first time not the last – Page 3 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 639: I’ve never heard of a Quentin Collins

The only story that consistently worked in the first year of Dark Shadows was well-meaning governess Victoria Winters’ quest to befriend her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins. In #191, David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, was trying to immolate him and herself. At the climactic moment, David ran from the flames into Vicki’s arms. When David chose Vicki and life over Laura and death, their story was concluded, and Dark Shadows 1.0 came to an end.

Vampire Barnabas Collins would first appear on Dark Shadows in #211 and quickly become its main source of interest. The show never made up its mind how Vicki would relate to Barnabas’ story. The obvious move would have been to follow Bram Stoker’s Dracula and make Vicki the vampire’s first victim, rising from the dead like Lucy Westenra as “The Bloofer Lady,” a friend to children in life who in her undead afterlife feeds on the blood of children. In that case, Vicki would be destroyed as she was about to kill David. But Vicki had been an effective protagonist throughout the Laura story, which was itself in large part an adaptation of Dracula, and if as seemed likely the show was going to be cancelled with #265 they would have wanted Vicki to stake Barnabas at the end of that episode. So she was spared his bite, and instead he turned his fell gaze upon Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town.

With Vicki walled off from the vampire story, David’s contact with it was initially limited to the inconvenience he could make for Barnabas by sneaking into his house during the day. When Barnabas was keeping Maggie in his basement, a new character was introduced who would meet David and relate to him in a way that would bring him to the center of Barnabas’ concerns. This was the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah, a girl about David’s age.

David Henesy had been the only child actor on Dark Shadows until Sharon Smyth joined the cast as Sarah in #255. Miss Smyth had very little of the training and experience Mr Henesy brought to the show, but playing a ghost she didn’t really need them. Our main reaction to Sarah is puzzlement, puzzlement as to what she wants, what she can do, and whether she knows anything at all about herself and the world she finds herself in. Miss Smyth was just as puzzled as the audience about all of these questions, and that works to her advantage. In Sarah’s scenes with David Collins, Sharon Smyth’s feelings about David Henesy- a precocious crush mixed with fear of his propensity for playing rather nasty practical jokes on her- added a touch of urgency without erasing any of the character’s mystery. At the same time, Mr Henesy’s acting skills made it possible for us to believe that David Collins had gone a tremendously long time without catching on that Sarah was a ghost. Once David Collins finally did figure it out, David Henesy made the most both of scenes where he coolly presented skeptical adults with irrefutable evidence of Sarah’s true nature and of scenes where he became overwrought at his inability to convince them of the truth.

Sarah’s ghost hasn’t appeared since #364. A couple of weeks ago Alexandra Moltke Isles left the show and the part of Vicki was recast; Mr Henesy hasn’t shared a scene with the new actress, but he had barely shared a scene with Mrs Isles for a year. Throughout 1968, his appearances on the show have been few and far between. Today, for example, he makes his first appearance since #609, which was in turn only his second appearance since #541. That changes when he meets a new co-star who will change the trajectory of his character and of the show.

Amy Jennings is played by Denise Nickerson, whose preparation was fully equal to Mr Henesy’s. Her style was quite different from his- while he, like Mrs Isles, tended to play his characters from the inside out, figuring out what is in their minds and then using the dialogue and action to project that understanding, she tended to start with the action and find the character in the middle of it. Today she shows up on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood just as David’s aunt, matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, comes face to face with a werewolf. The werewolf was about to attack Liz, but he runs off at the sight of Amy. Liz takes her unlikely rescuer home with her to the great house on the estate.

There, Amy meets permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman, MD. Julia is the nominal head of Windcliff, a sanitarium from which Amy recently escaped. Liz describes the encounter with the werewolf, and Amy explains that she is looking for her brother Chris. Returning viewers know that Chris is the werewolf, but none of the characters knows this yet. The adults are mystified by Chris’ wandering ways and his refusal to take responsibility for his little sister, while Amy is convinced that he is ready to give that up and settle with her in the village of Collinsport.

Julia wants to ship Amy back to Windcliff at once, but Liz talks her into letting Amy stay the night. David strolls in; he meets Amy, and Liz sends the two of them to get housekeeper Mrs Johnson.

We see David and Amy looking out the window of a guest room during a storm. David is disappointed to hear that Amy won’t be staying through the next day, and talks about what they will do the next time she visits. He asks if the thunder and lightning frightens her, she says no, “It can’t hurt you.” To this he replies, “Sure can! Lightning can strike you dead.” After a brief pause, he adds “Well, if you’re not afraid, I guess you don’t need me.” That sequence of lines is so funny the humor must have been intentional.

Amy asks David to stay. They sit on the floor in front of the fireplace in her room, and at her suggestion they decide to explore the long-deserted west wing of the house. They go straight to a room in which they find an antique telephone. They decide to play a game in which they pretend to talk to the ghosts of the people who used to live in the house using the telephone. Amy actually gets through to one of them. David thinks she’s kidding him, and takes the phone. To his amazement, he hears breathing on the other end, even though the telephone’s line is cut.

David gets a *really* long distance call. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

David only heard the breathing, no words. Amy tells him that the voice identified itself as that of Quentin Collins. David, whose avid interest in Collins family history made it logical that he, in #205, would be the first character to mention the name “Barnabas Collins,” says he has never heard of Quentin.

Later, they return to Amy’s room and find Quentin’s picture in a family album. Liz comes in, and when David asks her about Quentin she tells him that he was her great-uncle, that he left for Europe when he was young, and that he died in Paris. Regular viewers will remember that when Barnabas became a vampire, the Collinses put about the story that he had gone to London, and when he came back in 1967 he introduced himself to Liz as a cousin from England. Thus the show suggests that Quentin may be its next attempt to match Barnabas’ breakout success.

