This teleplay badly needed another trip through the typewriter.
In the opening scenes, seagoing con man Jason McGuire demands his friend and former henchman, the sorely bedraggled Willie Loomis, leave the estate of Collinwood and the town of Collinsport. He mentions that he saw Willie’s car the night before at the cemetery. He then orders Willie to get on a bus and leave town. Then he starts talking about Willie’s car again. Does Willie have a car or not? They’ve gone back and forth on this from one episode to another, but today they can’t keep it straight from one line of dialogue to the next.
A doctor shows up to examine Willie. He tells Jason that Willie is not sick at all. The reason he is so weak is that he has lost “an enormous amount of blood.” What does the doctor think the word “sick” means if it doesn’t apply to a person who is doing badly because of an “enormous” loss of blood?
Whatever meaning the doctor attaches to “sick” apparently also applies to “ailment.” High-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins asks what Willie’s ailment is, and the doctor says he has no ailment. He is simply immobilized due to an enormous loss of blood.
The doctor tells first Jason, then Roger, that Willie will be fine if he gets some rest and fluids and food. The idea of a blood transfusion doesn’t cross his mind, nor do Jason or Roger bring it up. It would be one thing if the doctor, Jason, and Roger were played by the Three Stooges, but there is no sign that we are supposed to think that they are a load of idiots.
An actor who has repeatedly triumphed over bad writing reappears after an absence of sixteen weeks. This is Dana Elcar as Sheriff George Patterson. The sheriff’s activities don’t always make a great deal of sense, but Elcar’s acting choices and his zest for performance make him a pleasure to watch no matter how dire the script he has to work with.
Today, the sheriff is telling Roger that a number of cows on the farms owned by the Collins family have been destroyed. A person or persons unknown somehow sucked every drop of blood out of these cows through small punctures in their hides. Roger is deeply unsettled by this strange news, and the sheriff sympathizes with him.
Roger repeatedly asks the sheriff why he is the one telling him about the cows. He says that he would have expected the veterinarian to call him. The sheriff says that the veterinarian called his office, because he determined that the cows were killed by someone’s deliberate act. That doesn’t explain why the veterinarian, whose bill the Collinses will presumably be paying, didn’t call him. We were so glad to see these fine actors working together that the senselessness of the scene didn’t bother us while we were watching it, but as soon as it was over we were left with a feeling of confusion.
Regular viewers do wonder what farms the sheriff and Roger are talking about. The only previous reference to the word “farm” in connection with the Collinses was in #64, when Sheriff Patterson told their servant Matthew Morgan to “work their farm for them” and stay out of trouble. Today’s conversation repeatedly refers to “farms,” plural, more than one of which are big enough to have cows. That’s an operation much too complicated for Matthew, who had many other duties, to have handled by himself. Besides, Matthew left his job in #112 and was scared to death by ghosts in #126, and hasn’t been replaced. Whatever farm Matthew was working must have been so small that the Collinses can take care of it themselves in whatever time they can spare from their main occupation, keeping secrets and being sarcastic.
Writer Ron Sproat specialized in inventorying disused storylines and getting them out of the way. Back when Matthew was on the show, the Collinses were heavily in debt and running out of money. Dashing action hero Burke Devlin spent the first 40 weeks of the show trying to avenge himself on the Collinses by driving them into bankruptcy. All of that has gone by the boards, and we aren’t hearing any more about troubles concerning the business. So it’s time for Dark Shadows to reconceive the family as financially secure, indeed as imposingly rich. Talking about their many farms and the herds of livestock on them helps Sproat open up space in his narrative warehouse, but it doesn’t offer much to interest the audience.
My wife, Mrs Acilius, thought up a little fanfic that might have introduced the same points more intriguingly. The trouble with the cows first came up in #215. Hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell told the story of a calf belonging to his uncle that was found drained of blood. That suggested that an evil has been loosed that is spreading throughout the town and beyond. Why not stick with Joe as the point of view character in connection with the mystery of the desiccated cows? Not only would that give a badly under-utilized character something to do, but would also give us the sense that the fate of a whole community is at stake in the action.
If they needed to connect the Collinses to the cow story, they could have come up with a way to oblige them to join with Joe to figure out what’s going on. That in turn would raise the prospect of a story structured like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, in which one character after another joins the team opposing the malign Count. The formation of the group that resisted blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins in the months leading up to #191 very much followed the pattern set in Stoker’s novel. Of course, the ending could be modified. The Laura story ended, not with the triumphant team-work that defeats Dracula, but with well-meaning governess Vicki cut off from her allies and left to confront Laura alone. But the team-work leading up to that point was full of interest, as characters shared information with each other, reconfigured their relationships, and found themselves doing things neither they nor we would have expected. Simply reintroducing the topic of the cows and leaving Joe and the Collinses siloed off from each other is easy for the writers, but it doesn’t take the story anywhere.
