barnabas has seen all this before, and has learned to have fun with it. He tells Charity that he needs her more than her father does. He bares his fangs and bites her, after which she is back to elated servility.

Barnabas tells Charity that she will be assisting him in a ceremony. She waits in the Old House while Barnabas goes to the great house on the estate to fetch something he needs for that ceremony.

We cut to Quentin’s room in the great house, where we see a mirror. It shows the reflection of Quentin kissing maidservant Beth. When we first saw them talk to each other in #701, Beth was fighting her attraction to Quentin and trying to resist his attempts to seduce her. That’s what was supposed to be going on, anyway, but we didn’t actually see it. Terrayne Crawford played Beth’s lines according to the literal meaning of the words, with the result that for the first six weeks of the part of Dark Shadows set in 1897 Beth seemed sincerely uninterested in Quentin, and his overtures were just sexual harassment. Now Ms Crawford no longer has to play conflicting emotions. Beth is simply in love with Quentin. She gets that point across adequately.

Beth pulls away from Quentin, explaining that she has to get back to work. He talks about ending his marriage so that they can be together permanently; he says that it may serve their cause to stop being so discreet, since a little scandal may prompt the rest of his family to drop their opposition to any change in the status quo. While they get ready to part, we see the window, outside of which a bat is squeaking incessantly. They exit, and Barnabas appears.

Barnabas rummages through Quentin’s desk and finds a book. Beth reenters and catches him. He tells her he came for the book and was planning to leave a note. A smirk on her face, Beth says that it will not be necessary to do so, as she will tell Quentin all about what she has seen.

Beth goes downstairs and meets Quentin in the foyer. Quentin asks what book it was Barnabas took. She says that all she saw of the title was the word “dead.” Evidently Quentin has quite a few books with the word “dead” in the title, because he has to ask where exactly Barnabas found it. She says it was in the desk, and he rushes off to the Old House.

It was the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and Barnabas used it to perform a rite calling on Amun-Ra to cause the spirit of one of Laura’s previous incarnations to appear before him. At that, we cut to the cottage, where the currently alive-ish Laura grows weak and vanishes. Back in the Old House, we see the ghost take shape. Charity sees it too, and runs screaming out the front door. Quentin enters just in time to see the end of Barnabas’ conversation with the phantasmal Laura. The phantom looks at Quentin, screams, and disappears.

On Friday, Laura said that no one knew just how deeply Quentin was obsessed with the occult. His own absurd claim today to “have powers” so great that he could make it worth Laura’s while to leave without her children confirms that he is very far gone in this obsession. So when he sees that Barnabas is not only doing battle with the same adversary whom he is trying to confront, but is also able to conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, we can be confident that Quentin’s hostility to his recently arrived “cousin from England” will soon be evaporating. As Tony Peterson might say, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Episode 738: The rest of the truth

This episode ends with one of the most thrilling moments in all of Dark Shadows.

The show’s first supernatural menace was undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, who was on it from December 1966 to March 1967. Its second was vampire Barnabas Collins, who first appeared in April 1967. Laura herself was presented with many tropes that conventionally mark vampires; for example, they laid great emphasis on the fact that Laura was never seen eating or drinking. And Laura’s story was structured very much like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with well-meaning governess Vicki taking Mina’s role as the driving force behind the opposition to her. Presumably, if Barnabas had been staked and destroyed as the original plan envisioned, Vicki would have led the fight against him as well, and in #275 driven the stake into his heart. But Barnabas brought the show a new audience, and so Vicki was never called on to go to battle with him. Her character withered and was written out, and he replaced her as its chief protagonist.

In early 1967, Vicki learned that Laura had appeared at least twice before, and had died in strikingly similar ways each time. In 1767, Laura Murdoch Stockbridge was burned to death with her young son David; in 1867, Laura Murdoch Radcliffe was burned to death with her young son David; and in 1967, Vicki found Laura Murdoch Collins beckoning her young son David to join her in the flames consuming a wooden building. At the last second, Vicki broke through David’s trance and he ran to her, escaping the flames.

In November 1967, the show established that Barnabas lived on the great estate of Collinwood as a human in 1795, and that he became a vampire as a result of the tragic events of that year. If Barnabas were the same age in 1795 that Jonathan Frid was in 1967, he would have been born late in 1752, meaning that he would have been a teenager when Laura Murdoch Stockbridge and little David Stockbridge went up in smoke. The Stockbridges were a very wealthy family, so they would likely have been on familiar terms with Barnabas and the other rich Collinses of Collinsport, and the deaths of Laura and David would have been one of the major events in the area in those days. So longtime viewers have been wondering ever since whether Barnabas knew Laura, and if so what he knew about her.

Now Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897, and there he meets another incarnation of Laura. He is thunderstruck at the sight of her. In her bland, enigmatic way, she expresses curiosity about his reaction, and he collects himself sufficiently to make some flattering remarks about her beauty. As soon as he is alone with his blood thrall, Miss Charity Trask, he declares that Laura has been dead for over a hundred years. So has he, but apparently when a woman rises from the dead to prey on the living that’s different, somehow. We saw this same old double standard a couple of weeks ago, when libertine Quentin Collins expressed shock at Laura’s return from the dead, when he himself had died and been a zombie just the week before.

If Laura did know Barnabas when she was as she is now and he was an adolescent, it is no wonder she does not seem to recognize him. She knows that there is a Barnabas Collins on the estate, and has heard that he is a descendant of the eighteenth century bearer of the same name. She would expect him to resemble the boy she knew, but would not necessarily know what that boy looked like when he was in his forties.

This is the first time we’ve seen Charity since Barnabas bit her in #727. She lives in the town of Rockport, which in the 1960s was far enough away from Collinwood that in #521 it was worthy of note that you could dial telephone numbers there directly. In 1897, when automobiles were rare and roads weren’t made for the few that did exist, a long-distance relationship between vampire and blood thrall would seem quite impractical. Still, in #732 we saw a character make two round trips between Rockport and Collinwood in a single evening, so I suppose it could be managed.