Amy has taken the telephone to her room, and at the end of the episode she talks to Quentin again. He beckons her to return to the room in the west wing, and she goes. If Quentin is indeed going to succeed Barnabas as Dark Shadows‘ great supernatural menace, evidently it is Amy who is in danger of becoming his first victim.

In #636, occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes remarked that he had never heard of a ghost communicating by telephone. During this period, the show was going through a lot of last minute rewrites; the Dark Shadows wiki reports on several flimsies and drafts that were cast aside and replaced with new scripts. So I can imagine that Stokes’ line may have inspired the idea of using the telephone to introduce Quentin, though perhaps it is likelier that they already had the prop and Stokes’ line was a private joke among the writers.

Episode 625: Dead man’s wedding

The first time we might have expected to see a wedding on Dark Shadows was in #270, when reclusive matriarch Liz was supposed to marry seagoing con man Jason in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood. That wedding was called off when Liz, rather than saying “I do,” announced “I killed Paul Stoddard and that man was my accomplice!” It turned out that Liz didn’t actually kill Paul after all. She only stunned him, and he and Jason connived to trick her into thinking she had killed him so that she would give them a lot of money. The two of them buried an empty trunk in the basement of the great house and Jason told Liz that Paul’s corpse was in it. Liz’ refusal to be blackmailed into marrying Jason led to the exhumation of that empty trunk.

The next time there was supposed to be a wedding at Collinwood was in #380, when the show was a costume drama set in the 1790s. Scion Barnabas was supposed to marry the gracious Josette, but wicked witch Angelique cast a spell that caused Josette to elope with Barnabas’ uncle Jeremiah. We did not see their wedding, but we did see Barnabas and Angelique get married in #397. We also saw them on their wedding night, when Barnabas left Angelique in her bedroom and retired to his, without so much as a goodnight handshake between them. As Jason’s attempt to marry Liz ended with the exposure of a vacant coffin, so these marriages led to vacant coffins as well. Barnabas killed Jeremiah in a duel in #384, and Angelique raised him from the dead in #392. It does not appear he ever did go back to his grave. He opened his own coffin in #397 and tried to bury Angelique alive in it.

When Barnabas found out that Angelique was the witch responsible for Jeremiah and Josette’s elopement and all the misery afterward, he tried to kill her, and she retaliated by turning him into a vampire. His coffin was empty every night for a while, but in March 1968, shortly after Dark Shadows left the 1790s and returned to contemporary dress, he became human again. Now Angelique is a vampire, and it is her coffin that is regularly vacant.

Today, another wedding is scheduled for the drawing room of the great house. Well-meaning governess Vicki is supposed to marry an unpleasant man known variously as Peter and Jeff. A mysterious woman with two names of her own, Eve and Danielle, shows up while Peter is smoking on the terrace.

Peter/ Jeff and Eve/ Danielle both lived in the 1790s, and both have come back to life in 1968. Peter/ Jeff is in deep denial about his own status as a revenant, and gets even more obnoxious than he usually is whenever anyone brings it up. Eve/ Danielle remembers him from their previous lives, and is, inexplicably enough, in love with him. She brings him a note that she acquired on a recent trip through time. In Peter’s handwriting, under the salutation “Dear Danielle,” it says that he would rather go to the gallows on the off chance that in some future life he will be with Vicki than go away with Danielle. Somehow, Danielle takes Peter’s willingness to face death in hopes of reunion with Vicki to mean that he should now leave Vicki and go away with her. The logic may escape the viewer, but evidently it convinces Peter/ Jeff. He leaves Collinwood to go dig up his grave. He finds the coffin vacant. It is unclear whether this means he will reunite with Eve/ Danielle, but apparently it convinced him he should not marry Vicki.

Nobody’s home. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Liz’ aborted wedding to Jason marked the end of the blackmail arc, which was itself an extended in-betweener meant to clean up the last non-supernatural stories, introduce the vampire, and give the rest of the cast something to do while Barnabas was settling in. The aborted wedding of Barnabas and Josette marked the end of the part of the 1795 segment in which most of the characters don’t know that there is a tragedy brewing, while Barnabas and Angelique’s wedding told the audience that the preliminaries were over and they were about to explain how Barnabas became a vampire. Vicki and Peter/ Jeff’s attempted wedding today marks another ending. Alexandra Moltke Isles will leave the role of Vicki after the episode coming up on Tuesday. Vicki started moving to the sidelines once undead fire witch Laura went up in smoke in #191, and she has long been a secondary character. But she was the main protagonist for the first 39 weeks of Dark Shadows, and Mrs Isles carried the show very capably during those days. It was disappointing when she moved so far out of the main current of the action, and sad to see her go.

Episode 624: Difficult adjustment

Today, we open with well-meaning governess Vicki in her room in the great house of Collinwood, wearing her wedding dress. Matriarch Liz enters, gives her a peck on the cheek, and tells her what a lovely bride she will be. Everything in their words and actions suggests to first-time viewers that they are mother and daughter; the strong resemblance between Joan Bennett and Alexandra Moltke Isles would tend to corroborate this impression. In a later scene, we hear Vicki call Liz “Mrs Stoddard.” Thus we learn she is one of the household staff.

Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s monsters Adam and Eve share a moment. Eve was created to be Adam’s mate, but she has wanted nothing to do with him. She has gone so far as to tell him to his face that she hates him and will kill him. Today, suave warlock Nicholas has ordered Eve to make nice with Adam, and so she tells him to forget all about her previous remarks. They sit facing each other on the floor in front of the fire, the first time we have seen potential lovers do that on Dark Shadows. They kiss.

