david collins – Page 2 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 815: The gentleman he appears to be

One night in 1797, nine Rroma men trapped sorcerer Count Petofi in the forest of Ojden. They amputated his right hand, and with it took most of his magical powers. Some time after, Petofi learned that he had exactly one hundred years to reattach the hand. If he managed it within that time, he would become immortal. Otherwise, he would die on the anniversary of the amputation.

Now that anniversary has come, and Petofi has succeeded in regaining his hand with only minutes to spare. Time-traveling vampire Barnabas Collins and his distant cousin, desperately handsome werewolf Quentin, have decided that because Petofi’s spirit is in possession of Quentin’s twelve year old nephew Jamison and Jamison is as close to death as is Petofi himself, only by surrendering the hand to Petofi can they save the boy. Barnabas did get Petofi’s servant Aristide to promise to free Quentin of lycanthropy once he has the hand back, but he put little faith in that promise.

Now Petofi is jubilant and Jamison is still sick. Barnabas tells Petofi about the deal Aristide made, and also says that he wants Jamison and the rest of the Collinses to be freed from the ill effects Petofi has had on them. Petofi could not be less interested. Instead, he wants Barnabas to tell him how he traveled in time from 1969 and how he will travel back there.

Petofi lets slip that he is anxious to go to another period of history because he is afraid of the Rroma people who are still after him. We know, not only that it was Rroma who cut off his hand, but that when Petofi saw a young Rroma woman in a tavern in #794 he couldn’t get out fast enough. While it may have taken nine Rroma men to take his hand, evidently a single Rroma woman, and a tiny one at that, is capable of doing him considerable harm. Barnabas has a Rroma friend, broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi, who has considerable magic powers of her own, and he knows of a Romany band currently camped near Boston. So Petofi’s apparently well-founded ziganophobia is a sign that Barnabas may be able to defeat him, even though Petofi’s powers were formidable even before he was reunited with his hand.

Petofi says that he will cure Jamison only if Barnabas explains how he traveled to 1897 from 1969. Barnabas tells Petofi he has no idea how he made that journey. This is so. He meditated on some I Ching wands, a process which he was told might have any of an infinite number of effects, and found himself in 1897. Nor does he have any idea how to get back. He might have enlarged on the theme of his complete lack of useful knowledge in this area. In 1968, Barnabas traveled back to his original era, the 1790s, by going to the grave of a man named Peter Bradford on the anniversary of Bradford’s death. Bradford’s ghost had been haunting him, and Barnabas called for Bradford to take him back to the year 1796. After he did so, Barnabas found that he could return to the 1960s only by having himself sealed in his coffin and waiting inside it for 172 years until friends let him out. He doesn’t tell Petofi about that incident, but it does not seem likely to be of any more help to him than the story about the I Ching would be.

Petofi does not believe that Barnabas is so hapless. First he squeezes Barnabas’ hand, depriving him of the power to dematerialize. Then he opens a cupboard and tells Barnabas to look in it. It takes a while to warm up, but eventually it gets an ABC affiliate showing Dark Shadows. Barnabas sees the parlor of the Old House on the estate of Collinwood in 1969. His best friend, mad scientist Julia Hoffman, MD, is sitting there reading a book. We haven’t seen Julia since #700, but she might be on our minds today. At one point Aristide lights his cigar on a candle burning in a large candelabra. In #296, Julia very memorably did the same thing with her cigarette.

Barnabas sees strange and troubled boy David Collins come staggering downstairs, raving deliriously about Quentin. Julia tells him to reject Quentin, who in 1969 is a ghost haunting Collinwood and draining the life from David. David passes out, and Julia injects him with a powerful sedative, as you do with unconscious children.

The cupboard loses the channel, and Barnabas asks Petofi what else is happening in 1969. Petofi cannot answer any questions; it quickly becomes clear that he couldn’t see or hear the scene. Barnabas is intrigued to learn of another of Petofi’s weaknesses, and walks out.

Aristide then speculates that Barnabas might be telling the truth. Petofi rejects this at once, reveals more of his cupboard’s limitations:

No, he’s not a fool, Aristide. He thinks he can win, accomplish whatever he wants to do here, and disappear without me…

Had Petofi ever seen even one episode of Dark Shadows, it would not occur to him to say that Barnabas is “not a fool.” Nor would he surmise that Barnabas is pursuing a plan that includes a plausible method of escape. If Barnabas had a plan of any kind, Petofi would know all about it, since it would have failed spectacularly the moment he took the first step towards putting it into effect.

Petofi and Aristide then go to the Old House. They find Magda there. At the moment, she is under Petofi’s power. Like Julia, Magda is played by Grayson Hall. We may have thought the glimpse into 1969 was a videotaped insert, but evidently it was done live, because Magda is not wearing her usual heavy brownface makeup. She may have a bit of an artificial tan, but Julia’s blue eyeshadow is clearly visible through it.

Magda, looking more like an actual Rroma woman than she ever has before.

Petofi forces Magda to lead her to Barnabas’ hiding place. He has a cross and Aristide has a chain and a padlock. Petofi puts the cross inside the coffin, and orders Aristide to chain the coffin closed. Petofi declares that Barnabas is in for a long journey.

Episode 770: We must give him a vampire

Vampire Barnabas Collins first appeared on Dark Shadows in #210 and quickly became the show’s main character and star attraction, but the word “vampire” was not uttered on-screen until #410, and thereafter was used quite sparingly for a long while. Those days are definitely behind us now; the characters say “vampire” eight times in this one.

Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897, and is embroiled in a great many storylines, none of which he fully understands or has any idea of changing for the better. Yesterday, crazed groundskeeper Dirk Wilkins told twelve year old Jamison Collins (David Henesy) that Barnabas was a vampire, and Jamison, checking on his story, found an empty coffin in Barnabas’ basement. Today, Jamison tells his father, the stuffy Edward (Louis Edmonds,) what Dirk said and what he saw.

Edward comes to Barnabas’ house, repeats Jamison’s story, and asks to see the basement. Barnabas has hidden the coffin, but Edward tells him that he cannot dismiss the story so easily. A few weeks before, Edward discovered that Jamison’s mother Laura was an undead blonde fire witch bent on incinerating her children to renew her own existence; since that experience, he can no longer disregard claims about the supernatural. There have been a number of attacks on the estate of Collinwood and in the village of Collinsport which have left victims drained of blood and showing bite marks on their necks; he must take Jamison’s claims seriously. He is alone with Barnabas in his basement while explaining this to him, rather a foolhardy position in which to lay out to a man one’s grounds for suspecting that he is a vampire.

Edward, unfrightened. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Edward leaves. Barnabas is in a bind. Jamison’s children will be the adults at Collinwood in the 1960s, and they are the ones who accept Barnabas’ story that he is their distant cousin from England and give him the Old House on the estate to live in. If Jamison knows about him, it will hardly be likely that his children will be so welcoming. Even if he can reverse his journey through time, there will be no future for him to go back to. So he tells his blood thrall, maidservant Beth, that they must provide a vampire to take the blame for his earlier deeds and allay Jamison and Edward’s suspicions.

