Tag: elizabeth collins stoddard

Episode 946: To come to me willingly

In May and June of 1967, vampire Barnabas Collins held Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, prisoner. He drank her blood, tortured her, and drove her insane. When Maggie escaped, he turned his attentions to well-meaning governess Vicki Winters. Maggie’s imprisonment was the storyline that first made Dark Shadows a hit, but it was bleak and often difficult to watch, and if its horrors had shortly after been reenacted with Vicki as the victim many viewers would likely have given up on the show. So Barnabas decided that he wanted Vicki to come to him of her own will. That avoided the problem, but left the show stuck in a rut. For the next several months, Barnabas did not have a coherent goal. Since he was the main figure in the A story, that left Dark Shadows spinning in circles.

They escaped from that rut in November 1967, when Vicki went back in time to the 1790s. The audience followed her there, and we found out how Barnabas first became a vampire. He had fallen afoul of wicked witch Angelique. Angelique wanted Barnabas to love her. Since her enormous powers were explicitly shown to include the ability to make people fall in love with each other, we wondered why she didn’t simply use that ability on Barnabas. They answered that question by having Angelique declare that she wanted him to come to her of his own will. She tried to attract his love by casting a series of spells on everyone around him, spells that resulted in death and ruin for the people he most cared about. When Barnabas found out what was going on and tried to kill Angelique, she turned him into a vampire.

Now it is January 1970, and Barnabas’ vampire curse is in abeyance. A race of Elder Gods called the Leviathan People are trying to retake the Earth from humankind, and have threatened to reactivate the curse if he does not help them. The Leviathans control a group of people whom they have formed into a cult devoted to their service. The Leviathans have brought a shape-shifting monster to life, and it is written that the monster will marry Barnabas’ distant cousin Carolyn Collins Stoddard and turn her into a creature like himself.

Angelique has renounced her powers and is trying to live as a mortal woman. The other day, Barnabas asked her to help him protect Carolyn from the Leviathans. Angelique no longer wants anything to do with Barnabas or anyone else from the estate of Collinwood, but she understands the threat the Leviathans pose and is willing to help Barnabas against them, provided she can do so without losing what she has in her current life. Barnabas arranged for Carolyn and her mother, matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, to hide out at Angelique’s house while he tried to figure out a way of fighting the monster. Liz is a dedicated member of the cult, and believes Barnabas to be its faithful leader, so when Barnabas told her to take Carolyn to Angelique’s she complied at once.

Unknown to Angelique, her husband, hard-charging businessman Sky Rumson, is himself a member of the Leviathan cult. Thursday, he telephoned the monster and told him Carolyn was at the house; Friday he opened the door to the monster, and the monster went to Carolyn. Today, the monster decides that he will not impose the transformation on Carolyn after all. Instead, he will wait for her to come to him of her own will. This keeps the story from ending here, but it makes it unclear where it can go.

The monster’s decision poses a deeper problem for him as a presence on the show than the similar decisions did for Barnabas and Angelique. They pursued identifiable goals, and were influenced by thoughts and feelings they had while they interacted with others. The only goal the monster has is to take possession of Carolyn, and now it is unclear what that means. Nor is anything at stake for him in any encounter with another person. He keeps saying that he doesn’t need anyone, and that seems to be true- there is no reason to pay attention to him in any scene. He has, in short, been established not as a character at all, but simply as a function. All he has ever been is Threat. Now that he has decided to be nice to Carolyn, he will no longer even fulfill that function. His future would appear to be quite limited.

Sky also appears to be a short-timer. When Dark Shadows started, one of its most dynamic characters was hard-charging businessman Burke Devlin, played ably by the charismatic Mitchell Ryan. Despite all of Ryan’s magnetism, they could never come up with anything very interesting for Burke to do. Hard-charging businessman just isn’t a type they have much use for. They signal that Sky won’t be around long by casting Geoffrey Scott in the role. Scott was very handsome and would go on to a long career on screen, but in early 1970 he did not appear to have any skills of any kind as an actor. Not only does he deliver his dialogue as if he were reading a series of nonsense syllables aloud, but he is noticeably bad at hitting his mark. For example, on Friday Sky at one point backed away from Carolyn during a conversation. He took a step too far, with the result that his rear end was a few inches from a hearth with a vigorously burning fire. It was hard not to watch the seat of his pants and wait for it to ignite. There were times when they cast actors who still needed a lot of training and kept them around for quite a while, but Scott was at this point in his career so amazingly inept that it is hard to imagine they meant to use him for anything more than the decorative value his good looks offered.

Liz is at home in the great house of Collinwood when a man she has not seen before appears on the walkway above the foyer and starts giving her orders. He comes down and introduces himself to her by the name Bruno. He shows her that he is wearing a ring that identifies him as a member of the Leviathan cult. Liz says that he must have come to give her instructions. He confirms that this is so.

A howling resounds outside, and Bruno asks Liz about it. She tells him that she long ago met a wolf-like creature in the woods, and she suspects the howling comes from that creature. Returning viewers know that the Leviathans are vulnerable to werewolves and that the monster is terrified of them. Bruno knows this too, so he goes out to hunt for it.

The monster, in the form of a tall young man, comes to the great house to introduce himself to Liz. She is concerned when he tells her to stop taking orders from Barnabas, but delighted when he says that Carolyn has a future with “us.” Carolyn telephones from Angelique’s house, and Liz puts the monster on the phone.

Carolyn is all smiles when she is talking to the monster. They’ve met a few times, and he has been nothing but a jerk to her. She had objected to his behavior, and his responses had ranged from frightening to slimy. That she is all of a sudden attracted to him undercuts her character almost as badly as nerfing his threat to her undercuts his position on the show.