Barnabas’ recognition of Laura is a fitting conclusion to a fine episode. Much of it is devoted to a three-cornered confrontation between Laura, her twelve year old son Jamison Collins, and her brother-in-law/ ex-lover/ mortal enemy, Quentin. Danny Horn analyzes this in his post about the episode at Dark Shadows Every Day. I recommend that post highly. All I would add is that as it plays out today, the confrontation makes me suspect that the writers of the show may have done more planning than Danny usually credits them with. Jamison is the only person Quentin loves, and so far we have seen that Jamison loves Quentin back. When he learns that Quentin is his mother’s foe, Jamison turns against Quentin. Barnabas traveled back in time after Quentin’s ghost had made life impossible for everyone in 1969. The evil of Quentin’s spirit fell heaviest on David Collins, whom Quentin had possessed, turned into another version of Jamison, and was in the process of killing. Nothing yet has explained why Quentin’s ghost would focus its malignity on the image of Jamison. Actress Diana Millay used to claim that Laura was added to the 1897 segment at the last minute because she told Dan Curtis she wanted to work, but Millay famously enjoyed testing the credulity of Dark Shadows fans with outlandish remarks. I wonder if a falling-out between Quentin and Jamison over Laura was in the flimsies all along.

Charity makes her first entrance in the great house of Collinwood. Quentin is apologizing to her for some boorish behavior when he realizes she hasn’t been listening to him at all. She is completely absorbed in the eighteenth century portrait of Barnabas that hangs in the foyer. She excuses herself and wafts out the front door.

In Barnabas’ house, Charity says that he makes her feel beautiful, and that she wants to see herself in a mirror. Barnabas is a bit sheepish about the particulars of vampirism, and so he changes the subject. We cut from this exchange to Laura’s room in the great house, where she is with a servant named Dirk whom she has enthralled to serve as a source of body heat. That scene opens with a shot in a mirror, making the point that Laura’s relationship with Dirk is a reflection of Barnabas’ relationship with Charity. Earlier, there had been a clumsy attempt at an artsy shot of Laura reflected in Quentin’s sherry glass. That does show us that Laura casts a reflection and that her relationship with Quentin has been affected by his drinking, but it calls too much attention to itself to do much more than that.

The portrait in the foyer is hugely important to Barnabas. It made its debut on the show in #204, the day before his name was first mentioned and more than a week before he himself premiered. His thralls stare at it and receive his commands through it. He himself uses it as a passport, appealing to his resemblance to it as proof that he is a descendant of its subject and therefore a member of the Collins family. Today, Barnabas is surprised when Charity comes to his house; he wasn’t transmitting a message through the portrait summoning her. Instead, it was functioning as another mirror, in which Charity, who has become a part of Barnabas, could see the motivating force within her own personality.

Dirk is played by Roger Davis, a most unappealing actor. At one point he makes this face while Dirk is involved in some kind of mumbo-jumbo:

Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

At one point today, Quentin tells Jamison that he shouldn’t be afraid of telling the servants what to do, since after all he will someday be the master of Collinwood. Jamison takes this altogether too much to heart, and spends the rest of the episode ordering everyone around. David Henesy is a good enough actor to extract the comic value from this. For example, when he turns to Quentin, says “I’ll talk to you later!,” and keeps walking, we laughed out loud.

Episode 706: What it was to be a Collins

Yesterday, we were in the great house on the estate of Collinwood when dying nonagenarian Edith Collins met mysterious newcomer Barnabas Collins. She told Barnabas that she recognized him. Edith had been entrusted with the Collins family’s darkest secret, which was about Barnabas. He is a vampire, entombed in the 1790s to be kept forever away from the living. Now it is 1897, and Edith sees that the family has failed. She must tell the secret to her eldest grandchild, Edward Collins. Edward comes into the room and Edith tries to tell him what has happened. She has difficulty speaking. Edward asks Barnabas to excuse them. He replies “Of course,” and leaves the room. He does stand at the door and listen to their conversation, apparently waiting to see if Edward will come out with a crucifix and a sharpened stake.

Today, we find that Edith was so shocked by the sight of Barnabas that she has lost her sense of her surroundings. Barnabas was kept in a chained coffin in an old family mausoleum, and Edith does manage to say the word “mausoleum” to Edward, but that’s as far as she gets with the secret. Thereafter, she weaves in and out of the moment, reliving several periods of her life, some as far back as the time of her wedding to Edward’s grandfather.

At the word “mausoleum,” Barnabas rushes back to the Old House on the estate, where he has been staying. He tells his unwilling servant, a woman named Magda Rákóczi, that she must fetch her husband Sandor and that she and Sandor must go to the mausoleum at once, take the coffin out of the secret chamber where it is hidden, leave no trace of any kind in the chamber, and carry the coffin to the house. Magda points out one of several facts that make it impossible to comply with these orders, which is that Sandor is in town where Barnabas sent him. Barnabas refuses to acknowledge this or any other insuperable difficulties, and goes back to the great house.

While Barnabas is sitting in the drawing room clenching his fists on the armchair where he is waiting to see what Edward will do when he learns that he is a vampire, a hidden panel opens and a man carries a pistol into the room. The man holds the pistol at Barnabas’ head and demands he tells him who he really is. The man identifies himself as Carl Collins, one of Edward’s brothers. Barnabas yields nothing. The man discharges the pistol, from which emerges a flag labeled “Fib.” He laughs. Barnabas is not amused. The audience may not share Carl’s sense of humor either, but the subsequent scene in which Carl claims to see that Barnabas has a kind face, predicts that the two of them will become close friends, and offers to let him borrow the pistol and play jokes with it himself, is hilarious. Jonathan Frid plays Barnabas’ icy reaction to Carl perfectly, and as Carl John Karlen does not betray the least glimmer of awareness of Barnabas’ affect.

Barnabas does not enjoy Carl’s greeting. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Carl goes to the Old House to call on Magda. The scene there begins with Magda showing her palm to Carl. He wants her to read the Tarot cards; she says the cards will not speak unless she has money in her hand. Like his siblings, Carl is convinced that the secret which Edith keeps and which she has vowed to disclose only to Edward is the key to control of the family fortune. Magda knows better, but she goes through the cards anyway. They tell her that the family’s fortune is even larger than anyone knows, that when Edith’s will is found it will come as a surprise to everyone, that the surprise will lead to murder, and that the person who inherits the money will not keep it. The Queen of Cups turns up in a position that indicates Edith is still in control, but the last card Magda draws leads her to gasp and stand. She reels about the room, and declares that Edith is dead. “The cards are silent.”

Back in the house, Edward lets Barnabas into Edith’s room. He closes his grandmother’s eyes, and tells Barnabas that she did not tell him the secret. He vows to learn the secret even “if it’s the last thing I do!” We cut to Barnabas, looking uncomfortable. No doubt he is thinking of how inconvenient it would be if Edward were to find out the secret and he had to see to it that it was indeed the last thing he ever did.