Adam and Eve look at each other. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

A jump cut indicates the passage of time, and we see Adam and Eve snuggling on a little sofa and being pleasant to each other. We are free to surmise that they had sex. Perhaps there will be Frankenbabies after all. Adam leaves. In his absence, Eve again says that she cares nothing for him, but only for someone named “Peter.” Since Peter is the man Vicki is supposed to marry today, that sets up a conflict.

Back at Collinwood, Vicki opens a wedding gift she finds disturbing. The card enclosed is simply labeled “Peter” in all caps. In fact, Eve sent it, but Peter is such a tedious character that it is easy to imagine that he has never learned to use lower-case letters or to write more than his first name, so we can understand Vicki’s reaction.

Episode 581: Death and I are old friends

Vampire Angelique wants to take part in an experiment. The experiment is modeled on one in Hammer Studios’ 1967 film Frankenstein Created Woman. A mate will be created for patchwork man Adam by a process that involves draining the “life force” from a person into a female body made up of parts salvaged from several cadavers. Angelique wants to be the “life force” donor.

Angelique knows that when Barnabas Collins donated his “life force” to Adam, he not only survived the process but emerged cured of the vampire curse she had herself placed on him 172 years before, when she was a wicked witch. She is hoping that if she follows his lead, she too will be freed to walk in the daylight.

Angelique has been snacking on an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff. Peter/ Jeff is working on the experiment as a lab tech. She keeps demanding that he run the experiment with her as the “life force” donor. He keeps explaining that he’s just there to set up the equipment and has no idea how to operate it. The only person qualified to do that is mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Angelique says that no one else must be involved, and gives Peter/ Jeff 24 hours to become an expert on the process.

Meanwhile, Adam visits heiress Carolyn in her bedroom. He describes their relationship in terms that show a far greater maturity than she has seen from him before, and she calls him an “amazing creature.” The word “creature” wounds him. We hear his thoughts in a voiceover monologue, the first time Dark Shadows has used this device in mid-conversation. It is quite unnecessary; Robert Rodan’s face tells us everything we need to know about Adam’s feelings. Carolyn certainly sees that she has hurt Adam, and scrambles to make up for it.

Carolyn gives Adam a bright green sweater, and he bursts into tears. He says that no one has ever given him a gift before. Carolyn does not know about Adam’s origin, and is puzzled by this remark. He tells her no one is as nice as she is, that he wants to be her friend forever and never to hurt her, and rushes out of the room, overwhelmed by his emotions.

The experiment to build a female Frankenstein’s monster began after Adam told Barnabas that if he were not given a mate, he would murder everyone in the great house of Collinwood, including Carolyn. The scene in Carolyn’s room shows that this threat is a hollow one. On Friday, Adam dropped in on suave warlock Nicholas, who put him up to extorting Barnabas and Julia, and told him he loved only Carolyn and was ready to tell Barnabas to forget about the experiment. Nicholas talked him out of that, promising him that he would make it possible for him to have both his mate and Carolyn if only he would do everything he told him to do.

Angelique returns to the lab. Peter/ Jeff isn’t there, but Adam is. She tells Adam that he is breaking his word to Nicholas. Nicholas did not in fact tell Adam to stay away from the lab, but he did give Angelique that command. Adam is skeptical of Angelique, but he has no reason to stay in the lab or to throw her out. So he leaves her there.

Soon Peter/ Jeff is back. He keeps trying to explain to Angelique that he has no idea what he is doing, but she puts herself on the table and insists he start right away. While he throws switches, she moans.

Danny Horn’s post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day details the similarities between this scene and the way TV variety shows of the period presented “psychedelic” rock and roll acts such as The Doors. Danny’s commenter “PrisoneroftheNight” (a.k.a. Marc Masse of the intermittently available blog Dark Shadows from the Beginning) points out that The Doors themselves were likely aware of the similarity, as witness a voice that can be heard at the eight second mark of track 11, disc 2, of the CD release of The Doors in Concert calling similar visual effects “Dark Shadows time!”

Danny doesn’t say anything about Lara Parker’s rendering of Angelique’s experience on the table. On Dark Shadows Before I Die, John Scoleri says that Angelique “seemingly enjoys the experiment (because we’ve seen her shriek in pain, and this definitely was not the same),” to which his sister Christine adds that Peter/ Jeff “seemed to be pressing all the right buttons.” When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius noticed Peter/ Jeff’s uncomprehending reaction to Angelique’s moans and remarked “Yeah, yeah, we know you’ve never heard a woman make those sounds.”

Angelique beside herself. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Two of the four actors in this episode, Nancy Barrett and Roger Davis, are still alive as of this writing. I believe it is the first episode to have a cast that all survived as late as 2021. Robert Rodan died in that year, and Lara Parker in 2023. I don’t know if there are any episodes that still have all-surviving casts. (UPDATED: #751 does!)

Episode 554: What must be

Recovering vampire Barnabas Collins is in the woods on the estate of Collinwood, searching for well-meaning governess Vicki Winters. He hears dogs howling, as they used to howl when he was in the grip of bloodlust. He goes to pieces at the memory.

Barnabas’ fellow searcher, Vicki’s fiancé Peter Bradford, sees him standing petrified. Barnabas asks him if he can hear the dogs. Peter says he can, and is puzzled that Barnabas was afraid he was hallucinating their sounds. Peter asks Barnabas if he is all right. Barnabas insists that he is just worried about Vicki, and resumes searching.

Shortly after, Barnabas finds himself in the foyer of the great house on the estate, slumped in a chair under his own portrait. He makes a sad contrast with the haughty figure in the painting. His friend Julia Hoffman enters, and he gives her a pleading look that emphasizes the contrast between his present weakness and the arrogant power he wielded when he posed for the portrait, more than 170 years before.