After the phone call, Bruno returns. He tells the monster he couldn’t find the werewolf. The monster declares that he will go to the Old House on the estate to confront Barnabas, whom he labels a traitor. Bruno points out that it is almost daybreak, and if he waits just a little while he will not be in danger from the werewolf. The monster says that it is too important to wait.

The werewolf chases the monster through the woods. By the time the monster gets to the Old House, he is shouting for Barnabas, the “traitor” he was planning to deal with, to come and help him. Barnabas is nowhere to be seen, and we end with the werewolf bursting through the window. The werewolf got a few closeups earlier in the episode, when he was nosing around in the woods. These always make him look like a cute widdle doggie. If they hadn’t given us those ridiculous images, his entrance through the window might have been a genuinely scary moment.

The right way to show a werewolf. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Carolyn’s scene at the beginning involves a couple of notable wardrobe-related points. She went to bed Friday fully dressed, even wearing shoes, and is still that way when she is back in bed today. Several times we have seen men go to bed shoes and all, but usually the women wear nighties. I think this is the first time we have seen a shod woman asleep in bed.

Carolyn falls on her back in the opening reprise. She is wearing a very short skirt, and this fall exposes her underwear. She is lying on the bed in several subsequent shots, and it must have taken some doing to keep the undies from making another unscheduled guest appearance.

Episode 945: Carolyn’s rough night in

Episode 361 was virtually a one-woman show, featuring Grayson Hall as Julia Hoffman, MD. Julia was being tormented by haunted house-style effects resulting from her involvement with a supernatural entity. The script, by Ron Sproat, was largely a recycling of an episode Sproat had written for Never Too Young, the soap opera that ran on ABC at 4 PM before Dark Shadows premiered.

Episode 658 consisted largely of a one-man show, featuring Joel Crothers as fisherman Joe Haskell. Joe was being tormented by haunted house-style effects resulting from his involvement with a supernatural entity. The script, by Gordon Russell, owed a good deal to Sproat’s work on #361.

Episode 897 ended with a long scene that amounted to a one-woman show, featuring Marie Wallace as antique shop owner Megan Todd. Megan was being tormented by haunted house-style effects resulting from her involvement with a supernatural entity. The script, by Violet Welles, drew from both #361 and #658.

Many fans consider #361 to be The Worst Episode of Dark Shadows, and many consider Megan’s turn at the end of #897 to be The Worst Scene on Dark Shadows. To the extent that #658 is remembered at all, it is because it is one of Crothers’ last appearances on the show. The memory of this fine and well-loved actor makes the fans so weepy that no one can be very harsh about his final star turn.

Today, the second half of the episode is virtually a one-woman show featuring Nancy Barrett as heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard. Carolyn is being tormented by haunted house-style effects resulting from her involvement with a supernatural entity. The script, by Gordon Russell, recycles elements of #361, #658, and #897.

Carolyn scared. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Russell was usually one of the most careful writers on Dark Shadows, but this one is remarkably shoddy. Carolyn and her mother, matriarch Liz, are staying at the home of a woman named Angelique. Angelique tells them that she has to drive to the airport to pick up her husband, and that she will be away for “several hours.” A couple of minutes later, Liz is also called away, and she tells Carolyn that she is sure “Angelique will only be gone an hour or so.”

Worse, all the action of the episode is completely, flagrantly unnecessary. The calls that leave Carolyn alone in the house are part of a monster’s scheme to get at Carolyn. But Liz is the monster’s loyal servant- if he had told her to bring Carolyn to him, she would gladly have done so.

Carolyn’s torments aren’t quite a monodrama, since they are interrupted by a couple of brief scenes with other actors. But one of those is a dream sequence in which she talks to the monster while we see him silhouetted in darkness. The interaction between them is so limited he may as well be a recorded voice. She also has a few interactions with Angelique’s husband. Since he is played by Geoffrey Scott, he may as well be a cardboard standee.

One advantage this episode has over #361 is that Nancy Barrett was excellent at screaming, second only to Clarice Blackburn in her ability to produce a true blood-curdler. Grayson Hall, accomplished as she was, had asthma and was physically incapable of controlling the timbre of her voice when she raised its volume above a certain level. Sproat’s script for #361 required Julia to scream several times, and every time she tried it Hall emitted a croaking sound that raised a bad laugh. Miss Barrett’s closing scream today, by contrast, really puts the “opera” in “soap opera,” it sounds great.

This is one of the few episodes with no scenes on the estate of Collinwood, and one of very few to take place primarily in a location many miles from the village of Collinsport.

There’s also an interesting moment when Angelique claims to have met Liz and Carolyn’s distant cousin Barnabas while they were both living in England. Barnabas never lived in England, that’s a lie he has been telling his relatives to conceal the fact that he is a recovering vampire who hasn’t left Maine since George Washington was president. Liz is part of the current supernatural storyline and Carolyn has at various times known all about Barnabas, so we don’t expect to be reminded that he’s still peddling the “cousin from England” bit.

Episode 941: Barnabas, Quentin, and the Stopped Clock

Yesterday and today, a clock stopped at 8:00 featured prominently in shots when it was pivotal to the story that it was not 8:00. The clock is part of the merchandise in an antique shop, so it is understandable it does not run, but it is rather odd to see someone telling people that he didn’t wait for 8:00 when a clock face displaying that time looms over his shoulder. Today, it is important that a scene in the shop is taking place after 10:00. We open that scene with a view of a different clock, one that reads 10:20, but before long the stopped clock is back in full view.

At the great house of Collinwood, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins is rushing to the front door. Governess Maggie Evans asks him where he is going. He says that he is going to the village of Collinsport. She says she is going there as well and that she will ride in with him. He says that he can’t take her. He refuses to explain why. The other day, Maggie and Barnabas held hands and leaned in close to each other, talking softly about how important their friendship was. This sudden refusal to communicate pulls Maggie up short. She demands to know whether Barnabas trusts her. He says he does. She marches up to him and orders him to “Prove it!” The tight aspect ratio of old time TV combines with director Henry Kaplan’s habit of putting the actors as close to the camera as he can get them to make it seem, in the moment, that the feelings Maggie expects Barnabas to prove are of an erotic nature.

