dream sequence – Page 4 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 465: Too cool for ghoul

The other day, vampire Barnabas Collins added well-meaning governess Vicki to his diet. Barnabas has bitten several people in the year he has been on Dark Shadows, and his victims have reacted to the experience in a wide variety of ways. Vicki’s post-bite syndrome is unique on the show, and as far as I know unique in vampire stories. Her reaction could most succinctly be summarized as “not feelin’ it.”

Barnabas had hoped to enslave Vicki with his bite, as he had enslaved others, and attributes her blasé response to the unseen presence of wicked witch Angelique. But it may be that Barnabas has himself to blame. Several times in 1967, Vicki went out of her way to make herself available to Barnabas for biting. She invited herself to his house for a sleepover in #285, pressed her neck towards his teeth while embracing him in #311, and has rarely missed a chance to be alone with him. There is a hilarious meta-fictional element to this theme, as Vicki tries to secure a place for herself in the main storyline by becoming the vampire’s thrall.

For his part, Barnabas has time and again looked at Vicki’s neck, shown his fangs to the camera, and then backed off. Even when he finally did bite Vicki in #462, he spent so much time and energy displaying his internal struggle that my wife, Mrs Acilius, commented “Barnabas is about to make himself sick.” Indeed, he took so long making that display that the episode ended before he sank his teeth into Vicki, and we had to wait until the next day to be sure he’d actually gone through with it. You hardly expect Vicki to be excited that such a reluctant suitor has at long last deigned to attach himself to her.

Vicki has recently returned from a long visit to the year 1795,* when the human Barnabas died and the vampire began his career. Barnabas fears she may have discovered his secret while in that period, a fear that deepens as her scattered memories return.

In fact, Vicki never discovered that Barnabas was a vampire. She does have some information that, coupled with what she and others have already found out, could lead to his exposure, but she isn’t thinking about that at all. Instead, her main focus is on an unpleasant man named Peter, whom she met and with whom she fell in love in the 1790s. On Wednesday, she learned that shortly after she left the eighteenth century Peter had been hanged for a killing she committed,** and she is frantic with guilt about it.

At the top of today’s episode, Barnabas sends Vicki a telepathic message that they will be eloping tonight. She accepts this without any visible emotion. Then her friend, hardworking young fisherman Joe (Joel Crothers,) comes to the door. In the 1790s segment, Crothers played naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes, a villain who was responsible for many terrible crimes against Vicki and people she cared about. This is the first time we’ve seen Joe since the show returned to contemporary dress, and Vicki takes a while to adjust to the fact that it is her trusty old pal before her, not the detestable schemer who did so much to blight her time in the eighteenth century.

Joe has come to bring Vicki a charm bracelet that his girlfriend Maggie had given her. The charm bracelet turned up in the old courthouse in the village of Collinsport. The courthouse has been disused for years and is about to be torn down. Joe wonders when Vicki was there; she makes many cryptic remarks in reply, but can’t bring herself to tell such a sensible fellow that she was tried there for witchcraft and sentenced to death 172 years before, much less that his counterpart gave the testimony that condemned her to the gallows.

After Joe has gone, Vicki still isn’t motivated to do anything to prepare for her departure with Barnabas. Instead, she takes a nap in the drawing room. She has a dream in which she sees Peter in his gaol cell. She promises him that she will prove his innocence, and marches off. She finds Nathan dozing at a desk. She tells Nathan that he could prevent Peter’s execution if he were to tell the judges that he lied when he told them he saw Peter kill the man whom Vicki actually killed. Nathan cheerfully explains that he cannot tell the judges anything, since he is dead. He tells Vicki that she is dead, too- he was strangled, she was hanged.

Nathan, having a wonderful time in the afterlife, proposes a toast “to Death- the best of all possible worlds!” Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Nathan’s statement is proof that the dream is not simply a product of Vicki’s psychology, but a communication with Nathan’s spirit. Barnabas strangled Nathan, but his father Joshua Collins hid that fact from the world, and neither Vicki nor anyone else alive in 1968 has any way of knowing about it. Vicki wasn’t hanged, but she was about to be when she was whisked back to her own time, and Nathan would have no way of knowing she survived.

Vicki goes back to Peter’s cell and finds it empty. She turns and sees the gallows, on which Peter is hanged before her eyes. She wakes up calling out Peter’s name.

Vicki opens her eyes to see Barnabas standing in front of her. He asks her who Peter was; she says he was someone she knew long ago, and that it will be hard for her to forget him. He asks if she knew he was coming; she affirms that she did. If he knew about the contents of the very elaborate dream she just had, he would have all the more reason to ask such a question. The only action of Barnabas’ mentioned in it was Nathan’s murder, and Nathan doesn’t bother to tell Vicki by whom he was strangled. There are four speaking roles and a background player in the dream, and not only is Barnabas not one of them, no one mentions in it his name, sees his image, or comes into contact with any of his belongings. Barnabas has been dominating the show since he was first named in #205, and Vicki, whom he was under the impression he had enthralled, has lost all interest in him.

Barnabas tells Vicki it’s time to go. She says she has to do something else first. She wants to go to the old Collins mausoleum and see if there is a secret room hidden there. If there is, she will know she really did travel back in time.

Barnabas was trapped in his coffin in that secret room from the 1790s until 1967, and is anxious that no one should discover its existence. He is also eager to get going with whatever plan he has made for Vicki. But he finds himself powerless to oppose her. Not only is he not her dark and irresistible master, as he had been of his other blood thralls, he isn’t getting nearly as much deference from her as she had always shown him before he bit her.

We cut to a car, in which Vicki is driving Barnabas to the cemetery. Apparently it is Vicki’s car. This is the first time we have seen Vicki driving, and it brings up a bit of a riddle for viewers who have been paying close attention to Dark Shadows from the beginning. In the first 46 weeks of Dark Shadows, Vicki was continually asking to borrow heiress Carolyn’s car, getting rides from people, walking longer distances than others thought reasonable, trying to catch the bus, and wishing she had a bicycle. In #232, #233, and #259, it was implied that Vicki had a car of her own. They never explained how or when she came into possession of such a thing, but they stopped all the business of her trying to find a way to get around. As we watch Barnabas squirming in the passenger seat, we can believe he would rather be standing with her at a bus stop.

Barnabas keeps telling Vicki that he doesn’t think they ought to go to the mausoleum. She snaps at him that he was originally enthusiastic about going. The statement is entirely false, and the line is entirely convincing. We saw that Barnabas was appalled at Vicki’s interest in the mausoleum, and we saw that she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to notice his feelings. The two of them bicker about the need to get settled before sunrise, and they sound for all the world like an old married couple. Barnabas exercises exactly zero control over Vicki, and the result is hilarious.

