john sedwick – Dark Shadows Commentary

In place of episode 801: Periodization again

No episode of Dark Shadows premiered 56 years ago this afternoon; the show was preempted by ABC-TV’s coverage of the Apollo 11 mission. That mission included the first steps taken by humans on the surface of the Moon, at a site 25 kilometers south of a crater then known as Sabine D. The following year, Sabine D was renamed Collins. That was not an attempt to console Dark Shadows fans for the trauma of a Monday spent away from Barnabas and his relatives, but was an honor given to United States Air Force officer Michael Collins, Command Module pilot on Apollo 11. Moreover, the nearby crater named Moltke was not named for Alexandra Moltke Isles, who played well-meaning governess Vicki in 333 episodes of Dark Shadows, but for her distant cousin Count Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, who died in 1891 and never appeared on the show (as far as we can tell.)

These changes to the map of the Moon remind me that, on this 56th anniversary watch-through, I’ve been revising my mental map of the show’s development. I used to divide it into chunks with labels like “Meet Vicki,” “Meet Matthew,” “Meet Laura,” “Meet Barnabas,” “Meet Julia,” “Meet Angelique,” and so on. In that scheme, this 161st week is an early part of the chunk I would have called “Meet Petofi.” I still see that the show defaults to having a main character, but now I think in terms of larger units. I also tend to focus more on the writing staff than on the central characters. So the first 38 weeks drew their vitality from the story of Vicki’s attempt to befriend strange and troubled boy David, a story which reached its conclusion at the end of the Phoenix tale, when David chose Vicki and life over his mother and death. That was Dark Shadows version 1.0, and I subdivide it less into the parts driven by Vicki, Matthew, and Laura than into the parts written by Art Wallace alone, by Wallace in alternation with Francis Swann, and by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein with uncredited contributions by Joe Caldwell.

Dark Shadows 2.0 ran from March to November 1967, and its most interesting theme was vampire Barnabas Collins’ attempt to pass himself off as a living man native to the twentieth century. The first part of this, written by Sproat and Marmorstein, was even more slow-paced than were the first 38 weeks. Caldwell was credited with a number of scripts from May through October, Gordon Russell joined the staff in July, Marmorstein was fired in August, and Sam Hall replaced Caldwell in November. With each of those changes, the pace picked up and the overall quality of the scripts improved noticeably. There was also a shift in story in the middle of this period, as mad scientist Julia Hoffman teamed up with Barnabas in an attempt to physically transform him into a human, shifting his masquerade from an acting job to a medical problem.

Dark Shadows 3.0 ran from November 1967 to March 1968. This was a costume drama set in the 1790s, an era to which Vicki had traveled when she came unstuck in time while participating in a séance. It seemed at first that it would invert the 1967 story, with Vicki trying to pass herself off as a native in the time to which Barnabas actually belonged, but for some reason they chose to write Vicki as a screaming ninny during this segment. Mrs Isles made a valiant effort to overcome the painfully dumb lines she was given, but by the end of it, the character was no longer sustainable.

Barnabas was a human through the first half of Dark Shadows 3.0, and a vampire for the second half. That alternation answered three questions, each of which opened a door for further development.

First, the audience wanted to see how Barnabas became a bloodsucking ghoul. When they showed this happening in the course of his relationship with wicked witch Angelique, they laid the groundwork for more stories involving her.

Second, the audience wanted to see what Barnabas was like in his lifetime. When they showed this, they proved that he didn’t have to be a vampire to be interesting, and made it possible for Julia’s experiment or some other effort to free him of the effects of the curse to succeed.

Third, the audience wanted to see what Barnabas would be like if he were as deadly as one might expect a vampire to be. In the whole of 1967, Barnabas killed only two characters, each of them a middle aged man who had run out of story and seemed likely to disappear anyway. But he kills seven people in 1795-1796, not counting people who died of fright or confusion or despair as a result of seeing him.

When it was set in contemporary times, Dark Shadows was careful to keep its characters alive. They need to fill 22 minutes a day with conversations, and if they end up with Barnabas alone on the estate of Collinwood those will get to be rather one-sided. But since they were not committed to staying in the 1790s, they could let him slaughter people with abandon. That created a fast pace that the show tried to maintain for the rest of its time on the air. In consequence of that pace, by the end of the 1790s segment the show had left behind its origins as a Gothic romance appealing to an older demographic who were impressed that Joan Bennett was in the cast and had become a kids’ show.

Vicki returned to 1968 in #461, but Dark Shadows 3.0 did not end at that moment. Vicki came back to exactly the same collection of narrative dead-ends the show had gone to the eighteenth century to escape. It wasn’t until #466 that Barnabas found that he had been cured of vampirism- not by Julia, but by another mad scientist. That set the tone for Dark Shadows 4.0. Version 2.0 may have been content with one mad scientist, but 4.0 needed at least two, in addition to multiple witches, Frankensteins, vampires, ghosts, an invisible man, and, if not the Devil himself, at least one of the assistant managers of his upper New England operations. The fast pace of the 1790s segment turned into a frantic dash through this Monster Mash era.

In the course of Dark Shadows 4.0, there were four personnel changes that had especially profound effects. Two were in the cast. At the end of the segment, Mrs Isles left the role of Vicki, never to return to the show. Though Vicki had been pushed to the margins long before, she was so strongly associated with the first phase of Dark Shadows that every time she appeared on screen she made a connection with those early days. With her departure, that link is broken.

Thayer David, who had played crazed handyman Matthew Morgan in 1966 and much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes in the 1790s segment, returned in 1968 as Ben’s descendant, occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes. Ben was a commentary on Matthew, an example of what he might have been had he not grown up in a community under the somber mark of the Collinses and the many curses they bear. As such, David was like the rest of the cast for the 1790s, playing a character who shed light on the part he took in contemporary dress. But as Stokes, he is playing a man who has no direct connection to Matthew, and little connection to Ben. With that doubling, we see that any performer might return to the cast in a new role at any point in the story.

The other personnel changes during Dark Shadows 4.0 took place behind the camera. Ron Sproat ended his duties as a regular member of the writing staff late in that period, and left the show altogether shortly after. Sproat was the most devoted to conventional soapcraft of all the writers, and was the only one who consistently took care to keep the show comprehensible to first-time viewers. But he didn’t have an especially fertile imagination for story points or for clever dialogue. As Hall and Russell hit their stride and really started cooking, Sproat’s relative weakness became impossible to ignore. The show entered its most exciting phase when Sproat left, but his absence would later be felt at times when the staff tried to keep the story moving at a breakneck pace even when they were too fatigued to make sure it all made some kind of sense.

The least remarked of all the personnel changes was the departure of director John Sedwick. Sedwick was an outstanding visual artist, the equal of his colleague Lela Swift. Swift stayed with the show to the end, eventually combining the role of producer with responsibility for directing half the episodes. But after several men helmed a few episodes each, they settled on the lamentable Henry Kaplan as her alternate in the director’s chair. Kaplan was a famously poor director of actors, and the visual compositions he knew how to orchestrate ran the gamut from closeup to extreme closeup to even more extreme closeup. Dark Shadows was never all that easy for first-time viewers to take seriously, and when you tune in to one of Kaplan’s efforts you’re likely to dismiss it before you hear a word of dialogue.

As Dark Shadows 3.0 didn’t end until the show had already been back in 1968 for a week, so version 4.0 ended well before it began its next time travel story. In #627, we meet werewolf Chris Jennings and hear about Chris’ little sister, who will eventually be named Amy. Amy befriends David, and together they become the central figures in the Haunting of Collinwood by the ghost of Quentin Collins. This leads Barnabas to travel back in time to 1897 in #701. Barnabas and the show will stay in that year until #884. This whole arc, from #627 airing in November 1968 to #884 airing in November 1969, makes up Dark Shadows 5.0.

The major subdivisions of version 5.0 are the “Meet Amy” section that runs from #627 to #700, the “Meet Quentin” section from #701 to #778, and the “Meet Petofi” section from #778 to #884. The transitions among these segments showed that the shift from one time frame to another is not essential for making a chapter break in the show. The reset from the focus on Quentin to the focus on Petofi rolls across a few weeks, and does not have the single spectacular moment when we first find ourselves in 1897, but it is just as definite a break. It even involves doubling Thayer David, who played broad ethnic stereotype Sandor Rákóczi in 5.0.1 (the “Meet Quentin” section,) and who plays sorcerer Count Petofi in 5.0.2 (the “Meet Petofi” section.) As Ben was an alternative version of Matthew, so Petofi is an answer to the question “What would Stokes be like if he were evil?” As such, he brings version 5.0.2 in line with version 3.0, in which characters in one time frame mirror those in another.

That we can make a major transition without returning to the 1960s raises the question of whether we need to go back there at all. Barnabas is on a mission to save David and Amy and Chris, but he could always find a fresh threat to them in the 1890s. And the characters we have met in that period are at least as compelling as are those we left behind in the contemporary time frame. Despite the deficiencies of Henry Kaplan, the writing staff of Hall, Russell, and the brilliantly witty Violet Welles combine with an almost unanimously strong cast to make the dialogue glitter. It is the strongest period of the show by far, and it is difficult to imagine wanting it to end.