Hubba-hubba. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Maggie has been the governess at Collinwood for over a year now. Her predecessor, the well-meaning Vicki Winters, was written out of the show for a number of reasons, not least their inability to figure out an intelligible relationship between her and Barnabas. There was a long period when Vicki the character seemed to know that she was on a show starring Barnabas and she kept trying to involve herself in his storyline, even inviting herself to spend the night at his house. In theory, Barnabas was in love with Vicki and yearned for her, but no matter how flagrantly she threw herself at him he never did anything about it. Eventually they paired her off with an intolerable jerk, and the two of them disappeared into a rift in the space-time continuum.

Vicki never did take quite as direct an approach with Barnabas as Maggie does today. No matter how deeply Vicki drove the ball into his court, she always counted on him to show at least a little initiative. Maggie knows better than to rely on Barnabas, and she corners him into agreeing to see her and give some kind of explanation when he is done with the mission he is concealing from her, at 10:00 sharp.

Fans often fret about the “Vickification” Maggie undergoes while she is serving as governess. When it became clear that Vicki wasn’t going to matter to Barnabas, she couldn’t be allowed to affect the A story in any way. To keep her on the sidelines, she was written as an ever greater ninny.

Maggie is pretty bad at her job- she’s a squish when the children don’t want to do their lessons, which is every time we’ve seen her with them. But she’s still good with grownups, she’s smart, and she’s emphatically sexy. So she isn’t going to go down into irrelevance without a fight.

Maggie isn’t the only character insisting on her place in the story. A few weeks ago, it seemed that matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard would be a part of the main plot for the first time in ages when she was inducted into a secret cult serving a mysterious race of Elder Gods who are trying to regain control of the Earth. But she has drifted back to the sidelines, and has yet to meet the cult’s leader in his current form.

Barnabas was Liz’ preceptor in the cult, and she is indignant with him for the decline in her part:

Liz: Barnabas, I must speak to you.

Barnabas: Not now, Elizabeth.

Liz: Have I done something wrong? Just tell me that.

Barnabas: No, nothing at all.

Liz: I’ve tried to follow the rules, as many as I know. You yourself can testify to my faithfulness. But David sees our leader, you’ve seen him.

Barnabas: Jabez?

Liz: Is that what he calls himself now? Well, no matter what name, he’s the same boy who used to play here. Surely he must remember me with some affection.

Barnabas: He is only recently matured enough to appear to us.

Liz: Why have I been ignored? Barnabas? You haven’t answered my question.

Barnabas: You’ll meet him soon enough but now is not the time.

Liz: Does the book specify when I am to meet him? Is that why you’re against it now?

During the show’s costume drama segments, Joan Bennett got to play dynamic roles, but she has been excluded from the action in the contemporary parts for so long that she has a tremendous amount of passion to bring to this scene. It is great to see her cut loose for once.

Episode 929: The convergence

For the first 55 weeks of Dark Shadows, matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard was under the impression that she had killed her husband Paul and that Paul’s associate Jason McGuire had buried his corpse in the basement of the great house on the estate of Collinwood. She spent nineteen years at home, terrified that if she left the estate someone might find Paul’s grave and hold her to account for his killing. Finally it turned out that she had only stunned Paul. He and Jason had faked his death to trick Liz into giving them a lot of money. Soon, Liz was no longer a recluse and that whole story was forgotten.

Now, Paul has returned. He denies knowing anything about his fake death, claiming that Jason acted alone. Longtime viewers will be skeptical of this claim, and Liz certainly is. But she doesn’t care about it as much as you might expect. She is now part of a secret cult that serves mysterious supernatural forces known as the Leviathan People, who plan to take over the earth, supplanting the human race. Paul has learned that he inadvertently sold Carolyn Collins Stoddard, his daughter with Liz, to the Leviathans, and he has been trying to sound the alarm about them. As a serenely happy devotee of the Leviathan cult, Liz has agreed to keep Paul at Collinwood where she can drug him into immobility.

The power of the Leviathans has taken bodily form in a succession of children who live in an antique shop in the village of Collinsport. The shop’s owners, Megan and Philip Todd, were the first people inducted into the cult by Liz’ distant cousin, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins. The latest manifestation of this being, an apparently thirteen year old boy known as Michael, had been attracting attention that threatened to blow the cult’s cover, so Philip and Megan faked his death. They held a funeral this morning.

Michael is supposed to retire into his room above the antique shop and stay there until he has graduated to his next form. He comes out and tells Megan and Philip that he has decided not to go through with this plan. Philip picks him up and carries him there, putting a new lock on the outside of the door to keep him in until he has gone through another transformation.

Carolyn calls the Todds and extends her mother’s invitation to an evening at Collinwood. They accept.

Unknown to Liz or the Todds, Barnabas has become disaffected from the cult. He visits Paul in his room. He gives Paul clothes and a lot of money and urges him to go far away. Paul doesn’t trust Barnabas, and holds him at gunpoint throughout their entire conversation.

When the Leviathan cult first emerged, its members were siloed off from each other. Barnabas gave Philip and Megan their instructions in dream visitations. When they were awake, they would not recognize him as their leader. They and Liz were not aware of each other’s connection to the cult, though Liz did know that Barnabas was her leader and her nephew David Collins was a fellow cultist. It reminded us of secret operations in the real world, where only people who work with each other directly are allowed to know of their shared allegiance.