Barnabas tells Julia that he does not know how he got into the house. The last he remembers, he was in the woods and heard the dogs howling. She suggests that their noise may not mean anything, but he is sure there is some unearthly horror afoot.

Barnabas tells Julia something else he is sure of. Earlier this evening, Frankenstein’s monster Adam came to his house. Adam mistakenly believes that Barnabas created him, and demanded that he build a woman to be his mate. When Barnabas told him that would be impossible, Adam vowed to make him sorry, then left. Shortly after, Vicki came by for a brief visit. Barnabas is certain that Adam abducted Vicki to use as a hostage, and that the only ransom he will accept is the artificially created woman he has no way of supplying.

Barnabas goes to the telephone and announces he is going to tell the police what he knows about Adam. Julia objects that Adam can tell the police enough about the two of them to expose them both to prosecution. Barnabas says that he is willing to take that risk for Vicki’s sake, and begins dialing. Julia says she is not, and places her finger on the telephone receiver to end the call.

Julia has never been able to entirely conceal her dislike for Vicki, rolling her eyes when Vicki talks to her and making sarcastic remarks when Barnabas praises her, so regular viewers can hardly be surprised that Julia does not volunteer to go to prison for her sake. Still, Julia has often enough shown a troubled conscience about the many crimes she has committed during her association with Barnabas that her utter coolness represents a new step in the character’s development. The other day she wanted to shoot wicked witch Angelique, but Angelique was not really human and was enormously dangerous. Even so, Julia was deeply upset when she made up her mind to kill her, and she backed down when she came face to face with Angelique. But Vicki is resolutely, unfailingly, rather tediously good, Good with a capital G. That Julia is so blandly willing to consign her to death at Adam’s hands suggests that her sense of right and wrong will no longer serve as a brake on any sinister plans that might advance whatever goals she and Barnabas are pursuing.

Barnabas looks at Julia, shocked. Perhaps her coldness shocks him. Perhaps what shocks him is that he is so dependent on her that he does not resume dialing.

Meanwhile, another drama has played out not so far away. Electrician Tom Jennings was inspecting the wiring in a house that suave warlock Nicholas Blair is renting from the ancient and esteemed Collins family. Tom told Nicholas that he wanted to inspect the cellar to make sure the foundation was in good repair. Nicholas replied that this would not be necessary, but Tom insisted. He opened the cellar door, and found a coffin. Nicholas told him that the coffin was there when he moved in. Tom asked if he’d called the police, and Nicholas replied there was no need, since the coffin was empty.

On his way home, Tom told himself that the Collinses wouldn’t leave a coffin in the basement of one of their houses. That shows what he knows- for the first 55 weeks of the show, matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard thought that her husband was buried in a box in the basement of the great house, and when he was a vampire Barnabas kept his coffin in the basement of his house. It wouldn’t be a Collins house if it didn’t have a coffin in the basement, and a dungeon too.

Tom sees someone and asks who it is. The part of the other person is played by the camera, so we do not know. The camera zooms in, and Tom collapses.

Later, Peter finds Tom propped against a tree. He touches Tom, and Tom falls over, apparently dead. He has two bloody wounds on his neck. Peter goes back to the great house. He tells Barnabas and Julia that he must use the telephone. They hear him describe Tom’s wounds to the police. Afterward, Barnabas and Julia realize that there is another vampire operating in the area.

Tom’s appearance is the debut of Don Briscoe, who would be a big part of Dark Shadows for almost two years. On his Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn told an amazing story about Briscoe:

Many years ago, when I was in high school, my mother walked into the room while I was watching Dark Shadows.

She looked at the guy on the screen, and said, “Is his name Don?”

I said, yeah, that’s Don Briscoe, and she said, “I thought so. I knew him, when I was in grad school. He asked me out once.”

Seriously, true story. She said that they were both getting a master’s in English — he was at Columbia University, and she was at Barnard, which is right across the street. He asked her out on a date, and he was very handsome, and very nice, but he wasn’t Jewish, so she said no.

At the time, I had no way to verify this, and I never really knew what to think about it. I mean, she knew the guy’s first name, but maybe she confused him with some other brown-haired guy named Don.

But now I have this excellent book called Barnabas & Company, which has extensive bios on everybody in the cast. It turns out that he really did get a master’s degree in English at Columbia University, and that means that Don Briscoe is kind of my dad.
Danny Horn, “Episode 565: Weird Science,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 10 January 2015

Granted, hundreds of actors had parts on Dark Shadows over the five years of its run, a great many people have blogged about the show, and I’m sure Danny’s mother was a very attractive young woman who had offers from lots of fellows. But Briscoe was one of the more important members of the cast, and Danny is as good as any of the bloggers. So it really is a noteworthy coincidence that they are connected to each other in that particular way.

Episode 553: The five captivities of Victoria Winters

The First Captivity

In #83, strange and troubled boy David Collins repaid his governess, the well-meaning Vicki, for her determined attempts to befriend him by locking her in a room where he hoped she would die. The room was located deep in the long-deserted west wing of the great house of Collinwood, and Vicki found that she could neither open the door nor reach the window.

Vicki had two visitors during her time trapped in this dusty chamber. In #85, the ghost of local man Bill Malloy appeared and sang to her; this was the first sustained and direct interaction between a living person and a supernatural being on Dark Shadows, and it left Vicki terrified and confused. In #87, David’s abusive father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, knocked on the door and pretended to be a ghost, scaring Vicki further. When Roger then opened the door and rescued Vicki, she threw her arms around him, sobbing and saying that he was right and David really was a monster. In those days, Vicki’s attempt to win David over was the only storyline on the show that worked; when it seems that she will join all the other grownups in giving up on the little guy, the audience’s hearts break.