The bickering couple. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The show so often puts Vicki in the role of Designated Dum-Dum, requiring her to facilitate the mechanics of the plot by doing things she would have no reason to do, that the show’s original protagonist is eventually swallowed up by Dumb Vicki. It’s always refreshing to see Smart Vicki put in an appearance. I don’t know if the woman we see today is a perfect example of Smart Vicki, but she certainly is Smart Alexandra Moltke Isles. Mrs Isles’ performance is so good that even a hater like Danny Horn had to admit in his post about the episode on Dark Shadows Every Day that she is fun to watch. And the character is Strong Vicki, taking action in pursuit of her own objectives, making use of the information available to her, and bending Barnabas to her will.

The scene in the car will have an amusing echo for longtime viewers. From November 1966 to March 1967, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank Garner kept telling Vicki how interested he was in her. Vicki went on some dates with him and accepted him as her sidekick in her struggle against undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, but all in all was almost as cool towards him as she has been to Barnabas post-bite. In #153, Vicki was Frank’s passenger in his car. He thought they were going out for a glamorous evening, but she abruptly insisted that they go to the old cemetery north of town and visit an old crypt. Frank was about as pleased then as Barnabas is now. I suppose a fellow ought to know what he’s getting into when he and Vicki get into a car together.

Barnabas sees a figure ahead and asks Vicki what it is. She looks and slows down. A man in contemporary dress who looks like Peter lopes into the road, smiles a big goofy grin, and waves. Even though Vicki’s movements and the sound effects told us she took her foot off the accelerator as soon as Barnabas said he saw something, the man is so close to the car that she slams on the brakes, the tires squeal, and she loses control of the vehicle. He must have wandered right in front of the car. That confirms for returning viewers that the man must be Peter. He always did the least intelligent and most dangerous thing, usually while grabbing at people and shouting in a petulant voice. Poor Vicki. Barnabas is a vampire and a cold fish, but she’s managed to get herself stuck with a guy who makes those shortcomings look minor by comparison.

Ugh, this guy. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

*It was 1795 in #365, and in #413 they explicitly told us the new year 1796 had come. But after Vicki returns to the 1960s in #461, the only year they talk about is 1795.

**With justification- she shot a man who was trying to strangle a young boy.

Episode 462: Whole image

In November 1967, Dark Shadows was very rapidly running out of stories to tell. Rather than introduce new characters and new complications to solve this problem, they kept killing off existing characters and foreclosing possible developments, making it impossible not to notice that they were speeding directly towards a blank wall. In #365, they did something no one could have seen coming. Rather than crashing into the wall, they passed right through it and relaunched the show as a costume drama set in the 1790s. The result was a triumph, nineteen weeks of high drama, low farce, lurid horror, pointed satire, and authentic tragedy. Now they are back in contemporary dress, and we are waiting to see what comes next.

Before the costume drama insert, mad scientist Julia was trying to keep well-meaning governess Vicki from falling into the clutches of vampire Barnabas. Julia’s efforts pitted her against many opponents. Vicki regarded Barnabas as a friend, actress Alexandra Moltke Isles was eager to get into the main storyline, the fans wanted to connect the show’s original point of view character with its breakout star, and the writers needed a fresh story to tell. But by repeatedly hypnotizing Vicki and making her subconsciously aware of Barnabas’ horrible secret, Julia was able to hold the line until Vicki disappeared into the 1790s and took the audience, the writers, and Mrs Isles with her.

At the top of today’s episode, Julia is hypnotizing Vicki again. Vicki is in bed, and Julia is extracting memories of her visit to the late eighteenth century, using a post-hypnotic suggestion to sequester those memories from her conscious mind.

Julia hypnotizes Vicki. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Vicki has a dream in which the ghost of Jeremiah Collins, who befriended her in 1795, warns her about Barnabas. The ghost’s voice is provided by Addison Powell, whom Danny Horn named on his great blog Dark Shadows Every Day as “THE WORST ACTOR EVER TO APPEAR ON DARK SHADOWS.” I can think of two or three who might finish ahead of Powell in the contest for this title, but his voice performance today is indeed amazingly bad. He delivers his lines on a single shrill note throughout, and has a lot of trouble managing his breath. I suppose his attempts to get through long speeches without inhaling make sense for someone who just emerged from his grave, but the consequent lack of emphasis on any particular words or phrases and the intermittent gasps each time he runs out of oxygen do keep him from establishing the sense of mystery and terror that the scene calls for.

We then cut to the terrace outside the house, where we see Barnabas approaching the door. Julia meets him, with a new haircut.

Julia’s hair. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This is Grayson Hall’s actual hair; the wig she was wearing in the first scenes had been part of Julia’s costume from her first appearance, in #265. The last time an actress was freed from a wig to perform under her own hair was when Maggie Evans’ tight little blonde hairpiece gave way to Kathryn Leigh Scott’s reddish brown tresses in #20. With that, the wised-up waitress who was everybody’s pal and nobody’s friend became The Nicest Girl in Town. Longtime viewers who remember Maggie’s transformation will recognize what is happening today, when the same device marks a reset of a character. Julia, who yesterday was precisely as hostile to Barnabas and as helpless before him as she was when we left off in November, is today both willing to cooperate with him and very much in control of the situation. He even goes down on one knee to beg her to help him find out what Vicki learned during her sojourn in the eighteenth century. She promises nothing.

Kneeling Barnabas. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

After another visit to Vicki in her room, Julia assures Barnabas that she can use her mastery of hypnosis to cordon off any memories Vicki may have that might pose a threat to him. Unconvinced, Barnabas decides to take matters into his own hands.

Julia tells Barnabas she can control Vicki. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas appears in Vicki’s room. She awakens and is surprised to find him at her bedside. She recoils from him as she had been doing in November, when Julia had made her unconsciously aware of his true nature, but, again as she had done in those days, she overcomes her aversion and turns to him. He tells her to come to him. She hesitates, but does. He tells her he can give her peace and make it seem that everything that is distressing her is far away. She embraces him and asks him to do so. It looks very much like a seduction. Considering that Vicki kept embracing Barnabas and pushing her neck towards his teeth before Julia started hypnotizing her, it is an overdue one. Barnabas opens his mouth. He displays the same inner struggle he has shown on previous occasions when he had the chance to bite Vicki, but is still bending his head towards her neck when we fade out for the closing credits.