For the first 20 weeks of its run, Dark Shadows developed its story at a stately pace. When writers Art Wallace and Francis Swann were replaced by Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein, stately became glacial, and at times ground to a halt altogether. For the last few months, Joe Caldwell has been making uncredited contributions to the writing. While Caldwell is probably responsible for some of the glittering moments of witty dialogue and intriguing characterization that have cropped up, everything is still taking a very long time. And this is the second episode in a row in which nothing at all happens to advance the plot.
There are a few interesting moments. We begin with well-meaning governess Vicki entering the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood in search of her charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins. The doors swing shut, and she cannot open them. The recently arrived Barnabas Collins comes down the stairs, startling her. He opens the doors easily.
This may not sound like a big thrill, but regular viewers will remember that doors swung open at the approach of the previous supernatural menace, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. When characters who did not know that Laura was anything other than a woman saw that happen, they didn’t react- it was a small enough thing that they could fail to notice it, and a weird enough thing that it didn’t register. So we have been prepared to watch for tricks with doors as a sign of the uncanny.
Barnabas’ big challenge today is a job of acting. He has to convince the residents of Collinwood that he is a living man from the twentieth century, not a reanimated corpse come to prey upon the living. He has trouble staying in character. When he tells Vicki that once, centuries ago, a father and son had a quarrel in the Old House that led to the son’s death, he starts laughing and repeats the word “death.” Vicki looks at him like he’s a lunatic. He gets it back together fairly quickly, but when Vicki goes back to the great house on the estate she will tell flighty heiress Carolyn that Barnabas is kind of strange.
Barnabas gives Vicki a long, flowery speech about the building of the house, one with no apparent motivation and many logical stopping places. Marmorstein has been giving these overheated orations to actor after actor, defeating them all. As Vicki, Alexandra Moltke Isles came the closest to selling one of them, at the beginning of #167, but she needed maximum support from the director in the form of close-up shots and lighting effects, and even then it was a relief when it was over.
Barnabas’ entire part consists of such speeches. Jonathan Frid stumbles over his lines quite a bit today, as he will do henceforth. No wonder- not only was he dyslexic, but at this point they were shooting seven days a week to make up for production time they lost in a strike late in March. That left him with precious little time to memorize the pages and pages of purple prose they kept dumping on him.
Listening to Frid struggle through his dialogue today, we discover the first reason why Barnabas became such a hit. In his voice, through his mannerisms, Marmorstein’s gibberish sounds gorgeous. Sometimes Frid’s struggle to remember what he’s supposed to say is a problem for the character. Since Barnabas is himself an actor essaying a demanding role, it gets confusing to see Frid’s own difficulties laid on top of his. But even at those times the sound of his voice is so appealing that we root for him to recover and deliver more of his ridiculous lines.
In his speech to Vicki about the building of the Old House, Barnabas mentions that the foundations were made of rocks deposited by glaciers. Any reference at all to glaciers is pretty brave, considering the rate at which the story has been moving in the Sproat/ Marmorstein era. It also raises a question about Barnabas. He is the man who posed for a portrait done in an eighteenth century style, and David told dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis stories about Barnabas’ mother Naomi that would place her towards the middle of the eighteenth century. We’ve also glimpsed a plaque on Naomi’s tomb that gives her dates as 1761-1821, but that prop hasn’t received anything like the screen time the portrait of Barnabas has had, and must have been made long before David’s lines to Willie were finalized. So the trend is to regard Barnabas as someone who was confined to a coffin from the eighteenth century until Monday night. When he starts talking about the rocks laid down during the Ice Age, an event unknown until the mid-nineteenth century, we wonder which night this week he spent updating his understanding of geology.
In the great house, high-born ne-er-do-well Roger comes home from a business trip to Boston. Before updating him and the audience on recent plot developments, Carolyn reminisces about her childhood, when he used to bring gifts to her when he would come home from business trips. She tells him he was the only father she knew. This is a retcon- up to this point, they’ve taken pains to make it clear that Roger and David only moved into the house a few weeks before Vicki’s arrival in episode 1.
Vicki and Barnabas enter the great house. She introduces him to Carolyn and Roger. Roger quickly escorts Barnabas to the study where the two of them talk alone. Roger mentions that a vineyard in Spain that had been in the family in the eighteenth century was still theirs until shortly before World War Two. Barnabas does not react to the phrase “World War Two” at all. Whether this is because he has been studying history as well as geology, or because he was simply overwhelmed with so much new information, is not explained.