The Second Captivity

In #108, Vicki had come to the conclusion that Roger killed Bill. Unsure where to go, she stopped in the cottage on the estate where handyman Matthew Morgan made his home. Talking to him, she prompted him to make an indiscreet remark that revealed that he, not Roger, pushed Bill off the cliff from which he fell to his death.

Matthew would not let her leave the cottage. He acknowledged that she had done nothing wrong, but said that he would have to kill her now that she knew his secret. She tried to dissuade him, but it was only a chance visit from matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard that prevented the murder. Matthew ran away, and Vicki was free.

The Third Captivity

In #116, Vicki went to look for David in the long-deserted Old House on the estate. She did not find him, but instead found Matthew, a wanted fugitive with a grudge against her. Until #126, Matthew kept her bound and gagged in the secret room behind the bookcase in the front parlor.

Others came and went. David, no longer homicidal, is convinced Matthew is innocent of Bill’s death and unaware he is holding Vicki, and he sneaks Matthew food he has stolen from the kitchen in the great house. Vicki’s friends Burke and Joe search the Old House, and she can only listen while Matthew hides with her in the secret room.

Matthew was fetching an ax with which to kill Vicki when the ghost of the gracious Josette Collins appeared to her and told her not to be afraid. When he came back, Josette led the ghosts of Bill Malloy and of the legendary Widows of Widows’ Hill as they surrounded Matthew and scared him to death.

The Fourth Captivity

From #365 to #461, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the late eighteenth century. Vicki had come unstuck in time, and found herself at Collinwood as it was in those days. Her total failure to adapt to her new environment led to her arrest, trial, and condemnation as a witch. From #401 on, she was in gaol, with a couple of brief and disastrous excursions.

Vicki had several visitors during her time in gaol, most of them people who had at some point wished her well but whom she alienated by her compulsive sharing of information she had learned when she was in the 1960s. By the time she had been sentenced to hang, she had only two friends left. One was her gaoler/ defense attorney/ boyfriend/ co-conspirator/ fellow prisoner, an unpleasant man named Peter Bradford. The other was Barnabas Collins, a vampire. Neither was able to do her much good, so in #460 and #461, Vicki mounted the gallows, was hooded, a noose placed around her neck, and the lever pulled to open the trap door under her feet. She then found herself restored to her own time, mere moments after her departure, but wearing the clothes she wore in the 1790s and bearing the marks of the wounds she sustained then, including the rope burns on her neck.

The Fifth Captivity

Shortly after Vicki returned to 1968, Barnabas’ vampirism went into remission. Peter also turned up, suffering from total amnesia and calling himself Jeff Clark, but still disagreeable to look at or listen to. Vicki and Peter/ Jeff became engaged the other day. Yesterday, Vicki left Peter/ Jeff to wait for her in the great house while she went to the Old House, which is now Barnabas’ home. She wanted to give him the news.

What freed Barnabas of the vampire curse was the creation of Frankenstein’s monster Adam. Now, Adam wants a mate, and is under the mistaken impression that Barnabas can create one for him. He has decided to extort Barnabas’ cooperation by taking Vicki as his hostage.

Adam is wanted by the police for abductions and assaults he committed before he learned to talk. Heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard, who is acting as mistress of Collinwood while Liz is in the hospital, took pity on Adam and has been hiding him in a dusty room in the west wing. It is not the room Vicki was trapped in back in 1966; there is a window within reach. But when she comes to and finds herself there, she tells Adam she knows where she is. He responds “No!” She says that it’s the west wing, and she has been there before Most of the audience joined the show long after Vicki’s first captivity, so it will be as much news to them as it is to Adam that Vicki is on familiar ground.

Adam agrees that Vicki has done nothing to harm him, but tells her that he may nonetheless have to kill her. In this, he reminds us of what Matthew said to Vicki when he held her prisoner in his cottage.

Peter/ Jeff is still waiting for Vicki in the foyer of the great house when Carolyn finds him. He tells her Vicki went to Barnabas’ house more than two hours before, promising to return in an hour. Carolyn smiles and, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, tells Peter/ Jeff that Barnabas and Vicki are “such good friends” it’s no wonder the two of them would lose track of time when they were alone together. This bothers Peter/ Jeff almost as much as it was obviously intended to do, and he goes to the Old House.

Peter/ Jeff arrives and demands Barnabas take him to Vicki. Barnabas is taken aback by Peter/ Jeff’s tone, and for good reason. When actor Roger Davis shouted his lines, which he did most of the time, he projected his voice not from the muscles of the pelvic floor, as singers are often taught to do, but from the sphincters in his buttocks, with the result that he sounded like he was trying to defecate. Barnabas has some nice rugs on his floor, so an angry Peter/ Jeff is an alarming visitor.

While Peter/ Jeff yells at him, Barnabas remembers that Adam had been in the house just moments before Vicki came, and that he had threatened to make Barnabas “very sorry” for not doing what he wanted. It was odd that Barnabas didn’t offer to walk Vicki home after that, a fact which has apparently dawned on him. He rounds on Peter/ Jeff and says that they are both to blame if anything happened to Vicki, since neither of them should have let her walk through the woods alone. Peter/ Jeff agrees with that, and his yelling moderates a bit. They get some flashlights and go out to search for her.

As they are searching, Peter/ Jeff proves that he is a true member of the Dark Shadows cast when he shines a flashlight directly into the camera. Barnabas tells him they should split up. This may or may not be a logical step towards finding Vicki, but it definitely will reduce Barnabas’ exposure to Peter/ Jeff, so it is no wonder he is eager to do it.

