laura murdoch collins – Page 2 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 740: A doll without pins in it. How unusual.

Laura Murdoch Collins, estranged wife of the stuffy Edward, is settling into the cottage on the estate of Collinwood. Broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi is acting as her servant. Laura talks quite openly with Magda about Edward’s rakish brother Quentin. When Quentin was banished from Collinwood the year before, that is to say in 1896, Laura followed him to Alexandria, Egypt. That occasioned her estrangement from Edward.

Laura knows that Quentin uses the cottage for rendezvous with the various women in his life, and has Magda go through the place looking for things of his to box up and send to him. They find a doll and a deck of tarot cards; Laura tells Magda that no one knows how thoroughly Quentin is obsessed with the occult. Magda is an expert tarot reader, and Laura asks her to read the cards for her.

Magda lays out the cards, and they keep indicating death. Laura is initially distressed by this, but brightens at the thought that they might mean that Quentin will soon die. When Magda says that the death to which the cards pertain is one that has already taken place, Laura loses all patience and dashes the cards from the table. We know that Laura is an undead fire witch who periodically incinerates herself and reemerges as a humanoid Phoenix, and so it would seem that she is upset that the cards are confirming Quentin’s story that he saw her burn to death the previous year in Alexandria.

A recently arrived, quite distant cousin of Edward’s, the mysterious Barnabas Collins, comes calling on Laura. Barnabas has come with a present. Laura at first believes that this means that her evening has taken a turn for the better, and tells Barnabas that she is glad to think they might become friends. When she unwraps the present and finds an eighteenth century oil painting that appears to be a portrait of her, she is caught off guard. She at first acknowledges the resemblance, saying that she might have sat for it herself; Barnabas agrees that she might have. When she tries to backtrack and asks Magda if her chin looks like the one in the portrait, Magda replies “They look the same to me.” After Barnabas leaves, Laura orders Magda to put the portrait in a closet.

We know that Barnabas is a vampire, who has traveled back in time to 1897 to prevent Quentin from dying and becoming a ghost who will ruin things for everyone at Collinwood in 1969. We also know that he was acquainted with Laura in the eighteenth century, when he was alive. In the early part of the episode, Magda reproached Barnabas with his carelessness, telling him he must want people to know about him. Showing Laura the portrait would seem to prove that Magda was right. It serves no purpose but to arouse her suspicions. All the more so since Barnabas’ own eighteenth century portrait hangs in the foyer of the great house at Collinwood. He has used it as evidence that he is a descendant of an ancient member of the family, and Laura has apparently accepted it as such. But now that he has confronted her with her own portrait from the same epoch, she has every reason to search for another explanation.

Laura was Dark Shadows‘ first supernatural menace, from December 1966 to March 1967. In those days a lot of details were established about her previous incarnations, many of which they have been retconning away with some violence over the last few episodes. We learned then that in each of her appearances, Laura’s maiden name was Murdoch. It is confirmed today that when Edward met her she was Laura Murdoch. We also learned then that in the eighteenth century Laura Murdoch married into the Stockbridge family, one of the most prominent in the area, and that she and her young son David Stockbridge died (by fire!) in 1767. We saw her tomb in a crypt belonging to the Stockbridges and still maintained, two centuries later, by an old caretaker.

Today, Barnabas and his blood thrall, Magda’s husband Sandor, go to the same set. But it does not represent a freestanding building, nor does it have a staff. It is in the basement of “the old meeting house.” And the stone panel sealing Laura’s tomb is quite different. The one we saw in #154 and #157 read “Here Lyes Buried The Body Of L. Murdoch Stockbridge, Born 1735, Died 1767.” Just the initial L because, as the Caretaker explained repeatedly, “The Stockbridges cared nothing for first names!” But this panel is inscribed “In Memory of Laura Stockbridge Collins, Who died in 1785.” The name “Collins” is because the show has neglected to develop any other elites in the Collinsport area, so if Laura is going to keep coming back and marrying into a leading family, she’s going to have to pick a Collins every time.

From #154. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die (picture quality modified for easier reading.)

From today’s episode. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The date 1785 is just mystifying. Barnabas said yesterday that he was ten when Laura came along. In November 1968 we flashed back to the year 1795, when he was still human. Actor Jonathan Frid was just about to celebrate his 43rd birthday at that time; if Barnabas is the same age as his player, he would therefore have been born in 1752. That would make him 15 in 1767. That would give him five years to have known Laura before she took her son with her into the flames. It would also be plausible that she would not have been startled when she met Barnabas Wednesday, seeing only the resemblance to the person whom he claims was his ancestor. But if he were born in 1752 and she lived until 1785, she would certainly have realized she was looking at the same person.

It seems that the show really wants us to think that Barnabas was in his twenties in 1795. Of course life was hard back then, but the 43 year old Jonathan Frid was not going to pass for any age much less than his own.

Barnabas orders Sandor to open the wall. In the cottage, Laura can hear the chisel tapping at the stone. Magda can hear nothing. Barnabas orders Sandor to open the coffin; Laura rushes out of the cottage, leaving a bewildered Magda behind. Laura reacted when they messed with her tomb in 1967 as well, so they’ve preserved that much of the continuity, at least.

Episode 739: No one’s daughter

Well-meaning time traveler/ bloodsucking ghoul Barnabas Collins has met Laura Murdoch Collins in 1897, and has recognized her as the Laura Murdoch Stockbridge he knew when he was a ten year old boy in 1767. The audience knows that she is also the Laura Murdoch Radcliffe of 1867, and the Laura Murdoch Collins who was on Dark Shadows as its first supernatural menace from December 1966 to March 1967. We learned in that period that Laura is an undead blonde fire witch who incinerates herself and a young son of hers named David at intervals of exactly one hundred years so that she- but not the Davids- will rise from the ashes as a humanoid Phoenix.

We have already seen two major retcons of Laura’s story as it was told in 1966-1967. The precise regularity of her one hundred year cycle was stressed heavily in those days; it was not only the central piece of evidence that led the other characters to figure out what was going on and rise up against her, but was also the first instance of Dark Shadows using anniversaries as a way of creating suspense when the supernatural elements of the story meant that the usual patterns of cause and effect did not apply. Laura’s presence in 1897, thirty years off her established cycle, tosses all of that into a cocked hat.