Barnabas about to bite Vicki. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Episode 453: Legal guardian

In December 1966, crazed handyman Matthew Morgan (Thayer David) abducted well-meaning governess Vicki and held her prisoner in a secret room behind the bookcase in the front parlor of the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. Vicki had run into Matthew there when she saw his dusty footprints leading up to the bookcase in #115. Vicki’s charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy,) did not know that Matthew had abducted Vicki, and was convinced that he had gone into hiding because he was unjustly accused of murdering local man Bill Malloy. So when David found out Matthew was in the Old House, he brought him food and water. In #120, David heard Vicki’s muffled voice behind the bookcase; in #123, he pulled the bookcase back and found her; in #124, he was too frightened to help her escape.

Now, Vicki has come unstuck in time, and found herself in the late eighteenth century. She made a promising start, landing a position as governess to the children at Collinwood, among them Daniel (David Henesy.) But she has adapted poorly to her new surroundings, so poorly that she has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Accompanied by her boyfriend, an unpleasant young man named Peter, she has escaped from gaol. Vicki was shot in the arm while escaping, and is still bleeding. She and Peter have made their way to the Old House. There, much put-upon servant Ben (Thayer David) at once gives Vicki and Peter such help as he can.

When a knock comes at the door, Ben tells Vicki and Peter he will hide them. He goes to the bookcase, and Vicki whispers “The secret room.” When Vicki first saw Ben, they were in this parlor, and she was frightened because she mistook him for Matthew. In her hushed voice and the look of awe on her face when she sees Ben trying to save her life by putting her in the room where his Doppelgänger will try to kill her in 1966, Alexandra Moltke Isles’ Vicki conveys the thought that Ben and Matthew really are two versions of the same guy. Ben is a kind-hearted sort whose fierce loyalties sometimes overcome his good sense; Matthew a paranoid ogre whose single-minded devotion to matriarch Liz leads him to kill and menace those dearest to Liz. The difference between the two men begins in the events that have been taking place around Vicki in the 1790s. Ben grew up in the ordinary world of day and night, where natural laws apply and there is hope for goodness. Matthew has spent his whole life in a town laboring under an ancient curse. Matthew’s crimes would be the fruit of Ben’s virtues, had Ben been warped by the evil of centuries that hangs over the Collinsport of the 1960s.

While Vicki and Peter huddle in the secret room, Daniel bursts into the parlor. Ben tries to hurry him out, but the lad notices a trail of bloodstains leading to the bookcase. Before Ben can stop him, Daniel opens the bookcase and finds the fugitives.

Daniel discovers the fugitives. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Daniel is as convinced of Vicki’s innocence as David will be of Matthew’s, and he is eager to help her and her friend. Ben says he will take the fugitives to a safer hiding place, and forbids Daniel to follow them. Of course Daniel does follow them, and sees them enter the Collins family mausoleum in the old cemetery north of town. He cannot see inside, where Ben opens a secret panel and ushers Vicki and Peter into the hidden chamber behind. This chamber will be hugely important in 1967. Vicki will hear about it in that year after David, who spent a week trapped there ending in #315, tells people about it in #334. But David will be unable to show the chamber to Vicki or anyone else, and most adults assumed it was just something he had imagined. Vicki is astonished to see it today.

Daniel goes home to the great house of Collinwood, where his brother-in-law, naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes, handles him roughly and demands to know where he saw Vicki. When Daniel denies having seen Vicki, Nathan asks him how he came to have a bloodstain on his sleeve. He tells Daniel that Vicki was wounded when she escaped from gaol, and declares that it is her blood on Daniel. He warns Daniel that it is a crime to withhold information about a fugitive. Daniel keeps denying everything.

Back in the hidden chamber, Vicki is asleep. She dreams that Nathan is trying to kill Daniel. Returning viewers know that this is in fact true. Nathan married Daniel’s sister, fluttery heiress Millicent, because wanted her vast fortune. He found out on their wedding day that she had signed everything over to Daniel. It has occurred to him that if Daniel should die, it will all revert to Millicent, so he is scheming to bring that death about. Vicki has been in gaol since all of this started; nothing she has seen or heard could have led her to conclude that Nathan was a threat to Daniel. We must take it as a message from the supernatural world. This is not the first time we have seen Vicki receive such a message while in a concealed place. In #126, when Matthew was bringing an ax to decapitate her, Vicki was visited in the secret room behind the bookcase in the Old House by the ghost of gracious lady Josette bringing her good news.

The segment of Dark Shadows set in the 1790s is nearing its end. They have killed off most of the characters, have stopped introducing new ones, and those who remain are all facing crises that can be resolved only by further reducing the number of people available to participate in the action. The echoes of #123 and #124 will underline that point for viewers who have been with Dark Shadows from the start. Not only did those episodes tip Matthew into the final part of his storyline, they introduced David’s mother, undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, marking a new phase of the show. Calling back to those installments, and condensing the action of #115 through #126 into a few minutes, they are telling us that the end of the 1790s segment is near, and that when it comes it will come fast.

Episode 441: The subject of vicious gossip

When well-meaning governess Vicki came unstuck in time and found herself in the year 1795, regular viewers of Dark Shadows could expect certain plot points to be resolved before she returned to the 1960s. We would learn how Barnabas Collins became a vampire, and how he wound up trapped in a chained coffin in the secret chamber of the Collins family mausoleum. We would learn how Barnabas’ little sister Sarah died. We would see Barnabas’ lost love, gracious lady Josette, marry his uncle Jeremiah Collins. We would see Josette jump to her death from the precipice atop Widows’ Hill. And we would see Vicki escape from some dangerous situation and find herself back in her own time.

Now, the only items on that list left unresolved are Barnabas’ chaining and Vicki’s return. The show has made it clear to people paying close attention how each of those events will happen, and they could fit them both into one episode. Into any given episode, in fact- they’ve given us all the foundation we need for both stories.

But they aren’t going home to a contemporary setting quite yet. The eighteenth century segment has been a ratings hit, Dan Curtis Productions owns the period costumes, and several fun characters are still alive. So they have decided to restart some storylines they had shut down earlier and to build up some new ones.

The main thing that happens today is the first step towards restarting an apparently concluded story. Fluttery heiress Millicent Collins had shared a series of wonderful comedy scenes with untrustworthy naval officer Nathan Forbes, become engaged to him, and discovered that he was already married to someone else. Since that discovery, Millicent has been grimly determined to exact revenge on Nathan, and the rest of the Collins family has regarded him with icy disdain.

