Tag: elizabeth eis

Episode 997: How pretty your tears

We are in the fourth week of an arc set in a different universe than the one we saw in the first 196 weeks of Dark Shadows. This universe, which the show insists on calling “Parallel Time,” was originally introduced as a realm populated by Doppelgänger of the characters we have known. They are the same people, but have made different choices and are therefore living different lives.

Some of the Parallel Time characters fit this description. So, we have known matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her brother Roger Collins from episode #1. In the early days of the show, much was made of the Collinses’ straitened financial circumstances, the result of Roger squandering the half of the family’s assets he had inherited and Liz scrambling to keep control of the business. Roger lived in Liz’ house as her guest and worked in the business as her employee, and she kept a wary eye on any move he made to get his hands on her money. In #981, Parallel Liz mentions that she used to be quite wealthy, but that she entrusted her share of the Collins fortune to Roger, and as a result they are both penniless. Original Liz saw that fate as a distinct possibility, every time Roger was in the same wing of the house as her bank account information.

Parallel Liz and Parallel Roger live in the great house of Collinwood as the guests of their brother Quentin. Parallel Quentin is not at all the same person as Original Quentin. He is an entirely different person. Original Quentin was born in 1870, died in 1897, became a ghost haunting Collinwood in 1968 and 1969, and as the result of a time travel storyline in 1969 was both spared death and immunized against aging. Original Quentin was a riff on the early conception of Roger as a villain, and he was a huge hit with the viewing public during the part of the show set in 1897. Ever since Dark Shadows returned to contemporary dress in late 1969, they’ve been at a loss what to do with him. Parallel Quentin is an attempt to reinvent the character to let him keep enough of his vices that he retains the roguish charm that the fans liked, but at the same time use those vices as motivation for him to act the part of the hero from time to time.

There is need for an action hero today. Quentin’s friend, dippy mad scientist Cyrus Longworth, has invented a Jekyll-and-Hyde potion and taken a swig of it. As the darkly mustachio’d John Yaeger, he has been persecuting barmaid Buffie Harrington and Buffie’s unlucky boyfriend, big galoot Steve. We open with Yaeger choking Buffie and telling her she needs to be beaten into submission. Later, Yaeger gets the jump on Steve in a dark alley behind the Greenfield Inn, an establishment that also fronts a sinister alley in the main continuity. He threatens him with his sword cane. Steve manages to get that weapon away from him, but Yaeger beats him down. Yaeger is choking Steve, apparently with the intention of murdering him, when he hears a police whistle and runs away.

Cyrus Longworth and John Yaeger are played by Christopher Pennock.* In the main continuity, Pennock played a character who asked to be called Jabe but wound up answering to “Jeb.” Jabe appeared to be a man in his twenties, but was in fact a shape-shifting monster who was only a few months old when he was destroyed. We’ve heard a good deal about what Cyrus was doing six months ago and more, and there are diplomas on the walls of his laboratory that show his history is nothing like Jabe’s.

Among the very few choices in Jabe’s short life was an attempt to renounce his shape-shifting abilities so that he could remain in human form at all times. In that way, he is the opposite of Cyrus, who chooses to take his potion knowing it will change him into Yaeger.

Also, Jabe was so obnoxious that even people brainwashed to regard him as a divine being come to fulfill a plan that more than justified the extermination of the human race found his personality too much to take and turned against him after a few encounters. But by the end of Jabe’s time on the show, it had become undeniable that there was a kernel of sweetness in his personality. In this regard, too, Cyrus is the opposite of Jabe. We hear his soft voice and see his diffident manner, and we assume that the single-minded scientist in his lab coat, toiling all hours on a project that he keeps saying will benefit humankind, is a well-meaning sort, though perhaps dangerously naïve. Cyrus’ dutiful assistant and devoted fiancée, the lovely Sabrina Stuart, encourages us in that assumption, insisting that Cyrus is thoroughly good, if hopelessly unworldly. But as the initially insufferable Jabe turned out to be endearing at the end, so the apparently innocent Cyrus is deliberately choosing to turn himself into Yaeger even after he knows what Yaeger is capable of. What’s more, he refuses to let anyone at all help him with his experiment, meaning there is no one to restrain Yaeger’s sprees.