Barnabas thinks that he has already arranged a solution to this problem. He bit Dirk in order to shut him up and bring him under control, but apparently he over-ate. Dirk is not going to live through the night. When he dies, he will rise as a vampire. Barnabas and Beth will see to it that Dirk is caught and that he takes the fall for Barnabas’ crimes.

Barnabas has stashed Dirk in a secret room off the parlor of the Old House, a space behind the bookcase in the front parlor. Barnabas opens this space, intending to sit by Beth until they see Dirk die, only to find that it is too late- Dirk has wandered off.

Longtime viewers will find satisfactions in the reflections of earlier characters that run throughout this episode. The secret chamber in which Barnabas tried to keep Dirk is not a place which he has used before, but it first appeared on the show long before he did. In #115, another crazed servant, handyman Matthew Morgan, locked well-meaning governess Vicki up in the chamber, eventually attempting to kill her there. When Barnabas suddenly thinks of that chamber, he is emphasizing the echo of Matthew in Dirk’s rampage.

Edward’s fearlessness in standing alone before Barnabas in his basement and telling him that he suspects he may be a vampire is also something we have seen before. From November 1967 to March 1968, when Dark Shadows was set in the 1790s, Louis Edmonds played haughty overlord Joshua Collins. In #446, Joshua found his son Barnabas rising from his coffin in this same basement and confronted him about his bad behavior. When Barnabas moved to kill him, Joshua glared at him and Barnabas slunk away in shame. Edward is quite different from Joshua; on the one hand he lacks the earlier man’s sense of enterprise and drive for power, while on the other he is far more loving towards his children and quicker to set aside his individual pride for the sake of family unity. But we can see that he does share his kinsman’s ability to fend off vampire attacks by insisting on good manners.

The most fully developed echo is of #333. In that episode, set in contemporary times, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy,) had seen a coffin in Barnabas’ basement. Connecting that with an abundance of other readily available evidence, David concluded that Barnabas was a vampire. David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds,) refused to consider such a notion. When local men Burke and Dave went to Barnabas’ house and demanded to search the basement, he initially resisted. At length he led them downstairs. The coffin was not there. Burke and Dave went back to the great house of Collinwood, and Roger crowed with triumph that they had been so silly as to take David’s story seriously. Embarrassed, Burke and Dave asked David if he might have made the whole thing up.

Barnabas may have had this incident in mind, and with it a hope that by showing Edward the empty basement he would embarrass him as he had embarrassed Burke and Dave, perhaps turning him into the same kind of ally that Roger was in 1967. But Edward is made of sterner stuff, and he sheds light on what was in the minds of the makers of the show.

Laura was another iteration of the show’s first supernatural menace. From December 1966 to March 1967, we learned that David’s mother, Laura Murdoch Collins, was a humanoid Phoenix who had returned from the dead to incinerate him along with herself and thereby renew her existence. Roger eventually came face to face with that fact and made himself marginally useful in the effort to stop her. Afterward, he was shocked out of his habit of openly expressing hatred for David, and eventually even showed a modicum of affection and concern for the boy. But he quickly snapped back into the Collins family’s traditional attitude of denial that the supernatural could have any role in human events, and he would not be budged from this denial.

The Laura we saw in 1897 was a violent retcon of many of the most important features of the story we saw in 1966 to 1967, and as Jamison’s mother she implies that Roger married his own grandmother. So it seemed inexplicable that the makers of the show would choose to introduce her. It is when Edward explains that his experience with Laura has opened his mind to the possibility of dangers intruding from the world of the supernatural, that we understand why they did it. They are showing us that Edward is on a continuum about halfway between Joshua and Roger.

Joshua was in a way too strong for his world to support, so that he defeated his own aims and produced tragedies for all those he meant to elevate. By contrast, Roger is like one of Nietzsche’s “Last Men,” what nowadays some call “cage-stage,” a person who is so degenerated he cannot exist on his own or create anything lasting but can be happy in captivity. Edward does not have Joshua’s anomalous strength; like Roger, he lives in his sister’s house as her guest and works for her business as an employee. But neither does he have Roger’s cowardly inability to face facts or his vicious glee in the humiliation of others. He is brave enough and strong enough and fair-minded enough to represent a grave threat to Barnabas.

Episode 767: Birthdays are for people who get older

For the first several months of Dark Shadows, heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard made no attempt to conceal her loathing of her young cousin, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy.) That changed at the beginning of 1967, during the storyline centered on David’s mother, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. Laura cast a spell that caused Carolyn’s mother, reclusive matriarch Liz (Joan Bennett,) to enter a catatonic state. When that happened, Carolyn assumed responsibility for the family’s properties and enterprises. In that position, Carolyn took on a new maturity, and the capricious and often thoughtlessly cruel character we knew in the early days was gone forever.

Laura went up in smoke in March 1967, and the next month vampire Barnabas Collins succeeded her as the show’s supernatural menace. The adults in the great house of Collinwood- Liz, Carolyn, David’s father Roger, and well-meaning governess Vicki- were all taken with Barnabas. Liz gave him the Old House on the estate to live in, and none of them could see the abundant evidence that their distant cousin was a bloodsucking ghoul from beyond the grave. But the ghost of Barnabas’ nine year old sister Sarah appeared to David and led him to suspect that something was off about the new arrival. By late September, David had all but solved the puzzle, and was trying to get the grownups to see the obvious.

In #335, broadcast in October 1967, a psychiatrist named Dr Fisher came from Boston to examine David. Dr Fisher explained Sarah as an imaginary friend David had created in his attempt to control the fear of death he had developed after seeing his mother burn up, and his claim that Barnabas was an undead monster as that fear reasserting itself. We know that this is entirely wrong as far as David goes, but it does go a long way towards explaining the appeal Dark Shadows has for its audience.

In November 1967, Vicki came unstuck in time and Dark Shadows turned into a costume drama set in the late eighteenth century. When she came home and the show returned to contemporary dress in March 1968, David’s understanding of Barnabas and the resulting danger Barnabas would kill David, which had been the chief driving force of the action when she left, had been forgotten. Later that month Barnabas was freed from the effects of the vampire curse, and he set about fighting other uncanny monsters.

Now we are in the fourteenth week of the show’s second major costume drama segment. In late 1968 and early 1969, the malign ghost of Quentin Collins ruined things for everyone. David was under his possession and on the point of death when Barnabas decided the time had come to sit in his basement, throw some I Ching wands, and meditate on them. As a result, he found himself in the year 1897, when Quentin was a living being.

Barnabas has again managed to install himself as master of the Old House, though the Collinses of 1897 are a much less trusting lot than are their descendants in the 1960s. Barnabas and Quentin are becoming friends, but Quentin is increasingly irritated with Barnabas’ refusal to tell him anything about himself beyond the cover story that he concocted when he arrived. The owner of the house, spinster Judith Collins (Joan Bennett,) is more or less satisfied with that story, but her nephew and presumptive heir, twelve year old Jamison Collins (David Henesy,) has come to share Quentin’s belief that there is far more to Barnabas than meets the eye.

Today, Judith approaches Barnabas with a question. She says that Jamison has awoken from a terrible nightmare, and that while he was thrashing about in bed he called out “David Collins is dead!” This comes as a shock to Barnabas, suggesting a message from the future that he has already failed in his weird mission.