This is the sixth consecutive installment to which I have given the “Genuinely Good Episode” tag, a record so far. Like the preceding five, it is stuffed with wonderful things. The acting is all very very good. Isabella Hoopes does a marvelous job as the delirious Edith, as Edward Louis Edmonds gives a master class in how to play a stuffy man, and the pairings of Grayson Hall, John Karlen, and Jonathan Frid with each other all unfold brilliantly, full of laughs but never losing their dramatic tension. So many of the episodes fans most enjoy would be drab for people coming to the show for the first time that it is always a memorable occasion when we see one like this, that anyone should be able to recognize as an outstanding half hour of television. It’s true the visual side lets us down a little; even by the standards of 1960s daytime television, the color is murky and there are too many closeups. But Sam Hall’s script and the performances are so good that no fair-minded person will complain very much about those problems.

Fans will take a special interest in Edith’s ramblings. When it first aired, viewers had no way of knowing how much of what she says about the family’s history will be reflected in upcoming episodes. The writers themselves probably didn’t have a much clearer idea about that than we do. But watching the series through for the first time, our default assumption about each of her lines is that it will have some significance as we go, so if we are committed to watching the show we listen closely.

We’ve already learned that Edith is over 90, so the very latest she could have been born is 1807. More likely she was born a bit before that, sometime between 1801 and 1806. She says today that her father-in-law was Daniel Collins. From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was set in the late 1790s, and we saw Daniel. He was about 11 in 1795, so he would have been born in 1784 or thereabouts. So he could have been no more than 23 years old when Edith was born. Presumably his son Gabriel was the same age as his bride, though he might have been significantly younger. Edith does say that she always hated Daniel; perhaps she was a good deal older than Gabriel, and Daniel disapproved of her initially for that reason.

Edith tells us that Gabriel has been dead for 34 years, placing his death date in late 1862 or early 1863. She does not mention his cause of death or say anything about their son who was the father of Edward, Carl, and the others. It is firmly fixed that Edward and Carl’s brother Quentin was born in 1870, so Gabriel’s son must have survived him by several years.*

Edith says several times that the secret has been passed down from generation to generation and that she must tell it to Edward because he is the oldest. That seems to imply that Daniel told his oldest child, whom we presume to have been Gabriel, and that Gabriel told his oldest child, whom we presume to have been the unnamed father of Edith’s four grandchildren. He would then have told Edith before he died, either because Edward was not yet old enough to hear it, or because he was not available at the time.

But that implication is not at all secure. Edith says that Edward must be the keeper of the secret because he is the oldest- she doesn’t say what the connection is between being the oldest and keeping the secret. For all we know, she could have decided on her own to invent that tradition, starting with Edward and continuing with Edward’s oldest child. And when she says that it was passed down from generation to generation, she does not specify how many generations have been involved or which member of each generation did the passing. All we know is that someone of one generation learned it from someone else of a different generation, and that Edith believes it is the family’s responsibility to keep Barnabas from preying upon the living.

In a comment on Danny Horn’s post about episode 705 on Dark Shadows Every Day, someone calling himself “Mike” had a very interesting theory:

I think it’s reasonable to assume that sometime between 1897 and 1967 the secret was lost and not continually passed down. Perhaps in the original timeline Quentin was successful in killing Edith before Edward arrived, or maybe Edward died later in life before he was able to pass it on.

As far as Joshua passing the secret on, maybe he did, or maybe it was the elderly Ben Stokes who started the tradition?

Joshua was Barnabas’ father, and Ben Stokes was a much-put-upon indentured servant who was Barnabas’ devoted friend. They were the two people who knew that Barnabas was a vampire and that he was entombed in the secret chamber of the mausoleum. I replied to “Mike”:

I love that idea. Edith’s desire to tell the oldest son may lead us to assume that it has been handed down to the oldest son generation after generation, and it does lead the “Fab Four”** to assume that it brings with it some kind of power and access to riches. But their assumption is wrong, and ours may also be. Perhaps Joshua never told anyone. Perhaps the first person to tell the secret was Ben Stokes, and the person he told was Edith.

The scene between Barnabas and Magda brought another question to my mind. In #334, Barnabas was able to lock the panel in the mausoleum that leads to the secret room. Why doesn’t he just do that? It has also been made clear that as a vampire he is far stronger than are humans- if he wants to move the coffin from the mausoleum to the Old House, surely he could pick it up himself and do it more quickly and with less risk of detection than could Magda and Sandor. My wife, Mrs Acilius, agrees that we don’t know why Barnabas doesn’t lock the panel, but she says that it is perfectly clear why he can’t move the coffin- that is manual labor, and he is an aristocrat. His servants must do that.

*In a later episode, Quentin will mention that he knew Gabriel, throwing the 1862/3 date into question. But they never get around to any stories that depend on anything that happened in Gabriel’s later years. By the time we get to that one, only obsessive fans will remember his name. Eventually we meet two characters named Gabriel Collins, one in episodes that will air in 1970 and the other in the 1971 film Night of Dark Shadows, but a death date in the 1860s is not relevant to anything we learn about either of them.

**The “Fab Four” are Edith’s grandchildren, Edward, Carl, Quentin, and their sister Judith.

Episode 704: The sort of person relatives would want to meet

When vampire Barnabas Collins first came to the great house of Collinwood in April 1967, the living members of the Collins family were embattled, isolated, and desperate for friendship. In 1966, one of the major themes of Dark Shadows had been that the Collinses were running out of money and their nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, was using his own fortune to buy up their outstanding debts and alienate the people of the village of Collinsport from the Collinses. Everywhere they turned, they met hostility in one form or another. Their two most devoted employees had been plant manager Bill Malloy and handyman Matthew Morgan; in a fit of rage, Matthew killed Bill, and went on to abduct and try to kill well-meaning governess Victoria Winters. Roger Collins’ estranged wife, Laura Murdoch Collins, showed up; she turned out to be an undead blonde fire witch out to kill their son, strange and troubled boy David. No sooner had Victoria rescued David from Laura than seagoing con man Jason McGuire presented himself and set about blackmailing matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Jason even forced Liz to give the bedroom next to her daughter Carolyn to his rapey sidekick, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis.

So when a man knocked on the door who looked exactly like the portrait of an ancestor who lived in a previous century and introduced himself as a distant cousin from England, a wealthy eccentric with courtly manners who wanted only to spend time on the estate where his forebears lived long ago, Liz and Roger were delighted to host him. Barnabas spent most of 1967 as a comic villain scrambling to maintain the pretense that he was native to the twentieth century, but as far as the adult residents of the great house were concerned his authenticity was established beyond doubt the first moment they saw him.