Nathan has made a discovery of his own. He has learned that Barnabas did not go to England, as his family has been telling everyone, but that he is still in Collinsport, and is the serial killer preying on the young women of the town. Last week, he made it clear to the audience he had a plan to turn this information into money, apparently by blackmailing the Collinses. Today, we learn that his plans are more complicated, and involve a renewal of his relationship with Millicent. Late at night, he shows up at the lodgings of a visiting witchfinder, the Rev’d Mr Trask. He asks Trask to take a letter to Millicent.

Trask does not want to let Nathan into his room, since the corpse of a prostitute is sprawled across his bed. She is Maude Browning. Barnabas murdered her in Friday’s episode. As part of his campaign to make life difficult for Trask, he deposited her remains at his place.

Nathan won’t take no for an answer, so Trask throws a blanket over Maude and lets him in. Nathan notices Maude’s arm sticking out from under the blanket and is delighted to think that Trask is not the fanatical ascetic he seems to be. Trask breaks down and starts telling Nathan what happened. He tells him that he was astounded to find Maude’s body on his bed, and he asks him to help get rid of it. Nathan agrees to do so on condition he deliver the letter to Millicent.

The scene is just marvelous. Danny Horn devotes most of his post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day to a rave review of it, to which I happily refer you.

We then cut to the great house at Collinwood, where Millicent is studying a layout of Tarot. All the Dark Shadows fansites point out that Millicent misidentifies the Queen of Cups as the High Priestess. This is not the fault it is often made out to be. On Dark Shadows Before I Die, Christine Scoleri reminds us that the Countess DuPrés made the same mistake in #368. Since the countess introduced the Tarot to Collinwood and presumably taught Millicent how to read the cards, it would have been a break in continuity had she called it anything else.

Millicent looks at the cards and addresses the absent Nathan, telling him that she is filled with hatred for him and that he faces certain destruction as punishment for his mistreatment of her. Naomi Collins, mistress of the house, enters and asks Cousin Millicent to whom she is speaking. When she answers that she is talking to Nathan, Naomi tells her Nathan is not there. Millicent replies that he does not need to be present to hear her voice. Since Barnabas was able to magically project his own taunting voice across space into Trask’s hearing in Thursday and Friday’s episodes, this claim of Millicent’s has a curious resonance for returning viewers.

Trask shows up with Nathan’s letter. He wants to meet with Millicent alone in the drawing room to give it to her, but Naomi insists on being present. They stay in the foyer. When Naomi forces Trask to tell them that the letter is from Nathan, Naomi takes it and tears it to pieces. Millicent says that she approves of Naomi’s action, but we can see a flicker in her eye and hear a quiver in her voice that suggest the hatred of Nathan she spoke of a few minutes before may not be quite so undiluted as she would like to believe. Trask leaves the house, Naomi leaves the foyer, and Millicent gathers up the shredded pieces of the letter.

Back in his room, Trask goes to sleep. He has a dream. The dream sequence begins with an image reminiscent of pieces moving in a kaleidoscope.

Trask goes into a dream world. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

That kaleidoscopic pattern was part of a visual effect we saw when Dark Shadows was still set in 1967. That effect introduced scenes that took place in #347, #352, and #354, when mad scientist Julia Hoffman hypnotized Vicki and took her to the Old House at Collinwood. At Collinwood, Barnabas’ helper Carolyn spotted Julia and Vicki, putting Julia in great danger.

The echo of those episodes is startling coming on the heels of the scene we just saw, in which Millicent figures as a student of the countess. Julia and the countess are both played by Grayson Hall, and Millicent and Carolyn are both played by Nancy Barrett. The relationships between their characters are different now, shifted as the colored pieces shift in a turning kaleidoscope. But remembering those earlier episodes, we might remember that what is seen in a semiconscious state might be a message sent to manipulate and deceive, and we certainly remember that people who go to the Old House are in danger from Barnabas.

Trask’s dream brings him face to face with the ghost of Maude, accusing him of having her remains dumped in the sea, so that she cannot rest. She predicts that everyone will learn that her dead body was in his bed. He denies both her accusation and her prediction, but does not convince either her or himself.

The ghost of Maude tells Trask the score. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Another ghost then appears. It is that of Trask’s great supporter, repressed spinster Abigail Collins. Trask tries to tell Abigail that he is innocent of Maude’s charges, but she tells him she has no idea what he is talking about. She wants to tell him that there is a great evil he must destroy. Trask has a vision telling him the evil is lurking in the Old House. He resolves to go there.

All of the acting is excellent in this one. That’s no more than we would expect from most of the cast members we see today, but Vala Clifton’s two turns as the living Maude were pretty bad, so that it is a pleasant surprise that she is so good as Maude’s ghost. The physical space gives her a hard job. She is standing a very few feet in front of Jerry Lacy with only a couple of wispy stage decorations indicating that she is separated from him, but she strikes a pose and maintains a degree of stillness that really does create the sense that she is speaking to him from another realm. She also manages to keep up an ethereal quality while making it clear that Maude is determined to be avenged. I wonder what her first appearances would have been like if she had had more time to rehearse. If they had been as good as this one, Ms Clifton and Maude would be among the more fondly remembered parts of the eighteenth century segment.

Episode 418: Wind in the woods

In yesterday’s episode, Barnabas Collins extracted a promise from his friend, much put-upon servant Ben Stokes. Barnabas had decided that the curse that has made him a vampire and condemned whoever loves him to death must end. Ben reluctantly agreed to come back after dawn to the secret chamber in the Collins mausoleum where Barnabas’ coffin is hidden and drive a stake through his heart.

The curse was the work of wicked witch Angelique. Eight minutes after Barnabas discovered he was a vampire, he killed Angelique. But when Ben was about to keep his promise and end Barnabas’ curse, her disembodied head appeared before Ben’s eyes, her voice resounded in his ears, and the mallet and stake vanished from his hands. Angelique declared that the curse would be fulfilled in its entirety, and ordered Ben to take that word to Barnabas after dusk.

Every viewer who has seen even one episode of Dark Shadows knows that Barnabas will react to this news by choking Ben. If we’ve been watching the 11 weeks so far that the show has been set in the years 1795 and 1796, we know that he won’t kill Ben or seriously injure him, since that would leave the main character without anyone to talk to. So there is no need for today’s opening scene, in which Ben gives Barnabas the news, he chokes him for a little bit, then lets him go.