We will go back to a contemporary setting, eventually. The H. P. Lovecraft-inspired monster cult known as the “Leviathans” will be the center of version 6.0; in that segment, the show will start on the most adult tone it ever adopts, and end pitched squarely at a very young demographic. The change may well have come because the three-person writing staff burned out, and became a grave matter when Welles left the show.

Version 7.0 is another time travel story, but a story of traveling sideways in time, to an alternative universe where the characters wear clothing appropriate to 1970 but have different personalities and different relationships than do the people with the same names and faces whom we have met previously.

Version 8.0 is the most ambitious of all the segments, starting with a trip in time to the far-off future year 1995, returning to 1970 for a reprise of the Haunting of Collinwood, this time by a ghost who resembles Quentin in hairstyle and wardrobe but not in height, and proceeding to a long stay in the year 1840. That version had enough characters and enough story to last indefinitely, but Hall and Russell were the only full-time writers, and they simply could not keep it up. It finally collapsed, and the last nine weeks were set in another alternate universe, with no characters in common with the stories we had seen up to that point.

Version 9.0 had a drab feeling; some say it isn’t Dark Shadows at all, but another series shot on the same sets with some of the same actors. The name Dim Reflections has been proposed for it. There is one week in the middle of Dim Reflections when Violet Welles comes back to make some uncredited contributions to the scripts; you can tell it’s her, because all of a sudden the characters have senses of humor. But after that Gordon Russell is all alone at his typewriter until Sam Hall returns for the very last day, and by that time everyone knows it is time to go.

Episode 445: Powers of persuasion

Fluttery heiress Millicent Collins has been staying at the great estate of Collinwood as the guest of her second cousin, haughty tyrant Joshua Collins, and Joshua’s wife Naomi. Today, Millicent has news for Joshua and Naomi. She has agreed to marry naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes.

Joshua and Naomi are stunned by this announcement. Millicent had been obsessed with avenging herself on Nathan for some time, ever since she discovered that when they became engaged on a previous occasion he was already married. But now Nathan has apparently rescued her from an attempt on her life by Joshua and Naomi’s son Barnabas, and Millicent no longer holds Nathan’s late wife against him. For their part, Joshua and Naomi are quite sure that Barnabas did not attack Millicent, and suspect that the whole thing was a ruse by Nathan. Joshua forbids Millicent to marry Nathan, and threatens to have her declared insane if she tries to go through with the marriage.

Nathan shows up. He tells Joshua that he and Millicent will not marry without his consent. At that, Joshua agrees to meet privately with Nathan. Joshua withdraws. Millicent tells Nathan that she wishes he had not told Joshua that they would accede to his demands, and Nathan tells her that he has the situation in hand.

In this scene, played out in the entryway and seen from a point of view inside the coat closet, director John Sedwick makes some clever use of a portrait. The portrait, which hangs in the drawing room in the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s and which is identified by fans as that of Joshua,* at first mirrors the furious Joshua as he looks at a sheepish Nathan:

Richard Wagner Collins is on Joshua’s side.

Nathan screws up his courage to face his accusers.

As Nathan begins to make his play, his face overlaps with the portrait, creating the momentary illusion of a kiss. Joshua is startled by Nathan’s assertiveness.

When Nathan and Millicent are alone in the entryway, Nathan stands where Joshua had stood. The portrait now mirrors him as before it had mirrored Joshua, suggesting that he is in the process of taking Joshua’s place.

Joshua and Nathan meet in the study. The study was a set that first became prominent during a blackmail story that played out from March to June of 1967, when Dark Shadows was set in contemporary times. Then, seagoing conman Jason McGuire had established the drawing room of the great house at Collinwood as his base, and the study was a place to which his victim, reclusive matriarch Liz, would retreat, only to discover that Jason had even more power over her than she had thought.

Now, the show is a costume drama set in the 1790s, and Nathan is coming to resemble Jason more and more strongly. Joshua is in Liz’ place as head of the household. When Nathan starts talking about a secret he is sure Joshua very much wants to keep from public view, Joshua at first has no idea what he is talking about. He assumes, to his scornful amazement, that Nathan is taking a shot in the dark, hoping that Joshua might have some shameful secret and gambling that he will be able to convince him that he is in a position to expose it.

Nathan shows Joshua Barnabas’ cane with its distinctive wolf’s-head handle. He assures Joshua that Barnabas dropped it when he attacked Millicent. Joshua does not believe that Barnabas had anything to do with the attack on Millicent, for the excellent reason that he knows Barnabas is dead. Joshua cannot share this information with Nathan, since he has insisted on lying to everyone and claiming that Barnabas is alive and well and living in England. In fact, Nathan and a henchman of his did fake the attack on Millicent, but Barnabas’ situation is not so simple as his parents believe. Unknown to them, or to Nathan, or to any of the Collinses, Barnabas has risen from the dead and now preys upon the living as a vampire.

Nathan has Joshua on the hook. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

For his part, Nathan knows that his one-time friend Barnabas is in town, and that he is responsible for the many killings that have recently taken place there. He believes that Barnabas is alive and has become a serial killer, and that the family spread the story about England to cover up this new hobby. Nathan presses more information on Joshua about sightings he and others have recently made of Barnabas, and about evidence connecting Barnabas with the murders. Since Joshua himself had seen that Barnabas’ coffin was vacant in #422 and occupied again in #428, he cannot simply dismiss Nathan’s story. Nathan tells him that Barnabas is hiding in the Old House on the estate, and Joshua decides to go there.

While Joshua prepares to go, Nathan makes himself at home in the great house. He pours himself a drink in the drawing room, as Jason McGuire often did. We cut from the shot of him doing that to the study, where Naomi pours her own drink. Longtime viewers, remembering the miserable state to which Jason reduced Liz while blackmailing her, will be apprehensive that Nathan’s blackmail of the family will bring the alcoholic Naomi to an equally profound despair.

At the Old House, Joshua encounters much put-upon servant Ben Stokes, who tries to keep him from going to the basement. Ben has reason to hate Joshua, and often expressed such hatred earlier in the 1795 flashback. But there is no hatred in him today. He sincerely wants to spare Joshua the sight that he knows awaits him downstairs. But Ben is powerless to stop Joshua, and sadly watches him go through the cellar door.

Joshua finds Barnabas’ coffin at the foot of the stairs. The lid opens, and Joshua sees a hand under it wearing a familiar ring. As Jason had inadvertently pushed Liz to discover a secret she had herself not dreamed of when he directed her attention to the basement of the great house once too often, thereby losing his power over her and leading to his death at Barnabas’ hands, so Nathan is about to change Joshua’s awareness of the situation in ways he himself could not have anticipated and which are likely to lead to his own downfall.

*Though actually a reproduction of Hermann Torggler’s 1904 portrait of composer Richard Wagner.

Episode 394: Not a simple woman

The ghost of Jeremiah Collins has gone to the newly built great house of Collinwood and made a terrible mess in the bedroom that was to be occupied by a house-guest of the Collins family, the Countess DuPrés. Among those who discover the mess is Angelique, who was the countess’ maid before she became the fiancée of Jeremiah’s nephew, Barnabas. Not everyone in the house knows of the change in Angelique’s station, so it is unclear whether she ought to stick with her former role and clean the room herself or start functioning as a member of the family by calling for a servant to do it. Since Angelique is also the wicked witch who raised Jeremiah from the grave, putting her in this awkward position would seem to be a passive-aggressive way for him to get back at her.

Messy room. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Repressed spinster Abigail Collins, sister of the master of the house, comes into the room. She insults Angelique’s former master, the countess’ brother André, prompting him to leave the room in a huff. Angelique begins to follow André, but Abigail orders her to to stay.

Angelique has taken no care to cover her tracks, and it is obvious to all that something very unusual has been happening around the estate of Collinwood since she arrived. Most of those who have witnessed the strange goings-on are rational, modern people who are reluctant to believe in the supernatural, and the rest have settled on the idea that eccentric governess Victoria Winters is the witch. But Abigail has learned of Angelique’s engagement to Barnabas, has realized that every bizarre occurrence has contributed to making it possible, and has concluded that Angelique is in league with Vicki and the devil.

Up to this point, Abigail has been a figure who did ridiculous things but whom we came to respect as we saw that a person of her time and place might well have interpreted the information available to her as she does. In this scene, she isn’t ridiculous at all. She is mistaken about Vicki, who is a well-meaning innocent. But she has figured Angelique out long before anyone else has even begun to suspect her. Abigail emerges as a character who is smart enough to turn the story in fresh and surprising directions.

Abigail interrogates Angelique. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Once Abigail has left the room, Angelique summons Jeremiah and tells him she has something for him to do before she will let him return to his grave. Jeremiah has already gone beyond the instructions she gave him, not only in befouling the countess’ room but also in repeatedly showing himself to Naomi Collins, the lady of the house. But I suppose Angelique has such a limited staff she can’t afford to let someone go for overenthusiasm.