Now, all that security is out the window. Liz and the Todds stand around the drawing room at Collinwood having drinks and talking about what Barnabas has and has not told them about the Leviathans and their goals. They do still keep some secrets, however. Liz says that she can’t help but wonder what Carolyn’s role will be in the time to come. Barnabas and the Todds know that she is fated to be the bride of the force currently incarnated as Michael, but they are not allowed to tell Liz this. They look at each other with alarm, and Barnabas gives her some vague and hasty assurances.

There is an unintentionally hilarious moment during the cocktail party scene. Megan is seized by enthusiasm for the Leviathan project, and starts babbling all sorts of portentous phrases about the new world that is taking shape through their efforts. Marie Wallace was one of the most committed exponents of the Dark Shadows house style of acting, which consists largely of delivering your lines so vehemently that you are in constant danger of spraining your back. For her part, while Joan Bennett sometimes played to the balcony as Liz and her other characters, she never really let go of the urbane and relatively understated approach that made her one of the biggest movie stars of the late 1930s. When Liz responds to Megan with the amiable smile and subtly musical voice of a sophisticated society hostess, it all of a sudden strikes regular viewers who have got used to the show’s peculiarities just how incredibly bombastic Miss Wallace was.

Meanwhile, Paul goes through a lot of business with Barnabas and Carolyn in which he is told to wait an hour, no half an hour, no ten minutes, before leaving the house. He steals the keys from Megan’s purse and sneaks off to the antique shop. He has decided he must figure out what exactly is going on there. He lets himself into the room where the Leviathan force is kept when it is not embodied as a child. He hears a heavy breathing. The camera zooms in on his shocked face. With that, the episode closes. Paul’s future would appear to be extremely brief. On the day of Michael’s phony funeral, he seems likely to bring the show’s first fake death firmly into the realm of the actual.

Paul gets more than he bargained for. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Today marks Michael Maitland’s last appearance as Michael. He did a lot of acting as a child, including major roles on Broadway both before and after his run on Dark Shadows. Playing Michael didn’t give him much chance to show what he could do. His resume suggests that is a shame- he must have had a lot to offer to get all those big parts. And by all accounts, he was a very nice guy.

Michael Maitland died of cancer in 2014, at the age of 57. That means that three of the five child actors who appeared on Dark Shadows during the Leviathan segment have died. Denise Nickerson, who played Amy Jennings, was 62 when she died in 2019; Alyssa Mary Ross Eppich, who under the name Lisa Ross played the Leviathan child in the guise of an eight year old version of Carolyn in #909, was 60 when she died in 2020. David Henesy, who played David Collins, and David Jay, who played the Leviathan child as an eight year boy called Alexander, are still going strong. So too is Sharon Smyth Lentz, who played the ghost of nine year old Sarah Collins in 31 episodes in 1967 and the living Sarah in six episodes in 1967 and early 1968.

Episode 918: Ways of remaining young

Mrs Acilius and I did our first watch-through of Dark Shadows on streaming starting in the spring of 2020, when there was no live theater to attend. When we got to the episodes introducing Barnabas Collins the vampire, I found Danny Horn’s Dark Shadows Every Day, which picks up with those and follows the series to its conclusion. I enjoyed Danny’s blog very much, and soon became one of his regular commenters. When we started this watch-through to coincide with the 56th anniversary, I looked for someplace to leave my comments on the episodes Danny didn’t cover, and found that all I could do was to start this blog of my own.

In his post about #412, Danny wrote: “This actor, Roger Davis, plays five roles on Dark Shadows, and they just get more and more angry. By the time we get to Harrison Monroe in late 1969, his character is literally an automaton sitting behind a desk, who yells at people nonstop until his head falls off. That is actually true.” I remember reading that in 2020 and doubting that it was actually true, but by the time we got to this episode and saw it happen, we had learned not to underestimate Dark Shadows. It is far and away the best Roger Davis moment on Dark Shadows. In fairness to Mr Davis, he is a highly trained actor who can do good work, but he chose to do so only a handful of times on the show. When we see that the writers are as sick of his obnoxiousness as we are, it’s an occasion to stand up and cheer.

Much of the episode is taken up with some business about whether matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her thirteen year old nephew David Collins are going to murder permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman. Liz and David have been absorbed into a secret cult devoted to unseen supernatural beings called the Leviathans, and Julia, who cannot be absorbed into the cult, is on track to uncover its existence. Liz takes a pistol and aims it at Julia’s back. Julia is absorbed in another crisis, and by the time she notices that someone else is in the room, Liz has put the pistol down.

Liz can’t bring herself to shoot Julia. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Liz tells David she can’t bring herself to kill Julia, who has been very helpful to the family in the past. David sternly tells her that they must put aside all such considerations and think only of their duty to the Leviathans. They consult a sacred book the Leviathans have entrusted to them, and read that they must not kill anyone, since the ghosts of their victims are more formidable to them than are living people. Since most of the principal characters on the show, including Julia, Liz, and David, have committed or at least attempted homicide, this prohibition would seem to imply that the Leviathans are the good guys.

There is also a story about Quentin Collins and his great-grandson Chris Jennings. Quentin was a werewolf in the nineteenth century and Chris has inherited that curse. In 1897, a repellent little man named Charles Delaware Tate painted Quentin’s portrait. The portrait had magical powers, relieving Quentin of the effects both of lycanthropy and of aging. Quentin recently came back to town, suffering from amnesia and refusing to listen to Julia or Chris when they try to tell him he is 99 years old. Julia and Chris hope that Tate will be able to do for Chris what he did for Quentin, and they have figured out that he is still alive and using the name Harrison Monroe.

The moon was full enough last night to trigger the werewolf transformation, and will be again tonight. Chris turns up. She had taken him to a mental hospital she controls, to be locked up securely while he is in his lupine form; he checked himself out, and says he can’t stand being caged. Since the alternative is killing at least one person at random, it is rather difficult to sympathize with Chris’ insistence on letting himself out.

