ghostwatch – Acilius on Dark Shadows

Episode 288: Feminine vanity

At the great house of Collinwood, well-meaning governess Vicki is in a stupor, staring out a window and dreaming of a time when she will again be central to the plot.

Ever since #191 when she rescued her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins, from his mother, undead fire witch Laura, Vicki has been hanging on to narrative relevance by her fingernails. Now Dark Shadows is built around vampire Barnabas Collins, and Vicki longs to play a major role in his storyline. He plans to make her his next victim, but is moving so slowly towards that objective that we’ve started to wonder if he ever will strike.

David comes into the room and calls Vicki’s name several times. When she finally comes to, she admits that she has been zoning out a lot lately, and says that it is a habit she needs to break. David says that it frightens him when she gets that way. She doesn’t look like herself when those spells come over her. He gets the feeling that she’s turning into someone else. Vicki can’t deny that David is onto something, and only when he insists on sticking with the subject after she has clearly become uncomfortable does Vicki become defensive and retreat behind claims that David is letting his imagination run away with him.

Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has insinuated herself into the house, concealing her true identity and pretending to be an historian writing a book about the old families of New England. David shows her an album of family portraits. He identifies one portrait as his namesake, David Collins. During the Laura storyline, a great deal was made of the fact he was the first member of the family to bear the name “David,” and that Laura insisted on giving her son this name would ultimately become evidence that her evil plans for him were in place long before he was born. So David’s remark about a previous “David Collins” is a significant retcon.*

Though David has looked through the book many times, he finds a portrait in it that he has never seen before. It depicts Sarah Collins, who lived from 1786 to 1796. Sarah’s ghost has been busy in the area in recent weeks, and the clear implication is that she inserted the page. That in turn would suggest that Sarah might have more powers than we have seen her use so far.

Julia and David find a photograph of Sarah Collins, d. 1796.
Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

David has seen Sarah and played with her on more than one occasion, and he recognizes the portrait. He wonders aloud if the girl he has met is Sarah’s ghost. Julia laughs off the suggestion. Vicki returns. She also recognizes the picture of Sarah. The police circulated a drawing of her when Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, was missing. Since Julia is actually a doctor who found out that supernatural doings were afoot at Collinwood when she was treating Maggie, she has heard several facts about Sarah, and by the end of her talks with David and Vicki she knows enough to be sure David is right about her.

We cut to the Blue Whale tavern, where Vicki is on a date with her depressing boyfriend, fake Shemp Burke Devlin. Burke sullenly complains about Vicki’s wish to help Julia with her project, complaining about Vicki’s “interest in the past.” “Interest in the past” is at this point synonymous with “a function in the story,” and Burke lost the last trace of that months ago. It’s as if Burke and Vicki know that they are fictional characters, and he resents her for holding on to a place in the action while he has settled in once and for all on the discard pile.

Vicki mentions that the night before, she had been awakened by the sound of a small girl singing. She says that after she got up and lit a candle, she could still hear the singing, but could not see the girl. Burke is too busy grumbling and making nasty remarks about Vicki’s mental health to ask her why she lit a candle rather than flipping the light switch. Vicki has to press on with more details and then volunteer that she wasn’t sleeping in her own room. She was sleeping in the Old House at Collinwood, home to Barnabas Collins.

Burke is upset by this news. Unfortunately Vicki doesn’t let him believe she went to bed with Barnabas. She tells him she was in a guest room, and that Barnabas was “a perfect gentleman.” Burke demands Vicki never go to the Old House again, and she refuses to make any such promise.

Julia takes the book of portraits to the Old House and insists that Barnabas look through it. While he grudgingly complies, Julia opens her compact. She finds that Barnabas does not cast a reflection in its mirror. This confirms her suspicion that Barnabas is a vampire. In #241 and #278, we had seen his reflection, but perhaps those were slip-ups and they were planning all along to use the idea that vampires do not cast a reflection.

Barnabas catches Julia studying her mirror and angrily asks what she is doing. She smiles and chirps that even historians have their share of feminine vanity. He glowers at her. The camera holds on his menacing look for quite some time, leading us to think that Julia has signed her own death warrant. But she doesn’t seem to think she is in any great danger. She is still smiling when she leaves.

Back in the great house, Vicki wanders up to the portrait of Barnabas that hangs by the front door. Apparently she is planning to stare at it as she resumes her dream of having something to do on the show. It worked for dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis- after a couple of long sessions staring at the portrait, Barnabas summoned him and next thing he knew he was securely established as his sorely bedraggled blood thrall, a core member of the cast. So Vicki is trying to take a proven path to success.

Before Vicki can get any high-quality staring done, Julia enters. Vicki asks her how it went with Barnabas, and Julia exults that she may have learned everything she needed to know.

*My wife, Mrs Acilius, noticed this and had a lot to say about it. I will refer to her insights in later entries, as they would contain spoilers at this point in the run of the show.

Episode 140: Some call it Paradise

On his blog Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn discussed the soap opera term “supercouple”:

This is the thing that people miss when they talk about soap opera couples. Two characters don’t have to be in love with each other to be a “couple” — although they often are, which is why people think that’s the definition.