Peter/ Jeff carries on the tradition. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas goes to the great house and talks to Carolyn. He tells her that Vicki is missing, that he and Peter/ Jeff have searched the woods thoroughly, and that he suspects Adam has abducted her. He insists that she tell him where Adam is, and she denies knowing. He tells her he does not believe her, and says that if Adam harms Vicki, she “will be held responsible.” Jonathan Frid and Nancy Barrett were always interesting to watch together, and this is the first time they have played a scene where their characters were adversaries facing each other down. The dialogue is nothing special and the situation is all too familiar, but their performances make for a few fresh and exciting minutes.

Carolyn goes to Adam’s room. As Barnabas had been reading when Peter/ Jeff called on him, so Adam, who shares a mystical connection with Barnabas, has a book in his hand when Carolyn stops by. As David sneaked food from the kitchen to Matthew at the Old House, so Carolyn has been sneaking food from the kitchen to Adam in the west wing.

Adam is very slow to let Carolyn into the room. She notes that he has always invited her in before, and does not go away when he claims to have been asleep. He lets her in. As Burke and Joe had searched the Old House when Matthew was hiding Vicki in the secret room there, so Carolyn looks around the room while we know Vicki is somewhere inside it. Adam denies having been out of the room, and tells her Barnabas was lying when he said he had gone to his house. Adam has not lied to Carolyn before, so she accepts what he says. After she leaves, Adam opens the door to his own secret room, a closet in which Vicki is bound and gagged as Matthew had once bound and gagged her.

This is the twelfth episode directed by John Walter Sullivan, but the first credited to him as “Sean Dhu Sullivan.” The name “Jack Sullivan” appeared on the previous installments.

Episode 536: Now we’re gonna hear the dogs howlin’ again!

A magical bat has bitten recovering vampire Barnabas Collins on the neck and Barnabas appears to have died. Barnabas’ friend Julia and his servant Willie have a conference to discuss their next steps. Barnabas had expected such an attack, knowing that the witch who made him a vampire in the first place has been working to renew her curse. Willie laments the situation, crying out, “Aw, now we’re gonna hear the dogs howlin’ again!” Evidently that’s the bad part.

No more quiet nights for Willie. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas had directed Julia and Willie to drive a stake through his heart once it had stopped beating. They can’t do it. They decide to bury him in the woods instead. Willie mentions a cross; a silver cross inside the lid of his coffin had kept Barnabas immobilized for the 171 years before Willie inadvertently released him to prey upon the living in April 1967, so perhaps that’s how they plan to show mercy to their friend.

Once Willie has dug the grave and put Barnabas’ coffin in it, he and Julia decide to pray. She takes the lead, kneeling and throwing dirt, presumably including stones, onto the coffin. Dark Shadows avoided the topic of religion almost completely until repressed spinster Abigail Collins made her first appearance in #367; she and the Rev’d Mr Trask, introduced in #385, presented a wildly unfair, highly entertaining lampoon of eighteenth century New England Congregationalism. Recently the show has been lurching towards a vaguely friendly attitude towards Christianity. If Julia keeps strewing stones onto the grave once it is filled in, we might think that this friendliness extends to Judaism as well.

Julia praying. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Meanwhile, a very tall man named Adam is having a bad time. Adam is a Frankenstein’s monster, and when he was created he drew the effect of the vampire curse from Barnabas. He does not feel the effects of that curse, but he does suffer pain when Barnabas is injured. When heiress Carolyn calls on Adam at the old shack in the woods where he is hiding, she finds that his neck hurts where Barnabas was bitten. When Julia declares Barnabas dead, we cut back to the shack, where Adam has stopped moving. Occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes has joined Carolyn; he feels Adam’s wrist, and in a bit of Collinsport English that is becoming increasingly prominent on the show says that he can find no “pulsebeat.”

Barnabas was bricked up in a wall from #512 to #516, and Adam felt his pain during that period. So it is no surprise to returning viewers that Adam suffers along with Barnabas now. We also have heard countless repetitions of something neither Julia nor Willie has ever heard, an audiotape in which Eric Lang, the mad scientist who created Adam, explains that as long as Adam lives Barnabas will be free of vampirism. So we doubt that Barnabas’ curse will return, and hope that Adam’s suffering will be the clue that leads Julia and Willie to rescue Barnabas from being buried alive. Since Julia and Willie have no idea where Adam is and Adam hates them both, it’s as difficult to see how they could find out what he’s going through as it is to see how Barnabas could get out of the grave any other way. In that difficulty is the suspense with which the episode ends.

Episode 511: It’s not fair to come into someone’s house

In the first months of Dark Shadows, the audience’s point of view was represented by well-meaning governess Vicki, who needed to have explained to her everything we might want to know and who reacted to all the strange goings-on with the mixture of disquiet and curiosity that the makers of the show hope we will feel.

Vicki has long since been replaced as our representative by mad scientist Julia. We no longer want characters to tell us what has been going on, nor are we making up our minds about our moral evaluation of the events in the stories. We find ourselves in the middle of a whole clutch of fast-moving plots, trying to keep up with them all and hoping that nothing will stop the thrills. Julia’s loyalty to her best friend, sometime vampire Barnabas, and her supremely well-developed capacity for lying put her in the same position, and her vestigial conscience is no obstacle to any juicy storyline.

When Vicki was our on-screen counterpart, her charge, strange and troubled boy David, was the show’s most powerful chaos agent. David precipitated a series of crises that seemed likely to expose the secrets of the ancient and esteemed Collins family, to kill one or more of the major characters, or both. In #70, David led Vicki to his favorite playground, the long-vacant Old House on the estate of Collinwood. David would keep sneaking into the Old House even after Barnabas took up residence there in #218.