Moreover, her identity as the wife of stuffy Edward Collins and mother of twelve year old Jamison and nine year old Nora Collins is also incompatible with the previous story. The Stockbridges were supposed to have been, in their day, among the most prominent families in the part of Maine where the great estate of Collinwood sits. But the fire in which Laura and David Stockbridge went up in smoke occurred two hundred years before. In the USA, that is a long enough interval for anything to be forgotten. Laura and David Radcliffe met their demise only half as long before, but the Radcliffes do not seem to have been quite as well-known or as close geographically to Collinwood as were the Stockbridges. So we could believe that when the twentieth century Laura Murdoch showed up in Collinsport in the 1940s or early 1950s, no one there would have remembered her namesakes. But we saw in #684 and #685 that there were still elderly people around Collinsport in the late 1960s who remembered 1897 quite well. And Jamison was himself the father of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and Roger Collins, the adults at Collinwood in the 1960s. It is not plausible that no one would have said anything when in 1956 Roger, the only son of the family that owns the town, married a woman named Laura Murdoch who was the exact double of his grandmother who was also named Laura Murdoch.

The show doubles down on that implausibility today, when Barnabas summons his blood thrall Charity Trask to look at a portrait he has found in the Old House at Collinwood. It shows Laura Stockbridge, and is a perfect match for the Laura they have met. Barnabas says that Laura was the first wife of his uncle Jeremiah, and that he himself was ten years old when she came to Collinwood.

Barnabas shows Charity the portrait of Laura Stockbridge. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This gives us a Laura who does not marry into various leading families of the region, but into the Collinses over and again. That makes a kind of sense- the show has not developed any other leading families, not even as characters who are only mentioned but never appear. The Collinses now make up the entire local upper class. In #474, permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman called the Collinses “a very inbred family”; I don’t think she meant that in quite the sense which this new version of Laura is giving it, but as they move towards a dramatis personae that is all-Collins all the time there’s no escaping it.

It also represents a reverse retcon. When Barnabas talked about Jeremiah in his first months on the show, he said that when he was a young man Jeremiah was an old one, and that Jeremiah’s beautiful young wife fell in love with him. But when from November 1967 to March 1968 Dark Shadows became a costume drama set in the 1790s, we saw that Barnabas and Jeremiah, though nephew and uncle, were virtually the same age. With Jeremiah marrying Laura when Barnabas was ten, we return to the previous conception of their ages.

Barnabas’ first conversation about Laura today with Charity is interrupted when another undead blonde fire witch turns up. She is Angelique, who in the 1790s turned Barnabas into a vampire in the first place. She introduces herself to Charity as Barnabas’ fianceé, which prompts Charity to run away and go to bed. Angelique then tells Barnabas that he ought to leave Charity alone, because her father, the Rev’d Mr Gregory Trask, can make trouble that will defeat his mission. Barnabas starts to explain how bad Trask is, to which Angelique responds that he has one job and he’d better stick to it if he is to have any hope of success. She tells him that he will have to settle for blood slaves he selects from among the girls at the docks, girls who have nothing going for them “and above all no fathers.”

Charity, asleep in an upstairs bedroom in the great house of Collinwood, has a dream in which she is getting married. She is in fact engaged to marry a man named Tim, but in the dream Angelique tells her that she is not marrying Tim. She is, instead, to be the bride of Death. This is a very old image indeed; one of the main motifs that runs throughout Sophocles’ Antigone is that the heroine, engaged to marry Haemon, her first cousin (both simple and once removed- Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, so she knows from inbred families) will instead be married to Death itself. At the climax of the dream, Barnabas bares his fangs at Charity.

Charity’s father comes to the great house. He meets Angelique, who identifies herself as Barnabas’ fiancée and charms him. She urges him to see to it that Charity marries Tim as soon as possible, and warns darkly that there are many kinds of flames burning around them.

The mistress of the house, spinster Judith Collins, then enters and explains to Trask that Charity is still in bed. Trask is shocked by this “sloth” (which he pronounces “slowth,”) but Judith explains that Charity is ill. Judith is sure Charity will be fine after a day of rest. Judith tells Trask that she is deeply saddened that his boarding school has burned down. She offers Trask a great deal of money to rebuild it, and the use of a house on the estate as temporary quarters for the school in the meantime. Trask is delighted. When Judith mentions that his wife Minerva had said that his health was poor, Trask says that it is in fact Minerva whose health is poor, and getting worse. The audience knows that Trask is evil, and many will interpret this remark as a sign that he plans to hasten the deterioration of Minerva’s physical condition.

Judith takes Trask to Charity’s bedroom. They are shocked to find her gone. Judith is sure that she wandered off in delirium, but the filthy-minded Trask raves that she must have set out on some errand of grievous sin. He’s right about the sinfulness, though wrong to focus the blame on Charity- she has answered Barnabas’ summons and is with him in the Old House.

Charity comes back to the great house. Her father is ranting at her when she collapses. He looks at her neck, and finds the bite marks. Perhaps Angelique’s warning to Barnabas came too late.

Episode 738: The rest of the truth

This episode ends with one of the most thrilling moments in all of Dark Shadows.

The show’s first supernatural menace was undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, who was on it from December 1966 to March 1967. Its second was vampire Barnabas Collins, who first appeared in April 1967. Laura herself was presented with many tropes that conventionally mark vampires; for example, they laid great emphasis on the fact that Laura was never seen eating or drinking. And Laura’s story was structured very much like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with well-meaning governess Vicki taking Mina’s role as the driving force behind the opposition to her. Presumably, if Barnabas had been staked and destroyed as the original plan envisioned, Vicki would have led the fight against him as well, and in #275 driven the stake into his heart. But Barnabas brought the show a new audience, and so Vicki was never called on to go to battle with him. Her character withered and was written out, and he replaced her as its chief protagonist.

In early 1967, Vicki learned that Laura had appeared at least twice before, and had died in strikingly similar ways each time. In 1767, Laura Murdoch Stockbridge was burned to death with her young son David; in 1867, Laura Murdoch Radcliffe was burned to death with her young son David; and in 1967, Vicki found Laura Murdoch Collins beckoning her young son David to join her in the flames consuming a wooden building. At the last second, Vicki broke through David’s trance and he ran to her, escaping the flames.

In November 1967, the show established that Barnabas lived on the great estate of Collinwood as a human in 1795, and that he became a vampire as a result of the tragic events of that year. If Barnabas were the same age in 1795 that Jonathan Frid was in 1967, he would have been born late in 1752, meaning that he would have been a teenager when Laura Murdoch Stockbridge and little David Stockbridge went up in smoke. The Stockbridges were a very wealthy family, so they would likely have been on familiar terms with Barnabas and the other rich Collinses of Collinsport, and the deaths of Laura and David would have been one of the major events in the area in those days. So longtime viewers have been wondering ever since whether Barnabas knew Laura, and if so what he knew about her.