Judith has never heard of anyone named “David Collins” and can find no record of such a person, and asks Barnabas if he, who seems to know so much about the family history, has ever heard of an ancestor with that name. This will be of interest to longtime viewers. In #153, it was established that David was the first of his name in the Collins family, and that his mother, undead blonde fire witch Laura, had insisted on calling him that. This would eventually become evidence that Laura’s evil plans for David were in place long before he was born. But in #288, David would see a portrait of a long-forgotten ancestor named “David Collins” in an old volume, and would wonder if he was named for him. The name “David” had such a profound significance in the Laura story that it seemed like a major retcon when David delivered the line, but nothing came of it. Another iteration of Laura was on the show recently, and it seems we are back to the original understanding of how David got his name.

Shaken, Barnabas says that “David Collins is no one who exists!” Judith reacts to his obvious shock and his odd phraseology with the suspicion you would expect it to elicit, but still urges Barnabas to talk with Jamison. By the time she gets the boy to the drawing room, Quentin has joined Barnabas there and is sniping at him about his interest in the family. When Barnabas asks Judith and Quentin to leave him alone with Jamison, Quentin resists, demanding to know why they can’t stay. Barnabas doesn’t give much of an explanation, and it seems to be only Judith’s unwillingness to let Quentin win any argument that leads her to insist that Barnabas get his way.

As it turns out, the reason Judith and Quentin had to leave is that the dream will be played for us as a flashback, and Joan Bennett and David Selby feature in it. We have seen a great many dream sequences on Dark Shadows, but this is the first time one has been presented in retrospect while the dreamer is telling us about it. All previous dream sequences have begun with a character in bed and have shared that character’s experience with us. Several times, including the countless sequences during the “Dream Curse” storyline of April to July 1968, there was a vague possibility that the person would either die during the dream or wake from it irreversibly changed. So even longtime viewers might be surprised when Jamison sits down with Barnabas, starts talking, and we find ourselves in his dream.

Jamison doesn’t know it, but his dream is set in 1969. After Quentin’s ghost made the great house uninhabitable, the family took refuge in the Old House. Jamison goes to its basement, where he sees Barnabas immobilized before the I Ching wands. Unable to get his attention, he goes upstairs to the front parlor, where Carolyn, Liz, and Roger are preparing a birthday party for David. Carolyn is opposed to the exercise. She manipulates a hand puppet while making unpleasant remarks in a high-pitched voice, and says that “Birthdays are for people who get older!” Evidently time is passing in 1969 while Barnabas is struggling with his mission in 1897.

When Vicki was in the 1790s from November 1967 to March 1968, we did not catch any glimpses of the period she had left. Only for a few minutes immediately after she vanished and a few more immediately before she reappeared did we see the drawing room at the great house, and those minutes represented the whole passage of time the contemporary characters experienced during the four months of Vicki’s absence. We’ve already been in 1897 longer than we were in 1795-1796 then, and Jamison’s dream suggests that contemporary time is passing more rapidly now. Since David was within hours of death when Barnabas departed so many weeks ago, his prognosis would seem grim.

The dream is one longtime viewers can imagine David having. Carolyn has been friendly to her little cousin since early 1967, but she was so nasty to him in 1966 that he might well imagine her being impatient with his failure to finish dying sooner. Roger was even more openly hostile to David in those days, and only began to show normal fatherly feeling for him after he realized that he had narrowly escaped death at Laura’s hands. But even though David returned Roger’s open hatred and tried to kill him, he did after all retain a wish for a healthier relationship with him, and so it is not surprising that Roger would appear in a dream of his as someone wishing him well.

David wonders where Barnabas and Quentin are. The adults say that Barnabas is away, but do not recognize Quentin’s name. Roger looks Quentin up in a volume of family history, and finds that there is no entry for him. He declares that this means that there can never have been any such person. Again, if we think of this as a dream of David’s that has intruded itself onto Jamison’s consciousness, it makes sense that Roger, and for that matter Liz and Carolyn, are clueless about what is really going on around them.

Roger can find no reference to Quentin in the family history. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Quentin appears, at first as the unspeaking ghost he was in when we first saw him from December 1968 to March 1969. Roger, Liz, and Carolyn vanish, and David talks with Quentin. Quentin says that the Roger, Liz, and Carolyn could not see him because he is dead, and that David can see him because he will soon be dead.

Quentin tells David that his own death was preceded by three events, and that if he had understood the significance of any of those events at the time he might have survived. The first event was the discovery of a silver bullet at Collinwood. The second was the murder of someone who might have been able to help him. The third was the turning of the one person he truly loved against Quentin; when that happened “there was almost no time left for Quentin Collins.”

Jamison asks Barnabas what the dream means. Barnabas claims not to know. Jamison replies that he thinks Barnabas knows exactly what it means, and is very upset with him for refusing to share his knowledge. In #660, David had said that “Barnabas knows lots of things he doesn’t tell anyone”; Jamison has already caught on to this same fact.

One of the people with whom Barnabas will not share his knowledge is Quentin. Even though Quentin’s ghost explicitly said in Jamison’s dream that his own demise could have been prevented, and Barnabas’ mission therefore completed, had he known about the three upcoming events, Barnabas flatly refuses to tell Quentin about them. Even when the silver bullet is discovered at Collinwood at the end of the episode, Barnabas still will not pass the dream’s warning on to Quentin.

Instead, Barnabas reenacts Dr Fisher’s part from #335. He seizes in Jamison’s description of the 1960s wardrobe he saw David, Roger, Liz, and Carolyn wearing, and says that it is the key- it shows that the whole scene is a masquerade. As Dr Fisher had said that Sarah Collins was an imaginary figure David had fabricated to contain the fear of death that had afflicted him since he saw his mother Laura die, so Barnabas claims that David Collins is a figure Jamison has fabricated to contain the fear of death that had afflicted him since he saw his mother Laura die. As Dr Fisher’s interpretation was all wrong in-universe but was quite plausible as an explanation of the audience’s responses to the show, so Barnabas’ interpretation is a grotesque lie in-universe but is quite plausible as writer Violet Welles’ description of the creative process that led to the decision to reuse Laura in the 1897 segment of the show. It allows them to pair David with Jamison and Roger with Edward, comparing and contrasting their personalities.

Episode 731: Your greatest weakness

One of the first “Big Bads” on Dark Shadows was crazed handyman Matthew Morgan, played by Thayer David. Matthew was the most devoted employee of reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett.) Matthew took his devotion to Liz to such an extreme that he was a menace to everyone else. In November and December of 1966, we learned that Matthew had decided that Liz’ second most dedicated employee, plant manager Bill Malloy, was a threat to her. Matthew had tried to put a stop to Bill’s doings. Not knowing his own strength, Matthew accidentally killed Bill. When well-meaning governess Victoria Winters discovered what had happened, Matthew abducted Victoria, held her prisoner in the long-deserted Old House on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood, and was about to murder her when a bunch of ghosts emanated from the show’s supernatural back-world and scared him to death.