Two characters are a “couple” when a scene with them together is way more interesting than a scene with them apart. It makes absolutely no difference whether they love each other, or hate each other, or they’re partners, or best friends. Kirk and Spock are a couple. Ernie and Bert are a couple.
Dark Shadows Every Day, Episode 473: The Twin Dilemma

By Danny’s definition, Dark Shadows‘ first supercouple is well-meaning governess Vicki and her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins. Most of the storylines the series started with- Vicki’s quest for her origins, dashing action hero Burke Devlin’s quest for revenge on high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, reclusive matriarch Liz’ insistence that certain parts of the house never be entered, the doomed romance between flighty heiress Carolyn and hardworking young fisherman Joe, etc- either dribble away to nothing or never really get started. But Vicki’s attempt to befriend David is interesting every time we see the two of them together on screen.

That is entirely down to the actors. The scripts give David the same viciously hostile lines of dialogue over and again, require Vicki to read aloud from textbooks about the geography of Maine, and lock Vicki up in windowless rooms for what seem like eons. But David Henesy and Alexandra Moltke Isles, with their facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, use of space, etc, create the impression of a relationship steadily growing in emotional complexity and importance. When David finally looks up into Vicki’s eyes and declares “I love you, Miss Winters!” in #89, this body language gives us a context within which we can feel that a plot-line has moved forward. In the months since that statement, David and Vicki have grown closer, and now they are quite cozy.

So much so, in fact, that there is a danger that they might end up recreating the interpersonal dynamic that Liz and Roger model and that will become Dark Shadows’ signature- a relationship between a bossy big sister and her bratty little brother. Liz continually tries to control Roger’s behavior so that he will not be bad, and when her efforts fail, as they invariably do, she covers up for him and shields him from accountability. Earlier this week, as Vicki explained David to himself and he clutched at her for support after he had done shocking things, we could see how after a time they might fall into that pattern.

Today, they seem to put that danger behind them once and for all. David’s mother, the mysterious and long-absent Laura, has come back and wants to take David to live with her. David has wanted this for years, but in the days since Laura’s return has come to be deathly afraid of her. Vicki has met with Laura and arranged to cross paths with Laura when she and David take their afternoon walk. Vicki’s theory, which has quite a bit of evidence behind it, is that David is only afraid of rejection, and that if he can see his mother in a setting where nothing will be expected of him he will start to relax.

The first result of this encounter is that David slips off a high cliff, clinging for his life to a crumbling rock on its edge. This would seem to be a negative outcome. Vicki rescues him, embraces him, and talks him into going to his mother.

Vicki holds David and urges him to go to his mother

David sees that Laura is crying and apologizes to her. They embrace and warm to each other. David, Laura, and Vicki walk back to the house together. David’s father, Roger, and his aunt, Liz, are impressed with the progress Vicki has made.

Dark Shadows began on a sort of 14 week schedule. Coming at the end of the first 14 weeks, episode 70 gave us our first visit to the haunted Old House and our first unambiguous sighting of a ghost. At the end of the third 14 weeks, episode 210 will end with a hand darting out of a coffin and rebooting the show entirely. Today, the conclusion of the second 14 week period is perhaps less spectacular, but in its own way just as pivotal as those other milestone episodes.

With David’s apology for making his mother cry and his resolution to open up to her, he is becoming significantly less bratty. With her handing of David off to Laura, Vicki is renouncing her opportunity to be bossy, and indeed to become a surrogate sister to him. With that danger out of the way and an untroubled friendship established between them, the Vicki/ David arc seems to have reached a logical conclusion. The series will have to find a new supercouple, or a clutch of new storylines, if it is to hold our attention in the long term.

Perhaps Laura and David will be the new pair at the center of the show. They are together at the beginning and end of the second half of the episode, and in between Laura gets some information about David to which she gives an intriguing reaction.

At the beginning of that second half, the five characters in today’s episode share a meal in the kitchen at Collinwood. The richest people in town live in a huge mansion, and this is their dining room:

I suppose Liz and her daughter, flighty heiress Carolyn, lived alone in the house for 18 years, ending with Roger and David’s arrival sometime last spring. So perhaps there is a bigger dining room sealed off somewhere. Be that as it may, the smallness of the kitchen is one of its most valuable features as a set. Scenes there have an intimacy that makes it natural for characters to share important information with each other. Indeed, almost every time we’ve seen the kitchen, we’ve seen someone pick up information that led them to take action that advanced the plot.

Liz and Roger mention that Laura hasn’t eaten anything. Roger follows that with jokes about the cooking abilities of Mrs Johnson, Collinwood’s housekeeper. Laura not eating is a familiar theme to the audience. The first several times we saw Laura she was in the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn. Maggie Evans, keeper of that restaurant, remarked that Laura never ate during any of her visits there, and yesterday she didn’t touch the breakfast Vicki brought her. The emphasis they keep putting on this point is one of many signs they’ve offered that there is something uncanny about her.

After the others have left the little table, Liz exchanges a few words with Laura. She mentions that David is a highly imaginative child, who even supposes that he talks with the ghosts of Collinwood. At this, Laura opens her eyes wide, shifts in her seat, looks straight ahead, and says that that does sound like pure fantasy. Liz adds that he spends a lot of time with the ghosts. Laura glances back in Liz’ direction and says that perhaps now he will spend more time with her.