After Barnabas leaves Ben alone in the secret chamber of the Collins mausoleum, Angelique’s disembodied head floats into view again. The floating head gag was reasonably effective when it was used for undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins in late 1966 and early 1967, because there were so few special effects of any kind on Dark Shadows at that time that associating one with Laura set her apart from the other characters and showed that she was an invader in the world in which they operated. But double-exposures and Chromakey and puppetry and other gimmicks have become routine these last several months, so it isn’t very impressive now. It certainly isn’t powerful enough to justify its use in three scenes today.

While still with Ben in the secret chamber, Angelique says that she will cause the gracious Josette to go to Barnabas so that Barnabas may be the death of her. She starts calling Josette’s name, and her voice morphs into Barnabas’. They do an impressive job syncing her lips with his voice. We dissolve to Josette’s bedroom, where the voice of Barnabas continues to call her name. Then all of a sudden we hear Angelique’s laugh. Does Josette hear that part too? It messes up the only really effective part of the episode.

Angelique’s floating head appears again and gives an intricate explanation of a dream Josette is about to have. This echoes the sequences we saw in 1967 in which mad scientist Julia Hoffman hypnotized imperiled heroines and made them forget information that might have led to the exposure of the many crimes she and Barnabas have committed. After Angelique’s long preface, Josette finally has the dream. It is shown to us in a luridly colored sequence, and in it Angelique shows Josette the mausoleum where Barnabas’ coffin is hidden.

Apricot dream. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As we might have predicted, Josette goes to the mausoleum when she wakes up. Just as predictably, she meets Ben on the way, and he tries to talk her out of going there. Of course Angelique’s floating head appears yet again and forces Ben to scurry off.

The floating head of Angelique silences Ben. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

We’ve known since #5 that Josette will die by jumping off the precipice known as Widow’s Hill. In #185, we learned that in the 1960s she was still famous in the village of Collinsport as “the lady who went over the cliff.” In #233, Barnabas revealed that she jumped because he frightened her while she was up there. So when Barnabas finds Josette in the outer room of the mausoleum and tells her that she is in grave danger, there is no real suspense- we know that she is not going to die this way. Like everything else we see today, it is filler.

Frustrated by the failure of the episode to advance the plot, Danny Horn devotes his post about it to a discussion of the 1845-1847 serialized novel Varney the Vampire. I sympathize; I toyed with the idea of posting a two-sentence summary of the action followed by an essay about the greatest of all moving pictures about a floating head, John Boorman’s 1974 masterpiece Zardoz. But I don’t want to work that hard. Danny may have called his blog Dark Shadows Every Day, but he lavished so much effort on each post that they were often separated by weeks or months. I want the episode commentaries here to appear on the 56th anniversary of their original broadcast, and so I’m not going to do the kind of extra work Danny used to do.

Episode 376: Occult gibberish

The Countess DuPrés meets her brother, André DuPrés, Josette’s father, in the gazebo on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. She starts talking to André about evil powers at work in the house, and he tells her to stop wasting his time with her mumbo-jumbo. She tells him that she is not talking about something she learned by studying her tarot cards. She was hiding in the bushes next to the gazebo the night before, where she saw and heard a tryst between Josette and Jeremiah Collins, uncle of Josette’s fiancé Barnabas.

Since Josette is apparently in love with Barnabas, barely knows Jeremiah, and has always been a good girl, André finds this difficult to believe. The countess assures him it is so, and says that there is no sensible explanation but that Josette and Jeremiah are under a spell. André says that that isn’t a sensible explanation, either.

André goes back to the manor house. He confronts Jeremiah. The two of them do something virtually unprecedented on Dark Shadows– they address a problem directly in candid, rational conversation. In this narrative universe, that qualifies as a plan “so crazy that it just might work!” And, apparently, it does- Jeremiah apologizes for his behavior, admits that he himself is unable to explain what came over him, and promises that he and Josette will never again be alone together. That satisfies André.

The first and last intelligent conversation ever to take place on *Dark Shadows*. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Later, the countess is in the front parlor with the lady of the house, the alcoholic Naomi Collins. The countess tries to interest Naomi in the tarot. She deals a twelve card layout, and is horrified by what she sees. She tells Naomi that the card signifying the Lovers is inverted, that Death is near them, etc. She talks about a force of evil at work in the house, and asks about well-meaning governess Vicki. We can see why a sensible adult like André was reluctant to listen to his sister in the opening scene, but we also know that Dark Shadows is the sort of show where things like this are reliable guides to upcoming story beats.

After dealing with the countess, Naomi needs some sleep. She doesn’t get much, though. She dreams of a giant tarot card floating up from the foot of her bed. It is unclear whether she is awake or still dreaming when she rises from bed and follows the card. She sees Jeremiah walking past in the corridor outside her room. She follows him to the front parlor, and sees him locked in an embrace with a woman. She can see the woman’s arms caressing Jeremiah’s back and can hear her voice, but cannot see her face. She sees a simple trident shape on the woman’s hand. Jeremiah orders Naomi out of the room. Rather than comply, she grabs the woman’s arm. It comes off in Naomi’s hand, prompting her to scream.

The arm is so obviously made of plastic that we laughed out loud when it came off. I’m sure it looked less bad on the average TV set in 1967, at least in areas where ABC was on a station that didn’t come in particularly well, which was most of them.

I mean *REALLY*. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The woman’s voice Naomi hears sounds like that of Kathryn Leigh Scott, who plays Josette; it also sounds like it is playing on a record. The woman Jeremiah is kissing is Dorrie Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh stood in for Miss Scott in #224, #225/226, #238, and #240, and had a speaking part as Phyllis Wick in #365. Sad to say, this is Kavanaugh’s last appearance on Dark Shadows; her brief turn as Phyllis was sensational, I was disappointed not to see her again. Even sadder, she would die of cancer in 1983, at the age of 38.

Episode 346: Neither good nor gentle

Well-meaning governess Vicki has learned that her depressing fiancé Burke probably died in a plane crash yesterday. His body hasn’t been found yet, and she still hopes he will turn out to be alive.

We open with a dream sequence. Vicki finds herself in the Old House on the great estate of Collinwood. She is in the bedroom once occupied by legendary grande dame Josette, restored to its original condition by the house’s current occupant, Old World gentleman Barnabas Collins. Barnabas enters, accompanied by permanent house guest Julia Hoffman. As is usual in dreams, much of it is a rehash of the dreamer’s recent experiences. Vicki had met Barnabas and Julia the preceding night while on a walk and told them that Burke was missing and feared dead. Barnabas told Julia that it was too cold for her to be outdoors and sent her home, then he told Vicki that he was sure she would be a bride soon. These same lines occur in the dream.