Now Barnabas has traveled back in time to the year 1897, and there he meets another incarnation of Laura. He is thunderstruck at the sight of her. In her bland, enigmatic way, she expresses curiosity about his reaction, and he collects himself sufficiently to make some flattering remarks about her beauty. As soon as he is alone with his blood thrall, Miss Charity Trask, he declares that Laura has been dead for over a hundred years. So has he, but apparently when a woman rises from the dead to prey on the living that’s different, somehow. We saw this same old double standard a couple of weeks ago, when libertine Quentin Collins expressed shock at Laura’s return from the dead, when he himself had died and been a zombie just the week before.

If Laura did know Barnabas when she was as she is now and he was an adolescent, it is no wonder she does not seem to recognize him. She knows that there is a Barnabas Collins on the estate, and has heard that he is a descendant of the eighteenth century bearer of the same name. She would expect him to resemble the boy she knew, but would not necessarily know what that boy looked like when he was in his forties.

This is the first time we’ve seen Charity since Barnabas bit her in #727. She lives in the town of Rockport, which in the 1960s was far enough away from Collinwood that in #521 it was worthy of note that you could dial telephone numbers there directly. In 1897, when automobiles were rare and roads weren’t made for the few that did exist, a long-distance relationship between vampire and blood thrall would seem quite impractical. Still, in #732 we saw a character make two round trips between Rockport and Collinwood in a single evening, so I suppose it could be managed.

Barnabas’ recognition of Laura is a fitting conclusion to a fine episode. Much of it is devoted to a three-cornered confrontation between Laura, her twelve year old son Jamison Collins, and her brother-in-law/ ex-lover/ mortal enemy, Quentin. Danny Horn analyzes this in his post about the episode at Dark Shadows Every Day. I recommend that post highly. All I would add is that as it plays out today, the confrontation makes me suspect that the writers of the show may have done more planning than Danny usually credits them with. Jamison is the only person Quentin loves, and so far we have seen that Jamison loves Quentin back. When he learns that Quentin is his mother’s foe, Jamison turns against Quentin. Barnabas traveled back in time after Quentin’s ghost had made life impossible for everyone in 1969. The evil of Quentin’s spirit fell heaviest on David Collins, whom Quentin had possessed, turned into another version of Jamison, and was in the process of killing. Nothing yet has explained why Quentin’s ghost would focus its malignity on the image of Jamison. Actress Diana Millay used to claim that Laura was added to the 1897 segment at the last minute because she told Dan Curtis she wanted to work, but Millay famously enjoyed testing the credulity of Dark Shadows fans with outlandish remarks. I wonder if a falling-out between Quentin and Jamison over Laura was in the flimsies all along.

Charity makes her first entrance in the great house of Collinwood. Quentin is apologizing to her for some boorish behavior when he realizes she hasn’t been listening to him at all. She is completely absorbed in the eighteenth century portrait of Barnabas that hangs in the foyer. She excuses herself and wafts out the front door.

In Barnabas’ house, Charity says that he makes her feel beautiful, and that she wants to see herself in a mirror. Barnabas is a bit sheepish about the particulars of vampirism, and so he changes the subject. We cut from this exchange to Laura’s room in the great house, where she is with a servant named Dirk whom she has enthralled to serve as a source of body heat. That scene opens with a shot in a mirror, making the point that Laura’s relationship with Dirk is a reflection of Barnabas’ relationship with Charity. Earlier, there had been a clumsy attempt at an artsy shot of Laura reflected in Quentin’s sherry glass. That does show us that Laura casts a reflection and that her relationship with Quentin has been affected by his drinking, but it calls too much attention to itself to do much more than that.

The portrait in the foyer is hugely important to Barnabas. It made its debut on the show in #204, the day before his name was first mentioned and more than a week before he himself premiered. His thralls stare at it and receive his commands through it. He himself uses it as a passport, appealing to his resemblance to it as proof that he is a descendant of its subject and therefore a member of the Collins family. Today, Barnabas is surprised when Charity comes to his house; he wasn’t transmitting a message through the portrait summoning her. Instead, it was functioning as another mirror, in which Charity, who has become a part of Barnabas, could see the motivating force within her own personality.

Dirk is played by Roger Davis, a most unappealing actor. At one point he makes this face while Dirk is involved in some kind of mumbo-jumbo:

Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

At one point today, Quentin tells Jamison that he shouldn’t be afraid of telling the servants what to do, since after all he will someday be the master of Collinwood. Jamison takes this altogether too much to heart, and spends the rest of the episode ordering everyone around. David Henesy is a good enough actor to extract the comic value from this. For example, when he turns to Quentin, says “I’ll talk to you later!,” and keeps walking, we laughed out loud.

Episode 737: The suffering of some people

Laura Collins is the estranged wife of stuffy Edward and the mortal enemy of Edward’s brother, libertine Quentin. Only Quentin knows that Laura is an undead fire witch. He has found the Egyptian urn housing the magic flame that gives life to Laura, and has extinguished the flame.

In the great house of Collinwood, Quentin and Edward’s spinster sister Judith notices that Laura has taken ill. Judith goes off to order a servant to prepare a hot cup of tea for Laura, and is alarmed when she returns to the drawing room and finds that Laura has gone. Quentin enters, and Judith asks him if he saw Laura. Judith explains that Laura is ill, and is appalled at Quentin’s indifference.

Laura has gone to the gazebo on the grounds, where she hid her urn under an armillary sphere. She finds that the urn is gone. Surly groundskeeper Dirk Wilkins chances upon her; she clutches at him. He is shocked at how cold she is, and is afraid of how the scene would be interpreted if anyone saw them in each others’ arms.

Dirk takes Laura back to the great house. Quentin insists on walking her upstairs to her bedroom. While she lies in bed, he taunts her with her doom, reminding her that she had treated him the same way a few nights ago when she thought he was dying. Quentin’s behavior is really abominable in this scene, but as David Selby plays him he keeps the audience’s affection. He visibly thinks about each line before he says it, so that we can really believe he is finding his way through what is after all a bizarre situation and is deciding what to say to Laura. He is relaxed and easy in his physical movement, and modulates his delivery subtly in response to every cue.

After Quentin leaves, Laura prays to the gods of ancient Egypt to take possession of Dirk and send him to her room. They oblige; Dirk finds himself standing by the fire in the drawing room and speaking a few words of old Egyptian, then heads upstairs.