Now Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897. In this period the Collinses of Collinwood are rich, powerful, and paranoid. Unknown to Barnabas, a woman named Magda Rákóczi, whom he had given a ruby ring as a bribe to secure her help after she learned that he was a vampire and that her husband Sandor was his blood thrall, had preceded him to the great house. Magda did not know why Barnabas had come to Collinwood, but she knew that he had some objective and that he would likely leave as soon as he had accomplished it. When Barnabas told Magda that he would keep giving her jewels as long as she helped him, he therefore gave her an incentive to slow him down as much as possible. She therefore told repressed spinster Judith Collins and Judith’s brother, libertine Quentin Collins, that they should beware of a “creature of darkness” who would be calling on them after sundown and who would claim to be “a friend, or perhaps a relative.”

Neither Judith nor Quentin has any respect for Magda, as much because of her Romani ethnicity as because of her mercenary ways. But when Barnabas introduces himself, Judith is deeply shaken. Quentin mocks her, suggesting that the resemblance between Magda’s prediction and Barnabas’ identification is as likely to be a coincidence as anything else, but as soon as he is alone with Barnabas Quentin pulls a sword, holds it at Barnabas’ throat, tells him he knows he is an impostor, and demands the truth within “five minutes” or he will run him through.

With this act, Quentin shows as little strategic nous as Barnabas had shown when he led Magda to believe that it was in her interest to make sure he stayed around for a while. Quentin does not know that Barnabas is a vampire, so that running him through with a sword would do nothing but give whoever saw it a story that he could not tell without branding himself a lunatic. But he does know that he is the black sheep of the family, and that his brothers and sister are eager to get him out of the way before their grandmother dies and her will goes into probate. If he kills a man in cold blood, they would have an excellent reason to have him committed to an asylum and whatever legacy he receives placed in a conservatorship they would control.

So Quentin’s threat is an empty one. Had Barnabas caved in and made a confession that he was a fraud, only Judith would have known of Quentin’s triumph, and she has made it clear that she is not about to yield a penny of her inheritance to him no matter what he does. At most, Quentin would have given Judith a new esteem for Magda, who herself has no use at all for him. And when Barnabas holds his ground, all Quentin can do is back down, losing face and making himself permanently ridiculous in his eyes.

The particulars of the scene are interesting, as well. Quentin tells Barnabas that he has “five minutes” to explain himself. When we heard that, my wife and I laughed out loud. Are we about to be treated to five minutes of silence while they hold their poses? Surely, we thought, it was a blooper- the scripted line must have been “five seconds.” But no! A moment later, Quentin says that “five minutes can go by rather quickly, when a man is about to die.” Had Barnabas been struck with terror at the sight of the weapon so close to him, he might have started confessing as soon as he saw it, but by the time Quentin doubles down on this “five minutes” it is obvious he has already lost the game.

Quentin tells Barnabas that he has just returned from a visit of about six months in England, during which time he discovered that he had no relatives there named Collins. This gives Barnabas an opportunity to insult Quentin, saying that his reputation may have preceded him and driven his relatives to make sure he did not find out about them. This stuns Quentin satisfactorily, but is not strictly necessary. There had been a great deal of migration from Ireland to England by the 1890s, more than enough that an Irish name as widespread as Collins would have been very familiar there. It is hardly likely that even if he had spent six months doing nothing but tracking down every Collins family in the country Quentin would have been able to have confidence that he had not overlooked some descendant of a Collins who had left Collinsport generations before. After all, they didn’t have ancestry dot com back then! It is clear that he must be lying.

Worst of all from Quentin’s perspective, he is still holding the sword at Barnabas’ throat when Judith comes in. At that sight, she has no choice but to set aside her own doubts about Barnabas. She demands Quentin apologize to Barnabas. Barnabas tells them that he can assure Quentin that he does not want any of the family’s money; in fact, he says, the English Collinses are quite comfortable financially and he plans to make some investments in local businesses while he is in Collinsport. Quentin perks up at this, no doubt seeing Barnabas as a possible mark for his next con game. Longtime viewers will remember that when Barnabas introduced himself to the 1960s iteration of the family, Roger was extremely interested in his apparent wealth and had several ideas about how he might help himself to a share of it.

Judith offers Barnabas a room at the great house. He says he would rather stay at the Old House on the estate. Judith breaks it to him that the current head of the family, dying nonagenarian Edith Collins, has let “Gypsies” live there. She makes it sound like a whole Romani clan has settled in, but in fact it is just Magda and Sandor. Barnabas feigns surprise, but still asks permission to inspect the house. Judith consents, and he sets out, alone

Danny Horn’s post about the episode on his Dark Shadows Every Day focuses on the ways it makes Quentin look like a child. I’d say it makes Judith look equally childish, even though she is clearly senior to Quentin. The two of them model one of Dark Shadows‘ signature pairings, that of Bossy Big Sister and Bratty Little Brother. Even when the big sister is in a position to exercise authority, as in the 1960s Liz was in a position to exercise authority over Roger, she winds up being merely bossy because however flagrantly he disobeys her, in the end she covers up his misdeeds and protects him from the punishment they merit. Longtime viewers suspect Judith will find herself doing the same.

In yesterday’s episode, Quentin entered maidservant Beth’s room and found her getting ready to go out. He asked if it was her day off; she said Judith gave her permission to run personal errands in town. He grabbed at her things and found an envelope with $300 cash. She claimed she saved this out of her salary, an obvious lie. He made leering insinuations about her relationship with his oldest brother Edward; she slapped his face.

Now, Beth is on her way back to Collinwood from her mysterious errand. Barnabas sees her in the woods and addresses her by name. She asks who he is and how he knows her. He introduces himself, and explains that he saw her photograph in an album at Collinwood. In fact, his friend Julia Hoffman saw such a photograph in 1969 and described it to him; Barnabas himself never saw it, but he did see Beth’s ghost. Evidently the photo had already been taken and put into the album, because Beth smiles when Barnabas talks about it. He asks Beth about the children at Collinwood. She mentions two; he asks about a third, and she says there is no third. He asks why he thought there was, and she seems uncomfortable. After she leaves, we hear his thoughts in a voiceover monologue. In 1969, Beth’s ghost led Barnabas’ friend Chris Jennings to an infant’s coffin; he wonders if that child has already died, and looks around, as if he might be standing on its grave.

Barnabas’ next stop is at the waterfront. When he was first a vampire in the late eighteenth century, Barnabas once found himself on the docks by chance and was overcome with thirst for the blood of the streetwalkers who worked there. This time he must have made a conscious decision to find a sex worker to drain of blood. Some wonder why he does not feed on Sandor and Magda, but longtime viewers know the answer to that one. When Barnabas was first on the show, Willie was his blood thrall, and each bite left Willie critically ill throughout the daylight hours. Barnabas needs Sandor and Magda to guard him during the day, so others will have to suffer to provide him with blood.