For her part, Julia was already afraid that a werewolf was on the loose before she knew Chris had left the hospital. She suspects Quentin may have reverted to lycanthropy. She goes to the apartment of the woman who has been keeping Quentin and finds him there, his face soiled and his clothing tattered as it might be the morning after a fit of werewolfery. It turns out that he did not transform- he simply got into a bar fight. When she tells Chris about this, he goes to his great-granddad and demands he accompany him to Tate/ Monroe’s house. Quentin isn’t interested in Chris or his problem or Tate/ Monroe, but he is too drunk to hold his ground for long.

Tate/ Monroe doesn’t want to let anyone in, but when Quentin announces himself he opens the door. Chris and Quentin see a young man sitting at a desk in a darkened room. The young man sees Quentin’s apparent youth and yells “Liar!,” shouting that he is too young to be Quentin. Quentin points out that Tate/ Monroe looks just as young as he does, and Tate/ Monroe responds by shouting something about being a genius. Within seconds, he is shouting that of course he recognizes him as Quentin. Confusing as this transition is, I don’t think it is a flaw in the writing, but in the acting. I suspect Mr Davis was supposed to put some sort of inflection on the lines in between to show that Tate has figured something out, but doing that would not be compatible with his technique of delivering all of his lines in an unvarying petulant shout.

Quentin can’t take Tate’s personality any more than the audience can. He throws a vase at him and runs out of the room. It’s when the vase hits the automaton that the head falls off.

The Leviathan story is based on some of H. P. Lovecraft’s stories. Chris and Quentin do not appear to have a direct connection to the Leviathans, but Harrison Monroe, and today’s closing revelation that he is a pile of junk arranged to look like a person, are taken from Lovecraft’s novella The Whisperer in Darkness. So perhaps werewolves and Leviathans have something to do with each other after all.

Episode 917: People take too much medicine as it is

Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes has parked his car and is walking up to the great house of Collinwood, home to matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her daughter Carolyn Collins Stoddard, among others. He sees a man lying on the ground and asks him what is wrong. The man pleads with Stokes to help him get away. Stokes asks him what he wants to get away from; the man responds “I can’t tell you.” Stokes asks who he is; he says his name is Stoddard. Stokes replies “You’re Paul Stoddard, Carolyn’s father.” Paul brightens momentarily at Carolyn’s name, but then draws up tight and asks “They sent you after me, didn’t they?” Stokes assures him that no one sent him, and tells him he will catch his death of cold if he continues lying on the ground.

Paul asks Stokes to take him to the police. Stokes nods to the house and says they can call the police from there. Paul cries out, “No! No, not to Collinwood. Please, Professor Stokes, you’ve got to take me to the police, it’s the only thing you can do for me. If you don’t, I’ll be dead. No, no, no, I am not being hysterical or melodramatic…” At this, Stokes turns to face his car. He gives Paul his arm, and says he will drive him to the police station.

The police station was a frequent set for about a year after its first appearance in August 1966. It hasn’t changed a bit when we see it today. The officer on duty is someone we haven’t seen before, but that doesn’t mean he is a new character. Four actors took turns playing Sheriff George Patterson between September 1966 and January 1969; this man is not named in the dialogue and there are no acting credits on screen today, so for all we can tell he might be a fifth. He is younger and slimmer than were any of the other incarnations of Sheriff Patterson, but maybe he’s been working out.

Stokes introduces Paul to the policeman, and explains that Paul will speak only to the authorities. The policeman sits Paul down, gives him some coffee, and assures him that everything will be all right.

Paul tells the policeman that “It will never be alright until they stop chasing me” and “They have been after me ever since I got here.” The policeman asks “What are these people doing to you?” and Paul replies that “At first, there were just little hints, phone calls, things like that- veiled threats. It was their way of making me know that I was under their control. And I was, too, because when I tried to get away they took me back to Collinwood.”

The policeman responds “I see,” and Paul bursts out with “No, you don’t see! You think I’m mad!” The policeman tries to reassure him that he will listen, and asks him if he can name any of his persecutors. “Yes, I’ll name one, all right! My [ex-]wife, Elizabeth Stoddard.” The policeman says “That’s a little hard to believe,” and Paul responds “It’s impossible to believe, and yet! You tell me why she took me back into Collinwood, after years of open hatred, unless they wanted me there! And you know this town, you know how they gossip. And you know my wife. Why, why would she risk all that gossip, unless they wanted her to do so?” He answers that even so, “It’s still a little hard to believe.”

Paul does not trust the policeman or Stokes. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Paul angrily says “Yes, and because it’s Elizabeth Stoddard who’s involved, you will do nothing!” The policeman responds “I didn’t say that. I intend to talk to Mrs Stoddard and the doctor and whoever else is involved. If you still feel you’re being held captive, well, we’ll have to do something about it.” Paul visibly relaxes.

Earlier in the episode, we saw Liz forcing medicine on Paul. Returning viewers know that Liz has been absorbed into an evil cult that is trying to do something terrible to Paul, and indeed to the whole human race. We saw today that Liz has assigned her housekeeper, Mrs Johnson, to trick Paul into taking the medicine. It quickly becomes clear that Mrs Johnson has no idea that Liz is involved in anything sinister- she simply trusts her employer to do the right thing, and she follows her orders. Liz owns most of the village of Collinsport, and most of its people would react as Mrs Johnson does.

When we saw the last Sheriff Patterson for the last time in #675, he told a prisoner that he was releasing him because Liz’ cousin Barnabas said he was with him when the crime was committed, and Barnabas is “just about the best alibi you can have in this town.” He shook hands with the prisoner and sent him on his way. Since we know that Barnabas is, off and on, a vampire, and that even when he is free from the effects of that curse he spends most of his time covering up murders, that left us with an impression of Collinsport law enforcement as hopelessly in the thrall of the Collinses. That reinforces the image left by Sheriff Patterson’s predecessor, Constable/ Sheriff Jonas Carter, who was last seen in #32, toddling off after taking Liz’ orders to accept an obvious lie as a way of closing a case against a family member. Paul has every reason to suppose that this new policeman will be as submissive to Liz and her family as were his predecessors.