Dirk and Laura take hold of each other while she is in bed. There are a few moments of dissonance when Diana Millay has to reposition herself to get Roger Davis’ hands onto more broadcast standards-friendly parts of her body while Laura insists Dirk hold her ever closer and he protests he must not, but it isn’t as bad as we might expect considering Mr Davis’ usual practice of assaulting his female scene partners. They speak each line more rapidly and more breathily than the one before. Mr Davis has both feet on the floor, but the result is still the most sex-like encounter we have seen so far on Dark Shadows.

Dirk takes hold of Laura while she is in bed. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Mr Davis’ performance is the opposite of Mr Selby’s. He is as stiff as Mr Selby is relaxed, holding himself rigidly still even when he is grappling with Diana Millay in bed. He tends to take a deep breath and deliver each speech as a single exhalation, making it impossible for him to show thought or adjust his approach while speaking. So even though today’s action shows us Quentin at his most despicable and Dirk at his most innocent, our loyalties are firmly with Quentin.

Joan Bennett famously said that Mr Davis was show business’ answer to the question “What would Henry Fonda have been like if he had had no talent?” Not only does his face resemble Fonda’s, but by his own admission he often mimicked Fonda while acting. There is nothing wrong with mimicry- John Gielgud was as good an actor as any, and he used to say that from the time he first saw Claude Rains in a play, his acting style consisted of imitating Claude Rains. He also said that imitating Rains was a great improvement over his previous style, which was imitating Noel Coward. Mr Davis’ readings of his one-line speeches today are distinctly Fonda-like, and the longer speeches may also have been if he had been breathing normally while delivering them. Today Mr Selby also sounds very much like the actor he tends to mimic, Joseph Cotten. I suspect Cotten would have been more flattered than Fonda had the two of them watched this episode!

Episode 736: Quentin and Magda find Laura’s urn

In this episode, libertine Quentin Collins teams up with broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi to find an Egyptian urn belonging to Quentin’s enemy, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. Quentin has learned that the urn contains a magic fire, and that if the fire goes out Laura will die.

Quentin and Magda find the urn hidden under an armillary sphere near the gazebo on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood. Quentin takes the lid off the sphere, and the flame jumps out. He then takes some sand from a decorative pot near the gazebo and starts heaping it on the flame. If the flame keeps burning when the lid is on the urn, you’d think only magic could put it out. Then again, it is Collinwood- maybe they have magic sand around. The flame does fade from view, and we cut to a scene of Laura losing her strength.

Quentin and Magda find the urn under the armillary sphere. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

In a movie that runs two hours or less, the characters can be frantically absorbed in a search for any old thing. Alfred Hitchcock famously made that point when he called the objects of these searches “MacGuffins.”

But when a show that fills a thirty minute time slot five days a week and a storyline can stretch on for months, a MacGuffin has to represent something important about a character or a relationship between characters. So when, in the early days of the show, strange and troubled boy David Collins tried to kill his father Roger by sabotaging his car, it was fitting that the resulting plot spent a lot of time on the bleeder valve David removed from the car’s braking system. David is interested in mechanical work, and in his hostility to his son Roger refuses to share that interest or do anything to support it.

It was less successful when Roger was suspected of murder and the piece of evidence he spent several weeks obsessing over was a filigreed fountain pen belonging to his friend-turned-nemesis Burke Devlin. There was some obvious sexual symbolism in the question of where Burke’s pen is, and that symbolism did focus our attention on the question of what exactly Burke and Roger’s relationship was like before they turned against each other. Had writers Art Wallace and Francis Swann stayed with the show, they might have used that question to make the pen a powerfully evocative image. But Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein took over the writing duties as the fountain pen story was getting started. Sproat was gay himself, and perhaps for that reason made a point of avoiding any suggestion of homoeroticism in his work. Marmorstein was just clueless. In their hands, the pen was just a pen, and the 21 episodes devoted to the search for it were not among the great artistic achievements in the history of television.

The urn does remind us that Laura is supposed to have a mystical connection to Egypt, which is more meaning than Sproat dared or Marmorstein could attach to Burke’s pen. But her relationship to that country is not central to anything we see, as David’s relationship to his father was central to what we saw in the early days. So as metonymy for Laura and Egypt it is marginally more exciting than the pen was as a metonymy for Roger and Burke, but significantly less exciting than was the bleeder valve as a metonymy for David and Roger.

At the beginning of the episode, we have one of the most preposterously bad special effects we’ve seen so far, which is saying a lot. Teacher Tim Shaw is rescuing Laura’s daughter Nora from a burning school building. The school as seen in the green screen is hilariously unconvincing.

Episode 735: Defenseless souls

The highlight of today’s episode is a confrontation between two of Dark Shadows‘ most effective villains.

Laura Murdoch Collins (Diana Millay) was on Dark Shadows from December 1966 to March 1967, when the show took place in a contemporary setting. She emerged from the supernatural back-world behind the action, and at first she was as vague and indefinite as are the beings who lurk out of our sight there. Eventually she took on a forceful enough personality that Diana Millay could display her gift for dry comedy, but that personality was only a mask that Laura wore. The real Laura was something entirely different, unreachable, unknowable. The visible Laura marks the boundary between the world we can hope to understand and one where humans would find no points of reference, no standards of comparison. As such, she represents the danger that we might lose our way and find ourselves in a place where our minds will be useless to us. That is to say, she inspired the fear that comes from a well-told ghost story.

Now the dramatic date is 1897, and another iteration of Laura is the mother of twelve year old Jamison and nine year old Nora. Laura’s estranged husband, the stuffy Edward Collins, and Edward’s sister, spinster Judith, have sent Jamsion and Nora to Worthington Hall, a boarding school which doubles as a particularly cruel cult. Laura’s plans for Nora and Jamison require them to be home on the estate of Collinwood, and so she sets out to release them from Worthington Hall.

The headmaster/ cult leader of Worthington Hall is the vile Gregory Trask (Jerry Lacy.) Trask is at the opposite pole from Laura. She is terrifying because we can never understand her or the realm whose existence she implies; he is an overpoweringly oppressive presence because he is so thoroughly comprehensible. It is perfectly obvious what Trask has done, what he plans to do next, and why he wants to do it, but knowing all that is of absolutely no use in stopping him.

In today’s opening scene, Trask confronted fugitive teacher Rachel Drummond, whom he is extorting into coming back to work at Worthington Hall. He kept sidling up to Rachel and touching her, telling her that perhaps the two of them were destined to change each other. He could not make it clearer that he wants to exploit his power over Rachel to coerce her, not only into returning to her old job, but into a sexual relationship.