We see Barnabas in his new room in the great house. His friend Nathan comes and asks him about the report that he is going to marry Angelique. Barnabas confirms that it is true, and assures Nathan that Angelique is not pregnant.

Nathan is puzzled that Barnabas wants to marry Angelique. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

As written, the scene is a bit of a throwaway, but the actors flirt with each other pretty blatantly throughout the scene. As the screenshot above shows, it begins with Nathan thrusting his crotch into Barnabas’ face while Barnabas smiles appreciatively, and it continues along that line. Considering that Nathan is puzzled that Barnabas wants to marry a woman, even a beautiful one, and that viewers know that Barnabas intends it to be a sham marriage, the flirty tone makes it hard not to recognize a comment on a familiar closet situation. Jonathan Frid and Joel Crothers were both gay, but they had many scenes together and never seemed to be flirting at any other time, so perhaps this comment was intentional on their part and that of director John Sedwick.

After Nathan leaves, Jeremiah appears in Barnabas’ room. He denounces Barnabas for killing him in a duel over the gracious Josette and vows to haunt Barnabas and Josette forever if they marry.

This does not at all reflect the attitude Jeremiah had in life. Jeremiah and Josette married under the influence of a spell Angelique cast on them, and they deeply regretted the pain their elopement brought Barnabas. In his last conversation with Josette before the duel, Jeremiah made it clear that he was going to let Barnabas kill him and that it was all right with him if Josette and Barnabas went on to marry. Jeremiah’s rantings to Barnabas today are Angelique’s words, not his own. This leads us to wonder if she is simply manipulating him as a puppet, or if some fragment of her personality took up residence in Jeremiah when she raised him from the dead. We’ve seen several times that supernatural beings on Dark Shadows are complex phenomena made of parts that work independently and often at cross-purposes with each other, so perhaps when Angelique casts a spell she is dividing herself into parts that will thwart each other’s goals.

Regular viewers know that the segment of the show set in 1795 will show us Barnabas becoming a vampire. We assume that Angelique will be responsible for this transformation. Since the Barnabas we knew in 1967 showed many of the personality traits that Angelique has shown in 1795, seeing her at least use Jeremiah’s reanimated corpse as a mouthpiece for her words and perhaps turn it into a part of herself makes us speculate if the vampiric Barnabas we thought we knew was really Angelique all along.

After Jeremiah leaves Barnabas’ room, Angelique comes in. She tells Barnabas that Abigail is making trouble for them, he tells her about Jeremiah’s apparition, and they decide to marry at once. This three-part sequence in Barnabas’ room- his scenes with Nathan, with Jeremiah, and then with Angelique- mirrors a sequence in Josette’s room in yesterday’s episode, in which she is visited by Jeremiah, then by the countess, then by Angelique. That sequence ended with Angelique telling Josette that she and Barnabas were to be married and thus represented a step towards the wedding. The echo of its structure at the end of today’s installment gives us a sense that the wedding is approaching with irresistible momentum.

Episode 348: A matter of fact

We open on a new set, the bedroom of heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard in the great house of Collinwood. Dark Shadows has been in color since #295 in August. Though directors Lela Swift and John Sedwick were both ambitious visual artists, they haven’t been able to do much with color so far. With Carolyn’s bedroom, Swift and the staging team have accomplished one of their first real essays in color. It is composed mostly of shades of yellow, pink, and orange.

The color schemes of the other interiors we’ve seen up to this point run the gamut from sedate to subdued to drab to dank, so we already know we are in a unique space. The only other room in Collinwood that might have matched this one for brightness was the kitchen, but we haven’t seen that since #208.

Carolyn’s young cousin, strange and troubled boy David, lets himself into her room. He touches her, and she awakes with a scream. He explains that he just dropped in to make sure she wasn’t dead. When she turns on the light, the screen is so bright that I reflexively squinted, a reaction I’d never before had to an image on Dark Shadows.

David can’t quite explain why he was afraid Carolyn might be dead, but he does insist that she take an antique toy soldier, saying that she will be safe if she keeps it with her. Carolyn’s mother, matriarch Liz, comes into the room to investigate Carolyn’s scream. Liz wonders what David is doing there. Carolyn hastens to say that he was just making sure she was all right.

David goes, and Carolyn tells Liz she doesn’t think anything can be done for him at home. Liz is reluctant to send him away. Regular viewers will not be surprised by this. We know that Liz took David and his father, her ne’er-do-well brother Roger, into Collinwood at the beginning of the summer of 1966 and summoned her unacknowledged daughter, well-meaning governess Vicki, to come look after David starting with #1 on 27 June 1966, so that her conviction that the family ought to look after him got the whole show started. Nonetheless, Liz is so disturbed by David’s unusual statements and depressive affect that she agrees that he needs residential care.

We cut to the Old House on the estate. Vampire Barnabas Collins is sitting in a basement room where mad scientist Julia Hoffman maintains a laboratory. The room is full of electrical equipment, a bit odd since the Old House has no electricity; the laboratory itself is lit by flaming torches. But if we’ve ever seen a Universal Studios production from the 1930s, we know that where you find a mad scientist, you will find electrical currents, so naturally things start buzzing when Julia flips a switch.

Julia is trying to implement a medical cure for Barnabas’ vampirism. In the first shot of this scene, we see a visual metaphor for that project. Barnabas, an uncanny being, is confined to a small space in the middle of an elaborate collection of technology. If Julia succeeds, the supernatural will be vanquished altogether and scientific rationality will fill the whole world. The color scheme emphasizes the contrast between Julia’s optimistic goal and the terrain on which she operates. The walls and floor are dominated by the grays and browns of the basement, but the frames and tubing of her equipment are a bright metallic hue, light plays on the glass components, and the intense greens, reds, and blues of the potions are distributed in a slightly unbalanced, lively pattern. The irregular shapes of the frames and tubing emphasize this pattern, and contrast with the solid gray of the floor and the even grid of the brickwork on the walls.

This image not only represents Julia’s plans, but also one of the major themes the show is exploring at this period. Too many characters have encountered too much evidence of supernatural forces and beings for anyone to simply deny that such things exist. But even those who have been most heavily exposed to them keep reverting to a naturalistic frame of reference. Sure, Julia spends all her time hanging around with a vampire and has encountered a couple of ghosts, but she’s determined to ring all of those phenomena around with scientific explanations and technological interventions until they yield to rational control.

Julia’s project has hit its first major setback, as the latest treatment led Barnabas’ hands to age dramatically. He expresses the fear that time will catch up with him, and his apparent age will soon catch up with his actual age, something like 200 years. Julia’s hope that her experiment will not only free Barnabas of his curse, but found a new kind of medicine that will free everyone else of aging and death, will thus be defeated.

Barnabas gives a remarkable little speech about the situation he finds himself in:

I’ve been granted privileges given to few other men… For most men, time moves slowly, so very slowly. They don’t even realize it. But time has revealed itself to me in a very special way. Time is a rushing, howling wind raging past me, withering me in one relentless blast and then continues on. I have been sitting here passively, submissive to its rage, watching its work. Listen. Time, howling, withering.

Writer Joe Caldwell has a fine sense of what actors can do, and this odd little bit of purple prose is right in Jonathan Frid’s wheelhouse. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but the sound of his voice delivering it is so gorgeous it may as well be Shakespeare. Well, maybe not Shakespeare, but Ben Jonson at least.

It is possible to read this speech as a programmatic statement. Daytime soap operas of the 1960s were famously slow-paced; the old joke was that a viewer saw an episode that ended with a character hearing a telephone ring, missed four months of the show, and tuned back in to see the episode that started with the same character saying “Hello.” Even by the standards of the period, the first months of Dark Shadows were notoriously leisurely, with action often as not playing out in real time. When we are watching the 21 episodes centering on Roger’s attempts to find a fountain pen he misplaced, it is indeed the case that “time moves slowly, so very slowly.” But those days are behind us. The show is whipping through plot points at a pace that many prime time series contemporary with it would have had a hard time matching.

If the speech is programmatic, it is also autobiographical on the part of the screenwriter. A fast pace promises excitement for the viewers, but makes life hard for a writing staff that never numbered more than three. Indeed, this is the last episode Joe Caldwell will write for two and a half years. Perhaps he felt the demands of the new pace as “a relentless blast” withering his talents, and had to bow out.

We return to Carolyn’s room. She is in front of her mirror, contemplating the toy soldier. She hears the strains of “London Bridge” playing on a wooden flute, which she has learned is a sign that the ghost of ten year old Sarah Collins is present. Carolyn grew up in this haunted house, so it may not be entirely surprising that her response is to lean back and enjoy the music. But she sits up when Sarah manifests herself in visible form.

Sarah speaks, and Carolyn sees her reflected in her mirror. The following scene is so extraordinary I’m going to transcribe all of the dialogue:

Sarah: David must have given you that.

Carolyn: Sarah!

Sarah: He told you my name.

Carolyn: Sarah, how did you get in here?

Sarah: Didn’t David tell you?