While Roger and Barnabas are in the study, Vicki tries to explain to Carolyn why she thinks Barnabas is a bit odd. Carolyn doesn’t want to hear it. She explains the basis of the Collins family’s attitude towards Barnabas when she says it’s a relief just to meet someone friendly after the rough time they’ve had lately. Viewers who have been watching from the beginning will understand how strong that sense of relief must be, and will know that Barnabas is in a position to ride it right into a permanent billet on the estate.
Barnabas leaves, and Roger shows Vicki and Carolyn the portrait. He points out that Barnabas is wearing the same ring as its subject. He does not point out that he is also carrying the even more distinctive wolf’s-head cane.
While those three talk about the wealthy and genial visitor from England Barnabas appears to be, we wonder what he really is. Barnabas first appeared as a hand darting out of a coffin, he has shown up only at night, he lived hundreds of years ago, and he is played by an actor who bears a noticeable resemblance to Bela Lugosi. So we assume that he is a vampire. But so far, there hasn’t been any direct evidence of blood-sucking. During the months Laura was on the show, they made a point of not assimilating her to any familiar mythology. So for all we know, he might be something we’ve never heard of.
The final shot before the credits roll is in the outdoors, where Barnabas is standing perfectly still, surrounded by shrubbery, and with a big smile on his face. Perhaps that shot is telling us that Barnabas is not the vampire we might assume he is, but that he is in fact an undead garden gnome.
Yesterday, the group trying to keep blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins from immolating her son, strange and troubled boy David Collins, agreed on a plan. Dashing action hero Burke Devlin would take David away very early in the morning on a trip to a fishing cabin far to the north, near the border between Maine and Canada. David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, would evict Laura from the cabin where she has been staying on the great estate of Collinwood. This plan was unsatisfactory to well-meaning governess Vicki, who believed that the time of greatest danger to David was before dawn. So she sat in David’s room overnight and watched him sleep.
Today, David wakes up after dawn and Vicki urges him to go back to sleep. When he stays up, they spend the morning on lessons. When Burke finally shows up around lunchtime, he announces that come evening he will be taking Vicki to dinner at the local tavern, the Blue Whale. Apparently the fishing trip to the cabin far to the north has somehow morphed into a couple of hours in the afternoon on a boat nearby. This is such a jarring break in continuity that Mrs Acilius and I wondered if the writer of today’s episode, Ron Sproat, just hasn’t been watching the show.
Vicki agrees to go out with Burke on condition that the housekeeper, the wildly indiscreet Mrs Johnson, keep David in her sight at all times. When Mrs Johnson was hired, David took it for granted she would be his “jailer.” He used that word with his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz, in #77, and again with Burke in #79. Today, it turns out he was right. At one point, Mrs Johnson picks up a chair, sets it between David and the door, and plants herself in it to keep him from getting out. Sproat may not know what happened in yesterday’s script, but he does manage to set up an echo with what was going on five months ago.
Jailer
The scenes between David and Mrs Johnson start off with some chuckles. David Henesy and Clarice Blackburn were both talented comic actors, and while they establish themselves as a restless boy and his irritable babysitter they seem like they are about to be funny. But they just don’t have the lines to keep us laughing. By the time Mrs Johnson tells David that she’s tired of watching him “doodling around,” we know the feeling- doodling around is all Sproat has to offer today.
At the Blue Whale, Vicki is too worried about David to keep her mind on Burke. Burke keeps trying to calm her fears. He saw Laura get on a bus out of town in the morning, and according to Vicki’s analysis it was last night that David was in the greatest danger. She still isn’t convinced.
Hardworking young fisherman Joe shows up. He tells them that he had looked at the nineteenth-century newspaper clipping that led Vicki to believe it was last night that Laura would make her move. Laura Murdoch Radcliffe, whom Vicki believes to have been an earlier incarnation of Laura Murdoch Collins, burned herself and her son David to death one hundred years before. Re-reading it, Joe realized that it was ambiguous whether last night was the anniversary of that event or tonight will be. So he went to the hall of records, and found that it was in fact one hundred years ago tonight that the Radcliffes burned.
Vicki wants to rush back to Collinwood at once to check on David. Burke suggests she telephone first and ask Mrs Johnson if he is all right. Vicki agrees.
This is one of the “Dumb Vicki” moments the writers make a disastrous habit of falling back on. When they can’t think of an interesting or even plausible way to get from one story point to the next, they have a character do something inexplicably stupid. Since Vicki is on screen more than anyone else, she is usually the Designated Dum-Dum.