Trask has been in a position of authority over Rachel since she was a small child, suggesting that his unrelentingly punitive approach to his students and the undisguised joy he takes in being cruel to them are also sexual in their origin. Rachel even used the word “sadist” to describe Trask the other day, a word coined only in 1892. Someone using it in 1897 would certainly have seen it in its original clinical context, and the neurotic intellectual Rachel undoubtedly understood it very well in its technical sense.

We see Laura on a dark set. She looks at a candelabra. She points at its three candles, one by one. As she points at each candle, it lights. Thus first time viewers learn that Laura is a supernatural being with a relationship to fire.

At Worthington Hall, Nora wanders into a room where a fireplace is alight. Nora can hear her mother’s voice urging her to look into the flames, but cannot see her. She is afraid until she looks into the flames and sees Laura’s face. Nora begins to enter a deep trance. Before she can, a teacher finds her and interrupts her. We cut back to Laura, who is pleading with Nora not to look away from the fire. Nora does, and the candles on Laura’s candelabra go out.

We see Trask in his study, browsing through a Bible. He returns that to his bookshelf and finds more congenial reading. He picks up a ledger and brightens. We see its cover, on which is taped a label reading “PUNISHMENT BOOK.” Trask smiles blissfully and sits down to examine its contents.

The volume that takes Trask to his happy place. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

A knock comes at the door, pulling Trask out of his sun-kissed dream of past cruelties. Irritated, he demands to know who it is, but receives no answer. When the knocking continues, he opens the door and sees Laura.

LAURA: Are there no servants at Worthington Hall? I’m not accustomed to letting myself in.

Longtime viewers will remember that when Laura was first on the show, they made a big deal out of the fact that she never ate or drank. So much so that they had the next uncanny menace, Barnabas Collins, drink a cup of coffee in #221. Even though Barnabas was a vampire and Laura was not, they had used up the traditional indicator of vampirism. non-consumption of food or drink, on Laura. Laura’s inability to open the door herself may be another borrowing from the same stock of imagery, from the idea that the vampire cannot cross a threshold without being invited.

TRASK: Who are you?

LAURA: I am Laura Collins and I come for my children. You are Mr. Trask, of course.

TRASK: Reverend Trask!

LAURA: Anyone can call themselves anything. I knew a woman in Brooklyn, once. Insisted she was a countess.

This is an inside joke. There was quite a well-known fashion correspondent-turned-executive in Brooklyn in 1969 named Mabel Wilson Gross. Mrs Gross’ first husband was a Danish nobleman named Count Carl Adam von Moltke, known to his friends as “Bobby.” Mrs Gross was known professionally as “Countess Mab Moltke.” She and “Bobby” were the parents of Alexandra Moltke Isles, who appeared in 333 episodes of Dark Shadows as well-meaning governess Vicki. I don’t believe Mrs Isles has ever used the title “Countess” herself, though under the laws of Denmark she would have the right to do so. Since it was Vicki who led the battle against Laura in 1967, a remark from Laura twitting Mrs Isles and her family might raise quite a laugh from longtime viewers who get the reference.

LAURA: (Goes to Trask’s desk and leafs through the “Punishment Book.”) But you are Trask. Yes, there’s no doubt about that.

TRASK: But you could be anyone as far as I’m concerned, anyone at all. I have too much respect for the defenseless souls in my charge.

LAURA: Oh, please, don’t be dreary.

TRASK: Dreary, Madam?

LAURA: Surely you know the word. Simply have my children brought down here, if there’s anyone to bring them.

TRASK: And how am I to know that you are their mother?

LAURA: Oh, what a trusting man you are.

TRASK: There is no question of the children leaving the school.

LAURA: Jamison possibly. Nora will leave here tonight. I’m willing to take them one at a time.

TRASK: As far as I know, Madam, their mother is away.

LAURA: You should keep more in touch.

TRASK: My wife returned from Collinwood this afternoon. She made no mention of your return.

LAURA: Hmm. How odd. I thought her a great gossip.

TRASK: Minerva? Madam.

That Minerva appeared to be “a great gossip” will also amuse longtime viewers. She is played by Clarice Blackburn, who in the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s played housekeeper Mrs Johnson. After a brief period in which Mrs Johnson was supposed to be a spy planted in the house by an enemy of the Collins family, she settled into the role of a benevolent but excitable woman whose chief function was to blab everything she knew to the character likeliest to use the information to advance the plot.

LAURA: Now, will you have Nora sent down.

TRASK: I will not. Not without proper orders from Miss Judith Collins or Mr. Edward Collins. I shall call Collinwood and verify your strange appearance.

LAURA: Do.

(TRASK picks up the telephone receiver. Shows pain and drops it.)

LAURA: What’s wrong, Mr. Trask?

TRASK: It burned my hand.

LAURA: I’ve always thought the telephone an instrument of the devil, haven’t you?

TRASK: I have not!

Many times on Dark Shadows, as recently as this week, we have seen men forcibly intervene to stop a woman from talking on the telephone. I believe this is the first time we have seen a woman turn the tables and do this to a man.

TRASK: What a ridiculous conversation. I don’t know what I could have been thinking of to call Mr. Edward Collins. We have rules at Worthington Hall, Madam.

LAURA: Ah, rules are made to be broken.

TRASK: Not here. The children are asleep. They shall remain asleep. We do not encourage visits even from members of the immediate family unless of course it’s an emergency.

LAURA: Then you won’t reconsider?

TRASK: No.

LAURA: Not wise. Not wise at all.

TRASK: Are you threatening me?

LAURA: My children will not spend one more night in this school.

Laura remains perfectly calm throughout this conversation. Even her closing threat is delivered in a light tone, with an easy smile. Trask is agitated at the outset, and becomes ever more so as he realizes he cannot intimidate Laura. Since Diana Millay and Jerry Lacy are two of the most capable comic actors on Dark Shadows, the result is hilarious.

We first saw the effect of Laura’s imperturbability on an earnest interlocutor in #183 and #184, when she confronted a profoundly different character. In those installments, visiting parapsychologist Peter Guthrie called on Laura at the same cottage where she is staying in 1897. He introduced a new word to Dark Shadows‘ lexicon when he told her that he had concluded that she was “The Undead.” He said that he knew of her evil intentions, and said that if she abandoned them and turned to good, he would make every effort to help her live a different kind of life. Guthrie’s offer meant exactly nothing to Laura, and she responded to it with the same sardonic indifference Trask elicits from her today. Her next act was to cast a spell that caused Guthrie to crash his car and die in a ball of flame.

Trask gets off easier. Laura just sets his school on fire. The closing shot shows Nora apparently surrounded by flames. Laura does not want to burn Nora to death, at least not yet, but she is not one of your more detail-oriented otherworldly menaces. It will not surprise longtime viewers that she is blithely assuming that her children will somehow escape alive from the blaze she has started.