One might imagine that a long-absent mother, hearing that her son thinks he spends a lot of time in conversation with ghosts, would be concerned for his mental health. A reaction like the one Laura gives Liz might be a sign of such concern. But we’ve had so many hints that Laura is herself somehow connected to the supernatural that this does not seem to be a likely explanation. More probably, her discomfort is a sign that David’s sensitivity to the uncanny and his communication with the ghosts might lead him to learn something about her that she does not want him to know.

Laura and David sit by the fire in the drawing room. Vicki has scolded David for his habit of standing at the doors to the drawing room and eavesdropping on conversations taking place inside. Now, it’s Vicki’s turn to stand on the same spot and eavesdrop on a conversation involving David.

David has asked Laura to tell him about the place she comes from. “Some call it Paradise,” she says. She starts describing a hot, sunny place with palm trees. Her last known address before appearing in Collinsport was Phoenix, Arizona, so maybe that’s what she’s talking about. But as she goes on, the description sounds less and less like that city, and more and more like the places we hear about in the legends of the Holy Grail. The air is always fragrant with the flowers that bloom continually, and the trees are the proper nesting places of a creature that figures prominently in the Grail legends, the Phoenix. David has never heard of the Phoenix, and Laura tells him an elaborate version of its story.

In episode 128, Maggie sat at Laura’s table in the restaurant and Laura told her the story of the Phoenix. When Maggie told her father, drunken artist Sam, that a mysterious blonde woman who used to live in Collinsport had told her that tale, Sam had reacted as if he recognized the story as one Laura used to tell. The version she told Maggie, though, was a relatively brief one, and was by way of an etymology for the name of her most recent hometown. The version she tells David today is much more elaborate. It evokes a whole world, claims that world as her home and therefore as David’s, and invites David to take his rightful place under the sign of the Phoenix.

As Vicki hears Laura reach the climax of the story, a sudden wind blows the front doors open, and a fraction of a second later blows the drawing room doors open as well. Laura looks up and sees Vicki eavesdropping. She is a bit startled to see her, though not as startled as Vicki is to be seen:

After a brief moment- less than a second- Laura turns from Vicki and to the fire. She and David peer into the flames.

Laura turns from the flames and looks at David. The episode closes with her look of satisfaction as she sees her son fascinated by the fire.

The doors have blown open before when the show wanted us to think that supernatural forces are at work in the house. Laura herself may control some supernatural forces, but it seems unlikely that she is the author of this incident. It interrupts her story just as she is declaring that “The Phoenix is reborn!,” her reaction shows that she didn’t know or particularly care that Vicki was eavesdropping, and her turn to the fire would suggest that she is concerned the wind might have extinguished the flames. Perhaps we are supposed to think that Laura’s presence and her plans have stirred up one or more of the ghosts Liz mentioned to Laura after dinner, and that the gust of wind was a sign of their presence. That would in turn suggest that the weeks ahead will feature a conflict between Laura’s uncanny powers and those of the spirits lurking in the back-world implicit in the action of the show.

Episode 125: Someone will die at Collinwood tonight

Matthew Morgan, killer of beloved local man Bill Malloy, has been hiding out in the long-abandoned Old House on the great estate of Collinwood for many days. He has been keeping well-meaning governess Vicki a prisoner in a secret chamber there. Strange and troubled boy David Collins believed that Matthew was an innocent man and has been helping him; now, David has found Vicki, and Matthew knows that the crisis is upon him.

In the great house on the estate, David calls for his hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. Roger does not answer, but the ghost of Bill Malloy appears and tells David to help Vicki. David is used to seeing ghosts, and tries to engage Bill in conversation about the circumstances of his death. He asks him whether Matthew really killed him, or if, as he has been hoping all along, it was Roger. All the ghost will say is that he must help Vicki.

The ghost vanishes when Roger comes in. David tells him he has something important to say, but that he won’t tell him unless he first promises that he won’t be punished. When Roger will not give such a promise, David tells him that something terrible will happen tonight, and it will be his fault. Roger snaps at him, and David replies that he hopes he gets pneumonia and dies. David’s pathological fear of punishment led him to try to murder Roger in the first month of the show; now it leads him to resign himself to Vicki’s death and to wish for Roger’s.

In the woods, Matthew sees Bill’s ghost. The ghost tells him that someone will die at Collinwood before the night is out. This message is not immediately helpful to Vicki; Matthew interprets it to mean that the ghosts want him to kill Vicki. Indeed, the first time he heard a ghostly voice, Matthew’s immediate response was to leap up and put a knife at Vicki’s throat. Bill’s encounter with David would indicate that he’s trying to help, as would his previous apparition to Vicki in #85. He just isn’t very good at it. We aren’t sure about the other ghosts yet.

Bill’s ghost confronts Matthew. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Vicki manages to get loose and makes it as far as the front door. Matthew meets her there. He is relaxed and cheerful, and asks her why she is frightened. He calls her “Miz Stoddard,” indicating that he believes she is reclusive matriarch Liz. Vicki plays along, but Matthew breaks out of the delusion before she can get away. He shoves her back into the chamber and ties her up again. He goes to get an ax to kill her with.