The dream deviates from the waking scene in three key ways. First, Barnabas addresses Julia as “Doctor.” In fact, Julia is a medical doctor, a mad scientist who has come to Collinwood with an experimental treatment intended to cure Barnabas of a chronic ailment, vampirism. But Vicki doesn’t know that Julia is a doctor, any more than she knows Barnabas is a vampire. Still less does she know that Barnabas always addresses Julia as “Doctor” when they are alone. That suggests that it is not a normal dream, but is a message from the supernatural.

Second, Julia looks humiliated when Barnabas tells her she is suffering from the cold and orders her to leave. That did happen in yesterday’s encounter, but Vicki didn’t see it. So that is further evidence that the dream is a transmission from worlds beyond.

Third, while Barnabas yesterday encouraged Vicki to believe that Burke was alive, in this dream he shows her a shrouded figure on the bed and identifies it as Burke. He still insists that she will be a bride. When she says that she can never be a bride if Burke is dead, Barnabas adopts a chipper tone and says that he doesn’t see why. She is saying “He is dead, he is dead” and the camera is focused on Barnabas when the dream ends. Evidently the message is something to do with Barnabas being dead, as he is during the daylight hours, and therefore being an unsuitable groom for her.

Later, we cut back to Josette’s room, where we see Julia standing around and hear her thoughts in an extended voiceover. She has resigned herself to spending the rest of her life linked to Barnabas, and has decided that she may as well fall in love with him. For his part, he is still hung up on his long-dead love Josette and believes that Vicki will someday turn into Josette and come to him. Julia is ruminating about this crackpot notion when she senses a ghostly presence. She wonders if it is Josette. Indeed, for 28 weeks, from #70 to #210, Josette’s ghost was the foremost supernatural presence on Dark Shadows, and it was based in the Old House. But Julia resists the idea that it could be her.

In her resistance, we can hear one of the themes the show has been exploring lately. Even characters who have accepted the reality of particular supernatural phenomena don’t have a frame of reference for those phenomena. They keep snapping back to Logical-Explanation-Land and trying to find mundane answers to unearthly questions. Julia is personal physician to a vampire, and even she starts telling herself that she’s being silly to expect to see a ghost.

There is a good deal of noise from off-screen, and Julia finally accepts that there is a ghost in the room. She says aloud that it is not Josette’s ghost, it is a man’s. She thinks it is the ghost of Dave Woodard, her old medical school classmate, whom she and Barnabas murdered a week ago. She is calling out “Dave!” when she hears Vicki in the hallway outside.

Julia calls to Vicki, who joins her in Josette’s room. Vicki tells her that after she left them the night before, Barnabas volunteered to help her restore the west wing of the great house of Collinwood. Vicki wants to accept that offer. Julia becomes angry and says that Barnabas is much too busy to do any such thing, and that if he offered to do it he was only being polite.

Later, Vicki is back in the great house. Barnabas visits her there. When she tells him what Julia said and how agitated she was when she said it, he assures that he sincerely wants to help her with the project, and they speculate that Julia is working too hard.

Julia joins them. She is carrying flowers and in an abashed mood. She apologizes to Vicki for raising her voice and says that she must have been working too hard. Vicki goes to get a vase, leaving Julia and Barnabas alone in the drawing room.

Barnabas demands that Julia put her feelings to one side and approach their relationship simply as one of doctor and patient. He doesn’t ignore her feelings, nor does he make the slightest attempt to be gallant about them; he speaks of her attraction to him as if it were a mildly ridiculous offense against good manners. I suppose if someone treated you that way, it would be relatively easy to get over your unrequited passion for them, but Julia is stuck with Barnabas. When he tells her to stop being foolish and keep their relationship simple, she says that it is too late for that. Barnabas understands that as a reference to their murder of Woodard, which has indeed cut her off from any other potential life partner for the foreseeable future.

This whole conversation is conducted in loud stage voices with the doors wide open. Vicki walks in as Barnabas and Julia are in the middle of a fairly incriminating topic. She is sufficiently absorbed in her worries about Burke that it is believable that her only reaction would be a startled look after she enters the room and sees Barnabas and Julia in an intense confrontation, but they really are being remarkably careless.

Vicki finds that the flowers, which were in full bloom when she left the room a few minutes before, are now dead and shriveled. Barnabas had held the flowers briefly; evidently the vampire’s touch drained them of life. He squirms and looks up, the picture of someone embarrassed by his failure to control a bodily function in a social setting.

Looks like David Ford isn’t the only one whose metabolism creates awkward moments.

Back in the Old House, Barnabas and Julia are in the basement laboratory. She is preparing to give him an injection. He wants her to accelerate the treatments so that he can woo Vicki now, while she is lonely and confused. In case Burke does come back, Barnabas wants to have established a foothold from which to compete with him for Vicki’s affections. Julia is nervous, fumbling with the needle and complaining about the way Barnabas is looking at her. When she is about to give him the shot, he stops her, telling her that he suspects her jealousy will lead her to do something to harm him. He warns her against any such attempt. After this last moment of unrelenting hostility, we end with a closeup on Julia, her lower lip trembling.

Episode 326: Some experience with child psychology

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, most households in the USA had television sets that received only in black and white. So the first requirement of any program’s visual strategy was that it look good on those sets. Prime-time programs with big budgets and long production schedules could sometimes look good in black and white and dazzling in color; the most noteworthy example was the 1966-1968 Batman series. But even most prime-time shows limited themselves to a palette that resembled a plate of processed baby food, with the green of strained peas next to the orange of puréed carrots and the purple of mashed prunes. The use of color on a show like Dark Shadows, which every week had to crank out five episodes on a total budget of $70,000, could rarely rise even to the level of a well-presented infant’s breakfast. Directors Lela Swift and John Sedwick were ambitious visual artists who sometimes managed to use color to advantage, but most of the time the color is a gimmick as worthless as any spear pointed at the viewer of a 3D movie.

Today begins with a reprise of the dream sequence that ended Friday’s episode so effectively. But where that episode survived only on a black and white kinescope, the original videotape of this one has come down to us. As a result, we see the dream in color today. Black and white images are abstract; color images, even when they are composed of only two or three flat colors, make everything literal. So while the dream we saw in Friday’s ending was a terrifying message from a mysterious realm, today’s opening is something that might trouble the sleep of someone who ate a big meal too soon before bedtime.

Strange and troubled boy David wakes up from his nightmare, and well-meaning governess Vicki tries to calm him down. David is frustrated that Vicki won’t take him seriously when he tells her that he learned from the dream that his cousin Barnabas is an undead ghoul and that his friend Sarah is a ghost. We know that he is right, but after the color version of the dream, we can understand why Vicki thinks all he needs is a warm glass of milk.