Episode 733: From pocket to pocket

A lot of business about a magical urn that belongs to undead blonde fire witch Laura Collins. This is Laura’s second tour on Dark Shadows; she didn’t have an urn the first time around, but the plot is much busier these days and she needs a MacGuffin for her enemies to chase after if she’s going to stay afloat.

There are also a couple of moments when characters deride spinster Judith Collins as “plain Judith,” envious of the “pretty wives your brothers brought home.” This is ridiculous. Judith isn’t even Hollywood ugly; she’s played by Joan Bennett, one of the great beauties of the screen in her youth and still, in her late 50s, a remarkably attractive woman.

But all in all, the episode is quite good. The highlight is a confrontation between governess Rachel Drummond and a villain who makes her first appearance today, Minerva Trask. Minerva is the wife of the loathsome Rev’d Gregory Trask, and with him she runs a boarding school called Worthington Hall. Rachel grew up at Worthington Hall, and like all other children there she was subjected to continual abuse at the hands of the Trasks. We haven’t seen Gregory for several days; as played by Jerry Lacy, he is so overwhelmingly evil a presence that the makers of the show wisely decided to use him sparingly. It looks like Rachel will soon be forced to go back to Worthington Hall as a teacher.

Minerva is played by Clarice Blackburn, whom many consider to be the single best actor in the whole series. For example, Nancy Barrett gave her that title in her interviews with the authors of the book Barnabas and Company. Blackburn is absolutely believable as the sanctimonious Minerva, so much so that I found her scenes as difficult to watch as are those featuring Mr Lacy as Gregory. Kathryn Leigh Scott plays the terror and misery Minerva inspires in Rachel quite effectively, but to be honest I felt those emotions very intensely myself just watching the episode on TV. I suspect that when you have a scene partner like Blackburn, all you need is to learn your lines and remember your training and you’ll connect with the audience.

Rachel and Minerva. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Rachel tells her troubles to broad ethnic stereotype Magda Rákóczi, who volunteers to help her escape the Trasks. Magda’s plan requires Rachel to do three extraordinary things. She must give her garnet-encrusted broach, the only keepsake her late mother gave her, to Magda to sell to raise money for a coach ride to Boston. She must spend the night in a secret room hidden in an old mausoleum. And once in Boston, she will have to find employment without having recourse to any credentials or references that would make it possible for her to find a situation agreeable to a neurotic intellectual such as herself. We could never believe Rachel would do any of these things if she were facing a less gruesome threat than return to Worthington Hall.

Longtime viewers may wonder just how far Rachel’s fears will drive her. In #9, broadcast and set in the year 1966, flighty heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard told well-meaning governess Victoria Winters that over the years, two governesses had leapt to their deaths from the precipice atop Widow’s Hill, and that legend had it that a third governess would someday follow their lead. In other episodes, before and after, that story was rephrased as “two women” rather than “two governesses.”

So far, we have only seen one woman take the plunge, and she wasn’t a governess. She was the gracious Josette, also played by Miss Scott. Josette jumped in 1796 because she saw that she was about to be made into a vampire. Now, the dramatic date is 1897. The prospect of turning into a member of the teaching faculty of Worthington Hall is scarcely less horrifying than is the prospect of becoming a vampire, so perhaps it will turn out that Rachel was one of those whom Carolyn had in mind after all.

Episode 732: The possessor and the possessed

This episode features two undead blonde fire witches. Laura Collins was Dark Shadows‘ first supernatural menace when she was on the show from December 1966 to March 1967. In those days, the show was set in contemporary times, and it was slow-paced and heavy on atmosphere. Laura began as a vague, enigmatic presence and gradually came into focus as a dynamic villain.

Now the show is fast-paced, action-packed, and set in the year 1897. Laura is once again the estranged wife of the eldest brother of the matriarch of the great estate of Collinwood. This time, she has come back to Collinwood after running off with her husband’s brother, Quentin. Unlike her 1960s iteration, this Laura is not at all happy about the periodic immolations that renew her existence as a humanoid Phoenix. She bears a grudge against Quentin for betraying her to the priests of a secret cult in Alexandria, Egypt, who incinerated her some months before. For his part, Quentin is shocked that Laura is alive now. When he tries to remedy the situation by strangling Laura, a feeling of intense heat overwhelms him and he collapses.

The other undead blonde fire witch is Angelique, who was first on the show from November 1967 to March 1968, when it was set in the 1790s. She appeared in 1897 when Quentin and one of his fellow Satanists conjured her up out of the fireplace in the caretaker’s cottage on the grounds of Collinwood in #711. They wanted a demon to come from the depths of Hell and help them do battle with Quentin’s distant cousin, the mysterious Barnabas Collins. Unknown to Quentin, Barnabas is a vampire and Angelique is the witch who originally made him one. Barnabas has traveled back in time to prevent Quentin becoming a ghost who will ruin things for everyone at Collinwood in 1969. Angelique is delighted to find herself back at Collinwood. She is determined to make Barnabas love her, no matter how many of his friends and relatives she has to kill along the way.

As it turns out, it was Angelique who caused Quentin to collapse before he could kill Laura. She summons Barnabas and tells him she will let Quentin die unless he lives with her as man and wife. When Angelique points out that if Quentin dies now, the results will be disastrous for the Collinses of 1969, Barnabas capitulates.

Barnabas takes Angelique to the great house. There, he introduces her to governess Rachel Drummond as his fianceé. Rachel has been falling in love with Barnabas, and their relationship has been the only bright spot in the otherwise extremely stressful time she has had at Collinwood. At one point today Rachel is on the telephone to someone she and Barnabas both hate; Barnabas takes it upon himself to press on the hook, hanging the phone up in the middle of the conversation. Many men do this to women in Dark Shadows, and it is usually very clear that the women don’t like it at all. Rachel objects only mildly, and quickly accepts it. That she isn’t bothered by such an aggressive act suggests that she already feels a very strong bond with Barnabas.

When Rachel hears that Barnabas is committed to someone else, she rushes out as quickly as possible. Later, Barnabas will meet her on the terrace and intimate that his relationship with Angelique is not what it seems. Rachel does not quite know what to make of this, but at moments we catch her rolling her eyes like someone who knows malarkey when she hears it.

Rachel listening to Barnabas explain that they shouldn’t let his fianceé come between them. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Angelique wakes Quentin. They talk about Laura. By magical means, Angelique discovers that Laura’s life depends on an Egyptian urn that she keeps with her at all times. This is another retcon; we saw every worldly possession Laura had in 1966, and there was no urn in sight. Quentin resolves to find this urn and destroy it, ridding himself of Laura forever.