Back in the great house, David places a phone call to dashing action hero Burke Devlin. He leaves a message telling Burke that he has an urgent message about Vicki. Burke comes running. He and Roger bicker, and David won’t tell what he knows unless he can be assured he won’t be punished. Matthew is moving slowly, but David’s phobia and Roger’s angry interference combine to keep the potential rescuers from moving at all.

Episode 122: No man in his right mind

A while back, Tumblr user “marcycaa” posted this cartoon summarizing the relationships well-meaning governess Vicki has with strange and troubled boy David and flighty heiress Carolyn in the 1966 episodes of Dark Shadows:

Today, Vicki is being held prisoner by the fugitive Matthew, and Carolyn and David are off their leashes. Carolyn telephones dashing action hero Burke to complain that her mother and uncle don’t want her to see him. Burke reacts with disbelief that Carolyn is nattering on about that when Vicki is missing and might be dead.

David is the only one who knows where Matthew is. He is taking food and cigarettes to him. He has begun to suspect that Matthew has Vicki, and is afraid that he will kill her. This fear contends with his fear that he will go to jail for harboring a fugitive. He sneaks off to see Burke to seek reassurance. When Burke asks him what he wants, he says that he wants Burke to tell him that Matthew is innocent and that his hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, is responsible for everything Matthew has been accused of. When Burke can’t do that, David slips away.

Back in his hiding place in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood, Matthew lies down on a mattress next to the chair to which he has bound Vicki. Before he can get to sleep, he hears voices calling his name. The portrait of Josette Collins glows, eerie music plays, and one of the voices identifies itself as Josette. Vicki can hear none of this and tells Matthew that he must be dreaming. He wants to agree with her, fearing that the only alternative explanation is that he is going mad.

The audience knows that the ghosts are real, but we don’t know whether they mean anyone well. Matthew’s first action upon hearing the voices is to leap up and hold a knife at Vicki’s throat, so it doesn’t seem that they are protecting her. David considers them his friends, but nothing they have done for him has so far led him anywhere but deeper into his constant agony. The last time Vicki was locked up, the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy came and told her she would be killed unless she got away soon, but then vanished, leaving her trapped. While it seems likely the voices represent a power that will destroy Matthew, it is by no means clear they will do so before he kills Vicki. For all we can see, they may be about to drive him to do precisely that.

Vicki is our point of view character, but we’ve known Matthew since the second week of the show. As Carolyn tells David today, he’s always been gruff, but has seemed basically well-intentioned. Reclusive matriarch Liz seems to think that Matthew has some sort of cognitive impairment that would make it difficult for him to function in the world at large, and the sheriff’s manner of ordering him about when they have come into contact would suggest that he has the same idea. Matthew’s killing of Bill Malloy and crimes against Vicki have been desperate acts, committed with displays of reluctance and confusion. The idea that Matthew will end as the victim of a malign force that also spells doom for Vicki is therefore logically satisfying and dramatically compelling.

Episode 98: My part of the bargain

A woman named Mrs Johnson joins the domestic staff of the great house of Collinwood. After reclusive matriarch Liz has sat with her in the drawing room for a few minutes, Mrs Johnson rises to begin her duties. Liz asks her to wait, and stammeringly warns her that some members of the household may seem unfriendly at first. She isn’t to take notice of that- they simply need time to get used to having a new person around when they have been so isolated for so long. Mrs Johnson takes this warning in stride, and again thinks she has been dismissed. But a second time Liz asks her to wait. She tells Mrs Johnson that she needn’t go into the closed-off portions of the house,* and particularly emphasizes that she wants her to stay out of the basement.

Liz’ nephew, strange and troubled boy David Collins, is not at all happy with Mrs Johnson’s accession to the household establishment. When his aunt begins to introduce them, David cuts her off, saying that he had met Mrs Johnson in the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn. He asks Mrs Johnson why she wants to work in the house. His level tone shocks his aunt. She takes David into the drawing room while Mrs Johnson goes upstairs.

When Liz reproves him for rudeness, David asks if he will have to apologize to Mrs Johnson again. He explains that the Collins family’s arch-nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, had made him apologize to Mrs Johnson in the restaurant after he yelled at her to “Shut up!” Liz says that for once Burke did the right thing. David then asks if Mrs Johnson is going to be his jailer. Liz asks him where he got such an idea. David starts talking about ghosts, and Liz can’t take it anymore. She tells him to go. He complies, still eerily calm.

In the next scene, we’re back in the drawing room. Gruff caretaker Matthew is working in the fireplace. David sneaks up behind Matthew and startles him. He asks Matthew what he’s scared of- is it ghosts? Matthew says he doesn’t talk about such things. David keeps needling him. Matthew gets more and more agitated, David stays absolutely in control of himself.

Mrs Johnson comes in with a ham sandwich and a glass of milk on a tray. She tells David she’s been looking all over the house for him. He protests that he doesn’t take his meals on a tray, but in the kitchen. When Matthew warns him not to make a mess, he gladly sits down on the couch and takes hold of the sandwich. Matthew sulks away.