In those days, Dark Shadows was a slow-paced “Gothic” drama set in contemporary times. From November 1967 to March 1968, it was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and its plot often moved at a breakneck speed. Among the characters then was much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes, who like Matthew was played by Thayer David. At first Ben made a stark contrast with Matthew. He was as relaxed, friendly, and reasonable as Matthew was tense, forbidding, and paranoid. But when his one ally among the Collins family, scion Barnabas, was cursed to become a vampire, Ben’s devotion made him resemble Matthew ever more closely. In his development, we saw a retrospective reimagining of Matthew. The curses that were placed on Barnabas and the rest of the Collinses from the 1790s on had burdened the village of Collinsport, and people who grew up there labored under the consequences of those curses and of the Collinses’ attempts to conceal them. Ben was what Matthew might have been had he not been warped by the evil that began when black magic was first practiced in the area so many generations before.

In January 1969, the show briefly returned to 1796, to a time coinciding with the last days of the earlier flashback. We saw that by that point, the curses had already transformed life on and around the great estate. In that period, Ben’s efforts to protect Barnabas led him inadvertently to kill a man, not knowing his own strength, and then to cover that crime up by killing a woman, not at all inadvertently. He had become Matthew. The curse placed on Barnabas had become the curse of all those who work for the Collinses and all of those who live in the shadow of their wealth and power.

Before Matthew, Dark Shadows‘ chief villain was high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds); after, it was Roger’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins (Diana Millay.) In this episode, the makers of the show take a page from its 1790s flashbacks. They have Edmonds and Millay reconceive the Roger and Laura of that atmospheric, sometimes almost action-free soap as characters appropriate to the fast-paced supernatural thriller it now is.

Since #701, Dark Shadows has been set in the year 1897. Louis Edmonds plays Roger’s grandfather Edward; Diana Millay plays Edward’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. In his days as a villain, Roger’s defining characteristic was his unnatural lack of family feeling. He had squandered his entire inheritance, a fact which did not bother him in the least. When his sister Liz confronted him in #41 about the difficulties he had created by putting his half of the family business up for sale, he airily replied that he had enjoyed his inheritance. When in #273 Liz and Roger discussed a blackmail plot of which she had been the victim, Roger admitted that had he known her terrible secret, he probably would have used it to force her to give him her half of the estate so that he could squander that, as well.

It wasn’t only the family’s material possessions and Liz’ right to them to which Roger was indifferent. He openly hated his son, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy.) He continually insulted David, badgered Liz to send David away, and in #83 coldly manipulated David’s fears to lead him to try to murder Victoria.

In the 1897 segment, Edward is as stuffily serious about the family business as Roger was in 1966 nihilistically apathetic about it. Edward loves his children, twelve year old Jamison (David Henesy) and nine year old Nora, but his rage at Laura has come between himself and them. Laura left Edward the year before to run after Edward’s brother, breezy libertine Quentin (David Selby.) Edward tried to conceal the fact that his brother cuckolded him. He has repeatedly declared that Laura “No longer exists!” and has forbidden her name to be mentioned in the house.

Edward trapped between the enigmatic Laura and the exuberant Quentin. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

For his part, Quentin bears a striking similarity to the early, wicked Roger. He wants money only to spend it, a fact which he cheerfully admits. He tried to forge a will in his grandmother Edith’s name to cheat his sister Judith (Joan Bennett) out of her inheritance, having previously threatened to kill Edith. He does have great affection for Jamison, but since he often uses the boy as a pawn in Satanic ceremonies, his fondness for his nephew is not much of an improvement over Roger’s hatred for his son. Indeed, Quentin’s resemblance to Roger connects the 1897 segment not only to the early months of the show, but also to the weeks immediately preceding it. Early in 1969, Quentin’s ghost had taken possession of David Collins and was causing him to die. When we see that Quentin is now what Roger was originally, David’s ordeal takes on a new dimension. He is dying for the sins of his father.

In this episode, Laura has returned. Edward has offered her a great deal of money to go away and never come back; she refuses. She threatens to tell the world about her relationship with Quentin if Edward does not let her stay at Collinwood. Edward buckles to this blackmail. Laura tells him that “Family pride is your greatest weakness,” making him Roger’s exact opposite.

When Laura was at Collinwood from December 1966 to March 1967, her old boyfriend Burke Devlin kept pestering her with his suspicion that he, not Roger, was David Collins’ father. Burke was not the first character to bring this idea up. Roger had mentioned it to Liz in #32, when they were talking about an attempt David had made to kill Roger. At that time, Liz was horrified that Roger seemed to want to believe that David was Burke’s natural son.

It seems unlikely that Quentin is Jamison’s father. They have been firm about 1870 as Quentin’s date of birth, and in 1897 Jamison is quite plainly twelve. Laura may have gone on to marry her own grandson, but it would be a bit of a stretch for her to have started sleeping with her brother-in-law when he was fifteen, even if he did look like David Selby.

But Roger’s anger and jealousy about Burke and Laura do mirror Edward’s about Quentin and Laura. It was abundantly clear that Roger and Burke’s deepest pain regarding Laura was that their intense attachment to each other was disrupted when she left Burke for Roger; Diana Millay used her gift for dry comedy to make this explicit in a scene the three of them played in the groundskeeper’s cottage in #139. Likewise, Edward’s frustration with and disappointment in his brother is at least as deep a source of anguish to him as is his loss of Laura’s love.

Laura, too, is quite different this time around. The first Laura story took shape gradually over a period of weeks, as Laura herself emerged from the mist. Now Laura is a forceful presence from her first appearance. Originally we heard that Laura had married into several of the leading families of the Collinsport region; now they have given up on the idea of developing other leading families, and Laura just keeps coming back to the Collinses. In the first story, they laid great emphasis on the interval of precisely one hundred years between her appearances; now, the number of years doesn’t seem to have any particular significance. As we go, we will see an even more important difference. When we first met Laura, she was utterly determined to make her way into a pyre so that she could rise as a humanoid Phoenix; now she is unhappy about the whole thing, and angry with people who have helped her on her fiery way.

Edward lets Laura live in the cottage where Roger and Liz would put her in 1966. In the final scene, she goes there and finds Quentin, drunk and trying to conjure up an evil spirit. Quentin keeps telling Laura that she is dead. Frustrated with her persistent refusal to concur with this statement, Quentin puts his hands around her neck and announces that whether or not she is dead now, she will be by the time he gets through with her.

Roger was uncharacteristically sober at the beginning of his three-scene in the cottage with Burke and Laura in #139, but he did enter brandishing a fire-arm. So Quentin’s homicidal intentions on this set further cement his affiliation with his great-nephew in the eyes of longtime viewers.

Millay and Edmonds are not the only actors whose screen iconography the show turns to advantage today. We first saw Kathryn Leigh Scott and Don Briscoe together in #638, when she was playing ex-waitress Maggie Evans and he was playing mysterious drifter Chris Jennings. They met in the foyer at Collinwood. Maggie was angry with Chris, and Chris was guilt-ridden. Today, Miss Scott plays governess Rachel Drummond and Briscoe plays teacher Tim Shaw. They meet in the foyer at Collinwood. Rachel is angry with Tim, and Tim is guilt-ridden.

Though the same actors are playing the same basic emotions on the same set, the situations are different, and the characters are very different. Maggie is Dark Shadows‘ principal representative of the working class of the village of Collinsport. She speaks directly and bluntly, using the plainest language she can to dare Chris to try to excuse his inexcusable behavior. Chris occupies a lowly and unsettled place in the world, and he dodges her gaze and evades her questions, saying as little as he can, almost mumbling.