Vicki checks to see if David has a fever. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Meanwhile, Barnabas is at home, being unpleasant to his co-conspirator, mad scientist Julia Hoffman. He snaps at Julia for sitting in his house browsing through medical journals. This is unfair of him- since Julia is concealing her medical degree and pretending to be an historian studying the old families of New England, she can’t very well read medical journals anywhere else.

What is really bothering Barnabas is that his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie isn’t dead yet. The authorities have decided to blame Willie for the many unsolved crimes Barnabas himself committed, primarily because Willie is poor and unpopular, and if he dies of the gunshot wounds the police inflicted on him in #322, they will close all those cases. Yet Willie “clings to life with leech-like persistence.” Barnabas fears that Willie will make a miraculous recovery and set about “writing his memoirs.” Barnabas wants to break into the hospital and kill Willie, but Julia persuades him this would be counterproductive.

Barnabas then starts talking about his inclination to kill David. Julia persuades him that she can hypnotize David so that he will no longer be curious about him. In both parts of the conversation, Barnabas is a pouting child, Julia an authoritative figure, though because of her amorality ultimately a no less childish one. We see again the Bossy Big Sister/ Bratty Little Brother dynamic that has been at the heart of Dark Shadows since the first episode, when we were introduced to matriarch Liz and her brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger.

Back at the great house of Collinwood, Julia asks Liz and Vicki if she might talk alone with David about his fear of Barnabas. She explains that she has had some experience of child psychology. This led my wife, Mrs Acilius, to exclaim that Julia has forgotten her cover story and is presenting herself as what she actually is, a medical doctor dually qualified as a specialist in psychiatry and hematology. Liz remarks that Julia is “a woman of many talents.” This is not the first time Liz seems suspicious of Julia, but she nonetheless agrees to bring David to meet with her alone in the drawing room.

Julia and David sit on the couch, and she takes out the medallion she shows to people while she is hypnotizing them. David recognizes the medallion from his dream. He saw a faceless woman wearing Julia’s wig and coat showing him that medallion. He declares that the dream was warning him against Julia, and runs off, calling to Vicki.

Episode 325: Such pretty flowers

Strange and troubled boy David Collins was, for the first 39 weeks of Dark Shadows, the character most intimately connected to the supernatural back-world of ghosts and uncanny phenomena that would occasionally peek through the main action of the show. That changed in #191, when he chose life with well-meaning governess Vicki over death with his mother, humanoid Phoenix Laura Murdoch Collins. After that, he had little memory of his mother, and none at all of the paranormal experiences he had during her time with him on the great estate of Collinwood.

Not that David lost his connection to the supernatural all at once. When he first met his cousin Barnabas in #212, he cheerfully asked him if he was a ghost, and was disappointed to hear that he wasn’t. In #288, he speculated that his friend, mysterious little girl Sarah, might be a ghost, and he has taken it in his stride every time he has seen Sarah do something only a ghost could do. In #310, he took out his crystal ball, a gift he had received in #48 and hadn’t used since #82, and peered into it to try to find Sarah. He did see her in it, too.

Yet David seems to be resisting the idea that Sarah is a ghost, and indeed to be shying away from the whole concept of the supernatural. When she led him to the secret chamber in the Collins mausoleum in #306, she told him that the empty coffin there once had a body in it, but that the body got up and left. David objected that the dead don’t walk away, and was incredulous when she assured him that sometimes, they do. When David was trapped in the chamber in #315, Sarah materialized there and showed him how to get out. He had called on her to come, and was facing away from the only door when he did so, indicating that he knew she could pass through the walls. Yet when she did, he demanded a naturalistic explanation for her entrance, and when she vanished he asserted that she must be hiding in the chamber somewhere.

Now, David is terrified of Barnabas, much to the puzzlement of the adults he lives with. In the opening scenes, he is staring at the portrait of Barnabas in the foyer of the great house, and we hear Barnabas in voiceover, delivering the lines with which he frightened David in #315. He screams with terror, bringing his aunt Liz. She sees that David is upset, but he hurries away from her, upstairs to his bedroom.

There, we hear his thoughts in another voiceover. He remembers the events of #310, when he discovered that Barnabas and his servant Willie knew about the secret chamber in the mausoleum. In his agitation, he calls out to Sarah. He hasn’t admitted to himself that Sarah is a ghost, but evidently he expects her to materialize out of thin air. Sarah doesn’t come, but Vicki does, asking who he was talking to.

After David says he wants to work on his stamp collection, Vicki goes downstairs and finds Liz putting her coat on. She says that David is afraid of Barnabas for some reason, and that she is going to Barnabas’ house to ask him to help put the boy’s fears to rest. She says that David is more disturbed than he has been since his mother Laura was around; this is the first direct reference to Laura in months.

There is a knock on the front door. It is Barnabas, saving Liz the trip. Liz and Vicki explain how fearful David is, and Barnabas offers to have a talk with him.

Liz ushers Barnabas into David’s room. Once the door is closed on the two of them, Barnabas questions David aggressively about Sarah and the secret chamber in the mausoleum. He asks him if Sarah told him about her family, twice mentioning her brother. When David says that Sarah hasn’t told him anything about herself, Barnabas accuses him of lying. He sits next to David on his bed. David doesn’t know that Barnabas is a vampire, but if he did he couldn’t look much more uncomfortable than he does when Barnabas assumes this position.

Barnabas tells David repeatedly that he knows he was in the secret chamber. David denies it, Barnabas again tells him he is lying, and to prove it shows him the knife he left there.

A knock comes at the door. It is Vicki. Vicki adores Barnabas, and the smile she wears when she enters the room shows her certainty that a heart-to-heart talk with him will have relieved David’s anxiety.

Smiling Vicki, sure everything will be all right

Vicki sees that David is still frightened, and her smile gives way to a look of confusion. Vicki was originally the audience’s point-of-view character; the audience is now composed chiefly of people who have tuned in wanting to see how they were going to fit a vampire into a daytime soap opera, and so of course she has to be Barnabas’ biggest fan at Collinwood. She and Barnabas leave David’s room together, and Barnabas wishes David “Pleasant dreams…”

We see David tossing in bed. He is talking in his sleep, calling out to Sarah. In yet another voiceover, we hear his dream. It is a bit of conversation from #306, when Sarah told him about the empty coffin.

We then see the beginning of another dream. It takes place amid a composite of decorations from the cemetery set and from the set representing Barnabas’ basement. David at first appears in a corridor like the ones we saw in the basement in #260.