Today, David again lets himself into the Old House. He is caught there by Julia and a man he has not seen before. Julia is stern with him for entering the house without Barnabas’ permission; he defends his presence there, reminding Julia that she promised him he could play with the tape recorder on Barnabas’ desk. He asks who the man is.

The man introduces himself to David as “Timothy Eliot Stokes.” This is the first time time we have heard his middle name. Soon, the show will phase “Timothy” out, and his friends will address Stokes as “Eliot.” I suppose that’s because he’s a professor, and “Eliot” suggests Harvard.

In 1966, Thayer David played crazed groundskeeper Matthew. Suspected of murder, Matthew hid out in the Old House and kept Vicki prisoner there until some ghosts scared him to death in #126. David didn’t believe Matthew was a killer and didn’t know he was holding Vicki, so when he stumbled upon him in the Old House he brought him food and cigarettes. Even after he found Vicki bound and gagged behind a hidden panel, he kept Matthew’s secret. When David meets another character played by the same actor on the same set, longtime viewers can see that Stokes is as genteel and urbane as Matthew was rough-hewn and paranoid. For her part, Julia recalls Vicki when she scolds David for sneaking into the Old House, but where Vicki was doing her job as David’s governess and trying to enforce the rules of the household as a governess might, Julia is scrambling to keep David from finding out about her own secret activities.

Julia tells David to take the tape recorder and go home to the great house on the estate. As he makes his way to the front door, Stokes takes Julia aside and tells her that it will not be well if it is known in the great house that David has seen him. Julia hurries to David and tells him to keep quiet about the fact that he has seen Stokes. She says that she hates to ask him to lie; at this, I mimicked Julia and said “I know you share my devotion to the truth,” prompting Mrs Acilius to laugh out loud. Later, Julia will go to the great house, where she lives as a permanent guest, and David will cheerfully assure her that he kept her secret. The two of them seem quite relaxed together, leading us to believe that he will continue to do so.

There is a bit of irony in Julia’s harshness with David for entering Barnabas’ house without his permission. She and Stokes didn’t have Barnabas’ permission to be there, either. Indeed, if he had known what they were up to he would likely have objected most strenuously. Along with a man named Tony, they held a séance in the part of the basement where Barnabas kept his coffin when he was under the full effect of the vampire curse. They were trying to contact the Rev’d Mr Trask, a Puritan divine whom Barnabas bricked up to die in the eighteenth century. The séance was so successful that the bricks crumbled, exposing Trask’s bones, still held together somehow in the shape of a skeleton hanging from the ceiling. At the end of the episode, Trask has resumed his corporeal form and set about taking revenge on Barnabas by walling him up in the same spot.

Odd that Trask’s skeleton holds together after all the ligaments and tendons have rotted away, odder that there is a straight cleavage separating the top of the skull from the rest, oddest of all that the section is attached to the rest of the skull by a piece of Scotch tape.

Episode 506: That man again

All of the storylines in the part of Dark Shadows set in 1968 bear a heavy weight of repetitious elements. The “Dream Curse” consists of countless reenactments of the same dream sequence, almost all of them followed by at least one scene in which the character who had the dream struggles with a compulsion to tell it to someone else, and then by a speech in which we hear the details of the dream yet again. That curse was set by wicked witch Angelique, who for no particular reason keeps insisting that her name is Cassandra. Angelique is a time traveler from the eighteenth century, as is shouting man Peter, who for no particular reason keeps insisting that his name is Jeff.

Mad scientist Eric Lang tried to cure Barnabas Collins of vampirism by an experimental procedure that involved the creation of a Frankenstein’s monster. Angelique killed Lang before he could finish the experiment, but fortunately for Barnabas his best friend Julia is also a mad scientist, and she completed it. Barnabas named the creature Adam. Lang left behind an audiotape explaining that Barnabas will be free of vampirism as long as Adam lives, but that he will revert if Adam dies. Barnabas and Julia have not heard this message, but it has been played for the audience many times. Yesterday’s episode closed with yet another replay of the message, and today’s opens with still another. Since the message is nearly a minute long, it will soon have accumulated a full episode’s worth of airtime.

After the message, we see a new set. It represents the rocky shore below the cliff on Widows’ Hill. Barnabas is there with his servant Willie, looking for Adam. Adam jumped off the cliff yesterday. Since episode #2, that plunge has always been shorthand for certain death, so the opening voiceover introduces a new idea when it tells us that Adam’s leap merely “appeared to be” his self-destruction. Barnabas believes that Adam is still alive, though Willie does not. The two of them stand around and shout Adam’s name over and over; after the fifth or sixth repetition, Mrs Acilius and I cracked up laughing. At least they could have broken it up a little, and alternated “ADAM!!!” with “STELLA!!!”

Willie had the dream last night, and now feels compelled to tell it to heiress Carolyn. Adam had abducted Carolyn and held her for a couple of days before he dove from the cliff; she is now at home in the great house of Collinwood. Willie wants to sneak into Collinwood to talk to Carolyn. Barnabas points out that Willie was only recently released from the mental hospital where he was confined after he took the rap for Barnabas’ abduction of another young woman, Maggie. If he sneaks into Carolyn’s bedroom it will go badly for him. Barnabas directs Willie to search for Adam inland, prompting Willie to flash a grin. The very first night Willie was back from the hospital, he disobeyed Barnabas’ orders and ran off to visit Maggie. So his grin tells us to expect that he will disobey Barnabas’ orders again, this time to visit Carolyn.