But Rachel is a neurotic intellectual, and she expresses her anger in complex sentences featuring vocabulary that only a very well-read person would have used in 1897 (for example, the word “sadist.”) Tim retreats from her anger into a defense of his job that quickly devolves into the tiredest platitudes imaginable. At one point he actually intones “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Miss Scott makes Rachel’s highly literate onslaught on Tim as forceful as was Maggie’s unvarnished challenge to Chris, and Briscoe makes Tim’s pompous posturing as pitiable as was Chris’ broken burbling. Writer Gordon Russell must have been delighted that the actors did such good work with his ambitious pages.

Episode 726: A boy’s dislike

When Dark Shadows began in June 1966, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy) was frantically afraid that he would be sent away from the great house of Collinwood. In #10, David overheard his father Roger (Louis Edmonds) telling his aunt Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett) that they ought to do just that. As the owner of the house and holder of all the family’s wealth, it is up to Liz to make the decision. Hearing his father press to send him away, David responded by sabotaging the brakes on Roger’s car, nearly killing him.

Roger told Liz that David belonged in an “institution,” but David was just as terrified when it was suggested that he might go to an ordinary school. It was not entirely clear why he had this attitude. David and Roger had only lived in the vast gloomy house for a few weeks when the show started. Roger openly hated David, as did Liz’ daughter Carolyn. Liz loved him, but as a recluse and an aging grande dame had little in common with a young boy. Moreover, David hated his governess, the well-meaning Vicki, as much as he could hate any school. His mother, who did not live in the house and whose name was in those days was never to be mentioned there, was the only person for whom David expressed fondness; when in #15 David watched Roger drive off in the car whose brakes he had sabotaged, we saw him standing by himself, saying “He’s going to die, mother. He’s going to die!” So it is difficult to see why David was so intensely committed to staying at Collinwood.

Today, we see a suggestion that David may have been influenced by an ancestral memory of bad times at a boarding school. It is 1897, and David’s grandfather Jamison Collins (David Henesy) is twelve. Jamison’s father Edward (Louis Edmonds) has asked the Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask to come to Collinwood to urge his sister, Judith Collins (Joan Bennett,) to send Jamison and his nine-year old sister Nora to be students at Worthington Hall, a boarding school Trask runs. As the house’s owner and holder of all the family’s wealth, it is up to Judith to make the decision.

Trask wins Judith’s confidence by performing a ceremony after which Jamison and her brother, Jamison’s uncle Quentin, are restored to themselves after a spell that had made Quentin a zombie and put his spirit in possession of Jamison. Recently arrived, thoroughly mysterious distant cousin Barnabas Collins sputters with rage at the very sight of Trask, and exasperates Judith with his insistence that Trask is evil. Judith does not trust Barnabas, and Barnabas’ inability to either explain or contain his hostility only confirms her favorable judgment of Trask.

Once Quentin and Jamison are themselves again, Trask sends Barnabas and Quentin out of the drawing room. Quentin raises his eyebrows in response to Trask’s order and asks his sister “Are you sure you’re still in charge of this house, Judith?” She does not respond.

Judith makes a remark about Quentin’s influence on Jamison, saying that “He’s been like this ever since [Quentin] came home.” Since Jamison was just freed from possession a few minutes before, it is unclear what she could mean, and Jamison objects “That’s not true!” Trask unctuously replies “Now, your aunt does not tell lies, Jamison.” Returning viewers know that Judith lies constantly. Nor is Trask unaware that Judith is less than perfectly truthful. When he first arrived in Friday’s episode, Judith and Barnabas tried to conceal the situation with Quentin and Jamison from him, and she told a series of lies in pursuit of that objective.

When Jamison continues his attempts to tell the truth, Trask silences him with “Now, there is only one who is constantly right, Jamison, and He is not on this earth, but above. Now, I want you to go out into the hall and consider all the wonderful things your aunt has done for you recently. I am sure you will have much to think about.” Jerry Lacy brings such an inflexible authority to Trask’s personality that we cannot imagine a rebuttal to this sanctimonious little speech. We share Jamison’s helplessness and frustration.

Alone with Trask, Judith agrees to let him take Jamison and Nora to Worthington Hall. Jamison barges back in and declares that he will not go. Trask assures him that he will not take him unless he is willing to go. He then obtains Judith’s permission to talk with Jamison alone in his room.

While Jamison is taking Trask upstairs, we cut to the study. Quentin and Barnabas are alone there. Quentin asks Barnabas if Trask really was his “savior.” Barnabas replies “Apparently.” Quentin asks Barnabas what he thinks really happened; he sidesteps the question. Quentin keeps probing for Barnabas’ interpretation of his recent experience; Barnabas alludes to Quentin’s adventures in Satanism, saying “You dabble in odd things, perhaps one of your interests resulted in this.” Quentin observes that this is “Delicately put,” and goes on to remark on “what an interesting life” he has had.

Barnabas then takes his turn as the questioner. He asks Quentin about his wife, a tall, beautiful, homicidally crazed woman named Jenny who is being held prisoner somewhere in the house. Quentin grows tense, and does not give direct answers. He explodes at Barnabas, saying that he has no interest in making a friend of him. Barnabas observes that he has in fact made an effort to turn him into an enemy; Quentin interjects “Your fault!” Barnabas says they could be useful to each other; Quentin exclaims “Wrong!” When he thinks of Barnabas, Quentin says, only one question comes to mind- “What does he want from me?”

Jonathan Frid said that his favorite scene in Dark Shadows was one he had with Anthony George in #301. Barnabas tells local man Burke Devlin that their relationship to each other is like that of “two superb swordsmen with highly sharpened blades. You thrust, and I parry. I thrust, you parry.” That scene has never impressed me. The Barnabas/ Burke conflict did not have enough grounding in the story to come to life, and having the characters tell the audience that they were like “superb swordsmen” does not make it so. But this showdown really does pay off. Barnabas and Quentin are the show’s two great breakout stars, and we are in the middle of a long run of episodes where everything works. This scene brings out all the values they might have hoped that Burke and Barnabas’ confrontation would put on screen when they planned it.

We return to Jamison’s room, the same bedroom David Collins occupied in the 1960s. Trask is still being friendly. When Jamison says that he would miss his pony if he had to go away to Worthington Hall, Trask says “You must bring him with you!” When Jamison refuses to tell Trask his pony’s name, the friendliness vanishes. Trask darkens, tells him “You’re going to have to learn to answer questions, boy,” and insists they pray together. When Jamison resists, Trask tells him that he must change his ways lest he go on being a disappointment to his father. Jamison protests that his father loves him, and Trask asks incredulously “Does he?” He asks Jamison if he wants his soul to be saved. Jamison can’t very well say anything but yes to that, and so Trask says “Then I think I can help you.” Jamison is trapped.

After a scene in the drawing room where Quentin demands Judith tell him where Jenny is locked up, we return to Jamison’s room. The scene begins with a closeup of the rope belt of Jamison’s robe. Jamison is retying it. He keeps fiddling with it, perhaps a nervous habit, but it is the first thing we see and they hold the shot for a long time. We cannot but wonder whether the belt was untied at some point while Jamison and Trask were alone off camera.