Mrs Johnson wheedles David into talking about the closed-off rooms of the house. She asks him what he sees there. He asks if she believes in ghosts. She says she doesn’t. He says, again in the blandest possible voice, “You will.”

Matthew returns in time to hear Mrs Johnson encouraging David to describe the closed-off rooms. He sends David to the kitchen with his tray, and scolds Mrs Johnson for asking questions about matters Liz doesn’t want anyone looking into.

When the clock strikes 3 AM, Mrs Johnson shines a flashlight directly into the camera. She is inspecting the basement. She tries the door to the locked room. She can’t open it, but looks into whatever she can. Suddenly, something grabs her from the darkness. She looks down, and sees David’s complacent grin.

Mrs Johnson tells David she came down to investigate a noise. That doesn’t impress David, perhaps because it doesn’t explain why she was opening drawers and cigar boxes. For his part, he tells her that he’s there waiting to see a ghost.

David tells Mrs Johnson that his aunt will be very upset if he finds out she was in the basement. She tries to bluster her way out of trouble, but David tells her not to worry- he won’t tell. She asks why not. Because, he says, she’s a friend of Burke Devlin. She denies being Burke’s friend. He says she must be- otherwise, when she publicly accused Burke of causing the death of beloved local man Bill Malloy, he would have been angry. Burke’s mildness persuaded David that the accusation was a little drama the two of them were acting out. Returning viewers have seen enough of Burke’s temper to know how David came up with his premises, and those who saw episode 79 know that his conclusion is true.

David goes on to say that he thinks Burke must have sent Mrs Johnson to the house to spy on his father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. This is also true. Before she can try to deny it, David says that he is all for this mission, because he hates his father and hopes he dies. Mrs Johnson is shocked, both by the words and by the altogether relaxed demeanor with which David speaks them. She must never have met a nine year old sociopath before.

Mrs Johnson resumes her bluster. David assures her that he won’t tell Liz he saw her if she doesn’t tell that she saw him. He goes upstairs, disappointed that he missed seeing the ghost. Mrs Johnson stays downstairs, and after a moment hears a woman sobbing inside the locked room. She tries the door again- it is covered with cobwebs, and obviously hasn’t been opened in a very long time. She knocks, and the sobbing desists.

We’ve heard the sobbing woman before. She drew well-meaning governess Vicki to the basement in the first week of the show, and when Matthew found Vicki down there he rebuked her fiercely and reported to Liz that he caught her “snoopin’ around,” the supreme evil in Matthew’s moral universe. When Liz talked to Vicki about the incident, she amazed Vicki by denying that she had heard any sobbing. Eventually, Vicki forced Roger to admit that he had heard the sobbing many times over the years, and that he had no idea what it was. The reappearance of the sobbing woman promises a resolution to a long-standing mystery.

*Several times in the episode, Mrs Johnson mentions the disused “east wing” of Collinwood. We’ve heard a good deal about a closed-off west wing, and it will be years before the show confirms that there is also an east wing. So “east wing” is probably a blooper today. But it is clear that the house has multiple closed-off sections, and in episode 84 there is a distinct suggestion of a sealed east wing. So if it is a blooper, it is a felicitous one.

Episode 88: Restless souls

Well-meaning governess Vicki and flighty heiress Carolyn are in the drawing room at the great house of Collinwood, talking about Vicki’s recent experience of imprisonment. Vicki’s charge, strange, troubled boy David, lured her to a room in the abandoned west wing of the house and locked her in. As Vicki declares that she saw the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy in the room, reclusive matriarch Liz appears in the doorway and reacts with shock.

Liz protests that the idea of ghosts is nonsense. Vicki says she’d always believed that, but that what she saw has convinced her otherwise. Liz repeats to Vicki what her brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, has told her. Roger found Vicki locked in a room in the west wing where David, his son, had left her as a kind of prank. Vicki protests that it was no prank, that she believes David wanted to kill her, and that the time has come for her to leave her position as his governess. Roger comes in, and heartily endorses Vicki’s plan to go away.

Liz sends Vicki and Carolyn out of the room, and quizzes Roger about how he found Vicki. In yesterday’s episode, it seemed that Carolyn does not know about the secret passage from the drawing room to the west wing. Today, Roger lies to Liz to conceal the fact that he used that passage. We’re left wondering if even Liz, who owns the house and has lived there all her life, might not know that it is there. Roger is clearly not inclined to build anything; it must be an old feature of the house that he somehow learned about. If, as Liz’ younger brother, he knows about it and she does not, he must have decided to keep it a secret from her. How he learned about the passage, why he decided to hide it from Liz, what use he may have made of it in the past, and what plans he may yet have for it in the future would all seem to be fruitful questions to build stories around.

Upstairs, Carolyn pleads with Vicki to stay. After Carolyn keeps steering the conversation back to her own problems and Vicki’s usefulness to her, Vicki asks in exasperation “Didn’t anybody miss me?” Less than a minute later, Carolyn is talking about her boyfriend troubles again, giving Vicki a clear answer to that question.