Sabrina’s counterpart in the main continuity was the fiancée, not of Jabe, but of another dangerous shape-shifter. She was engaged to werewolf Chris Jennings. As this Sabrina is convinced Cyrus is good, so that one kept insisting Chris was good, even after she had learned that he repeatedly refused to be restrained on nights of the full Moon, so that the killings he committed in his lupine form were premeditated murders on his part. This Sabrina does not know the nature of Cyrus’ work, and she believes that Yaeger is an enemy of his who is holding him prisoner. Sabrina would appear to stand with Roger and Liz as a character who is in a meaningful sense the same person in both timelines, so we are in suspense as to how she might react if she finds out the truth about her man.

Sabrina’s part makes us wonder if the original plan were to cast Don Briscoe, who plays Chris in the main continuity, as Cyrus and Yaeger. At this time Briscoe was struggling with bipolar disorder. He was trying to self-medicate with street drugs, which not only made matters worse in itself, but also led him to get a severe beating one night while trying to score a fix in Central Park. Briscoe appears in Parallel Time as lawyer Chris Collins and has a small part in the concurrently filmed feature House of Dark Shadows, but his health problems ruled out a part as crucial as the lead in the Jekyll and Hyde story.

Buffie is played by Elizabeth Eis, who appeared in one episode set in the main continuity as Nelle Gunston. Nelle was a young woman from Virginia, bored by life with her parents, who had joined the cult that was meant to serve Jabe and the world-wrecking plan to which he was central. When she was asked if she would commit murder if that was what the cult required, she smiled pleasantly and said “Even that.” Nelle was killed before she could meet Jabe.

Buffie is not at all the same person as Nelle. She is not from Virginia, for one thing. When she thinks about leaving Collinsport to get away from Yaeger, she realizes she has only $13.40 to her name, and laughs at herself for a plan that wouldn’t get her any further than Worcester, Massachusetts. Naming Worcester as a synonym for “nowhere” would suggest that she is a New England girl, which would fit with her employment in a bar in a fishing village in central Maine. Buffie is the opposite of what they originally told us the characters in Parallel Time would be- she is not Nelle after she has made a different choice, she is a person who began differently than Nelle and is making a similar choice.

Buffie is in her room when her landlady, Mrs Duvall, comes for the rent. Buffie has a check ready. Mrs Duvall thanks Buffie for recommending her boarding house to a gentleman who has rented her four best rooms at a very handsome price. She tells Buffie that the man is a big step up from Steve. Buffie has no idea what she is talking about. Yaeger shows up, and Buffie realizes he is Mrs Duvall’s new prize boarder. Buffie is horrified, and demands her rent check back. Mrs Duvall refuses to return it. Yaeger points to a print hanging on the wall and instructs Mrs Duvall to take it away and burn it. She is doing so when Buffie protests that it is hers. At that, Mrs Duvall stops short of the door, but she does not put the print back on the wall. Eventually, Mrs Duvall does take Buffie’s print, and leaves her with Yaeger.

Mrs Duvall leaves with Buffie’s print.

The telephone rings. It is Quentin, asking Buffie about Yaeger. Yaeger stands next to her and forces her to answer Quentin’s questions with lies. Later, Steve will come to Buffie’s room. She will tell him to give up on her and not to take any more beatings from Yaeger on her behalf. Steve asks if Yaeger is a superman; Buffie widens her eyes and says that he might be. This brings us back to Nelle, who renounced her life in Virginia and her connection to the human race because she was looking for a superman and thought she would find one in Jabe. Steve may not have had much to offer, but it’s a cinch he wasn’t as bad as Yaeger, and he’s gone from Buffie’s life after this scene.

The emptiness of Buffie’s life is represented today by a prop we have seen only once before on Dark Shadows, a television set. There was a set in a motel room in Bangor in #27; we never do see one in the Collinsport or the Collinwood of the main continuity. Perhaps the makers of the show are suggesting that people who have nothing better to do than to watch the idiot box are likely to fall prey to any fella who offers physical abuse and verbal intimidation.

Mrs Duvall is played by Camila Ashland. Ashland was a very distinguished stage actress who appeared in #928 as someone called Mrs Hutchins. A man from the cult around Jabe hired Mrs Hutchins to tell some lies to throw mad scientist Julia Hoffman off their trail. That didn’t work, but Julia admired Mrs Hutchins’ performance, as we suspect Grayson Hall admired Ashland’s. When the man from the cult paid Mrs Hutchins for her work, he was unpleasantly surprised at her questions and the uneasy conscience it reflected, responding roughly that she is being paid for a job and should leave it at that. He didn’t realize he was dealing with an artist. Mrs Duvall’s eagerness to please the obviously horrible Yaeger shows that she really is the crude mercenary the man from the cult assumed Mrs Hutchins was.