Carolyn: Tell me what?

Sarah: All about me.

Carolyn: I’m not sure I understand.

Sarah: I think I’m a ghost. Matter of fact, I’m sure I am.

This is the first time Sarah has described herself in any terms, certainly the first time she has called herself a ghost. Her coyness about herself had left David confused about what she was; it was not until #325 that he finally concluded that she was a ghost. After that, she became more forthright with him. When he wasn’t sure what she was, she would wait until she was out of his line of sight to appear and disappear. But in #327, she fades away while he’s looking right at her.

Coming out to David not only allowed Sarah to relax around him, but has led her to discard her coyness altogether. She is startlingly blunt with Carolyn as this conversation goes on:

Carolyn: B-but- I don’t believe in-

Sarah: Yes you do. Or I wouldn’t have been able to come here. You’re not afraid of me, are you?

Carolyn: No…

Sarah: If you are, I understand.

This is the first confirmation that Sarah can appear only to those who are prepared to believe in her. It’s true that most of the people who have seen and heard her- David; Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town; Maggie’s father Sam; Vicki; Barnabas; Julia; Barnabas’ sometime blood thrall Willie; and local physician Dave Woodard- have either had extensive contact with the supernatural or had reasoned their way to the conclusion that she existed. But she also showed herself to Maggie’s nurse at the mental hospital Julia runs, and we don’t know anything about her background or beliefs. And local man Burke Devlin heard Sarah when she and David were talking in #327. While Burke has had plenty of contact with supernatural beings and in the early days of Dark Shadows, when he was fun, was willing to believe in them, he was at that point tearing around bellowing that there were no such things as ghosts. So this is new and unexpected information.

Carolyn’s denial that Sarah frightens her is given in a trembling voice that shows it to be a lie. Still, she isn’t as frightened as she might be. The other day, in #344, Carolyn was in David’s room when Sarah manifested there, not in the visible form of a little girl, but as the sound of “London Bridge” and as information appearing in David’s mind about Burke’s imminent death. Carolyn was terrified of Sarah when she came that way.

Carolyn: Well, what do you want?

Sarah: Don’t send David away.

Carolyn: How do you know about that?

Sarah: I don’t know, I just do.

At this point, we see Carolyn’s fear fading. She is starting to react to Sarah as if she really were a ten year old girl.

Carolyn: But Sarah, we have to send David away. It’s the only way we can help him.

Sarah: But if you send David away, I won’t have anyone to play with.

Carolyn: Well, maybe it isn’t good for David to play with you.

Sarah: Why do you say that?

Carolyn: Because it leads him into believing all sorts of things that aren’t true.

Sarah: How do you know they’re not true?

Carolyn: Well, they’re just not, they couldn’t be.

Sarah: He wasn’t lying about me, was he?

Carolyn: No.

Sarah: Well.. then maybe David is acting the way he is because no one will believe him.

Carolyn: But… it isn’t possible.

Sarah: People say I’m not possible, but I am. Why doesn’t that make the rest possible?

Carolyn: Sarah, maybe you don’t know the stories David’s been telling!

Sarah: Why do you think that?

Carolyn: Because they’re too fantastic! And besides, they’ve all been proved false.

Sarah: How do you know they’ve been proved false?

Carolyn: Sarah, are you trying to tell me that Barnabas actually slee-

This exchange is the ultimate example of a character accepting the existence of a particular supernatural being and then snapping back into a frame of reference that does not allow for supernatural beings. Carolyn knows that Sarah is a ghost, and starts arguing with her about how fantastic the world is permitted to be.

There comes a knock at the door. Carolyn turns away from Sarah to look at the door, and when she looks back, Sarah has vanished. Regular viewers know that Sarah was Barnabas’ little sister, that she wants to keep him from doing horrible things to people she likes, but that she will not say anything against him. So when Carolyn says Barnabas’ name, we know that Sarah is about to vanish.

Sarah’s part is an outstanding example of writing to an actor’s abilities, even more so than was Barnabas’ speech. Caldwell knew that Jonathan Frid had a flair for making flowery gibberish appealing, because that is what he has been doing the whole time he’s been on Dark Shadows. What Sharon Smyth has been doing well as Sarah is being a cutie pie and creating a vague and mysterious impression. When she has more than a few lines to deliver, things tend to get very wobbly. Today, she has to maintain a commanding tone and an adult demeanor throughout an extended patch of rapid-fire dialogue. Absolutely nothing we have seen on screen would suggest that she could handle that. But she pulls it off, more than competently. There are a few glances at the teleprompter, but at no point does she break out of the patient and authoritative manner she has to adopt. It is an impressive job of acting by any standard.

The person at Carolyn’s door is Liz. Liz is Dark Shadows‘ queen of denial. Viewers who have been with the show from the beginning have seen a few cracks in her facade of disbelief in the supernatural. In #10, she dozed off in the drawing room and started talking in her sleep about ghosts. When Vicki insisted to her in #127 that she had seen a ghost, Liz said she believed her. And in #280 and #281, Liz reluctantly agreed to participate in a séance, and afterward agreed that Vicki had been possessed by a spirit. But even in those moments Liz was fighting to keep the topic of ghosts at bay, and the rest of the time she has presented a blank wall to any attempt to face facts about the strange goings-on. So it is not surprising that Carolyn tells her mother she was talking to herself while tidying up her room.

Having talked Liz into sending David away, she now has to talk her back out of it. She manages to get her to agree to wait a few days. “London Bridge” plays. Carolyn reacts to it, Liz does not.

In his room, a distraught David is looking at a mobile. Its whimsical black and white markings suggest a puzzle and make a stark contrast with the vivid colors around them.*

Carolyn comes in. She brings the toy soldier and tells David she doesn’t think she will need it. He insists that she will, but she explains that Sarah visited her and now she believes him and knows how to help him. David is horrified by this. He says that Sarah visited Dr Woodard, that Woodard believed him, and that led to his death. He begs Carolyn not to believe him and claims to have been lying. He sobs and clutches her.

Back in the Old House, Julia prepares to give Barnabas another treatment. He snaps at her. She tells him that whatever happens, she wants him to know that she always wished him well. That prompts him to unload a further stream of sour remarks about her competence and intentions. Julia carries out the treatments, only to find that the aged appearance of Barnabas’ hands has spread to his head.

In his post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn puts it well when he says that “This is just good soap opera construction. People that we care about, facing terrible danger, and desperate to help each other.” He’s referring specifically to the scenes between David and Carolyn and Liz, but it applies to everyone. We care not only about the good people in the great house (well, they’ve been relatively good, lately,) but also about Barnabas and Julia, evil people who are the terrible danger David and Carolyn and Liz are facing, but who make the show fun to watch. We care about Sarah too, and she’s desperately trying to accomplish exactly the result we most want to see, an outcome in which David, Barnabas, and everyone else we enjoy watching stays on the show.

*Evidently this mobile was a commercially produced item. One of the commenters on Danny Horn’s Dark Shadows Every Day reports having had one like it as a child.

Episode 295: A special kind of music

Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, has come back to Collinsport. This is a surprise to everyone. Months ago, Maggie had escaped from an unknown captor who drained her blood and deranged her mind. Maggie’s family doctor, addled quack Dave Woodard, had persuaded her father and her fiancé to join him in telling everyone that she was dead and to lock her up in a mental hospital a hundred miles north of town. Evidently, Woodard thought that if the captor believed he had got away with his crimes, he would turn into a solid citizen and a good neighbor.

The mental hospital where Woodard sent Maggie was administered by Dr Julia Hoffman, an MD whose specialties in psychiatry and hematology made her seem like the perfect person to oversee Maggie’s care. Unfortunately for Maggie, Julia is also a mad scientist. She has for years dreamed of finding a vampire on whom she can try an experimental treatment that will turn him back into a human. Julia quickly recognized Maggie’s condition as a symptom of vampire attacks, and eventually identified Barnabas Collins as the vampire who held Maggie prisoner. She has now met Barnabas and promised to keep Maggie in a state of amnesia so long as he cooperates with her experiments.

Yesterday, the ghost of Barnabas’ nine year old sister Sarah liberated Maggie from Julia’s hospital and transported her back to Collinsport. This had such a great effect on everyone that the show is now in color.

Barnabas goes to the great house of Collinwood and tells Julia that Maggie has come back. He declares that he will have to kill her. Julia forbids him to kill Maggie, on the grounds that doing so would ruin years of her work. Talented a liar as Julia is, she comes up with this so quickly and in such a tense situation that it is hard to believe it is not her true reason for wanting to leave Maggie alive.

Barnabas clarifies the matter further when he says that he will kill Julia first. He follows Julia around the drawing room, apparently thinking of strangling her then and there. She keeps talking, and he can’t resist responding. The telephone rings, and she answers. It is Woodard, calling her to come to his office and take over treatment of Maggie. Julia triumphantly assures Barnabas that once she has done her work, Maggie will never remember what he did to her.