Now that Paul can hope that the policeman will be different from the others, he asks him to lock him away, to put him under guard someplace where no one can get to him until his daughter Carolyn Collins Stoddard can come for him. Stokes agrees to telephone Collinwood and talk to Carolyn, and the policeman escorts Paul to a back room. Paul awakes from a nap, and smiles at the policeman. He tells him he can’t tell him how much better he feels. The policeman tells him someone has come to see him. Paul’s delight at the thought that Carolyn has arrived gives way to cries of terror when he sees Liz at Stokes’ side. She comes at him with a spoonful of the hated medicine while Paul tells Stokes and the policeman that they are traitors and killers.

This one is primarily a showcase for Dennis Patrick as Paul, but all of the acting is excellent. My wife, Mrs Acilius, found it very difficult to watch the episode to the end, saying that they did too good a job- she felt as trapped as Paul. It really is one of those episodes you could show to a person who had never before seen Dark Shadows with a reasonable confidence that they would understand why we like the series so much.

Episode 916: Julia Hoffman has had her dream

Certain People

Six weeks ago, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins was absorbed into a group serving supernatural beings known as the Leviathans. Also in the group is matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Barnabas and Liz are worried that mad scientist Julia Hoffman, Barnabas’ sometime best friend and Liz’ permanent houseguest, is catching on to the truth about their group. They decide Julia must be absorbed into it.

Barnabas finds Julia on a couch in the drawing room, reading a book about lycanthropy. He strikes up a conversation about Chris Jennings, a young man who suffers from that condition. Julia replies bitterly that she still cares about Chris, unlike Barnabas. He tells her that he does care, and they quarrel a bit. He then strokes Julia’s cheek. He did the same thing with Chris’ little sister Amy in #912, at which point Amy fell asleep. Shortly after Amy woke up, she had become part of the Leviathan group. Julia gets a headache and goes to her room, where she does fall asleep.

We didn’t see a dream sequence when Amy fell asleep, but do see one for Julia today. The visuals alternate between two stock clips of lightning flashes as we hear Jonathan Frid give a dramatic reading of some portentous nonsense, then give way to Julia finding Barnabas in the drawing room inviting her to open a wooden box. We saw a dream of Liz’ in #904; she woke from it already transformed into a faithful devotee of the Leviathans. But when Julia wakes up, she just has a worse headache.

They’ve shown us this clip more times than I can count…
… but I don’t think we’ve seen this one before. It’s fascinating to me, like an image David Lynch would have used in Eraserhead or the third season of Twin Peaks.

Julia goes downstairs and find Liz holding the box from her dream. She is urging her to open it. Julia is confused by the situation. A knock comes at the door, and she rushes to answer it. It is Chris, saying that it is time for Julia to drive him to the institution where he is locked up on nights of the full moon. Julia calls back to Liz that she will be back later in the evening.

Barnabas enters and says that Julia will never be absorbed into the cult. If she were suited for absorption, the knock at the door would not have distracted her. He explains that “There are certain people, Elizabeth, whom we are not able to absorb. It has to do with their genetic structure. And Julia Hoffman is one of them.” As a former vampire who is now leading a cult that is trying to bring a race of Elder Gods back into the world where they will destroy and replace humankind, Barnabas is supposed to be strange and unnerving, but hearing him talk about “certain people” and their “genetic structure” is off-putting in a whole other way. Why not just say that she’s Jewish, we know you mean that she’s Jewish.

Barnabas then tells Liz that it is now up to her to handle Julia. So far as we know, Liz does not have any special powers like those Barnabas uses when he fondles people’s faces. Liz doesn’t even know what the cult is all about- today, she asks Barnabas what the goal is they are working for, and he tells her he isn’t at liberty to say. So when Barnabas tells her to deal with Julia, we can only remember the last time we saw Joan Bennett playing a character under the control of an uncanny force, when Judith Collins shot and killed neurotic intellectual Rachel Drummond on the orders of vampire Dirk Wilkins in #776.

In #915, one Leviathan ordered Barnabas to kill Julia. When he refused, another caused him to have nightmares, then told him it was OK to leave Julia alive if he could find another way to keep her under control. That episode was written hurriedly and rushed into production at the last minute, three full weeks after this one was in the can, in response to complaints from fans dissatisfied with the Leviathan story in general and Barnabas’ coldness to Julia in particular. It’s anybody’s guess what they were originally planning to do with #915, but today’s episode makes it clear that it did not include the reset of Barnabas’ character that we saw yesterday. He is still leading the Leviathans, and when he delegates the problem to Liz murdering Julia is pretty obviously the likeliest solution.

Not a Portrait of Quentin Collins

Julia’s plan for Chris is to persuade an artist named Charles Delaware Tate to paint a portrait of him. Tate painted a portrait of Chris’ great-grandfather, Quentin Collins, in 1897. That portrait had magical powers. Once it was painted, Quentin’s own werewolf curse went into abeyance. It was the portrait that transformed on nights of the full moon, while Quentin himself remained human. Indeed, the portrait also caused Quentin to remain young and healthy. He returned to Collinsport a couple of weeks ago, and though he is 99 years old he still looks just like he did when he was 28. In #913/ 914, Julia found that Tate, also, is alive, and still looks like he did in 1897.

Quentin and Tate are not the only emigrés from 1897 currently sheltering in Collinsport. Another of Tate’s magical portraits, a concept piece depicting his ideal woman, caused its subject to pop into existence. In 1897, she went by the name Amanda Harris, met Quentin, and fell in love with him. She, too, is unchanged in 1969, though she now calls herself Olivia Corey.