Barnabas picks up a small object from the pavement. He hears a soprano voice nearby, calling for an unseen “Charlie!” to help her find her lost makeup compact. The owner of the voice comes into view and introduces herself to Barnabas as Sophie Baker.* Barnabas gives her the compact. She thanks him and says it was a gift from a dear man, a Captain Strathmore. She asks Barnabas his name. He says he thinks it is best if he doesn’t give his name. “What an odd thing to say,” she responds. If she made her living the way Barnabas hoped the woman he found would make hers, it wouldn’t be odd at all; Sophie’s reaction is that of someone who has no idea that she is in a place where that trade is practiced. Evidently Sophie comes from a sufficiently comfortable background that prostitution does not impinge on her thoughts even as something other women do.

Barnabas tries to get away, and Sophie asks “Well, what’s the matter with me?” Charlie is hopelessly drunk, leaving Sophie without an escort. Barnabas is plainly alone, and the night is young. The pub is nearby- why don’t they stop in for a drink. Barnabas shows great reluctance, but finally agrees to walk Sophie to the door. She takes out her compact to freshen her face, looks in its mirror, and notices that Barnabas does not cast a reflection. She is stunned by this. Barnabas bares his fangs, and sates his bloodlust.

Sophie seals her fate. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The compact with a mirror was apparently a new invention when one was advertised in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue in 1908, so it is an anachronism in 1897. But it is a perfect touch. Sophie’s discovery that Barnabas does not cast a reflection turns the scene from a little bit of farce into a tale of horror in a fraction of a second. That the compact allows such an efficient use of time makes it no wonder that they used the same prop in 1967, when Julia glanced in her compact to confirm her hypothesis about Barnabas’ nature in #288.

This time, the compact also goes a long way towards explaining Barnabas’ attitude towards Sophie. It shows that she can afford to buy the latest and most sophisticated trinkets, and that she expects to be seen using them. Barnabas picks the compact up and returns it to Sophie as a gentleman might a lady’s handkerchief. Sophie’s personality may have led her to match the outgoing and uninhibited manner that is a professional requirement for sex workers and that made them easy targets for Barnabas, but when he sees that she is not of their class he becomes reluctant to attack her. Thus we learn that snobbery Barnabas has shown in some of his darker moments is not just an occasional failing, but that his whole career as a vampire is primarily a war on poor people.

Back at Collinwood, Quentin spots Beth taking a tray of food upstairs. He waylays her, uncovers the tray, and demands to know who it is for. She says it is for Edith, and he declares that his grandmother is far too ill to eat so much. When he finally lets her go, Beth goes to Edith’s room and tells Judith about Quentin’s interrogation. They confer about the matter in urgent whispers. Judith tells Beth they will have to be far more discreet now that Quentin is back. She urges her to take care Quentin does not see her when she takes the rest of the food “upstairs.” Evidently there is someone in the house Quentin does not know about, and Judith and Beth are conspiring to keep it that way.

Judith leaves the room, and Quentin slips in. He pretends to be Edward. Edith is not fooled, and expresses her annoyance with him. She says she is not as far gone as he thinks she is, and he assures her that she is. She will die tonight, and will tell him the family secret before she does. He seems to be threatening to kill her himself by the time the episode ends.

Every episode of Dark Shadows begins with a voiceover delivered by a member of the cast. This one reuses yesterday’s opening voiceover. I believe this is the first time they have done this.

*The closing credits give her name as “Sophie Barnes,” but she very clearly says “Baker.”

Episode 703: A creature of darkness

Magda Rákóczi, preposterously broad ethnic stereotype, has discovered that the recently arrived Barnabas Collins is a vampire. Barnabas has bitten and enslaved Magda’s husband Sandor, and tells her that she, too will do his bidding. When she asks what has brought him to this conclusion, he tells her that as long as she is in his employ, he will give her jewels. He hands her a ruby ring, and she agrees.

Longtime viewers know well that Barnabas’ plans regularly backfire. Today, we see one of the reasons why. Barnabas does not tell Magda why he has come to the estate of Collinwood in the year 1897, but he does tell her that the following night he will be calling on the Collins family in the great house in order to win their acceptance of him as a distant cousin from England. For all she knows he might be able to complete his task and go back to where he came from shortly after the Collinses welcome him. That would leave her with no further jewelry. So Magda goes to the great house and tells spinster Judith Collins and her brother, libertine Quentin Collins, that a stranger will visit them after sunset. He will present himself as a “friend, perhaps a relative,” but they must not trust him. He is in fact a “creature of darkness” who means them harm.

Judith and Quentin are one of Dark Shadows‘ signature pairings of Bossy Big Sister/ Bratty Little Brother, and they bicker about whether to be disgusted or amused by what they take to be Magda’s transparently fraudulent warning. When Barnabas shows up, Judith is shaken and Quentin laughs at her for taking Magda seriously. In the last scene, Quentin does pull a sword on Barnabas and threaten to kill him on the spot unless he tells a more acceptable story, so apparently he placed a higher value on Magda’s words than he wanted to let Judith know.

Quentin also has some screen time with maidservant Beth Chavez. In his post about the episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn lamented Terrayne Crawford’s performance as Beth:

Her dialogue is full of lines like “I don’t care” and “It’s none of your business,” and Terry Crawford decides that the best acting choice she could make would be to play it as if Beth sincerely means every word that she says. This is different from what a good actor would do in every respect.

She should be fencing with him, half-flirting and half-angry and half-guilty. Yes, she should be playing three halves right now; that’s the point of the scene. But Terry Crawford gives you what’s on the page, because somebody explained the concept of “subtext” to her once, while she was thinking about something else.

Alas, it is so. Appealing as David Selby’s personality is and lively as his interpretation of Quentin is, Miss Crawford’s literalism means that his efforts are largely wasted, at least in his scenes with her. With Joan Bennett’s Judith or with any of the other members of the cast, we can see that while Quentin’s behavior is inexcusable, his charm is irresistible. But Miss Crawford shows us Beth resisting it with no apparent difficulty, and that leaves him as just another jerk. As I put it in a comment on Danny’s post:

I agree about Terry Crawford. She has to do something very difficult- simultaneously show contempt for Quentin and attraction to him. She manages only the first, meaning that when he keeps at her after she tells him to leave her alone, it isn’t a game, it’s just sexual assault. That makes Quentin a lot harder to like than he needs to be.