Liz asks Roger if he’s ever seen a ghost in Collinwood. Roger is startled by the question. He says he isn’t sure. He’s seen too many inexplicable things there to be sure that none of them were ghosts, and he tells Liz that he knows she can’t say anything different about her own experience. This is the most candid conversation the two of them have had up to this point, and by far the most candid either of them has been about the supernatural side of the household. We’d better enjoy it while it lasts- when Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein take over the writing duties in a few weeks, the idea of either Liz or Roger talking openly about ghosts will become unthinkable.

At Roger’s suggestion, he and Liz make their way to the room where David trapped Vicki. They find some things of David’s strewn about, confirming that he knew the room well and deliberately set out to confine Vicki there. Roger airily says that “I suppose it’s a horrible thing for a father to say about his own son, but I think that David is an incipient psychopath.” Roger has been saying equally horrible things about David from the first episode on, so this isn’t an especially dramatic thing for returning viewers to hear. Liz listens to him intently, asking if this is why he believes Vicki ought to leave the house. He says that yes, on the pattern of David’s previous behavior he expects him to continue to pose a danger to Vicki.

They also find evidence confirming Vicki’s story about the ghost of Bill Malloy. She had said that the spirit appeared dripping water and seaweed on the floor; Liz finds wet seaweed there, apparently convincing her that Vicki’s story is true and Bill’s spirit is roaming about trying to set an injustice right.

Back in the drawing room, Liz makes some general remarks about ghosts. Carolyn and Vicki come in. Carolyn asks Liz to talk Vicki into staying. Liz says that she would like for Vicki to stay, but that she won’t try to influence her decision. Roger urges her to go. Vicki says that she wants to know why David hates her, and that her decision depends on her next conversation with him.

Episode 81: I’m not a gossip

We spend today, not so much with the ancient and esteemed Collins family, but with two of the three members of their household staff. Gruff caretaker Matthew Morgan goes into town so that he can scowl at the family’s nemesis, dashing action hero Burke Devlin. Mrs Sarah Johnson goes to the great house of Collinwood to interview for the position of housekeeper.

During the interview, Mrs Johnson tells reclusive matriarch Liz that “I’m not a gossip.” This will become a frequent refrain of hers in the years to come, and will usually serve as a preface to remarks in which she will blab the entire contents of her mind to anyone who will listen. This time, “I’m not a gossip” is followed immediately by her assertion that in all her years as housekeeper to beloved local man Bill Malloy, she never repeated a word she heard spoken in his house to anyone. It seems to be news to Liz that Bill had ever spoken any words he would want to have kept in confidence. It’s certainly news to the audience. All we’ve heard up to this point was that Bill’s whole life was absorbed in his work. Mrs Johnson set me wondering what we might yet learn about Bill.

Matthew drives Mrs Johnson back to town. He sits down with her as she prepares to have lunch at the restaurant in the Collinsport Inn. Matthew tries to persuade her she would be better off moving in with her daughter than taking a job at Collinwood. He tells her that Collinwood is in fact haunted, and that if she isn’t afraid of its ghosts she ought to be. She is unconvinced.

Matthew gets a great deal of emphasis in this episode. There are two location inserts featuring him- when he walks through downtown Collinsport to the Collinsport Inn, and when the taxi carrying Mrs Johnson pulls up to the outside of the house and we see him trimming bushes. Exterior footage is never commonplace in Dark Shadows, and when we see a character moving around outdoors it’s a sign of something important.

Unknown to Matthew or Liz, Mrs Johnson is in fact convinced that Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, is responsible for Bill’s death and that Liz is protecting him. She wants to become housekeeper at Collinwood so she can spy on the Collinses for Burke.

After Matthew leaves the restaurant, Mrs Johnson reports to Burke on her interview with Liz. He is dissatisfied with her work as a secret agent. He berates her, as we had seen him berate his henchmen in earlier episodes. They had submitted to his rantings meekly. Mrs Johnson snaps at him, and gets an apology. Evidently we are supposed to expect that she will be a strong character in her own right, not a mere cat’s paw for Burke.

This is the first of many episodes that survives only on kinescope. This has some happy effects. For example, the footage of Matthew walking in downtown Collinsport is preceded by a shot of him going out the front door of the great house. The kinescope’s poorer resolution makes this set look like very much like an outdoor shot itself.

CORRECTION: It turns out this isn’t a kinescope, just a particularly crummy videotape. There’s a kinescope coming up later this week, though.

Episode 70: David is gonna show me some ghosts

This one resets the series.

Reclusive matriarch Liz calls well-meaning governess Vicki into the drawing room in the great house at Collinwood. She asks Vicki where her charge, problem child David, is. When she tells her David is upstairs in his room, she asks Vicki to close the drawing room doors, explaining that she does not want their conversation overheard.

Of course David comes downstairs and puts his ear to the doors as soon as they are closed. Liz starts talking with her about some recent plot developments, and we hear a commotion outside the doors. Tightly-wound caretaker Matthew has caught David eavesdropping. Liz sends Vicki and David away, and talks to Matthew about events we saw several days ago.

David starts telling Vicki about the ghosts who haunt Collinwood, and shows her a drawing he made of one of them. Vicki is impressed with the drawing, and shows it to Matthew. Matthew accuses David of going to the Old House and copying the portrait hanging there. Vicki has never heard of the Old House- nor has the audience, it’s the first reference to it. David denies Matthew’s accusation, and says that it is a drawing of a ghost he has seen.