We cut to Cyrus’ laboratory. Yaeger has fled there from the police. He is about to take the re-Jekylling formula when Quentin shows up and demands to know where Cyrus is. We end with them in that standoff.

*Billed twice in the closing credits- as Christopher Pennock for Cyrus, and as Chris Pennock for Yaeger. Adorable!

Episode 996: His divided nature

The first expert in forbidden lore to join the cast of characters on Dark Shadows was Dr Peter Guthrie of Dartmouth College, parapsychologist. Guthrie was chief scientific advisor to well-meaning governess Victoria Winters as she assembled the forces of good and led them in battle against undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. In #184, Guthrie confronted Laura. He told her that he had figured out she was “The Undead,” the first appearance of that expression on Dark Shadows. He also offered to help her if she would desist from her plan to murder her young son David. Guthrie was nervous about making this offer, apparently fearing Laura might draw him into her web of evil. He needn’t have worried about that- she responded, not by corrupting Guthrie, but by killing him.

The second such expert was a straightforward mad scientist. She was Julia Hoffman, MD, who in #291 offered to cure vampire Barnabas Collins of his curse. Though Julia made it a condition of her offer that Barnabas stop preying on the living, as Guthrie had conditioned his offer to Laura on her allowing David to live, we could already see that Julia was far more deeply compromised than Guthrie had been. She had learned of Barnabas’ existence while treating his victim, Maggie Evans, and she could gain the time to make her experiment work only by betraying Maggie’s trust and preventing her from regaining her memory of what Barnabas was and what he had done to her. Before long, Julia acquiesced to Barnabas’ pressure and joined him in murdering her old medical school classmate, Dr Dave Woodard. Eventually, she and Barnabas would become the parents of a Frankenstein’s monster named Adam. The shocking abuse they heaped on Adam in his infancy left no doubt that as a mad scientist, Julia is as much a symbol of extreme selfishness as is a vampire.

Adam was the product of an experiment designed by another mad scientist, Dr Eric Lang. Lang was even more flagrantly evil than Julia. When he needed a head for the monster, he tied his assistant down and set about cutting his head off. Granted, the assistant was a character played by Roger Davis, so the audience could see where Lang was coming from. In fact, the writers themselves eventually got so fed up with Mr Davis they cut the head off the final character he introduced. Still, Lang’s impatient response to the assistant’s complaints showed that he was utterly lacking in human compassion.

Now, we are in a different universe than the one where Dark Shadows spent its first 196 weeks. The resident mad scientist in this “Parallel Time” is Dr Cyrus Longworth. Cyrus has developed a potion that turns him into a real jerk. That may not sound like much of an achievement compared to building a Frankenstein’s monster or curing vampirism or whatever it was Guthrie wanted to do for Laura. But that’s to be expected. By the time Guthrie came to the great estate of Collinwood early in 1967, monsters and black magic and the like had been fixtures there for over 171 years. It appears that such things are relatively new to this version of Collinwood, so Cyrus is doing the sort of modest project that tends to characterize a field when it is first starting.

When Cyrus drinks his potion, his red hair turns black, he grows a lot more of it, and a putty appliance materializes, dangling precariously from the bridge of his nose. In this form, he calls himself “John Yaeger.”

That nose may not be made of Silly Putty, but it certainly isn’t a serious putty. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As Yaeger, he goes to the Eagle, a tavern in the village of Collinsport, where barmaid Buffie Harrington is fending off the advances of her boyfriend Steve. Steve keeps coming up behind Buffie and grabbing her by the waist, a move that doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination. Buffie seems to be at once excited by Steve’s aggressiveness and irritated that he is keeping her from getting her work done. When Yaeger shows up and orders Steve to vacate the premises, Buffie’s evening goes from complicated to disastrous. The men fight, Steve loses, and Yaeger bodily ejects him from the tavern. Buffie confronts Yaeger about the wreck he has made of the place.