This episode ends with one of the all-time great screw-ups. A few times actors have come partly into view during the closing credits, usually just one arm briefly entering the shot. But this time Jonathan Frid comes walking right into the frame, gives a horrified reaction, and scurries off. It is a thing of beauty, enough to make you wonder how there can be people who are not fans of Dark Shadows.

A great moment in the history of television, or THE GREATEST moment in the history of television? You decide. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Every Day.

Episode 698: The kind of scene you should be avoiding

Barnabas Collins, old world gentleman extraordinaire, and Julia Hoffman, MD, are helping mysterious drifter Chris Jennings cover up the fact that he is a werewolf, responsible for a great many violent deaths. Lately Chris has started transforming into his lupine shape even on nights when the moon is not full, and this morning they find that he has not changed back even after dawn.

As if that did not present enough difficulty to Julia and Barnabas, one of Chris’ surviving victims is in town. She is his onetime fiancée, Sabrina Stuart. Two years ago, Sabrina saw Chris as the werewolf. She hasn’t told anyone about him, because she hasn’t been able to speak since. Her hair turned white, her skin turned pale, and she has been nearly catatonic.

Others have encountered the werewolf, and none has had this reaction. It’s true that Chris’ cousin Joe had to be taken to a mental hospital after he saw the transformation, but Joe had just been through a very long train of supernaturally induced traumas that had shattered his sensibilities and taken away everything he cared about. Seeing Chris change was just the last step in that process. Sabrina, as we see in a flashback segment today, was fine until she encountered Chris as the werewolf, and she didn’t even see the transformation itself. Yet here she is two years later, unspeaking, immobilized, and wearing the same makeup that Eli Wallach wore as Mr Freeze in the 1960s Batman TV show.

In a comment on Danny Horn’s post about this episode at Dark Shadows Every Day, “Cole” speculates that the show might have meant to tell us that the real reason Sabrina’s condition is less to do with what happened that on night in Chris’ apartment than with her brother and sole caretaker, Ned, played by Roger Davis:

I am once more getting through the Ned/Sabrina scenes thanks to this blog and the comments here; and although I still have to frequently avert my eyes from the screen to hold back the nausea, I keep concentrating on the dialogue while speculating further on JRM’s theory.

It does seem that we– and Julia– might be meant to feel especially concerned by Ned’s refusal to even consider allowing Sabrina to stay at Windcliff. He even says (or, rather, since it is Roger Davis, he SCREAMS), ”I won’t be separated from her!”

I don’t think his character is meant to be overly suspicious of Julia and Barnabas so the vehemence behind his already rather alarming declaration becomes more baffling unless the viewer concludes he has … extremely unnatural feelings of possessiveness towards sad, PTSD-afflicted Sabrina.

It is almost half as frustrating as it is disturbing because, with any other actors, we would surely know for certain how to interpret these scenes.

We would perhaps recognize that when Sabrina stares pleadingly at Julia once Ned leaves the room, that her muteness is caused as much by her horror at being an ongoing victim of her brother’s unspeakable abuse as by having once witnessed Chris’s transformation into a werewolf. We wouldn’t wonder, instead if the actress, Lisa Richards, is actually pleading with Hall to help her endure Davis’s deliberate act of molesting and assaulting her through out these scenes.

If it wasn’t Roger Davis in this role, we would know who Ned is really meant to be since there is no way any of the other regular male cast members would willingly subject their costars to type of abuse Davis is inflicting on Richards.

If it were … say, Jerry Lacy who was currently playing “Ned Stuart” in a manner even remotely similar to Roger Davis’s ‘interpretation’ of the role, we would recognize at once that the character of Ned is obviously scripted to be an incestuous rapist (and I am sure Lacy would still keep his hands professionally and respectfully away from Lisa Richards’s/”Sabrina’s” breasts, instead using actual acting techniques to portray his character’s warped nature). But with Davis ..

It really could be, as Mary commented below, that he is trying to get the poor actress to break character. And how could we expect other than that he would use his usual disgusting and violent Drumph-like/”‘you can grab them by the pussy” sense of Curtis-granted entitlement to assault her as “Ned,” regardless of the intent of the writer and director.

Either way, what a horrifically mistaken choice in casting.

Lisa Richards: fifty years later, I am thinking of you and hoping you weren’t forced to endure PTSD after filming these scenes with Davis.

Comment left 29 August 2021 by “Cole” on “Episode 698: Sister Act,” Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn, 8 August 2015

When I mentally recast the many parts Roger Davis played on Dark Shadows, I divide them between two men who were background players in the show’s first months. I imagine Fredric Forrest playing the two characters with aliases, Peter Bradford (a.k.a. Jeff Clark) and Charles Delaware Tate (a.k.a. Harrison Monroe.) Forrest excelled both as a quietly intense man under pressure and as a sweet, goofy, overgrown kid. In the hands of an actor who, unlike Mr Davis, could project those qualities, those two unloved characters might both have become fan favorites. His other two parts, Ned Stuart and Dirk Wilkins, would have been perfect for Harvey Keitel, who is unsurpassed as a man who is agitated by a deep anger that he himself barely understands and that he certainly cannot explain to anyone else. Not that it’s any secret why Ned is angry at Chris, but when he takes a break from pawing at Sabrina’s face and breasts he handles her so roughly that he is obviously angry with her, and that is something he isn’t going to be giving any thought.

Mr Davis’ behavior wasn’t much better in episodes directed by Lela Swift and others, but it is little surprise director Henry Kaplan didn’t rein him in. Kaplan directed with a conductor’s baton, and actresses complain that he would jab them with it. When the person in charge has that light a regard for women’s personal space, it’s no wonder a creep like Mr Davis felt free to rub himself all over Ms Richards.

Episode 684: This is a funny house we live in

Dark Shadows has two ongoing storylines at this point. Mysterious drifter Chris Jennings came to town a couple of months ago and turned out to be a werewolf. Heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard does not know of Chris’ curse. She has taken a fancy to him and set him up in the caretaker’s cottage on the estate of Collinwood. Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins and mad scientist Julia Hoffman do know that Chris is a werewolf, and they are working to help him. Barnabas has found a place to keep him confined on the nights of the full Moon, and Julia is trying to develop a medical intervention that will keep him in his human form.

Meanwhile, Chris’ nine year old sister Amy has taken up residence in the great house on the estate. She and her twelve year old friend, strange and troubled boy David Collins, are falling under the power of the evil spirit of the late Quentin Collins. At first Amy could communicate with Quentin more clearly than David could. This made David envious. In #640, David complained that Amy could hear his voice and he could not, even though “Quentin Collins is my ancestor.” That suggested to the audience that Quentin would turn out also to be Amy and Chris’ ancestor, joining the werewolf story with the Haunting of Collinwood.