Vicki takes the drawing to Liz, who immediately recognizes it as Josette Collins. She opens the family history to the page featuring a portrait of Josette, and asks David if he copied that portrait. Again David insists it is a drawing of an actual ghost he has seen. The day before yesterday, in episode 68, we saw David studying that page, so it is quite plausible that he did copy it. Still, regular viewers will remember that in episode 52 the book opened itself to that same page when no one but the audience could see, so we might also wonder if David is telling the truth.

Flighty heiress Carolyn tries to talk her mother into hiring a housekeeper. When she mentions that one thing a housekeeper might relieve Liz of is her loneliness, she answers wryly, “You forget, dear, I have all of David’s ghosts.” In this reply, we return to the ambiguity of the first weeks of the show, when, in conversations with Vicki, one character after another would use the word “ghost” in a metaphorical sense, to refer to present difficulties resulting from unresolved conflicts in the past. Vicki would invariably respond with some line like “Surely you don’t believe in ghosts!,” as if they were talking about literal ghosts. And each time, the response would be that they did indeed believe in literal ghosts, and that if she stayed in the old dark house on the hill for any length of time she would believe in them too. Aside from the book opening itself in #52, the ghostly manifestations we have seen so far have been equivocal, possibly hoaxes, possibly tricks of the light. Even the incident of the book was small and symbolic. The ghosts could still dissolve into the atmosphere and into mere metaphor.

Determined to befriend David, Vicki agrees to go to the Old House with him to look for ghosts. We are treated to 90 seconds of location footage of Vicki and David walking through the woods to the Old House. This is by far the longest exterior sequence in the entire series, and it is done with extraordinary ambition. Most of Dark Shadows’ exterior shots are not only extremely brief, but are accompanied only by music. In this one, the actors’ voices are dubbed throughout, and multiple sound effects are added.

Vicki and David walking to the Old House. Screenshot by Dark Shadows from the Beginning

Vicki and David enter the Old House. As they do so, David shines his flashlight directly into the camera and creates a halo effect. This would not seem desirable, but it will be done dozens of times in episodes to come. It’s probably a mistake here- maybe a mistake most of the time- but they do it so often, there must have been some kind of intentionality behind it.

Vicki and David examine the portrait of Josette hanging above the mantle. Vicki is impressed with its likeness to David’s drawing. David tells her that he has been through every part of the Old House, but denies that the portrait was his model. He tells Vicki of the legend that Josette’s ghost is trapped at Collinwood until another girl falls to her death from Widow’s Hill, and goes on and on about his hope that Vicki will be that girl.

This charming conversation is interrupted when the door suddenly opens. Frightened, David breaks off in the middle of telling Vicki that he wants her to die and clutches at her for safety.

In a moment like this, we can understand why Vicki keeps believing she can reach David. She knows that he is deeply disturbed, and that his violence may well turn against her. But she can also see inside him an awareness that he needs a friend. She has decided to risk his worst in hopes that his sense of that need will eventually break through his rage.

It is Matthew at the door. He scolds Vicki and David for visiting the Old House after he had told them how dangerous it is. The three of them talk a bit about the legends, then Matthew insists on leaving. Vicki turns to David, apparently willing to stay there with him. David looks bitterly at Matthew, and says that there is no point in staying. Josette won’t appear when Matthew is around, because she doesn’t like him. When Matthew says the place should be torn down, David becomes upset and says that he will tell Josette to kill him if he tries it.

The three of them do leave. Then something happens…

We see the vacant parlor of the Old House. The portrait of Josette begins to glow. A figure takes shape, and walks down from the portrait to the floor. It vanishes from the parlor, and reappears outside. It dances among the columns surrounding the house, glowing an unearthly white. Josette has come all the way out of the back-world into the foreground. We can expect her to stick around. Perhaps others will follow where she has led.

Josette’s ghost emerges from her portrait. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

The ghost of Josette dances outside the Old House. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

On his blog Dark Shadows from the Beginning, Marc Masse cites the book Dark Shadows: The First Year, by Nina Johnson and O. Crock (Blue Whale Books, 2006.) I think you might have to go to Dark Shadows conventions to find a copy of this book. I’ve certainly never seen one.

Evidently, Johnson and Crock had access to much of the original paperwork generated by the makers of the show. Today’s closing credits are truncated by a technical fault. The only writing credit shown is Art Wallace’s story creator tag. Fandom has jumped to the conclusion that Art Wallace wrote the episode, but the documents show that Francis Swann did. That makes sense- the two of them have been swapping weeks, with Wallace writing five episodes, then Swann writing five. Swann wrote the other four episodes this week, and Wallace wrote next week’s five, so it would be a deviation from the pattern if Wallace wrote this one as well. Since the episode is such a watershed in the development of the show it is tempting to attribute it to the original writer. But clearly, it is Swann who gave us our first looks at the Old House and at Josette.

Episode 58: A day for remembering, and forgetting

Art Wallace, credited as the author of this episode’s script, specialized in finely-etched character studies. Often as not, he favored a diptych structure, in which the episode intercuts between two groups of characters. In the contrast between their relationships, we learn more about them in a shorter time than we could if one group was on screen the whole time.