Later, Yaeger returns with a check to cover the damages. Buffie sees that the check is signed “Cyrus Longworth.” She explains that she used to work for the Collins family, and she knows who Cyrus is. She doesn’t believe that Cyrus would be friendly with Yaeger, and is sure he wouldn’t give him a check to cover the expenses he had incurred in a bar fight. Yaeger tells her the check is legitimate, and insists she keep quiet about his connection to Cyrus. He leaves.

Later, Quentin Collins finds the battered Steve and brings him into the tavern. Steve refuses to call the police, vowing to find Yaeger and settle the score himself. He leaves, and Quentin asks Buffie what she knows about the man who beat Steve. She says she doesn’t know much about him, but that a friend of Quentin’s does. She shows him the check with Cyrus’ signature. Perplexed, Quentin leaves.

Suddenly, Yaeger appears from nowhere. He tells Buffie that she promised not to tell of his connection to Cyrus. He starts choking her.

This is Elizabeth Eis’ first appearance as Buffie. Eis was on Dark Shadows once when it was set in the main continuity, playing Nelle Gunston, a devotee of a sinister cult who met Barnabas in the Blue Whale, a bar that corresponds to the Eagle in that universe. Barnabas killed Nelle before her only episode was over. It’s good to have Eis back, she was fun as Nelle and is a commanding presence today.

George Strus plays Steve, in his first and only role on the show. Strus was primarily a stunt performer, but he had lines in a few productions, most notably as a tough in Shaft. His last imdb credit was as a stunt performer in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, made in 1991, twenty years after Shaft. Steve is supposed to be a big dumb galoot, and Strus pulls that off satisfactorily.

Christopher Pennock’s name appears in the closing credits for the role of Cyrus. He is credited as “Chris Pennock” for Yaeger, adorably enough.

Episode 951: Do something with the body

Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins has fallen afoul of a shape-shifting monster from beyond time and space who once hoped people would call him “Jabe.” The monster, who has settled for the name “Jeb,” turns Barnabas back into what he was from the 1790s until 1968, a vampire.

Re-vamped, Barnabas suddenly gets a lot of gray in his hair and a much darker complexion. Makeup artist Vince Loscalzo deserves a lot of credit for these bits of color, they are placed perfectly to emphasize the look of anguish as Barnabas realizes what has happened to him and struggles to resist his urges. The actors’ faces were the medium of Loscalzo’s art, and he outdid himself with these complements to Jonathan Frid’s face.

People talk endlessly about the heroic makeup work Dick Smith did with Jonathan Frid one week in October 1967 and again on a feature film, but Vince Loscalzo did great stuff like this day in and day out for years. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

We see Barnabas sitting at a table in The Blue Whale, the tavern in the village of Collinsport. He is the only patron in the room. He has a glass of reddish liquid in front of him, and the bartender is moving around the room. The bartender looks at Barnabas, as if to ask, “How do you like your glass of AB negative, Mr Collins?” But he turns away and moves on.

A young woman enters. Barnabas invites her to join him at his table. He sees that she is wearing a pendant that identifies her as a member of the secret cult that serves Jabe and other creatures who intend to seize control of the Earth, supplanting humankind. Barnabas introduces himself, and says that he was the one who made it possible for Jabe to come to life. This is true, but it is also true that he has become disaffected from the cult. Even after Jabe turned him back into a vampire, Barnabas is still determined to thwart it.

The young woman introduces herself as Nelle Gunston, who was recruited into the cult while living a dreary life with her parents in Virginia. Nelle tells Barnabas that everything has changed for her since she joined the cult. She says that she will gladly do anything she can to advance its objectives, including murder. They have this conversation in nice loud voices while the bartender is nearby.

Barnabas’ friends, mad scientist Julia Hoffman and recovering werewolf Quentin Collins, enter. He introduces them to Nelle, then explains to them that he and Nelle have a private matter to discuss. Quentin and Julia go to the bar, where Quentin orders brandies. They talk about Nelle’s pendant and their fear that Barnabas is falling back under the power of the cult while the bartender is in their space serving them drinks. Evidently they’ve learned to rely on his discretion. They are still deep in conversation when Barnabas leaves with Nelle.

Barnabas takes Nelle back to his place on the pretext that Jabe will meet them there. She asks him why it is so dark in there; he asks her how she got into the cult. She catches on that Jabe is not coming and that Barnabas is not loyal to him. She draws a knife and is about to stab Barnabas when he bares his fangs to her.