In Woodard’s office, Maggie’s memory is rushing back. She tells her friend Vicki that when she was being held prisoner she spent time in a special room where she smelled a sweet, powerful fragrance and heard a special kind of music. She had told Julia about those sense impressions in a session in #282, and when in #289 Vicki told Julia about a special room in Barnabas’ house where there was a jar of jasmine perfume and an antique music box, Julia had reconstructed Barnabas’ entire plan. When she hinted to Vicki that Barnabas was trying to recreate the late Josette Collins, Vicki had become defensive and stormed off, indicating that Julia is casting an unflattering light on something Vicki has been looking at through a romantic lens.

The camera is tight on Vicki’s face when Maggie mentions the room, the fragrance, and the music. Vicki’s face darkens in response to each point, a little bit more each time. She seizes on the key word of each statement, rephrasing it as a question- “Special room?… Special scent?… Special music?” So far on Dark Shadows, every plot has come to its climax as a result of Vicki figuring out what’s going on. So each of these reactions generates its own little jolt of suspense.

By the time Julia gets there, Maggie is saying that she remembers everything. Julia hustles Woodard out of the room, and is alone with Maggie when Maggie says that Barnabas Collins was her captor. She describes him as a creature from the world of the dead. She allows that this description is difficult to believe, but Julia assures her that she believes everything she tells her. Julia then tells her that they must stabilize her memory so that she will not regress to the miserable state she was in when first they met. She takes out a jeweled medallion and hypnotizes Maggie.

Woodard waits outside his office while Julia works on Maggie. Finally, Julia opens the door and asks if he would like to see the change in her. Woodard eagerly goes into his office.

He asks Maggie how she is. As she answers, she sounds just like she did before she fell into Barnabas’ clutches. She has regained her Adult Child of an Alcoholic habits of advertising her happiness by starting every utterance with a laugh in her voice and putting exaggerated stress on almost every syllable with a rising pitch. She tells him that “Apparently, there was something wrong with my memory, but I’m fine now.” He asks what happened to her when she was gone, and she has no idea what he means. She remembers falling asleep in her own bed, and then she found herself here with Dr Hoffman. If he could just tell her what happened in between, she’s sure she will be just fine.

Woodard is shocked, but Julia flashes a look of glee. She does remember to put on her worried face after Woodard looks at her, but the smile never really leaves her eyes.

Julia suppressing a cackle. Screeenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Julia concerned. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

That Julia was able to achieve so precise and extensive a mutilation of Maggie’s memory in so short a time would suggest that she spent the whole period Maggie was under her care laying the groundwork for it. That would in turn tend to confirm that her only interest in Maggie is as a tool to gain access to Barnabas as a subject for her experiment.

Closing Miscellany

As the opening title sequence begins, an ABC staff announcer says he brings “Good news! This program, Dark Shadows, is now being presented in color.”

Opinions may vary as to how good this news was. In the 1960s and 1970s, most television sets in the USA did not receive in color. So even programming that was made in color had to be composed first to look good in black and white. It took a big budget and a relaxed production schedule to make a show that would also benefit from color, and Dark Shadows never had either of those things. When a sense of atmosphere is especially important, as it usually is early in a storyline, it is best to watch the show with the color turned off.

Still, directors Lela Swift and John Sedwick were ambitious visual artists, and before long there will be some moments when they find ways to turn the muddy, cruddy TV colors of the era to their advantage. The camera operators will learn their craft even more quickly. Today, only a few closeups really meet broadcast standards, while every other shot is badly out of focus. There aren’t many other episodes like that, at least not until the woeful Henry Kaplan becomes one of the directors in December 1968.

This is not only the first color episode, but also the first one where the words “Dark Shadows” swoop and swirl around on the screen during the opening titles. I’m sure that was a very impressive effect in 1967.

When we saw Julia hypnotize Maggie in their sessions in the hospital, she shone a penlight in her eyes. This is the first time she uses the medallion. That is an example of the use of color- the medallion wouldn’t have been anything special in black and white.

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

Episode 242: One of the best men in the field

Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, suffered from an ailment her doctor, Dave Woodard M. D., could not identify. She then vanished from her hospital room in a manner law enforcement, led by Sheriff George Patterson, could not explain. The opening voiceover says that Maggie’s troubles “mystify the finest minds.” This is the first and last time either Woodard or Patterson is classed with “the finest minds” even among the low-functioning characters who abound in the period when Dark Shadows is being written by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein. Well-meaning governess Vicki is still the single smartest character on the show, and she turns into an absolute moron every two or three days.

In the opening teaser, dashing action hero Burke Devlin asks Dr Woodard if his studies of Maggie’s blood samples will help find her. He says that they won’t, but that if he can diagnose her he might be able to help her after she is found. Burke asks if he is about to make a diagnosis. He says that he might be making progress towards that goal. At that point, there is a dramatic musical sting, and we cut to the credits. That’s the hook, a statement that further study is needed.

Dr Woodard tells Burke that he has contacted “Hoffman, one of the best men in the field,” and that he hopes Hoffman will be able to get things moving. Under Burke’s questioning, he admits that he is pessimistic that Hoffman will see anything he has missed. This is the first mention of the name “Hoffman” on Dark Shadows. I believe it is only the second mention* of any surname that is not derived from Irish (as are such names as Collins, Devlin, Malloy, and McGuire,) English (as are names such as Woodard, Patterson, Loomis, Johnson, Stockbridge, and Garner,) Welsh (as are names such as Evans and Morgan,) Scottish (as are the names Adair and Murdoch,) or French (as are the names La Freniere, Bilodeau, and du Près.)** It is certainly the first name we have heard that suggests there might be Jewish people in the universe of Dark Shadows.

We then cut to the study in great house of Collinwood, where high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins has to confront his sister, reclusive matriarch Liz. The auditors have told Roger that the books are out of balance at the family business. Roger knows that the reason for this is that Liz is giving money to buy the silence of seagoing con man Jason McGuire. He reminds Liz that he himself was afraid of blackmail for the first 40 weeks of the show, so he knows from personal experience that it is no way to live. Liz refuses Roger’s plea that she tell him her secret. As he probes and she resists, they move around the room at times like fencers, at times like dancers performing a paso doble. Their movements are easily the most interesting element of the episode, a credit to director John Sedwick.

Roger’s first approach to the shielded Liz

Roger admits that he hasn’t been much help to Liz over the years, but begs her to let him help her now. Liz won’t tell him anything, but she is touched to see her bratty brother sincerely trying to step up.

Liz goes to the drawing room. The camera is behind her as she approaches the room. Jason is standing at the fireplace under the large portrait, the spot furthest from the camera. Not only does he look as small as possible, but at the moment we first see him he is turned away from us, his head tilted far back as he takes a drink. Jason’s smallness and obscurity, coming so soon after Roger’s speech about the dreariness of blackmail, feels like an acknowledgment that Jason doesn’t have much to offer the audience.***

Liz tells Jason she can’t give him any more money without blowing the secret they share. He amazes her by accepting this information calmly, but she is sure he is not done tormenting her.

Liz returns to the study, where Roger is still sitting. She tells him that she has talked to the auditor and straightened out the books. That sounds like something that would take quite a while, even if you are sitting across from each other, and Liz and the auditor had to do it over the telephone. So how long has Roger been sitting there?

Then we rejoin Burke and Woodard in the doctor’s office, which someone has ransacked. The perpetrator wrenched the metal bars out of the window and stole Maggie’s blood samples. Dr Woodard says that the only way the bars could have been twisted was by someone with the “supernatural strength of madness.” I’m not an expert in mental health, but that does not sound like a conventional psychiatric opinion to me.

*After Lieutenant Costa of the Arizona State Police, whom we saw when Dark Shadows took us to Phoenix in #174.

**It is pretty weird that a show set in Maine has so few French-surnamed characters. We’ve only heard of one working-class Mainer with a French name, Amos Bilodeau. La Freniere was given in #45 as the maiden name of Josette, a grand lady who came from France to marry into the Collins family in a previous century; eventually, Josette’s birth name will be retconned to du Près.

***My wife, Mrs Acilius, was the one who really noticed the visual strategy both in Liz and Roger’s first scene in the study and in Liz’ entry into the drawing room.

Episode 211: He pretended to be someone he wasn’t

The opening voiceover complains about “a frightening and violent man.” We then see a fellow with a crazed look on his face trying to break into a coffin. Assuming that he is the frightening and violent man, a first time viewer might not be especially upset when a hand darts from the coffin and chokes him, even though something like that can’t be altogether a good sign.

At a mansion identified as the great house of Collinwood, an aristocratic lady is demanding that a man in a captain’s hat account for the whereabouts of someone called Willie. The man answers to the name of Jason and calls the lady Liz. Liz has had all she can take of Willie, whoever he might be, and is not at all happy that Willie’s things are still in her house. Jason does a lot of fast talking, but cannot satisfy Liz either that Willie is really leaving or that he himself does not know where Willie is.

Jason talks with the housekeeper, a woman named Mrs Johnson. He asks her a series of questions about what she knows about Willie and she asks why he wants to know. Even though Mrs Johnson was in the room when Liz was insisting that Jason find Willie and get rid of him, for some unaccountable reason he will not tell her that he is looking for Willie.