Today, Barnabas and Chris have dug up a spot on the ground to which the ghost of a mysterious woman had led Chris. They find a tiny coffin holding the remains of an infant. They discover that the infant was wearing a medallion in the shape of a silver pentagram. The sight of the dead baby shocks Barnabas right away; Chris keeps his composure at first, but seems close to tears a moment later. Quentin stands in the shrubbery and watches Barnabas and Chris.

Barnabas has not seen Quentin and does not know who he is. Others have seen him and described him to Barnabas and Julia. They and those others suspect that he is a malevolent ghost with designs on David and Amy. No one has yet made a connection between Quentin and the werewolf story, however.

Julia and Barnabas have also seen the mysterious woman who led Chris to the baby’s grave. They know that she is a ghost and that she has helped Chris, and they also know that her clothing is of the same vintage as is the clothing which Quentin wears. But they do not know what, if anything, the two ghosts have to do with each other. The audience knows that the female ghost’s name is Beth and that she was with Quentin in the little room in the long deserted west wing of the great house when the children first met him.

Barnabas tells Chris that the pentagram can only be a device to ward off a werewolf, so that there must have been a werewolf in the area when the baby was buried. He also tells Chris that the mysterious woman would not have led him to dig up the grave unless what they found in the coffin would be of help to him.

While Barnabas inspects the pentagram in the drawing room of the great house, David throws darts at a board propped up on a chair nearby. The audience knows that David is under Quentin’s control, so it is obvious to us that the dart playing is an attempt to distract Barnabas and keep him from figuring out the meaning of the pentagram. Lacking our knowledge, Barnabas is merely annoyed with David. Jonathan Frid and David Henesy expertly develop the comedy in Barnabas’ fast-burn reaction to David’s behavior.

Heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard interrupts the scene. She notices what Barnabas is doing. He shows her the pentagram, and she recognizes the jeweler’s mark as that of Braithwaite’s silver shop in the village of Collinsport. While Barnabas telephones Braithewaite’s and arranges to take the pentagram there to see if the proprietor can give him any information about it, Carolyn tells David she wants to have a conversation with him about some cryptic remarks he made earlier. David refuses, saying that he has homework to do. Carolyn argues with him briefly, but finally gives up and leaves. Barnabas is still involved in his conversation with Mr Braithwaite when David hides the pentagram behind his dartboard.

Barnabas gets off the phone, and David resumes throwing darts. Barnabas asks him why he isn’t doing the homework he was just telling Carolyn presented such an urgent obligation that he could not talk with her. He launches into a shaggy dog story, the upshot of which is that he has to wait for Amy.

More exasperated than ever, Barnabas turns to the desk and sees that the pentagram is gone. He demands David return it. David denies having it. He says that it may have vanished on its own. After all, unaccountable things happen at Collinwood all the time, as Barnabas is in a position to know. The way he says “You should know that” reminds longtime viewers that David has more than once shown signs of figuring out more about Barnabas’ own connections to the supernatural than have any of his adult relatives. In #316, he pointed out that none of the Collinses really knows anything about Barnabas- “He just showed up one night.” And in #660, he told Amy that “Barnabas knows a lot of things he doesn’t tell anybody.” At moments like these, we wonder just how much information David really has at his disposal. Perhaps he secretly knows everything, and has just decided there’s no point in notifying the authorities.

David invites Barnabas to search him. He lists the contents of his pockets, and turns the right front pocket inside out. He tells him that he has a pack of chewing gum, which he got from Amy. He specifies that he traded her a box of raisins for it. As David Henesy delivers the line and Jonathan Frid shows us Barnabas’ reaction, this detail is laugh-out-loud funny. Barnabas surrenders and apologizes to David, fretting about the pentagram’s absence.

Barnabas takes a sketch of the pentagram to Braithwaite’s. In the first months it was on the air, Dark Shadows took us to New York City twice, to Bangor, Maine several times, and to Phoenix, Arizona once. But now that both stories center on characters all of whom dwell in one or another of the houses at Collinwood, it is as rare to leave the estate and go into the neighboring village as it was then to go on those remote excursions.

Old Mr Braithwaite tells Barnabas that the shop has been in operation since 1781 and has been providing fine silver to the Collins family the whole time. Regular viewers know that Barnabas was alive then, and lived in Collinsport. A curse made him a vampire in the 1790s, and he was under its power until he was freed early in 1968. So he must have been quite familiar with Braithwaite’s in its early years. What is more, in #459 we saw that in the first months of Barnabas’ career as a vampire his father Joshua learned of his curse and commissioned a local craftsman to make silver bullets with which he could put Barnabas out of his misery. That craftsman must have been one of the first Mr Braithwaites.

The incumbent Mr Braithwaite tells Barnabas he will consult his records as soon as the shop closes and telephone him if he finds anything. When the call comes, David answers. Mr Braithwaite tells David that he can’t imagine why he forgot about the pentagram since it was one of the very first he made himself, back in 1897. Quentin appears, takes the phone from David, and hears Mr Braithwaite say he will stop by Collinwood with the ledger shortly.

David protests that Quentin had no right to take the phone from him. Quentin turns to him, gives him a menacing look, and walks toward him. David backs away and and takes a place on the stairs, still objecting loudly to what Quentin did.

Closing Miscellany

The closing credits list the actor who plays Ezra Braithwaite as “Abe Vigodo.” Perhaps in some parallel time-band there was a man of that name who played Tossio in The Good Father and Detective Fosh in Barney Moeller, but this is in fact Abe Vigoda.

In his 1977-1978 ABC TV series Fish, Vigoda’s character was married to a woman played by Florence Stanley. Stanley was also a Dark Shadows alum, as a voice actress. She provided sobbing sounds heard in #4, #98, #515, #516, and #666. Vigoda once appeared on the panel at a Dark Shadows convention; his main statement was “I don’t remember much about it.” I can’t find evidence that Stanley ever appeared in such a setting. I would love to imagine that Vigoda and Stanley compared notes about their experiences on Dark Shadows between setups on Fish, but I would be astonished to learn that ever happened.

Vigoda always played old men. The second screen credit on his IMDb page is a 1949 episode of Studio One in which he took the role of “Old Train Passenger.” At that time, he was 28. Vigoda was a marathon runner, a form of exercise that tends to burn out all the fat under the skin of the face. And of course he was a very strong actor, easily able to convince us that he is of a great age. So even though Vigoda was only three years older than Jonathan Frid, and about 175 years younger than Barnabas, it isn’t quite as funny as it might be to hear him call Barnabas one of “you young people.”