Quentin and Julia let themselves into Barnabas’ house. They find Nelle dead on the floor and Barnabas wallowing in self-pity next to her. Julia takes a second look at Nelle and sees the puncture wounds on her neck. She tells Barnabas she will renew the treatments that first put his vampirism into remission two years before; he says there is something else he has to do first. After he rushes out, Quentin and Julia talk about how they will hide Nelle’s body.

Nelle was the perfect victim for Barnabas- no one in town knew her, no one expected her to come, no one will notice she is missing. And he is determined to weaken the cult, so reducing its numbers by one fits his goals.

Barnabas goes to the antique shop in the village. Jabe is in an upstairs room; Barnabas is convinced that Jabe can assume his true form and lay it down only in that room. We saw him do that in a house on an island many miles away in #946, and he told Barnabas that he had done so in #947, but apparently that doesn’t count, somehow. Jabe is far more powerful in his true form than he is when he is man-shaped, but he cannot mingle with humans in that form. So Barnabas believes that he will limit Jabe’s options if he destroys the room. He pours gasoline all around the first floor of the shop and sets a match to it.

Nelle is played by Elizabeth Eis, in her first appearance on Dark Shadows. They say that the first thing actors have to do to work effectively is to pay attention to each other. Eis shows how far this can take you. She listens ravenously to everything Frid says and never takes her eyes off him. The script doesn’t give her a huge amount to work with, but simply by giving her scene partner her total attention she creates a sensational performance. The producers noticed; she will be back later this year in two quite different roles.

This episode is the last time we see either the Blue Whale or Bob O’Connell as the Bartender. The Blue Whale was an important part of the show from its debut in June 1966 until the first costume drama insert began in November 1967. O’Connell appeared as the Bartender in 60 episodes (three of them as other bartenders in other periods of history) and had speaking parts in 6. It’s too bad he doesn’t get to say anything today, but at least he is in the closing credits.

Hail and farewell to Bob the Bartender, the jukebox, and the tavern. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

My usual themes: Alexandra Moltke Isles, David Henesy, and other underrated actors

In 281 of the posts that follow, I link to comments I made on Danny Horn’s blog, “Dark Shadows Every Day.”

Not all of these comments were absolutely unique. A number of times I argued that Danny and other contributors to the discussion threads were unduly harsh in their assessments of various actors on Dark Shadows, especially Alexandra Moltke Isles (who played Victoria Winters) and David Henesy (who played David Collins and various other members of the Collins families.)

I argue that Mrs Isles and Mr Henesy were the best thing about the first 42 weeks of the show:

I always liked Alexandra Moltke Isles; her scenes with David are not only the only things that work in the first two hundred episodes, they are also the purest example in the whole series of performers overcoming weak writing. Even when the scene begins with David accurately describing something that we, and Vicki, saw happen a few moments before and Vicki replying “That’s! Not! True!,” the two of them still manage to display deep enough emotions to carry us through. Her relatively quiet style doesn’t give her much scope as the show goes on and the “Go back to your grave!” school of acting becomes mandatory, but she always makes the most of whatever chances she has.

Nor are her performances in the first 42 weeks of the show all I find to praise in Mrs Isles’ work. I say that she made the most of the few opportunities the scripts gave her in the period of the show I call “Monster Mash” (episodes 466-626):

I’m not at all sure you’re being fair to Alexandra Moltke. She turns in some nice little performances in her scenes in this part of the series. She’s arrestingly fierce in her confrontations with Cassandra-lique, and in the confusion of her references to what she kind of remembers from 1795 she finds a kind of music. Each time she brings up her half-memory that the original Barnabas never went to England, but died in 1795, it’s a theme that resonates a little differently with everything else around it. Yes, Vicki was a dead-end character after the end of the Phoenix storyline, but I do wish the Countess had done a bit more screen acting.

Furthermore, I wish Vicki and Adam had a number of scenes together. The only thing that worked in the first 209 episodes was the relationship between Vicki and David, a theme crowned by the Phoenix storyline. Alexandra Moltke Isles and David Henesy made it work because they are both actors who excel at precisely crafted, quietly realized little scenes, and it was in scenes of that sort that the story of David learning to trust Vicki moved forward. When the vampire comes in and the overwrought style of acting (“Go back to your grave!”) takes over, the show doesn’t have room for many scenes like that. So often Isles and Henesy seem like chamber violinists trying to accompany a heavy metal band. Robert Rodan is of the same type.