Willie goes to the great house. We see him standing by the wall, below the second-storey window of Carolyn’s room. In her room, Carolyn talks with her mother, matriarch Liz. She explains to her mother that she is neither frightened of Adam nor angry with him, but that she pities him, because he seemed like an inarticulate and lonely little child. After this conversation, Liz leaves the room. Willie scales the wall, slips in through Carolyn’s window, grabs Carolyn, holds her mouth shut, and forces her to listen while he starts to tell the dream. Carolyn bites Willie, screams, and Liz comes.

Willie flees through the window. Carolyn explains to her mother that she is neither frightened of Willie nor angry with him, but that she pities him, because he seemed to be deeply terrified by his dream. She says that she is afraid that she, too, will have the dream.

Three people who live in the house have already had the dream. One of them is Julia, who is careful about who she talks to. The others are strange and troubled boy David, who regularly confides in both Carolyn and Liz, and housekeeper Mrs Johnson, who tells everyone everything. It is surprising that neither of them has mentioned it to either Carolyn or Liz.

Episode 504: A talent for making everyone feel guilty

Well-meaning governess Vicki was the main character of Dark Shadows for its first year, but has been receding further and further to the margins since. Today she returns after a 14 day absence, the first time she has been off screen so long.

Vicki is in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood with her employer, matriarch Liz. Liz is distraught because her daughter Carolyn has been abducted by a strange man. Liz fears that Carolyn is dead or dying; Vicki urges her to set those fears aside. The police telephone; they have captured the man, but Carolyn was not with him, and he has not answered any of their questions. Liz and Vicki set out for the gaol to see him.

They are accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy. The Collinsport police are exceptionally useless, but even by their standards this deputy is a low performer. Though the man is so strong that it took twenty men to subdue him and bring him in, the deputy enjoys taunting him. He sticks his service revolver in the cell; the man is shackled to the wall, but he is so tall he sweeps his hand into contact with the gun. If the script didn’t say otherwise, he could easily take it from the deputy. Liz orders the deputy to stand back out of the man’s line of sight. Since she owns most of the town, he grudgingly obeys.

The deputy puts his weapon within Adam’s reach.

Yesterday, Liz went looking for Carolyn at the Old House on the estate, home to her distant cousin Barnabas. She found Barnabas’ servant Willie on the ground, suffering from a fresh head wound. Willie told her that the man had been by a few minutes before, and that he had been carrying the unconscious Carolyn. He also referred to the man as “Adam.” When Liz asked him why he used that name, he denied that he did and began jabbering about some bad dream that had frightened him. Today, Liz addresses the man as Adam, and he responds, proving that Willie does in fact know more about him that he will admit.

Liz and Vicki tell Adam that they will treat him as a friend if he tells them where Carolyn is. Adam knows the word “friend.” He repeats it, and adds “food!” Again he says “Friend, food!” The women do not know what he is driving at. They give up and go home.

Returning viewers know that Adam has stashed Carolyn in an abandoned structure that looks exactly like Fred and Wilma Flintstone’s house, that he calls Carolyn “Friend,” and that he had gone out to look for food for her when he was captured. He is dejected when he cannot make it clear that she is hungry.

Liz and Vicki return to Collinwood. They spend several seconds taking off their coats in unison. In the early days of the show, there were a number of scenes designed to emphasize Liz and Vicki’s resemblance and to present each as the other’s reflection in support of a storyline that led us to believe that Vicki was Liz’ unacknowledged daughter. That storyline was forgotten long ago, and it isn’t entirely clear what director Jack Sullivan is getting at here.

Back in the drawing room, Liz tells Vicki her reasons for believing that Barnabas knows a great deal about Adam. Apparently the doors separating the drawing room from the foyer amplify sound, because as the camera takes us from the drawing room to the foyer Liz and Vicki’s conversation only becomes more audible. Liz’ new sister-in-law is in the foyer. This woman calls herself Cassandra, but regular viewers know that she is in fact wicked witch Angelique. Vicki knows that perfectly well. Vicki traveled back in time in #365 and spent nineteen weeks living under the same roof as Angelique while Angelique wrought havoc on the Collins family of the 1790s and framed Vicki for her crimes. Angelique’s only disguise as Cassandra is a black wig- otherwise, she looks, sounds, and moves exactly as she had when Vicki knew her in the eighteenth century. As a result, Vicki is very much on her guard around her.

Angelique/ Cassandra enters the drawing room. Liz excuses herself, and Angelique/ Cassandra demands to know why Vicki doesn’t like her. When Vicki says that she resembles someone she didn’t get along with, Angelique/ Cassandra proclaims that she isn’t that person, bursts into tears, and runs out. Vicki stays in the drawing room, but the camera follows Angelique/ Cassandra to the staircase, where we see her smile gleefully.

Liz returns, and Vicki tells her she may have misjudged Cassandra. It doesn’t speak well of Vicki’s brainpower that a single display of crocodile tears would override the memory of their long and painful acquaintance, but since Barnabas and the others who are doing battle with Angelique/ Cassandra refuse to accept Vicki’s help, she may as well forget everything she knows. Liz tells her that she doesn’t think she misjudged Cassandra, and says she doesn’t trust her either.

Back in the gaol, the idiotic deputy goes back to Adam’s cell to taunt him some more. When Adam protests, the deputy opens the door and waves his baton at him. He places himself within easy reach of Adam, who grabs him and knocks him unconscious.

Yesterday, the high sheriff said “I’m not a stupid man.” He may not have been as stupid as is this grinning imbecile, but it is on his responsibility that he has a badge and a gun.

Another deputy enters. He sees his moronic colleague on the floor, the bars twisted in the window, and no sign of Adam.

Adam is 6’6″, so it’s difficult to see how he could fit through this opening. Perhaps he is not only tremendously strong, but is also a contortionist.