He doesn’t use that structure today. It’s more of a kaleidoscope, in which the characters tumble about, moving from set to set, recombining in different groups. The five reflecting surfaces in this particular kaleidoscope are drunken artist Sam; hardworking young fisherman Joe; the sheriff; flighty heiress Carolyn; and problem child David. Their reactions to the mysterious death of plant manager Bill Malloy have set them spinning.

Carolyn, Sam, and the sheriff play it very hot. Bill was like a father to Carolyn. She wants to keen over him, and is raging with frustration that she can’t find anyone to wail with. Bill was trying to prove that Sam had committed a crime. He can barely restrain himself from panicking in his fear that he will be accused of killing Bill. The sheriff is investigating the case. He wants answers from Sam, and comes down on him very hard when he doesn’t get them.

Joe is more subdued. He is clearly saddened by the death of a man he worked for and admired, but is quiet and attentive to others. When Sam insistently tries to get him to figure out what the police will be able to reconstruct from the place where Bill’s body washed up on shore, Joe very patiently explains about tide tables and the like. When the sheriff comes upon Sam and Joe and suggests Joe go away, he complies in good humor.

David is absolutely cool. He is trying to figure out where Bill’s body first went into the water in hopes that he will be able to prove that his father, whom he hates, murdered Bill. When Carolyn demands that he adopt an attitude consistent with hers, he flatly refuses. She persists, he delivers one incisive comeback after another.

Carolyn bemoans their fate, living in the walls of the mansion at Collinwood. David says he likes it, that it’s fun to live in a house with real ghosts. “Sure, it’s scary sometimes,” he allows, but the ghosts are his friends. Maybe Mr Malloy will be one of them. Carolyn is exasperated by this reply, but can’t bring herself to deny that the house is haunted.

Joe shows up at the big dark house on the hill to see Carolyn. David picks up where Sam left off, and questions Joe about how to read a tide table. Unlike Sam, David has a set of tide tables with him, and the two of them sit down and start doing calculations. Carolyn reacts to this with abhorrence. Joe leaves with Carolyn, but not before encouraging David to stick with his calculations. He tells the boy to ask his father for help, a suggestion to which David reacts sharply.

After Joe and Carolyn have left the house, a knock comes at the door. David exclaims joyously, “Joe, I knew you’d come back!” When he opens the door, though, it isn’t Joe- it’s the sheriff. David resumes his perfect serenity and asks, “Have you come to see my father?” When he says yes, David goes to fetch him, a blissful smile on his face.

Episode 56: World of horror

We’ve been watching each episode of Dark Shadows on the 56th anniversary of its original broadcast. Today was the 56th anniversary of the broadcast of episode 56, so a milestone of sorts.

Word is making its way around the town of Collinsport that the Coast Guard has found the body of Bill Malloy, manager of the fishing fleet and cannery that between them employ most of the men in town and sustain the Collins family in their big dark house on the hill. In the opening, reclusive matriarch Liz is stumbling over her words trying to break the news of Bill’s death to her daughter Carolyn. The phone rings. Carolyn answers it, and gets the Coast Guard’s report. Liz is shattered.

Carolyn tells well-meaning governess Vicki that Bill’s body has been found. In episode 52, Carolyn had told Vicki that Bill was like a father to her. Carolyn, as played by Nancy Barrett, does indeed seem as upset in this scene as would someone who had just heard that her father’s body had washed up on shore. Vicki, as played by Alexandra Moltke Isles, is very calm and deliberate as she listens to Carolyn, letting her say what she has to say and emote as she needs to emote. It’s quite a well-turned bit of drama.

In the Blue Whale, Collinsport’s tavern, Liz’ ne’er-d-well brother Roger finds drunken artist Sam Evans, his co-conspirator in a long-ago crime. Sam tells Roger that the Coast Guard has found Bill’s body. Roger first takes a very lofty tone and announces that he will do whatever he must to ensure that Bill’s killer is brought to justice. After Sam asks him what he means by this, Roger coaches him on the lies the two of them should tell to ensure that neither of them is convicted of killing Bill.

Back at the great house on the estate of Collinwood, we see the Collins family album open to the page with the picture and name of Josette Collins. The last time we saw this was in episode 52, when the book opened to that page without the aid of any visible hands. Now we see that Carolyn is opening the book. That is followed immediately by the drawing room doors opening. That too has been the prelude to a ghostly apparition, but this time turns out to be Vicki’s doing.

Screen capture by Dark Shadows from the Beginning

The first few weeks, several characters used the word “ghosts” in metaphorical senses when talking with Vicki. Each time, she behaved as if they were talking about literal ghosts and said something like “Surely you don’t believe in ghosts!” To which they said that they damn well did believe in them, and that if she goes on living in the house at Collinwood for any length of time she will, too. Reminding us of ghostly manifestations and then showing mortal agency behind them harks back to this kind of open question. Art Wallace, who was the only writer credited on the first 40 episodes, is the writer today as well. Evidently he wants to remind us of the supernatural themes and to keep us guessing where they will take us.