As I say above, I believe Isles found a way to have an impact on a heavy metal concert with her chamber violin, and the others did as well. But it would have been satisfying in a different way if the chamber musicians had been paired with each other on a regular basis. Scenes with Vicki helping Adam could have been as compelling as the first season scenes of Vicki giving David his lessons were, as could scenes of David interacting with Adam.

I amplified my point about the Phoenix storyline (a.k.a. “Meet Laura,” episodes 126-192) here:

I liked the original Phoenix storyline… it was the payoff of the only thing that worked in the first 210 episodes, which was the development of a friendship between Vicki and David. The scene on the cliff, when David is clutching Vicki while Vicki urges him to go to Laura, is among the most emotionally powerful in the whole series because it shows us how far this development has come.

I wasn’t Mrs Isles’ only defender in the comment threads. Another commenter suggested a doozy of a rewrite of the “Meet Another Angelique” storyline (episodes 969-1060, also known as “1970 Parallel Time) in which Mrs Isles would play the villain and Lara Parker the damsel in distress, reversing their roles from the original “Meet Angelique” storyline (episodes 365-466, set in the year 1795.) Several people, including me, replied to that suggestion, all of us with an enthusiasm that showed our certainty that Mrs Isles could play the part brilliantly.

Like Mrs Isles, Mr Henesy was ill-served by the scripts and the house acting style that prevailed after the vampire was introduced (the “Go back to your grave!” style.) That ill service created a major problems later in the series. The “Haunting of Collinwood” storyline (episodes 639-700, which I usually group as part of the “Meet Amy” segment) turns on complex feelings of anxiety and dread that grip David Collins and Amy Jennings (played by Denise Nickerson.) The scenes between David and Amy work well enough; these two young actors not only convey the intricate malaise of people driven by obsession and fear, but even manage to find unexpected humor in their roles, turning into a grumpy old married couple after a few scenes together. But when Mr Henesy plays opposite an adult actor he often finds himself in an impossible situation. I give an example in this comment on episode 680:

This episode shows what Joel Crothers was talking about when he said he was glad to leave Dark Shadows because they had started spending so much time setting up special effects that the actors could no longer rehearse properly. You see it in the confrontation between David and Maggie, after he finds her waiting for him in his room. Kathryn Leigh Scott doesn’t have many lines, and only one emotion to express, sternness. She does a great job. But David Henesy has lots of complicated lines, and is trying to show us a character who is lying and who feels conflicted about lying. It would take a lot of practice for any actor to figure out a way to get all that across, and he doesn’t seem to have had the chance for it. Compare that scene with the many times he and Alexandra Moltke Isles overcame the drab dialogue they had to work with in their scenes together in the same setting, and it’s hard not to lament the missed opportunity.

Things got even worse for Mr Henesy when he was cast as Tad Collins in the 1840 segment of the show, for reasons I try to explain:

The writing isn’t the whole problem with Tad.

David and Vicki becoming friends is the only story that works in the first 42 weeks of the show, and it works in spite of the fact that the writers give the actors nothing at all to work with. We cut from a drawing room scene where Roger loudly declares to Vicki that “Yes, I’ve always HATED David!” to a scene where David looks up from his desk and tells Vicki “My father hates me,” and she responds “David, THAT’S! NOT! TRUE!” But whatever idiotic lines the script may require them to speak to each other, the body language and tone of voice between David Henesy and Alexandra Moltke Isles gets steadily warmer as the weeks go on, and you really believe that they are learning to care about each other. By the time Laura shows up, it makes perfect sense that Vicki is the referee between David and his mother, and it is inevitable that Vicki will be the one to pull him out of the burning shack.

As Tad, Henesy didn’t have the screen time it took to triumph over the writing like that, and frankly neither Kathleen Cody nor Kate Jackson was the sort of partner he needed to pull it off. Alexandra Isles worked very much from the inside out, feeling her way into the character’s emotions and letting them out through whatever parts of her were on camera, while the two K’s worked outside in, starting with the dialogue and putting the words on display. That may have made them a more natural fit for the Dark Shadows house style of acting (“Go back to your grave!”,) but it left everyone high and dry when the scripts stank.