He then encounters a faceless woman whom regular viewers will recognize as Barnabas’ co-conspirator, mad scientist Julia Hoffman.

We see that she is wearing Julia’s wig and frock and holding the jeweled medallion she uses to hypnotize people:

David flees from the faceless woman, saying he has to find Sarah. He finds himself behind a grating like the one on the door to the Collins mausoleum:

He walks up a few stairs, and sees Sarah.

When David tells Sarah that she is hard to find, she denies it, saying that she is easy to find if you know where she is. David does not respond to this characteristically cryptic remark, but complains that she won’t tell him anything about herself. She asks what he wants to know, and says he wants to know who she is and where she comes from. She tells him:

Sarah: That’s easy. I was born the same place you were. I lived in a house on a hill until I was nine years old. Then I got very sick. Everyone came to see me, and they were very sad.

David: Because you were sick?

Sarah: No, because I died. I died, and everyone brought such pretty flowers.

“I died that time. I died, and everyone brought such pretty flowers.”

When David asks why she is around now if she died then, she tells him she doesn’t really know. All she knows is that she is looking for someone. David asks who that might be, and Sarah says she will show him. Suddenly he becomes frightened and does not want to go with her. She insists. She takes his hand and leads him.

The camera follows the children on their journey across the set. At first Sarah takes David down some stairs, leading him from depths to depths:

The set is now unmistakably Barnabas’ basement, though with more candelabra casting more intricate shadows on the walls than we have seen there:

At last Sarah stops and looks straight ahead. They have reached their destination.

They see a coffin. David asks if this coffin is empty, as was the one in the secret chamber. Sarah tells him no. This one has a body in it. The lid starts to open. David points in astonishment, while Sarah looks on serenely.

Barnabas rises from the coffin.

David recognizes Barnabas and is stunned. Sarah has eyes only for her big brother.

Barnabas stands. He turns, and sees Sarah. He is glad to see her.

David watches Sarah’s reunion with Barnabas.

Barnabas notices David. He turns to follow him.

Barnabas blocks David from our view and from Sarah’s.

As Barnabas follows David, Sarah simply watches.

Barnabas follows David through another corridor. The shadows on the wall and floor form a design suggesting David is caught in a web. Readers of Gold Key comics’ Dark Shadows series will recognize the bend of Barnabas’ knees and the angle of his cane in this shot as their usual depiction of him:

David’s back is to the wall and Barnabas closes in on him.

Barnabas raises the cane he used to block David’s escape in #315 and which regular viewers several times saw him use to beat Willie. We zoom in on the wall, where we see the cane’s shadow rise and fall while we hear David cry out in distress.

Sarah’s fixation on Barnabas and her passivity when Barnabas follows David mark a pivotal moment in her development. She looks and sounds like a friendly little girl, and we have seen her rescue people from danger. She usually seems like a cross between Caspar the Friendly Ghost and the Powerpuff Girls. But she is not that at all. She is a symptom of the same curse that has brought Barnabas forth to prey upon the living, and she is leading David ever deeper into a world where only the dead belong. The show has given us no reason at all to think that she can bring him back to the realm of the living.

Even if Sarah wants to save David, she may still represent a deadly threat to him. We saw this in the Laura story. When Laura tried to lure David into the flames, she told him that he, like her, would rise from the ashes and live again. We had heard her say things like this before, and she may well have believed it to be true. But unknown to her, we saw a séance in which David spoke with the voice of a son Laura had in one of her previous incarnations. She had burned him with her, but while she gained a new life in the flames, he had become one of the unquiet spirits of the dead. Perhaps Sarah, too, is unwittingly leading David to his death.

Closing Miscellany

When Liz leads Barnabas into David’s room, she tells David that “Unc- Cousin Barnabas” wants to have a man-to-man talk with him. In later years, Jonathan Frid would refer to his character as “Uncle Barnabas” when he talked with interviewers about how the Collinses responded to him. I wonder if Joan Bennett’s blooper is a sign that he was already calling him that at this time.

There is a slight puzzle in Sarah telling David she was “born in the same place” he was. We’d heard in the early episodes that Laura and Roger never spent a night together in Collinwood as man and wife- the day of their wedding, they went to their new home in Augusta, Maine, and David was born a few months later. Perhaps Sarah’s remark is a retcon, and we are now to think of David as having been born at Collinwood. Or perhaps Sarah really was born where Augusta would stand- we know that her birth year was 1786, and that was the year the settlement that would become Augusta saw the establishment of its first public whipping post. Maybe her parents wanted to go there to celebrate the occasion.

When Sarah tells David she lived on the hill until she was nine, she interrupts herself and shouts “Ten!” This is an odd little blooper. Just a few days ago, David told Barnabas that Sarah was ten, and Barnabas jumped down his throat asking if she wasn’t “almost ten?” Now Sharon Smyth has been on the show long enough to have celebrated a birthday, and they aren’t done with Sarah yet. So they are retconning Sarah as having made it to ten.

Episode 320: It must have been a nightmare

We open with the most spectacular dream sequence Dark Shadows has yet attempted. Strange and troubled boy David Collins is tossing and turning in bed. We cut to his dream, where he sees his distant cousin, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins, approaching. Barnabas gets closer and closer, grows enormous, and opens his mouth, exposing the fangs of a vampire. David screams and wakes up.

Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As it happens, Barnabas really is a vampire. He has heard a rumor that Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, is recovering from amnesia. Since that amnesia was induced by his associate, mad scientist Julia Hoffman, in order to keep her from remembering that Barnabas is an undead ghoul who abducted her and held her prisoner, he is on the point of a panic attack.

Jonathan Frid turns in a bravura performance as Barnabas today. He plays Barnabas’ mounting anxiety compellingly when we see him in his house alone with his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie, waiting for Julia. When she does come, he rages at her and demands she go to Maggie at once to reinforce her memory loss. When Julia admits that she is no longer Maggie’s doctor, Barnabas’ rage mounts and he threatens to kill her. She keeps talking, and eventually he composes himself and suavely tells her that he won’t kill anyone tonight. She smiles, and goes off to her laboratory to resume meddling in God’s realm. Willie knows Barnabas better than Julia does and has none of her self-assurance; he doesn’t for a moment believe that Barnabas has relented. When he gets Barnabas to confirm that he is indeed going to kill Maggie, Frid moves from the cool suavity he had achieved just before Julia’s exit back to the near-panic he had displayed before she entered. The whole trip from panic to rage to suavity and back to panic is remarkably well executed.