Despite Jason’s inexplicable reticence, Mrs Johnson does tell him that Willie was preoccupied with the portrait of an eighteenth century figure named Barnabas Collins, that he was also interested in a legend that another eighteenth century personage, someone named Naomi Collins, was buried with a fortune in jewels, that Naomi Collins is buried in a tomb in a cemetery five miles north of town, and that the night before she saw Willie hanging around the toolshed. Returning viewers will recall that in yesterday’s episode, well-meaning governess Vicki had also told Jason that she had seen Willie in the vicinity of the toolshed, carrying a bag. There doesn’t seem to be a television set in the house, so everyone spends the evenings looking out the windows at the toolshed.

We see a cemetery. It soon becomes clear that it is the same cemetery we saw in the opening teaser. The gate of the tomb in which the frightening and violent man did his sinister work is swinging in the breeze. An old man in a three piece suit and celluloid collar comes upon it. He shows alarm and mutters that he can feel evil in the air.

Jason arrives at the cemetery and meets the old man. Jason says that he is looking for a friend of his, a young man. The old man identifies himself as the caretaker of the cemetery and laments the fact that a young man meeting the description Jason gives was there last night and broke the lock on the gate to the tomb. A first-time viewer’s suspicion that Willie and the frightening and violent man from the teaser are one and the same finds confirmation.

The caretaker can’t believe that Jason is unable to sense the palpable evil that emanates from the tomb. Jason overcomes the caretaker’s attempts to keep him out and makes his way into the tomb. The caretaker keeps warning Jason of the perceptible evil and Jason keeps failing to perceive it. Jason does find a cigarette on the edge of a casket in the tomb, and in closeup gives a look that can only be his recognition of a trace of Willie’s presence.

Jason returns to the great house. Liz is exasperated that he still can’t tell her where Willie is, and Mrs Johnson is irritated he doesn’t put his hat and coat where they belong. After Jason and Liz have left her alone in the foyer, Mrs Johnson takes Jason’s things to the coat closet.

We see Mrs Johnson fussing with the hat and coat from inside the coat closet, an unusual perspective that has in the past been used during shots when characters have stumbled onto important evidence about whatever mystery they were puzzling over at the moment. The shot goes on long enough to lead us to wonder if Mrs Johnson is about to find something important. My wife, Mrs Acilius, mentions that each time she has seen this shot she expected Mrs Johnson to find Willie’s cigarette in Jason’s pocket and to recognize it.

That expectation is thwarted when there comes a knock at the door. Mrs Johnson answers and greets the visitor.

The next shot is from the perspective of the visitor. We see a look of astonishment on Mrs Johnson’s face as a man in a fedora and an overcoat asks to be announced to “the mistress of this house, Mrs Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.” He identifies himself as Mrs Stoddard’s cousin from England. Mrs Johnson invites the man in. He hastens across the threshold.

We cut back to the interior, and see the man and Mrs Johnson facing each other. As she bustles up the stairs, the camera tracks around to show him standing next to the portrait of Barnabas Collins, a portrait he resembles strongly. He says, “Oh, madam! If you would, you may tell her that it is Barnabas Collins.”

For regular viewers, it is refreshing to see Jason on the defensive. Ten times in the first eight episodes where they appeared together, he and Liz had a conversation in which he made a demand of her, she resisted, he threatened to expose her terrible secret, and she capitulated. Today is the second episode in which they have interacted without reenacting this drab ritual. Liz is driving the action, Jason is thinking fast, and they are each in their element. For a first time viewer wondering about the hand that came out of the coffin, it’s a lot of filler, but for those of us who have been suffering through the tedium of the blackmail plot it is a fun change of pace.

Regular viewers will also be glad to see the return of the caretaker. He appeared four times* in the storyline of Laura Murdoch Collins, the humanoid Phoenix, and managed to be simultaneously eerie and funny. His catchphrases “Died by fire!” and “The dead must rest!” are all it takes to make Mrs Acilius laugh out loud. His return in #209 moved Patrick McCray to label him a refugee from the EC comics universe, and in my post about that episode I pointed to a shot that looks so much like a panel from an EC comic book that I wonder if the similarity might have been intentional.

While first time viewers may be confused or impatient with the caretaker’s oft-repeated attempts to alert Jason to the nimbus of evil that hangs in the air around him, regular viewers know that the caretaker is the one who understands the show he is on. Jason thinks that he’s on a noir crime drama, and indeed there had been a period when Dark Shadows just about met that description.

But for months now, all the action has been pointing towards the supernatural back-world behind the visible setting. Jason’s own storyline was introduced the very day Laura’s ended, and it is a means for wrapping up all the non-supernatural narrative elements still lying around. Jason’s insensibility to the evil in the tomb is not only a sign that he is himself too corrupt to tell the difference between a wholesome space and a cursed one, but also that he doesn’t fit into the genre where Dark Shadows will be from now on. The audience in 1967 wouldn’t have known that actor Dennis Patrick always insisted on fixing a date for his departure when he joined the cast of a daytime soap, but this scene should give them a strong indication that Jason McGuire is not to be with us indefinitely.

Patrick McCray’s commentary on this episode includes an analysis of director John Sedwick’s visual strategy in the last two shots, those in which Jonathan Frid first appears as Barnabas Collins. McCray confines himself to the first thing photography students are usually taught, the “Rule of Thirds.” But that’s all it takes to get us to look closely at the imagery and to see how Sedwick tells his story with pictures:

Two clear and subtly clever images with a bridge. His introduction comes from his own perspective, rather than Mrs. Johnson’s. It’s an exterior shot of the entrance, looking in.

The grid helps us divide the image. People in the west read from left to right, and tend to circle in our gaze back to the left. Sedwick uses this model of composition in all three shots. In image 1, we see someone — him? — through the eyes of Mrs. Johnson as the camera hangs over his shoulder, minimizing her (1.1). Why is she so transfixed? We follow her gaze up to the towering figure (1.2). Following the slope of his collar, we come back to Mrs. Johnson… specifically, her throat (1.3). After that, we circle back up to her gaze, even more worried. For what reason?

Then he enters with purpose, and we next see him again from the back, divesting himself of his cane and hat, getting a glimpse of his strangely antique cloak. His voice is rich with a uniquely tentative sense of authority. We still don’t see his face, just bits of his profile. These moments tease us, and yet they put us in the position of a confidant of the vampire’s. The composition mirrors what we saw outside. Within, Mrs. Johnson (2.1) is minimized, and the turn in the figure shows him looming, ready to pounce. Again, we begin with her, following her gaze from left to right. The mystery of what bedevils her, bedevils us, as well. The man towers (2.2) in the right, blocking the exit. Instead of following a sloping collar, we follow its larger, expanding offspring in the cape, which takes us circling to the left again where we stop on the poor, miniscule shield of his hat and then, like a wolf pulling her away, his feral looking cane (2.3).

Situated so close to the predator, with his gaze elsewhere, we have a strange safety. We don’t see him from the eyes of his prey. Instead, we are a quietly unacknowledged friend. Finally, as Mrs. Johnson goes to summon Elizabeth, the figure turns to face the portrait, rotating upstage to let us see him from profile to profile. As she exits, and we are alone with him, the chiseled face comes into focus from the side. It is alien. It is familiar. We think we know why, but then we see why. They are only face to face for a moment before the camera takes us away from him and uncomfortably close to the painting from 1795, cold and haughty and haggard and sad. He then steps even uncomfortably closer to it and spins to give his inevitable name. We see the two men in mutual relief.

The painting of Barnabas is a prisoner in a four-sided frame on the wall, disapproving and distant as the first thing our eyes rest on (3.1). Is the painting gazing at the man? No. The more we look, the more the painting is gazing at us, as if we’ve been caught looking. It’s natural to avert our eyes from this, and by comparison, section 3.2 is practically benevolent. His impossible doppelganger is standing before it in three dimensions on our 2D screen. Liberated, he smiles, and there is something optimistic about it. He’s gazing upward to the landing, yes, but it’s also to the future. Gazing left, he’s anticipating the next image rather than look for one that has passed. Subtly, our eyes wander down to 3.3, his medal, a subtle reminder that, despite his strange warmth, he’s a soldier as well, and a force to be reckoned with.
Patrick McCray, “The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 14,” from The Collinsport Historical Society, 14 April 2017

*In episodes 154, 157, 179, and 180

Episode 161: Something in the atmosphere

This episode consists entirely of conversations in which the characters recap events we have already seen. To the extent that it has a point, it is that while flighty heiress Carolyn seems to be in charge of the house, well-meaning governess Vicki actually is. Vicki made her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, take the idea of the supernatural seriously enough to call in an expert on the subject, Dr Peter Guthrie of Dartmouth College. Vicki then made Dr Guthrie agree to conceal from everyone else information he would normally share freely. She has made Carolyn go along with Dr Guthrie’s activities. Today, Carolyn’s uncle, high-born ne’er-do-well, Roger, asks Carolyn about Dr Guthrie. Carolyn tells Roger that it was her idea to call Dr Guthrie in. She directs Roger to cooperate with Dr Guthrie, not mentioning Vicki, but invoking the authority her ailing mother, reclusive matriarch Liz, has entrusted to her.