Episode 731: Your greatest weakness

One of the first “Big Bads” on Dark Shadows was crazed handyman Matthew Morgan, played by Thayer David. Matthew was the most devoted employee of reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Joan Bennett.) Matthew took his devotion to Liz to such an extreme that he was a menace to everyone else. In November and December of 1966, we learned that Matthew had decided that Liz’ second most dedicated employee, plant manager Bill Malloy, was a threat to her. Matthew had tried to put a stop to Bill’s doings. Not knowing his own strength, Matthew accidentally killed Bill. When well-meaning governess Victoria Winters discovered what had happened, Matthew abducted Victoria, held her prisoner in the long-deserted Old House on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood, and was about to murder her when a bunch of ghosts emanated from the show’s supernatural back-world and scared him to death.

In those days, Dark Shadows was a slow-paced “Gothic” drama set in contemporary times. From November 1967 to March 1968, it was a costume drama set in the 1790s, and its plot often moved at a breakneck speed. Among the characters then was much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes, who like Matthew was played by Thayer David. At first Ben made a stark contrast with Matthew. He was as relaxed, friendly, and reasonable as Matthew was tense, forbidding, and paranoid. But when his one ally among the Collins family, scion Barnabas, was cursed to become a vampire, Ben’s devotion made him resemble Matthew ever more closely. In his development, we saw a retrospective reimagining of Matthew. The curses that were placed on Barnabas and the rest of the Collinses from the 1790s on had burdened the village of Collinsport, and people who grew up there labored under the consequences of those curses and of the Collinses’ attempts to conceal them. Ben was what Matthew might have been had he not been warped by the evil that began when black magic was first practiced in the area so many generations before.

In January 1969, the show briefly returned to 1796, to a time coinciding with the last days of the earlier flashback. We saw that by that point, the curses had already transformed life on and around the great estate. In that period, Ben’s efforts to protect Barnabas led him inadvertently to kill a man, not knowing his own strength, and then to cover that crime up by killing a woman, not at all inadvertently. He had become Matthew. The curse placed on Barnabas had become the curse of all those who work for the Collinses and all of those who live in the shadow of their wealth and power.

Before Matthew, Dark Shadows‘ chief villain was high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds); after, it was Roger’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins (Diana Millay.) In this episode, the makers of the show take a page from its 1790s flashbacks. They have Edmonds and Millay reconceive the Roger and Laura of that atmospheric, sometimes almost action-free soap as characters appropriate to the fast-paced supernatural thriller it now is.

Since #701, Dark Shadows has been set in the year 1897. Louis Edmonds plays Roger’s grandfather Edward; Diana Millay plays Edward’s estranged wife, undead blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. In his days as a villain, Roger’s defining characteristic was his unnatural lack of family feeling. He had squandered his entire inheritance, a fact which did not bother him in the least. When his sister Liz confronted him in #41 about the difficulties he had created by putting his half of the family business up for sale, he airily replied that he had enjoyed his inheritance. When in #273 Liz and Roger discussed a blackmail plot of which she had been the victim, Roger admitted that had he known her terrible secret, he probably would have used it to force her to give him her half of the estate so that he could squander that, as well.

It wasn’t only the family’s material possessions and Liz’ right to them to which Roger was indifferent. He openly hated his son, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy.) He continually insulted David, badgered Liz to send David away, and in #83 coldly manipulated David’s fears to lead him to try to murder Victoria.

In the 1897 segment, Edward is as stuffily serious about the family business as Roger was in 1966 nihilistically apathetic about it. Edward loves his children, twelve year old Jamison (David Henesy) and nine year old Nora, but his rage at Laura has come between himself and them. Laura left Edward the year before to run after Edward’s brother, breezy libertine Quentin (David Selby.) Edward tried to conceal the fact that his brother cuckolded him. He has repeatedly declared that Laura “No longer exists!” and has forbidden her name to be mentioned in the house.

Edward trapped between the enigmatic Laura and the exuberant Quentin. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

For his part, Quentin bears a striking similarity to the early, wicked Roger. He wants money only to spend it, a fact which he cheerfully admits. He tried to forge a will in his grandmother Edith’s name to cheat his sister Judith (Joan Bennett) out of her inheritance, having previously threatened to kill Edith. He does have great affection for Jamison, but since he often uses the boy as a pawn in Satanic ceremonies, his fondness for his nephew is not much of an improvement over Roger’s hatred for his son. Indeed, Quentin’s resemblance to Roger connects the 1897 segment not only to the early months of the show, but also to the weeks immediately preceding it. Early in 1969, Quentin’s ghost had taken possession of David Collins and was causing him to die. When we see that Quentin is now what Roger was originally, David’s ordeal takes on a new dimension. He is dying for the sins of his father.

In this episode, Laura has returned. Edward has offered her a great deal of money to go away and never come back; she refuses. She threatens to tell the world about her relationship with Quentin if Edward does not let her stay at Collinwood. Edward buckles to this blackmail. Laura tells him that “Family pride is your greatest weakness,” making him Roger’s exact opposite.

When Laura was at Collinwood from December 1966 to March 1967, her old boyfriend Burke Devlin kept pestering her with his suspicion that he, not Roger, was David Collins’ father. Burke was not the first character to bring this idea up. Roger had mentioned it to Liz in #32, when they were talking about an attempt David had made to kill Roger. At that time, Liz was horrified that Roger seemed to want to believe that David was Burke’s natural son.

It seems unlikely that Quentin is Jamison’s father. They have been firm about 1870 as Quentin’s date of birth, and in 1897 Jamison is quite plainly twelve. Laura may have gone on to marry her own grandson, but it would be a bit of a stretch for her to have started sleeping with her brother-in-law when he was fifteen, even if he did look like David Selby.

But Roger’s anger and jealousy about Burke and Laura do mirror Edward’s about Quentin and Laura. It was abundantly clear that Roger and Burke’s deepest pain regarding Laura was that their intense attachment to each other was disrupted when she left Burke for Roger; Diana Millay used her gift for dry comedy to make this explicit in a scene the three of them played in the groundskeeper’s cottage in #139. Likewise, Edward’s frustration with and disappointment in his brother is at least as deep a source of anguish to him as is his loss of Laura’s love.