Amanda/ Olivia and Julia are both hunting for paintings by Tate, and met each other through that pursuit. They have also met Quentin, and vied with each other to decide which would be the one to keep him. He has amnesia and knows only that he was carrying papers identifying him as Grant Douglas. He is open to the idea that this is not his real name, but he finds Julia’s attempt to convince him that he is a 99 year old man ludicrous and is frustrated with Amanda/ Olivia’s unwillingness to tell him when and where they first met.

Amanda/ Olivia comes back to her suite at the Collinsport Inn and finds Quentin there, swilling her booze and enormously drunk. He tells her that he finds his room depressing, because it doesn’t have a bar. He says he can’t stand not knowing who he is. She points out that he has taken this in his stride up to now, and asks why today is different. He says he doesn’t know why it is different, but it very much is. When the show was a costume drama set in 1897 and we saw Amanda, she did not know about Quentin’s lycanthropy, and now that she calls herself Olivia she still does not think of the full moon when she sees him in anguish.

Later, Julia shows up at Amanda/ Olivia’s door. She has brought one of Tate’s portraits of Amanda Harris. Amanda/ Olivia staggers back at the sight of it. She composes herself and says that it is of no interest to her, since she already has several of Tate’s paintings of her “grandmother.” Julia tells Amanda/ Olivia that the real reason she is not interested in it is that it is not a portrait of Quentin Collins. She replies that Julia is the one who is fascinated by Quentin, not she. Julia says that she wants to show the portrait to Quentin. Amanda/ Olivia does not bother pretending that his name is “Grant Douglas” or that it might be something other than “Quentin Collins”; she simply tells Julia that he is in his room sleeping off an alcoholic binge. Julia adopts her most unmistakably Mad Scientist manner when she responds “Then this is definitely the right time to see him!” She marches out, and Amanda/ Olivia follows her.

Julia had told Chris that if Quentin’s portrait has been destroyed, his lycanthropy will be back in force. If that is so, she wants to be with him when he transforms. This was a doubly confusing thing to say. First, if the portrait had been destroyed, Quentin would not only be a werewolf, he would also look his age. She therefore knows it is not so. Second, she does not have anything with her to protect her against werewolves. If she is with Quentin when he transforms, he will kill her immediately.

When Julia and Amanda/ Olivia let themselves into Quentin’s room, they find that it is a shambles and he is gone. As a closing cliffhanger, this is supposed to leave us with the fear that a werewolf is stalking Collinsport. But since we know what the portrait does for Quentin, it only leaves us wondering if Amanda/ Olivia will have to pay an extra housekeeping charge because he trashed the room she was renting for him.

When Julia met Tate in #913/914, she could not get him to engage her in any kind of conversation, much less agree to paint a portrait of Chris. She did not mention Amanda/ Olivia. Since Tate was maniacally obsessed with Amanda in 1897, Julia should have known that her acquaintance with her was the strongest card she had to play. So when she goes to Amanda/ Olivia’s suite today, returning viewers were hoping that she was going to propose they team up to persuade Tate to paint Chris. Perhaps that will still happen. If it does, it might be a lot more interesting than is the revelation that Quentin doesn’t keep his hotel room clean.

Episode 908: Mollycoddle that monster

The current phase of Dark Shadows is focused on the threat to the human race posed by the Leviathans, unseen supernatural beings who have taken control of several characters on the show. Among their devoted servants are matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her nephew, strange and troubled boy David Collins. Today, Liz and David welcome a boy known as Alexander to the great house of Collinwood. Alexander appears to be an eight year old boy, but is in fact an extreme case of Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. Last week he was an infant, and a few days before a whistling sound coming from a wooden box. Whatever Alexander may really be, he holds a key position in the Leviathans’ plan.

At times, Dark Shadows becomes so much a kids’ show that it loses much of its adult audience. The Leviathan story so far has gone to the opposite extreme. A scene in which Alexander orders the thirteen year old David to give up the transistor radio he had long wanted and that his father just gave him will probably get similar reactions from viewers of all ages, but when Alexander scolds Liz for asking questions and she apologizes, only those who remember Joan Bennett as the great star she was in the late 1930s and early 1940s will get the full force of the moment. In general, adults will probably feel the distress Alexander’s tyranny is supposed to induce, while the fans who are running home from elementary school to watch the show will likely be either annoyed with the kid or amused to see the grownups getting theirs.

Liz’ ex-husband Paul is being persecuted by the Leviathans and their human agents. Paul is staying at Collinwood, and he is outraged to find Alexander in the house. Paul carries on like a crazy man, prompting Liz to tell him that if he doesn’t compose himself he will end up in a mental hospital. He tells Maggie Evans, David’s governess, about his suspicions; she listens sympathetically until he catches Alexander eavesdropping and roughs the boy up. Maggie then freezes in horror, and Paul goes on shaking Alexander and yelling at him until Liz enters and puts a stop to it. While Liz and Maggie stand in the corridor and talk about Paul’s lunatic behavior, he paces in the drawing room, telling himself that he mustn’t “fly off the handle” again.

David enters and hands Paul a small photo album. He says that it has pictures of Paul and Liz’ daughter Carolyn when she was a child. Since Paul wasn’t around when Carolyn was growing up, David says it occurred to him that Paul might want to look through it. Paul thanks David for his thoughtfulness.

As Paul leafs through the album, we get a look at a picture depicting Carolyn as she was when she was about ten. We haven’t seen the model before. Dark Shadows had such a tight budget that regular viewers will be fairly sure they wouldn’t have brought a girl in only to pose for a single photograph, so we might start wondering when we will meet the ten year old Carolyn.