To explain how the performances and the visual composition keep it from being excruciatingly dull, you’d have to go over the whole thing frame by frame and analyze each of hundreds of decisions the actors and director made that held the episode together. Impressive as their efforts were, the result is far from exciting. So even if I had the expertise to provide that kind of commentary, I would not for a moment consider doing it.

One thing I will mention is that we see a lot of the kitchen at Collinwood in this episode. Usually this set is one where the characters exchange story-productive information. No such information is exchanged today. The scenes play out in a way to soften that disappointment for us.

The kitchen is typically a small space where the characters share a meal, giving rise to a natural intimacy. There’s no meal today- Vicki and Carolyn are sitting in front of the coffee things, but it isn’t until Dr Guthrie enters that it becomes clear that there is any coffee. There certainly isn’t any food to be had. Nor does the space seem particularly small. The plants are as extravagant as we ever see them, creating a sense of luxuriant growth. In the course of her conversation with Vicki, Carolyn manages to move around the room so much that she gives us the feeling of a large space. Even for someone as short as Nancy Barrett, there are very few patterns of movement that can leave us with that impression. She and the director* worked out one such pattern, and she executes it flawlessly.

*There seems to be some question as to who directed this episode. John Sedwick has the credit on screen, but the Dark Shadows wiki says it was Lela Swift. Sometimes the wiki is edited by people who have seen the original paperwork from the making of the show, so occasionally it is right and the credits are wrong.

Episode 142: Firelight is not for looking closely

A few times in the early months of Dark Shadows, writers Art Wallace and Francis Swann found themselves in a corner. The story could move forward only if a character took a particular action, but they couldn’t come up with a reason to explain why any character would take that action. So they had the character do whatever it was simply because it was in the script, and hoped the actors or director or somebody would come up with sleight of hand to conceal their desperation.

Since well-meaning governess Vicki was on screen more than anyone else, she was the one most often required to behave without motivation. Sometimes, Alexandra Moltke Isles finds a way to make Vicki’s behavior intelligible in spite of the writers. The scenes in which Vicki tries to befriend her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins, are Dark Shadows‘ premier example of good acting trumping bad writing, and there are smaller examples as well. But there are three times in the Wallace/ Swann era- in episodes 26, 38, and 83– when Vicki simply looks like an idiot. This “Dumb Vicki” will appear more and more often as the series goes on, and will eventually ruin the character and do grave damage to the show.

Some weeks ago, Wallace and Swann were succeeded as the principal writers of the show by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein. Sproat was a cut below Wallace and Swann, and Marmorstein was far less talented even than Sproat. Today, we get a succession of Dumb Vicki moments resulting from basic incompetence on Marmorstein’s part.

Vicki is visiting her friend Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. Maggie has shown her a canvas that her father, drunken artist Sam, was possessed by an unexplained force to paint. Sam hates the painting and is surprised as he watches it take shape under his brush, but is powerless to stop working on it. It depicts Laura Collins, mother of David. Laura is shown as a winged figure, nude and engulfed in flames.

Sam has had several scenes in which he was shown in closeup delivering speeches about his hatred for the painting and going through convulsions while spooky music plays on the soundtrack. He has also had scenes with Maggie and with Laura’s husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, in which he tries to explain what is going on with him and the painting. Yesterday, Maggie recapped much of this to Vicki, sharing the suspicion that Laura is somehow responsible for Sam’s compulsion to paint the picture. Since the show has also given us loads of hints that Laura is connected to the supernatural, this all adds up to a very heavy-handed way of telling the audience that Sam is possessed.

Once you can say that your characters are possessed by unseen spirits, you get a lot of extra latitude as to what constitutes motivation. Once they have shown us that he is possessed, all we need to know about Sam for his actions to make sense is that he has some kind of connection to Laura and that Laura has some connection to the supernatural. The results of the possession hold our interest as we compare them with other events in the story and look for a pattern we can fit them into.

As far as the supernatural beings responsible for the possession go, we don’t need much information at all about their motivation. Far less than for human characters. Most audiences have more or less definite ideas as to what human beings are and what makes them do the things they do. We’re more flexible as to what supernatural beings are, and are willing to spend a long time searching for coherence hidden in story elements that don’t seem to have a logical connection once we have seen that there are uncanny forces in operation.

To get the benefit of that audience participation, a writer does have to show that supernatural forces are at work. Today, Vicki seems to be possessed, but there is no scene showing us that this has happened. Vicki looks at the painting and says she wants it. Asked why, she says she doesn’t know. Nothing she says makes much sense, or much impression.

Three seconds of Vicki staring at the painting while we hear a theremin cue on the soundtrack would have sufficed to tell us that she was falling under a spell. Not only don’t we get that, Mrs Isles never gets a chance to show us what is happening to Vicki. When Vicki first looked at the painting, she was partially obscured, standing behind Maggie; examining it later, she has her back to the camera. During her dialogue with the loudly agitated Sam, only a few brief shots focus on her. Sam gives Vicki the painting. When Maggie says she wonders how Laura will react when Vicki brings the painting into the house, Vicki mumbles that she doesn’t know.

Vicki struck dumb. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Had we seen Vicki falling under the spell, the result could have been a powerful moment. As a supernatural storyline goes on, the mysterious forces behind it spread their influence from one character to another. The first moment in this one when we could see that sort of contagion at work is when the powers that have been controlling Sam take hold of Vicki. To hide that moment from us is to hide the whole development of the narrative arc.

Moreover, that this particular development takes place on this set among these characters is quite significant. When Vicki and Maggie first met, Maggie told her that she was a jerk for taking a job at the great house of Collinwood. She told Vicki that Collinwood was a source of trouble for the town of Collinsport. As the weeks went on, Maggie and other Collinsport natives made it clear that a big part of that trouble comes from the ghosts and ghoulies that are housed in Collinwood and that threaten to break out and take over the town. This will indeed become the major theme of the show in the years ahead.

Now Vicki has lived in Collinwood for over six months, and the only ghosts she has seen are the friendly, protective spirits of Josette Collins and beloved local man Bill Malloy. The first time a supernatural being does something frightening to Vicki is in the town of Collinsport, in Maggie’s own house.

Indeed, the Phoenix storyline is the only one in the whole series to invert the usual pattern of Collinwood as hell-mouth and Collinsport as a beleaguered outpost of normality. There are other storylines where evil powers came from far away, from across the sea or from another dimension, and settled in Collinwood before spreading out to threaten Collinsport, but in this story the source of the disturbance is Laura. While she may tell David in episode 140 that she comes from one of the realms described in the legends of the Holy Grail, that origin applies only to her uncanny side. When Laura first came to town, she had told Maggie that she was originally from Collinsport, and in episode 130, Laura’s estranged husband Roger, and Roger’s sister, reclusive matriarch Liz, had mentioned that Laura’s family had moved away from town.

The episode also leaves us on our own trying to figure out what Vicki is thinking. Regular viewers might take some time during the commercial break to puzzle it out, put it in the context of what we’ve seen previously, and wonder if Vicki is in a stupor because she too is possessed. That might help us to get through the rest of the episode, but if we are to feel a live connection to the character we have to understand what she is feeling while we are watching her. A theory we come up with after the fact is no substitute for empathy we experience during the scene. And of course people tuning in to Dark Shadows for the first time will simply think that Vicki is some kind of idiot.

Many fans of Dark Shadows, especially those who haven’t seen the first 42 weeks of the show or who didn’t see them until later episodes had given them fixed impressions, blame Alexandra Moltke Isles’ acting for Dumb Vicki. But today’s scene in the Evans cottage shows how deeply unfair that is. If an actor doesn’t have lines to deliver, she can’t use her voice to create a character. If the camera isn’t pointed at her, her body language is no use. And if the director is telling her to play the scene quietly while the others are going over the top, she’s likely to fade into the background. Without even a musical sting on the soundtrack to support her, there is nothing Mrs Isles could have done to communicate to the audience what Vicki is going through in this scene.

It is easy for me to denounce Malcolm Marmorstein, since his scripts are so often so bad. I am reluctant to place a share of the blame on director John Sedwick, since I am always impressed with Sedwick’s visual style and usually with his deployment of actors. But I can’t believe anyone would have stopped him pointing a camera at Mrs Isles at the appropriate moment, giving her a chance to play her part.

Back at the great house of Collinwood, David and Laura are sitting by the fire. David asks his mother about her old boyfriends. He wants to know if she ever dated dashing action hero Burke Devlin. She admits that she did. When David lets on that he wishes Burke, rather than Roger, were his father, Laura squirms. We’ve had a number of indications that Burke might in fact be David’s biological father, and Laura is alarmed that David is raising the topic.