Trask orders Jamison to tell Judith that he wants to go to Worthington Hall; Jamison says he will not. The dialogue does not explain how Jamison’s robe came undone, and neither he nor Trask seems concerned with the matter. Their blasé attitude turns an uncomfortable image into a lingering mystery.

In the drawing room, Trask announces to Judith that Jamison has something to say. Jamison says that Trask threatened him and tried to make him lie. Trask says that Judith will have to find another school for him, and she declares that she will not. Jamison will go to Worthington Hall.

Trask exits. Jamison finds Quentin and asks him to help him escape the grim fate in store for him. Quentin promises to do so, and by the end of the episode Jamison will be safely hidden somewhere in the house. Meanwhile, Barnabas throws a fit before Judith, saying that he cannot understand why “You would believe that maniac before you believe Jamison.” Judith scolds him and tells him to treat Trask with respect.

Trask returns. Barnabas asks him if his family is from Salem, Massachusetts. Trask affirms that it is so. Barnabas claims to have seen ink drawings of a Rev’d Trask who was at Collinwood in the 1790s; Trask says that he was his ancestor. He says that the earlier Rev’d Trask disappeared shortly after leaving Collinwood, and that his disappearance was never explained.

Longtime viewers know that Barnabas is a vampire who lived in the 1790s, and that the original Trask is one of those he blames for the many misfortunes that befell the family in those days, including his own transformation into a bloodsucking abomination. We remember the first Trask as a case study of a type much on people’s minds in the 1960s, Eric Hoffer’s “True Believer.” That Trask was so deeply and unshakably convinced of his own understanding of the situation around him that when he set out on a witch hunt, the real witch was easily able to manipulate him into doing her work for her. Barnabas murdered the original Trask in #442 by bricking him up in an alcove, one of the most famous moments in all of Dark Shadows. He seems pleased to hear that people are still wondering what became of the late witchfinder.

Gregory Trask seems to be a different sort. He can change his tune in a way that his forebear never could, putting on a friendly mask when it serves his interests to do so. While the original Trask was single-mindedly trying to live up to his own twisted idea of virtue, the second sometimes responds to bad news with a delighted grin, suggesting that he sees an opportunity to profit from it. The first Trask’s fanaticism sometimes led him to hypocrisy, when he thought that his ends were so good that they justified dishonest means, but this Trask seems to be a hypocrite who has kidded himself into acting like a fanatic. Mr Lacy’s performance makes him a formidable presence; the writers have made him a powerful adversary.

Episode 691: Too late to be afraid

Throughout its first 73 weeks, Dark Shadows was usually very slow-paced, even by the standards of a 1960s daytime soap. Major characters like matriarch Liz and her brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, often seemed to exist solely for the purpose of refusing to accept the facts in front of their faces and thereby slowing down the progression of the plot. Even characters who did face facts would often as not have the memory of goldfish, so that weeks of character development would evaporate with a sudden display of inexplicable ignorance.

That changed when well-meaning governess Vicki came unstuck in time in #365. For the next few months, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and events came thick and fast. When Vicki returned to the present and Dark Shadows returned to contemporary dress in March 1968, the show was a genuine hit. They tried to sustain the breakneck pace of the 1790s segment throughout 1968, with mixed success. That period was a Monster Mash, featuring multiple witches, vampires, mad scientists, Frankensteins, ghosts, and the Devil himself, or perhaps one of his middle managers. That attracted a new audience of preteen viewers, but all too often left the characters spinning their wheels as they tried to make room for each other within one small fishing village near Bangor, Maine.

A few months ago, they dumped all of those larger than life but ultimately unproductive figures and started concentrating on two storylines. The A story so far has been that of werewolf Chris and the efforts old world gentleman Barnabas and mad scientist Julia have made to keep him from killing quite so many people. That one has been moving along at a steady clip.

The B story has not progressed nearly as fast. At times, it has matched the leisurely pace of the show’s early days. Today is dedicated to that story, and in today’s pre-title teaser it appears that it has brought narrative progression to a total halt.

Maggie is the new governess in the great house of Collinwood, charged with the education of Chris’ nine year old sister Amy and of strange and troubled boy David. As usual, we open with a reprise of the previous episode. This time, the reprise is 5 minutes and 45 seconds of Maggie wandering around the house looking for the children and hearing voices, while doors open themselves. That was OK at the end of Friday’s installment, but on its own it is stupefying.

The story is that the evil spirit of the late Quentin is taking possession of David and Amy in order to destroy the Collins family and have the house to itself. It made sense that that story would start slow. Quentin was at first very weak. He existed only in a sealed chamber the children stumbled upon while exploring the long deserted west wing, and could influence events outside that chamber only by persuading them to do his bidding. He gradually gained the power to control one child at a time, and to manifest himself outside his little room. A while ago he was able to put strychnine into Chris’ drink; by the end of Friday’s episode he had Amy and David under his power simultaneously.

Once the action finally gets underway in today’s episode, Quentin is about to strangle Maggie and the children are screaming at him to stop. Housekeeper Mrs Johnson and Liz enter the room. Mrs Johnson sees Quentin, Liz does not. Maggie is unconscious and the children are in a state. By the end of the episode, Liz, Maggie, and Mrs Johnson know Quentin’s name, his plan, and his power. He has managed to create some kind of bubble around the house so that the people inside it cannot hear the rain. The children pass out. David comes to, and announces that it is too late to be afraid. He laughs maniacally, and in the background we also hear Quentin’s laughter.

Quentin no longer needs to hide from Liz and Mrs Johnson. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

With this slam-bang ending, the Haunting of Collinwood takes over as the A story and Liz forever sheds her role as a blocking figure. This phase of the show is approaching its climax, and there is a chance that what comes next will be exciting.

Episode 690: A different mood

We open with governess Maggie Evans entering the bedroom of strange and troubled boy David Collins. She had heard David’s screams and a man’s laughter coming from the room; the man is gone, and David is unconscious on the floor. He has a nasty burn on his arm, and as he is coming to he pleads with “Quentin” not to hurt him.

Once David is fully awake, Maggie asks who Quentin is. David frantically denies that there is any such person, and claims that the laughter she heard was his own voice as he was playing a make-believe game. She says that she knows he couldn’t have made those sounds. He points out that they are the only people in the room. Maggie does not even try to explain how anyone could have left the room unseen; she seems already to have concluded that Quentin is a supernatural being. Maggie identifies Quentin with a strange and frightening man she and housekeeper Mrs Johnson have both seen. David keeps trying to deny everything, and Maggie keeps telling him she wants to help. David sobs, and Maggie holds him.

Quentin is indeed a ghost who is taking possession both of David and of Maggie’s other charge, nine year old Amy Jennings. With their help, Quentin has so far killed two people, tried to kill two others, and set about trying to drive everyone off the estate of Collinwood. Up to this point, Maggie has failed completely to represent any sort of obstacle to Quentin. She is a poor disciplinarian who lets the children run rings around her even when they are themselves, and is altogether at sea when they are doing Quentin’s bidding. This scene promises a breakthrough. Maggie is the first of the adult characters to learn Quentin’s name, she does not flinch from the evidence of his uncanny nature, she vows to fight him, and David finds comfort in her arms.