Danny Horn devotes his post about this episode on his great Dark Shadows Every Day to three points. The first is his exultation that his least favorite writer, Ron Sproat, was credited with his final script yesterday, so that today is the first day of the Sproatless Dark Shadows. The second is that the show is finally joining the werewolf story with the Haunting of Collinwood. The third is a point I have some reservations about. He says that this is the first episode where Quentin “has a feeling,” and therefore declares it to be Quentin’s debut as a real character. “It’s nice to meet you Quentin. Welcome to the show,” he concludes.

It’s true that Quentin shows a wider range of feelings today than he had previously, but I think it is an exaggeration to say that we are only now seeing his feelings. For example, when in #680 Quentin agrees to Amy’s demand that he stop trying to kill Chris, he looks very much like a man humiliated to find that he has to capitulate to a nine year old girl. In the same episode he showed amusement and anger at appropriate points. Those three responses may not sound like much, but David Selby’s face is a magnificent instrument, one he plays it expertly. For him, they are more than enough to make Quentin into a real person.

Chris and Carolyn have a brief scene in the drawing room as they are getting ready to go on a date. Chris defuses a potentially awkward conversation about his previous failures to respond to Carolyn’s hints that she was interested in him by saying “Oh, I didn’t notice that” in the W. C. Fields imitation he had used with Amy in #677. She chuckles delightedly. This is not implausible. Not only can we imagine her being relieved that the topic didn’t ruin their evening, but W. C. Fields was very much in vogue in the late 1960s, so much so that a fashionable young woman might have chuckled when a man briefly imitated him.

David and Carolyn have an exchange that longtime viewers will find less plausible. He asks her if she has ever seen a ghost; she responds by asking if he has. But each of them knows perfectly well that the other has seen ghosts. David spent the first year of the show on intimate terms with the ghost of the gracious Josette, and he and Carolyn both saw and had substantive conversations with the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah. In #344, Carolyn told David that when she was a little girl her best friend was the ghost of a boy named Randy. It’s just trashing character development to retcon all that away.

Barnabas says something that will catch the ears of properly obsessed fans. When he is in the shop, he tells Mr Braithwaite that he will gladly drive back from Collinwood whenever he has any information for him. There have been some suggestions lately that Barnabas has learned to drive and has come into possession of a car, but this is the first definite confirmation of that point.

Episode 683: The children themselves

This one survives only in a black and white kinescope. That format serves the story quite well. Five of the characters sound like they would generate fast-paced, high-pitched action- Barnabas Collins is a recovering vampire, Julia Hoffman is a mad scientist, Chris Jennings is a werewolf, Quentin Collins and his associate Beth are ghosts. But today is all about Barnabas, Julia, and Chris trying to figure out whether Quentin and Beth really are ghosts and wondering if they have something to do with Chris’ nine year old sister Amy and Amy’s twelve year old friend David Collins. They have to spend their time painstakingly chewing over the few wisps of evidence they have managed to collect. That slow story depends entirely on atmosphere and suggestion to connect with the audience, and the visual simplicity and abstraction of black and white images gives it the best chance it could have of working.

Barnabas and Julia go to Chris’ place to ask him if he knows anything about Beth. Julia hypnotizes him to make sure he isn’t blocking any memories of her; he isn’t. They leave, he goes outside alone, and he meets Beth. She points to a spot on the ground, then vanishes. He goes to get Barnabas and tell him about this encounter. They go to the spot she had indicated and find that a shovel has materialized nearby. They dig there, and turn up a child’s coffin. Barnabas is puzzled by this. He hasn’t buried any children in unmarked graves on the grounds lately, and there is nothing distinctive about the coffin itself. So he suggests they open it. The episode ends with the lid of the coffin filling the screen.

The latest exhumation. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This was the last of hundreds of episodes written by Ron Sproat. When Sproat joined the show in the fall of 1966, he sorted through the storylines, discarding some that couldn’t possibly go anywhere and tightening the focus on those that seemed to have potential. He was an able technician who did a great deal to make sure that new viewers could figure out what was happening on the show. He shouldered the heaviest share of the writing burden in the period when the vampire storyline began and Dark Shadows suddenly leapt from the bottom of the ratings to become a kind of hit, and was a workhorse through the months when the show was a costume drama set in the 1790s and emerged as one of the major pop culture phenomena of the 1960s. He was the one who pushed his Yale classmate Jonathan Frid for the role of Barnabas, and he was the first person connected with the show to go to the conventions the show’s fans organized, laying the foundation for a community that brought them together with members of the cast, crew, and production staff.

Vital as his contributions were to the show and its afterlife, the brutal conditions under which Dark Shadows‘ tiny writing staff worked made it impossible to ignore Sproat’s weaknesses. When there were never more than three people involved in creating scripts for a hundred minutes a week of drama, scripts which were often produced verbatim as they came from the writer, there was nowhere to hide. So it is clear to us that Sproat’s imagination was not an especially fertile source of plot development. On his great Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn frequently complained of Sproat’s habit of locking characters up in various forms of captivity so that the story would not progress and he would not run out of flimsies to fill in. Danny called these captivities “Sproatnappings.” Sproat probably should have found a different job several months ago, and certainly should have been part of a larger group of writers.

Still, we will miss him when he’s gone. Alexandra Moltke Isles played well-meaning governess Vicki from #1 to #627; for the first year, she was the main character on Dark Shadows, and she continued to be a core member of the cast until she left. Nowadays, Mrs Isles remembers that a few months after her departure she found herself free at 4 PM and tuned into the show. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on. She wasn’t the only one. The staff that will take the show through its next several months- Sam Hall, Gordon Russell, and Violet Welles- would do brilliant work, on average far and away the best the show ever had, but none of them spared a thought for any but the most regular of viewers. For much of 1969, missing one episode will leave you bewildered- missing several months, well, Mrs Isles may as well have been watching a different show altogether.

Most episodes in the first 66 weeks of Dark Shadows ended with ABC staff announcer Bob Lloyd’s voice in the closing credits telling us that “Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis production.” We hear that announcement during today’s closing credits for the first time since #330. That isn’t because they’ve brought Mr Lloyd back, but because they were using an old tape for the theme music and didn’t realize his voice was on it. You can tell it wasn’t on purpose, since the announcement comes in the middle of the credits, not in its usual place at the end when the Dan Curtis Productions logo appears.