The front door opens, and David and Laura are glad to see their friend Vicki. They are intrigued by the package Vicki is carrying. David begs to see what’s inside. Laura, in a light and cheerful voice, tells him that if Vicki wanted him to see it, she would have shown it to them. He continues to beg. Vicki says “All right!,” and unveils it. When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius exclaimed “All right!?,” appalled at Vicki’s nonsensical decision to yield to David’s pleas despite the cover Laura was giving her. Again, the idea that Vicki’s weird decisions and vague, distracted manner might be symptoms of possession was somewhere in our minds, but since nothing had been shown to give direct support to that idea our emotional reaction suited a Dumb Vicki moment.

As Maggie had suggested she might be, Laura is horrified to see herself depicted in this fiery image. David is thrilled- he had been plagued by a recurring nightmare, one he had described in detail to the deeply concerned Vicki, in which his mother stood in a sea of flames and beckoned him to join her. He asks how Sam knew about his dream- did he have the same dream? Vicki mumbles that he didn’t, that he didn’t know anything about the dream or even why he was painting the picture. The audience may have wondered why Vicki didn’t remember the dream until now- the explanation that fits best with the story is that she has been possessed by the same spirit that possessed Sam, but with so little attention given to Vicki as she was reacting to the painting some very insightful critics have taken it as another Dumb Vicki moment.

David points to a white space in the painting, one the shape of his own head, and asks what goes there. Vicki mumbles that she doesn’t know, and that Sam himself didn’t know. David is delighted with the painting and wants to hang it in his room. He asks Vicki to give it to him. Vicki tells him that his mother will have to rule on that question. Laura hates the painting and tries to talk David out of hanging it, but he is nothing deterred. She finally caves in.

While David goes upstairs with the painting, Laura asks Vicki what she was thinking bringing such a terrible thing into the house. Vicki says she doesn’t know- something just came over her. That goes to show that the writer wanted us to think that Vicki was possessed, which in turn makes it all the more exasperating that he didn’t let us in on it at the appropriate time. The fact that we know the writer wants us to have a reaction doesn’t mean that we actually have it. Confusion pushes people away from a story, and merely intellectual explanations offered after the fact don’t draw us back in.

Vicki, seeming to regain some of her brainpower, goes to David’s room and tries to talk him out of keeping the painting. He dismisses her concerns immediately, without even changing his delighted manner, and hangs it on his wall. Looking at it, Vicki admits that it looks like it belongs there.

Laura enters, and tells David she has changed her mind. She thinks it would be bad for him to have such an image on display, and asks him to get rid of the painting. David responds by threatening never to speak to her again. Laura has just been reunited with David after years of separation, and his initial reaction to her return was confused and traumatic. So it is understandable that she capitulates to this extortion.

It is more surprising that Vicki responds by turning away and wringing her hands after Laura leaves. Usually Vicki scolds David after he is nasty to people, and she has been on a particular mission to break down the barriers between him and his mother. If it were clear that Vicki was under the influence of a spirit and was not herself, this uncharacteristically diffident response might have carried a dramatic punch, at least for regular viewers. As it is, it slides past as yet another Dumb Vicki moment.

Back in the Evans cottage, Sam comes back from his usual night of drinking at the local tavern. Maggie is infinitely weary of her father’s alcoholism, but does smile to hear him reciting poetry and talking about a seascape he is planning to paint. At least he’s happy. Sam goes to his easel to start that seascape, only to recoil as he realizes that he is in fact painting another version of the picture of Laura in flames.

David is asleep in his room. The painting starts to glow. Then Laura’s painted likeness is replaced with a video insert of her face. The insert grows and grows, and David screams for it to stay away.

Night-time visitor. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Maggie’s suspicion that Laura is behind the portrait fits with the many signs the show has given us of Laura’s uncanny nature. Laura’s reaction when Vicki brings the painting home, though, shows us that what has been happening to Sam does not serve Laura’s interests, any more than David’s nightmare did.

I think there are three possible explanations for the origin of the compulsion Sam had to paint the picture, the compulsion Vicki had to claim it, and David’s nocturnal disturbances. It could be that by exposing David time and again to the image of him following her into flames, Laura is gradually wearing down David’s resistance to a horrible idea that will lead to his destruction. In support of this interpretation, we remember the first night Laura was at Collinwood. She was calling David’s name in a quiet voice at the window of her cottage, far from the great house. Yet the sound of her voice penetrated David’s mind as he slept. He writhed on his bed, and went into the nightmare. Laura’s objection to the painting militates against this explanation.

When we were watching the episode, Mrs Acilius suggested a second reading. There might be a lot to Laura. Maybe in addition to the physical presence in the house that wants David to come away with her, there is also a ghostly presence that wants to warn him and everyone else of the danger that implies. That interpretation would fit with David’s sighting, the night Laura first came to the house, of a flickering image on the lawn that looked like Laura. David longed for that Laura to come to him, but reacted with terror when he saw the fleshly Laura in the drawing room. Perhaps there are two of her, and one is trying to protect David from the other. It is also possible that the two Lauras are not aware of each other, or even fully aware of themselves. So this interpretation is easier to reconcile with apparently contradictory evidence.

Vicki’s involvement suggests a third possibility. The ghost of Josette Collins appeared to her and comforted her in episode 126, and an eerie glow had emanated from the portrait of Josette when David left Laura alone in the Old House yesterday. Laura was alarmed to hear that David was interested in the ghosts of Collinwood, had not wanted to go to the Old House, and lies to David when he asks if he saw any sign of Josette’s presence. Perhaps Josette is intervening to thwart Laura’s plans, and it is her power that is benumbing Vicki today. Josette’s previous interventions have been intermittent and subtle, suggesting that it is difficult for her to reach the world of the living. So if she is preparing for a showdown with Laura, we might it expect it to take her some time to recruit her strength.

Again, this is the kind of search for patterns that an audience will gladly go into once you’ve let them know that there are supernatural forces at work in your story. Since Josette has been in the background of the show from week one, has appeared repeatedly, has a set devoted to her in the Old House, and has established connections with both Vicki and David, we might expect her to be the first of the uncanny presences we think of when we enter a supernatural storyline. That she is a tutelary spirit presiding over Collinwood brings it into sharp focus that the estate is under assault from a supernatural force emanating from the town of Collinsport. Today’s failure with Vicki kicks Josette’s ghost out of the spotlight, and that is one of the major faults with the episode.

Episode 105: Concrete evidence

Dashing action hero Burke Devlin visits the sheriff in his office. He brings the sheriff up to date on the recent threats well-meaning governess Vicki has faced. He also tells the sheriff that Vicki had found a pen belonging to Burke on a beach, and that he thinks that high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins dropped the pen there while murdering beloved local man Bill Malloy. Burke also thinks that Roger is the one who has been menacing Vicki. He asks the sheriff if he will play along with a scheme that might put some “concrete evidence” behind his beliefs.

In the great house of Collinwood, Roger faces a series of very sharply pointed questions about Vicki’s problems from his sister, reclusive matriarch Liz. He denies everything, including things Liz can prove to be true. He tries to say that Vicki is untrustworthy because she claims to have seen a ghost dripping wet seaweed on the floor in the west wing of the house. Liz reminds Roger that they investigated that claim, and found the wet seaweed just where Vicki said it would be.

The sheriff and Burke show up at the house. In the mood established by their conversation, Liz and Roger are left feeling trapped and small, as this shot none-too-subtly shows:

Collinsport Gothic. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

The sheriff asks to see Vicki. Liz explains that she gave her a sedative and sent her to bed. He then questions Roger and Liz about the stories Burke has told. Liz downplays Vicki’s experiences; Roger makes another attempt to sell the idea that Vicki is nuts because she claims to have seen a ghost. When Burke brings up the topic of the pen, Liz is at a loss- it is the first she has heard of it. Roger tries to brazen it out. When Burke produces a pen identical to the one Vicki found, he flails and finally denies that the pens are at all alike. The sheriff asks Liz to send both Vicki and flighty heiress Carolyn to his office first thing in the morning to examine the pen.

Liz tells Roger that she is confident Carolyn and Vicki will tell the sheriff the truth. When he tells her he needs time to think, she replies that he doesn’t need any time to think of more lies. He declares that there is something he must attend to immediately, and rushes out of the house. Liz watches her little brother leave the house, frustrated in her attempts first to correct his behavior, then to shield him from its consequences.

Roger goes to the peak of Widow’s Hill. He had stolen the pen Vicki found and buried it under a rock there. He digs it up. As he looks at it, Burke and the sheriff appear and thank him for saving them a lot of trouble.

Art Wallace’s original story bible for Dark Shadows had called for Roger to have his final scene on this spot. Vicki was to have found evidence that would send Roger to prison, he was to attempt to kill her by throwing her off the peak of Widow’s Hill. She would avoid that fate when Roger instead went over the cliff himself. As it has worked out, Louis Edmonds is too appealing an actor to lose. So Roger stays on the show as a suspect in an investigation, perhaps as a defendant in a trial. It won’t be the last time Dark Shadows extends an attractive villain’s stay on the show by playing out different events on the set where his story was originally meant to end.