The breakthrough does not come today, however. After a moment, David declares that no one can help him, and he rushes out of the room. He goes downstairs to the foyer and hears a knocking at the door. He opens it and sees notoriously abusive actor Roger Davis standing there. He reacts to that sight as anyone might, running away without a backward glance.

Maggie follows David downstairs. There is again some question as to how much of the body language in the next scene is the blocking the director gave as an interpretation of Maggie’s response to the character Ned Stuart and how much is Kathryn Leigh Scott’s reaction to Mr Davis. Maggie tells Ned she can’t talk because she must go out in search of David; as she prepares to exit, she circles around with as much space as possible between her and him, never quite making eye contact but glancing back every time he moves towards her. This is not a pattern of movement we have seen before on the show, even when a character was dealing with a vampire or some other murderous foe. Miss Scott looks very much like a woman alone with a man whom she does not trust not to assault her. If he had, it wouldn’t be the first time he has physically abused a castmate on camera.

A child’s voice is heard, singing the song “Inchworm.” It is Amy, and she is working a jigsaw puzzle in the drawing room. The drawing room brings out Amy’s musical side. She played “London Bridge” on the piano there in #656 and tapped a few random keys on the same instrument in #676. She is quite a good singer, perhaps not surprising since actress Denise Nickerson had been in the cast of the short-lived James Lipton/ Laurence Rosenthal Broadway musical Sherry! in 1967.

Ned enters and introduces himself to Amy. His lines are all perfectly polite and friendly. Amy is supposed to gradually sense that Ned is hostile to her big brother Chris and to become uncomfortable around him, but that is supposed to come at the end of their time together. As it plays out, she already seems uncomfortable when he first enters. A minute or so into the scene, Amy smiles at Ned. Nickerson was remarkably good at flashing quick smiles, but it doesn’t work this time. She looks like she is displaying her teeth to the dentist. When Amy is supposed to start edging away from him, Nickerson turns around and proceeds to her next mark at full speed. The camera pans back, but does not capture her movement- she has gone clean out of the shot, leaving Mr Davis alone in the frame.

She goes as far as she can as fast as she can.

Ned approaches Amy; he grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her back into the shot. Chris enters. Amy starts to warn him against Ned, and he tells her not to be afraid for his sake. Indeed, Chris is safe. It is only women and children who have to be afraid of Roger Davis.

Ned confronts Chris. Evidently something bad happened to Ned’s sister Sabrina. She can’t tell Ned what it was, but he thinks Chris is responsible and wants him to go with him to the Collinsport Inn to see her. Returning viewers know that Chris is a werewolf and that Sabrina saw him transform. He assumed that he had killed her while in his beastly form, and he is surprised to learn from Ned that she is still alive. Chris is a character we are supposed to sympathize with, so it is a bit disturbing that he does not seem particularly relieved to find that he did not kill Sabrina.

In the woods, Amy finds David. She learned some days ago that Quentin wants to hurt Chris, and she has been resisting Quentin’s influence ever since. She and David talk about ways they can work together to fight him. David says that he has decided to tell Maggie what has been happening; Amy objects that this is too dangerous. They seem to be getting somewhere when Quentin appears to them. They are terrified, and then resign themselves to their fate.

Later, the children are in the drawing room with Maggie. Amy is still working her jigsaw puzzle, and David is staring into the fireplace. Longtime viewers will remember that this is something his mother used to do. She was the show’s first supernatural menace and tried to lure David to his doom. Maggie’s predecessor, well-meaning governess Vicki, led the other characters in the campaign that saved David then. We wonder if Maggie will be able to match her success.

Maggie admires the puzzle and calls David over to look at it. David makes a show of being bored, leading Amy to remark airily that boys don’t like jigsaw puzzles. David complains that there is nothing to do. Maggie suggests the three of them sit down together for a heart-to-heart talk, an idea the children reject. They suggest a variety of games they might play. Maggie notices that their manner is quite different than it was earlier in the day. David is more assertive, Amy supercilious. She finally agrees to let them play dress-up.

In the first year of the show, the opening voiceovers often involved a weather report. “A cold wind blows from the sea to the great house of Collinwood, but the fog still hangs heavy on its vast lawns” that sort of thing. They stopped doing that some time ago, but today they slip in an almost comically detailed bit about atmospheric conditions- “Soon dark, threatening clouds will gather over Collinwood, and long, ever-lengthening shadows will creep menacingly toward the great house. By late afternoon, rain will come, a rain that will begin slowly but steadily increase into a raging storm.” You expect them to go on with “Expect cooler temperatures and clear skies after 8 PM, with a chance of frost in the morning.” But the rain, at least, plays a part in the story. It explains why David and Amy have to stay indoors, and a roar of thunder gives Amy a chance to sneeringly ask Maggie if she is frightened. It also occasions the use of this still of the exterior of the house, one which I do not believe we have seen before:

We don’t usually see that much of the lawn.

Later, Maggie goes to look for the children. She enters the study. This set has been familiar since early 1967, but today is the first time we see the outside of its door. Lately we have been seeing more of the little spaces that are supposed to join one room to another, part of a strategy to make the house seem like a bigger place.

The sequence before this suggests Maggie is heading into the long-deserted west wing, but once she goes through the door it is clearly the study.

Once in the study, Maggie hears Amy and David calling to her from no particular direction while Quentin laughs. She is bewildered, then the children join Quentin in laughing. His laughter is hearty, theirs is maniacal. Maggie goes out into the corridor, sees something frightening, and retreats into the study. She is only there for a moment when the doorknob starts turning. We end with Maggie staring directly into the camera, its lens representing the point of view of whatever it is that is terrifying her.

This is the first of only two episodes credited to writer Ralph Ellis. Dark Shadows never had more than three writers on staff at any time. I often wish they had had many more. Ellis is one of those whom I would have liked to see as a senior writer on the show right the way through. The episode is well-paced, the characters are clearly defined, and the dialogue is smooth with just a touch of wit. If he had been in charge of, let’s say, every Monday’s script, the whole series would have been a cut above what it actually was. Since he only contributed two scripts, it is especially sad that Roger Davis had to crap on one of them, but even when Mr Davis is on camera you can still tell that Ellis did his job well.

Episode 689: A victim of the werewolf

Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins finds his distant cousin, strange and troubled boy David Collins, trying to pull the metal ring that opens the secret chamber hidden inside the old mausoleum.

Barnabas wants answers. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas asks what David was doing. He says he was upset with his governess, Maggie Evans, and was hiding from her. Barnabas gestures around the publicly known part of the mausoleum and says “There’s no place to hide here.” David vigorously agrees, and says he didn’t expect Maggie to come there at all. Barnabas asks if David was trying to get into the hidden chamber.

Panicked, David claims not to know what Barnabas is talking about. Barnabas reminds him that he caught him at the mausoleum in #315. Longtime viewers will recall that he subsequently found part of David’s pocket knife in the hidden chamber and confronted him with it, and David seems to remember that as well. He drops his attempt to deny knowing about the chamber, and tells Barnabas he heard an animal inside it.