Child Carolyn. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

We may also be wondering when we will see another girl of about the same age. Denise Nickerson, twelve years old in December 1969, has been in the cast for a year at this point, and has made major contributions every time we’ve seen her. We saw in #893 and #896 that her character Amy Jennings is still living at Collinwood and is still David’s chief playmate. But as is usual in episodes where she does not appear, Amy is unmentioned today. Liz tells Paul that David spends entirely too much time surrounded by adults, as if Amy does not exist. They followed the same pattern during the eight months of 1969 when Dark Shadows was set in 1897 and Nickerson played nine year old Nora Collins. When Nora was in the episode, she was often its brightest spot, but when she wasn’t her name never came up. It’s unnerving that the show does so little to reassure us that it will continue to make use of such a talented and appealing young actress.

Alexander sits on the bench that has been in the foyer at Collinwood throughout the whole series. The Dark Shadows wiki says this is only the second time the bench has been used. I want to say it is the third- I remember David sitting there in #176, when Maggie’s predecessor Vicki told him he could have two desserts, cake and ice cream, but I seem to recall either him or someone else sitting there at some point around that time. I’m not going to go back through those episodes to check, but if you’ve been watching them I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a note in the comments.

Episode 907: Knowing the criminals but not the crime

The current storyline on Dark Shadows revolves around the evil machinations of a cult that serves mysterious supernatural beings known as the Leviathan people. We haven’t seen the Leviathans themselves, and the humans who make up the cult have not yet done anything spectacularly destructive.

The vagueness of the Leviathans’ threat is lampshaded a couple of times today. We open with old world gentleman Barnabas Collins, a leader of the cult, standing over the hospital bed of his distant cousin Quentin Collins. He tried to kill Quentin, but managed only to give him a head wound resulting in massive amnesia. In our world that would represent an extremely severe injury, but in Soap Opera Land everyone gets amnesia from time to time. It’s like the common cold, only with a more definite prospect of complete recovery. Now he is thinking of finishing the job. He decides that since Quentin once saved his life, he will take a pass on killing him for now. We hear his thoughts as he counts that a payment in full of his debt to Quentin. Evidently he now considers himself free to kill Quentin at his next chance. That anticlimax sums up the whole story so far- lots of ominous suggestion, no resolutions.

The Leviathan cult has been menacing Paul Stoddard, a shady fellow who, in the late 1940s, married heiress Elizabeth Collins, sired her daughter Carolyn, and deserted the family after he realized he wouldn’t be getting his hands on Liz’ money. The night he ran off, he unwittingly made a Faustian bargain with a representative of the cult, handing Carolyn over to them. It is unclear why they have been so unpleasant to him lately, since he made his agreement twenty years before.

Now, Liz has been absorbed into the Leviathan cult. She has taken Paul back into her home, the great house on the estate of Collinwood. She told him yesterday that she wanted him close to her so that they could work together to fight his unseen enemies, but it dawns on him today that this is not her intention. She tells him that she and Carolyn have concluded that he is mentally ill and they want to get him help. He goes to telephone the police. Liz asks what crime he will report to them, and he realizes that he knows of none that has been committed.

Paul catches permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman, MD, eavesdropping on his conversation with Liz. He angrily accuses her of being “one of them.” Since Liz is talking about treating Paul as a mental patient and Julia is a psychiatrist in residence at Liz’ house, this is a natural assumption on his part. Before long, he realizes that Julia is in fact his likeliest ally. Between the summer of 1968 and the autumn of 1969, Julia and Barnabas were inseparably close friends. His absorption into the Leviathan cult put a stop to that, and now he can barely tolerate her presence. She does not know what is going on, but is avidly interested in whatever suspicions Paul can share concerning the change in Barnabas. Before they can get very far, Barnabas enters and Paul runs off. Julia faces Barnabas down, then goes after Paul.

Julia confronts Barnabas about his effect on Paul. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Episode 906: Like an organization

Paul Stoddard has returned to Collinsport, Maine, the town he left twenty years before when he despaired of getting his hands on his wife Liz’ money. He is being tormented by a mysterious group. What the group is and what it is doing he does not understand, but he knows that they are destroying him and that they want to get their hands on his daughter, heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard.

Liz shows up at Paul’s hotel room. He tells her about the shadowy force that is menacing him and Carolyn. He gives her the one fact he is sure of, that her distant cousin Barnabas Collins is a leader of that force. She gets a faraway look in her eyes and says that Barnabas has been different since he “came back,” and that perhaps Paul is right about him. To his astonishment, she invites him to move back into her home, the great house on the estate of Collinwood. If he is the one who has perceived a threat to the family, then he should be in the family’s home where he can make the maximum contribution to the fight against that threat.

Liz formulating her response to Paul. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Liz’ reaction to Paul’s allegation against Barnabas is intriguing for two reasons. First, Liz has been kept out of the main story consistently since January 1967, when the story centering on blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins was first turning Dark Shadows into a supernatural thriller. Laura cast a spell on Liz to get her out of her way, and she never did make it back into the action. So when we hear her saying that she has noticed something disturbing about Barnabas, concerning whom she has always had a breathtakingly vast blind spot, and that she is ready to do battle, we are presented with the possibility that her character might be reinvented completely. Liz has connections to every other character on the show, and Joan Bennett still had significant star power in late 1969. So a revitalization of Liz might well revolutionize the whole show.

Second, Barnabas’ personality has indeed undergone a drastic change of late. Since every established character on the show is well acquainted with Barnabas, this cannot be concealed for very long. That suggests that the current story will move at a much faster pace than we are accustomed to seeing. If even Liz is entering the action, longtime viewers will suspect that it is already coming to a climax.

Liz sends Paul off to fetch Carolyn. Once he is gone, she picks up the telephone and places a call. We cut to the other end of the call. We see that she is telling Barnabas that everything is going according to their plan. If Liz has merely become one of Barnabas’ minions, the change in her may be temporary and the story may still have some time to run. Paul’s life expectancy, however, may be rather shorter.