Laura, too, is quite different this time around. The first Laura story took shape gradually over a period of weeks, as Laura herself emerged from the mist. Now Laura is a forceful presence from her first appearance. Originally we heard that Laura had married into several of the leading families of the Collinsport region; now they have given up on the idea of developing other leading families, and Laura just keeps coming back to the Collinses. In the first story, they laid great emphasis on the interval of precisely one hundred years between her appearances; now, the number of years doesn’t seem to have any particular significance. As we go, we will see an even more important difference. When we first met Laura, she was utterly determined to make her way into a pyre so that she could rise as a humanoid Phoenix; now she is unhappy about the whole thing, and angry with people who have helped her on her fiery way.

Edward lets Laura live in the cottage where Roger and Liz would put her in 1966. In the final scene, she goes there and finds Quentin, drunk and trying to conjure up an evil spirit. Quentin keeps telling Laura that she is dead. Frustrated with her persistent refusal to concur with this statement, Quentin puts his hands around her neck and announces that whether or not she is dead now, she will be by the time he gets through with her.

Roger was uncharacteristically sober at the beginning of his three-scene in the cottage with Burke and Laura in #139, but he did enter brandishing a fire-arm. So Quentin’s homicidal intentions on this set further cement his affiliation with his great-nephew in the eyes of longtime viewers.

Millay and Edmonds are not the only actors whose screen iconography the show turns to advantage today. We first saw Kathryn Leigh Scott and Don Briscoe together in #638, when she was playing ex-waitress Maggie Evans and he was playing mysterious drifter Chris Jennings. They met in the foyer at Collinwood. Maggie was angry with Chris, and Chris was guilt-ridden. Today, Miss Scott plays governess Rachel Drummond and Briscoe plays teacher Tim Shaw. They meet in the foyer at Collinwood. Rachel is angry with Tim, and Tim is guilt-ridden.

Though the same actors are playing the same basic emotions on the same set, the situations are different, and the characters are very different. Maggie is Dark Shadows‘ principal representative of the working class of the village of Collinsport. She speaks directly and bluntly, using the plainest language she can to dare Chris to try to excuse his inexcusable behavior. Chris occupies a lowly and unsettled place in the world, and he dodges her gaze and evades her questions, saying as little as he can, almost mumbling.

But Rachel is a neurotic intellectual, and she expresses her anger in complex sentences featuring vocabulary that only a very well-read person would have used in 1897 (for example, the word “sadist.”) Tim retreats from her anger into a defense of his job that quickly devolves into the tiredest platitudes imaginable. At one point he actually intones “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Miss Scott makes Rachel’s highly literate onslaught on Tim as forceful as was Maggie’s unvarnished challenge to Chris, and Briscoe makes Tim’s pompous posturing as pitiable as was Chris’ broken burbling. Writer Gordon Russell must have been delighted that the actors did such good work with his ambitious pages.

Episode 730: The very same dream

When Laura Murdoch Collins first appeared on Dark Shadows in December 1966, it was far from clear what sort of being she was. From the beginning, there were definite hints that she had emerged from the supernatural back-world of ghosts and presences lurking behind the action, but as those ghosts and presences were undefined and vague, so Laura herself was undefined and vague when we met her. We couldn’t even tell how many of her there were- there was a charred corpse in Phoenix, Arizona, a phantom flickering on the front lawn of the great estate of Collinwood, two graves of Laura Murdochs from previous centuries, a woman who turns up in various places that serve food but never eats or drinks, and a series of dream visitations and inexplicable compulsions. Some of those were Laura, maybe all of them were, but how they were connected to each other, if they were connected at all, was anyone’s guess. Diana Millay’s performance reflected that uncertainty. Her Laura was initially blank and distant.

As her storyline went on, Laura came into ever sharper focus. By the time we realized that she was a humanoid Phoenix, an undead fire witch who had returned to Collinwood to take her son, strange and troubled boy David Collins, into the flames with her so that she could renew her life, she had become a dynamic character. As Laura gained force, Millay had the chance to reveal a talent for sarcastic dialogue rivaling that of Louis Edmonds, who played Laura’s estranged husband Roger Collins. Before Laura went up in flames in March 1967, we wished we could have seen a whole series featuring Millay and Edmonds as an unhappily married couple sniping at each other.

In those days, Dark Shadows was set in contemporary times. Now, its dramatic date is 1897, and Edmonds plays Roger’s grandfather, the stuffy Edward Collins. As in the first 24 weeks of Dark Shadows we saw that the name of Roger’s estranged wife was taboo in the great house of Collinwood, so in the first six weeks of the 1897 segment Edward has been furiously insistent that his estranged wife should never be mentioned. When Laura turns up, bearing the same name and played by the same actress as Edward’s granddaughter-in-law, we know what we are in for.

The show moves a lot more quickly now than it did when it debuted. David had shown signs of a psychic connection with Laura from #15 in July 1966, over 21 weeks before she arrived. Edward and Laura’s nine year old daughter Nora had dreams, visions, and an episode of automatic writing directed by Laura yesterday and the day before, and Laura herself shows up today. At first she meets Nora on the peak of Widow’s Hill, as a dream had told her she would. Laura comes to the house and sees Edward the following afternoon. Edward is horrified to see her; she is understated and cool at the beginning of their scene, but by the end of it she is in tears, pleading with Edward to be allowed to see their children, Nora and twelve year old Jamison. She thus recapitulates within minutes a progression that in 1966 and 1967 took months.

Laura trying to figure out what to say to Nora. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

When Laura saw Nora on Widow’s Hill, she swore her to secrecy, forbidding her to tell anyone but Jamison that she is back. Nora did try to tell Jamison, only to find that he wouldn’t believe her. She showed him a broach Laura gave her which bears an Egyptian symbol that popped into her head yesterday; Jamison is entirely unimpressed.

We learned the other day that when Edward’s brother Quentin was banished from Collinwood a year before, Laura followed him. The two wound up in Alexandria, Egypt, together. Jamison and Nora come to Quentin’s room today; Quentin sees the broach and flies into a panic. He searches through a book, then demands to know where Nora got the broach. She says only that she found it in the woods, and he keeps asking if someone gave it to her. She keeps denying that anyone did, and he rushes downstairs, looking for Edward.

In the drawing room, Quentin sees Laura. He is utterly shocked. “You’re dead!” he exclaims. “I saw you die!” Last week, Quentin himself died and came back to life. When he told Edward about his death and resurrection, he laughed delightedly. When Edward asked for an explanation, Quentin dismissed the whole subject, having exhausted his interest in it with his laughter. Yet now he is stunned out of his wits to see that Laura too has returned from the dead. Seems to be quite a double standard at work.

Every character we see in this episode bears the surname “Collins.” I believe this is the first episode we have seen with an all-Collins cast.