This goes to the heart of the issue that has brought Barnabas to the mausoleum. Barnabas has befriended mysterious drifter Chris Jennings and has learned that Chris is a werewolf. When Chris is in his beastly form, Barnabas locks him in the hidden chamber to keep him from hurting anyone. The werewolf is in there now. He was growling and snarling when David arrived, but fell silent when Barnabas entered.

Barnabas asks how an animal could have got into the hidden chamber; David admits he can’t think of a way. He then asks David if he can hear the noise now; he says he can’t. He asks if he might have imagined the whole thing; he doesn’t disagree.

Barnabas takes David back home to the great house of Collinwood. His governess Maggie is waiting up for him. She stays in David’s room until he seems to be asleep, then kisses him on the forehead and goes.

Yesterday, David told Maggie that she is a pretty girl. He’s twelve now, old enough to get excited about that very conspicuous fact, so when he opens his eyes immediately after she leaves the room returning viewers might think the reason he faked being asleep was that he was angling for the kiss.

David went to the mausoleum to release the werewolf because the evil spirit of the late Quentin Collins made him do it. Quentin has been dominating David lately. After Maggie goes, Quentin appears in the room and David confronts him. He says he does not want to be part of Quentin’s cruel schemes any longer. In response, Quentin causes David to suffer extreme pain. Passing by in the hallway, Maggie hears David’s scream and Quentin’s laugh, and she opens the door to find David curled up on the floor.

The laugh is noteworthy. Maggie hears it, and it is not a sound David could have made. She has already seen Quentin, but now she has further evidence that he exists. Moreover, it is the first time Quentin has broken his silence. We first met Quentin when he was in company with another ghost, a woman named Beth Chavez. Beth has spoken since then; we wonder when Quentin will have lines to deliver.

Episode 686: Curious so many hearts should stop in this house

When Dark Shadows began in June 1966, we were introduced to Roger Collins as a high-born ne’er-do-well with no sense of responsibility to anyone or anything. Roger had squandered his entire inheritance; his sister, reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, nearly bankrupted herself trying to buy up his half of the family business to keep it from falling into outside hands. Roger and his son, strange and troubled boy David, lived in Liz’ house as her guests. Roger drew a salary from the business, but barely pretended to do any work for it. He made absolutely no pretense of concern for David; on the contrary, he expressed his hatred for his son openly, tried to persuade Liz to send him to a boarding school or an institution or any other place that was far away, and speculated out loud that David might be the natural son of his sworn enemy, dashing action hero Burke Devlin.

David’s mother, Roger’s estranged wife Laura Murdoch Collins, was on the show from December 1966 to March 1967. Roger schemed to get her to leave and take David with her. When he discovered that Laura was an undead fire witch whose plan was to burn David alive in order to secure her own peculiar immortality, he was shocked into a display of fatherly tenderness. He’s never been quite himself since.

By April 1968, the show had long since erased all signs of the financial crisis Roger’s crapulent youth had brought upon the family. Further, Roger had by that time shown so many signs of mature responsibility in his attitudes both towards his son and towards his work that we might have wondered if they were going to retcon away all of his vices. It was a genuine surprise when, in #474, Liz told Roger’s new wife Cassandra that Roger lived in her house as her guest, worked in her business as her employee, and owned nothing himself. Roger’s spendthrift past seemed to have no place in the story by that point.

Today, Roger is at his most conventionally respectable. He comes home from a long business trip, indicating his sober devotion to the work of Collins Enterprises. He finds David in his room, struggling with distant cousin Barnabas Collins and permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman. After a commercial break, Roger says that he has heard about the many complicated events that took place while he was away. Barnabas explains that David had told him that silversmith Ezra Braithwaite came to the house to see him, bearing a ledger with information he wanted. David found Mr Braithwaite in the drawing room, dead of a heart attack. The ledger was nowhere to be found. Barnabas and Julia have come to David to ask if he can shed any light on what may have happened to the ledger, and the boy became violently upset. Roger insists Julia and Barnabas leave the room. He talks soothingly to David and tells him he does not believe any accusations against him.

Later, Roger confronts Barnabas and Julia in the drawing room. He finds the ledger on the desk where Mr Braithwaite was sitting when he died; he does not accept Julia and Barnabas’ assurance that it was not there earlier. He dismissively asks if they are suggesting that “a ghost” put it there. He demands they apologize to David, making it a condition for their continued presence in the house that they do so.

Barnabas is shocked when Roger threatens to revoke his great house privileges. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As it happens, Barnabas and Julia strongly suspect that a ghost did put the ledger back on the desk, and the audience knows they are right. Roger has seen quite a bit of evidence of supernatural forces at work in and around Collinwood, as has Liz. But both of them consistently refuse to acknowledge this evidence. Each of them has had moments when the wall of denial started to crumble; notably in #88, Roger said to Liz, “I’ve seen and felt things, things I couldn’t actually explain. You can’t tell me it hasn’t happened to you, because I know better.” But they always snap back to form sooner or later, no matter how obvious the truth is, and there would obviously be no point in laying the facts before Roger when he is in this mood.

Julia and Barnabas have asked Liz to show them the old family archives. It is the middle of the night, everyone is very tired as the result of the fuss and bother that occurs when a corpse has to be removed from the house by lawful means, they will not tell her what topic they are researching, and they insist on starting work immediately. She asks if they expect her to go along with them on this basis, prompting Barnabas to smile as genially as he can and say “Of course!” You can’t expect to persuade crazy people to behave reasonably, so she gives in.

The archives are a dusty room somewhere in the great house that Julia somehow failed to enter during the months when she was staying at the house under the pretense of being an historian looking into the early years of the Collins family. The first book Julia picks up is an old photo album, and one of the first pages she turns to is a photograph of a woman whose ghost she and Barnabas saw the other night. The photo is dated 1897. The woman looks just as she did in her ghostly form, suggesting that she died not much later than that. There is some business with doors slamming shut and windows blowing open to fill the last thirty seconds of the episode, and the closing credits roll.

My wife, Mrs Acilius, pointed out that Roger’s defensiveness concerning David serves the same purpose in the plot as does Barnabas and Julia’s ludicrously cack-handed approach to questioning him. The evil ghost is still quite weak, the ghost of the woman opposes him, and David and his friend Amy Jennings are desperate to escape from his influence. If any of the adults caught on to what was happening at this point, they could cut the Haunting of Collinwood story short. But it is just getting interesting, and there is only one other plot ongoing now. So we don’t want that. Roger and Liz have to be in full denial mode, Julia and Barnabas have to be terrible at talking with kids, and governess Maggie Evans has to be a squish who doesn’t know the first thing about discipline for the plot to work.

Fortunately, we have ample foundation for each of these character developments. Roger’s origin as a shockingly indifferent father makes it understandable that he would swing to the opposite extreme and treat David with excessive indulgence. As a former vampire and a mad scientist, Barnabas and Julia are metaphors for extreme selfishness, and when they were called upon to act as parents to Frankenstein’s monster Adam in April 1968 they did the worst possible job. Maggie is brand new to governessing; she has been on the show since #1, so we know that she was good at running the coffee shop in the Collinsport Inn, at containing the damage her father did by his alcoholism, at escaping from vampires and mad scientists, and at miscellaneous other tasks involving other adults. But she has never been responsible for children or trained as a teacher, and so it neither surprises us nor alienates us from her that she is bad at the job.

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.