For all that was against him, Mr Henesy did manage to create some bright spots in the later episodes. For example, his performance as evil sorceror Count Petofi speaking through the body of young Jamison Collins features some terrific moments, as I note in this comment on episode 803:

Much is asked of David Henesy in this episode. There are moments when he has to do a Thayer David impression. Those he carries off splendidly- “mineral water, for the digestion.”

At other moments, Petofi is tricking people into thinking that Jamison is free of his influence. That requires him not only to show the other characters a convincing likeness of Jamison, but also to show the audience the wheels turning in his devious mind. Sometimes that works- when he tricks Edward into letting him kiss him, he does create suspense as we wait to see his evil plan work itself out. Other times it doesn’t. When he tells Beth that “I just want people to like me,” he sounds so much like David Collins circa December 1966 that it just seems like he’s forgotten that he’s supposed to be possessed.

From time to time I spoke up in favor of other much-maligned cast members. In addition to the favorable reference to him above, I several times listed Robert Rodan among those I wished we had seen more on the show, and those references sometimes brought enthusiastic agreement from other commenters, suggesting that the negative remarks others made about him had more to do with the dead-end his character, the Frankenstein’s monster-like Adam, found himself written into than with the late Mr Rodan’s interpretation of the role.

Other actors may have left something to be desired from time to time, but did turn in good performances. I tried to call attention to those positive moments when others were venting about the less successful ones. For example, Lisa Blake Richards’ turn as Sabrina Stuart before and after the 1897 storyline is not widely admired, but I thought she was a substantial asset to the show in the “Meet Another Angelique” period.

Terry Crawford’s turn as Beth Chavez during the 1897 storyline is the object of a great deal of very harsh criticism, most of it justified. How many women could there have been who could not convince an audience that they were attracted to the young David Selby? But she did have one or two good moments then, and when she returned as Edith Collins in the 1840 segment she was very nearly competent.

Kathleen Cody also gets a lot of grief. I grant that Ms Cody was bad in the first episode in which she had lines to deliver (#1071,) but say that she was OK after that, and attribute the hostility to her to a mix of that bad first impression with a general distaste for the last 150 episodes of the show.

An actress who tends to be, not indeed denounced, but simply overlooked, is Elizabeth Eis. That puzzles me; I think she was phenomenal in all three of the parts she played. She had a one-episode spot as a devotee of the sinister Leviathan cult in #951; the character isn’t much, a cliched hillbilly teenager cribbed from Tobacco Road, and her main function is to serve as breakfast for the vampire. But in Elizabeth Eis’ hands, she bursts off the screen.

In “Meet Another Angelique,” she plays Buffie Harrington, a woman so lonely that she owns a television set (the only one we see in the entire series) and submits to life as a slave of the evil half of the Dr Jekyll/ Mr Hyde character. In that role, the late Ms Eis is so magnetic she makes a love scene with Jonathan Frid seem sexy.

In her final role, as jailer Mildred Ward in the 1840 segment, Ms Eis earned a spot in the Dark Shadows Hall of Fame by excelling in one of the show’s characteristic parts:

And another fine moment from Elizabeth Eis. Quentin, who is in jail on suspicion of strangling someone, grabs the constable’s wife through the bars of his cell and starts strangling her. The part of “person being strangled” isn’t an easy one to play, as Dark Shadows shows us two or three times a week, and she does it as well as any of them. You can see her cycle through about a half dozen emotions while she’s struggling for breath.

A few episodes later, Ms Eis reprised the role of Person-Being-Strangled, and she outdid even her previous performance:

Compare her scene getting strangled by Gerard in this episode with her scene getting strangled by Quentin last week… In the scene with Quentin, she cycles through a half dozen emotions while being choked; in this one, she digs down deep and shows a very specific form of terrified disbelief.

Episode 1020: To Serve Man

Two comments from me this time. In the one linked above, I praise Elizabeth Eis and Kathryn Leigh Scott for playing romantic scenes so effectively that they make Jonathan Frid seem sexy. In the second,  I point out that the television set in Buffie’s room is the first one we’ve seen in the entire series, and suggest that the lingering closeup it gets here is a sign of Buffie’s desperate loneliness.

Episode 1020: To Serve Man

Episode 1158: When One Deals with Judah Zachery, There Is No Margin for Error

I praise Elizabeth Eis’ portrayal of one of the most frequent roles on Dark Shadows, that of “person being strangled.” 

Episode 1158: When One Deals with Judah Zachery, There Is No Margin for Error