At this point in the series, the only telephones in the great house of Collinwood are downstairs, one in the foyer, the other in the drawing room. Vicki has been living in the house since June, so she ought to know where the telephones are by now. Since David’s room is upstairs, the only way Mrs Johnson can answer a call is by leaving him unattended. Vicki knows that Laura’s power is so strong that she can do all sorts of bizarre things given a few seconds; it makes no sense at all that she accedes to Burke’s suggestion and gives Laura those seconds.
Mrs Johnson is reluctant to leave David alone, but he seems to be getting ready for bed. So she rushes down to get the phone. When Vicki asks her about David, she rushes back upstairs and finds that he has gone missing.
There are a couple of firsts in this episode. Burke has been trying to take Vicki out to dinner since the beginning of the series. They’ve had several near-misses, but this is the first time he buys a meal that she actually eats.
Burke first met Joe in #3, and within minutes he’d alienated him with an offer of a bribe. Joe found further reasons to dislike Burke as time went on. Those reasons have dissipated, and so today is the first time Joe greets cheerfully Burke and calls him by his first name. Joe and Burke were never particularly important to each other and there is no reason to expect they will become so now, but earlier this week we did see Burke and Roger, whose mutual hatred is a major theme in the show, act like friends for a little while. If Burke and Joe can make up, we might wonder if Burke and Roger’s brief détente might also point the way to some kind of reconciliation.
We open in the drawing room of the great house on the estate of Collinwood. Well-meaning governess Vicki is taking a page from her adversary, blonde fire witch Laura, and staring into the flames of the hearth. She delivers a speech to visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie. Even though today’s script is credited to Ron Sproat, the speech is full of the kind of elevated language and overwrought imagery fans of Dark Shadows usually associate with writer Malcolm Marmorstein. I suspect Marmorstein actually wrote this speech. Marmorstein’s flowery gibberish will defeat actor after actor until a Canadian character man with a Shakespearean background joins the cast and gets it all to himself. From him, it will sound gorgeous.
As Vicki, Alexandra Moltke Isles delivers the speech with her back slightly arched, her shoulders still, her face rigid, and her voice raised to an almost operatic level. It’s as big a performance as we have seen her give, and it very nearly sells the purple prose she has to utter. She’s describing a dream that her charge, strange and troubled boy David, told her that he had while he was staying with his mother Laura. There’s fire, and it’s very dark, and David and Laura are alone in infinite space, and a whole lot of other hugger-mugger.
In several of Vicki’s scenes with her boyfriend, instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank, Mrs Isles has had to project this combination of a personality forceful enough to lead a battle against supernatural evil with a mind struggling to find its way through a situation with no conventional points of reference. In those previous scenes, that combination was a feature of Vicki and Frank’s relationship. Playing the same combination in a scene without Frank, it becomes a feature of Vicki’s characterization. She pulls it off as well as anyone could, considering the lines she has to say.
Guthrie’s speeches are just as badly overwritten. John Lasell takes a different approach to them. He hunches his shoulders forward, speaks in a quieter and slightly higher-pitched voice than usual, and looks at his feet a lot. He is giving his scene partner as much room as possible for her larger than life turn by making himself very small. It’s a challenge to remember anything that is said in this scene, but the image the two actors create lingers. We see Vicki as the leader ready to drive the action on behalf of the forces of daylight and Guthrie as the sage seared by his contact with the powers of the dark.
In the cottage on the grounds of the same estate, Laura is talking with her estranged husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger. She says over and over that she hasn’t much time- she must take their son David immediately. Roger asks why she is so hurried all of a sudden. She tries to evade the question, stirring his suspicions.
Roger tells Laura that he can’t oblige her in any case. He must stay on the good side of his sister, reclusive matriarch Liz. Liz is dead set against Laura taking David. Laura cast a spell on Liz a couple of weeks ago, and now she is in a hospital, catatonic. Roger lives as a guest in Liz’ house and receives a paycheck from her business. If she returns and finds that he has sent David away with Laura, she might put him in a position where he has no alternative but to work for a living. Laura should know her husband well enough to know he would go to any lengths to avoid that horrifying prospect.
Back in the great house, Guthrie talks with Vicki and flighty heiress Carolyn about his idea of holding a séance. Carolyn talks through her feelings about it, and decides that her initial reluctance is a matter of fear. Roger comes in, and they tell him about the idea. Louis Edmonds has a lot of fun with Roger’s lines denouncing Guthrie’s “quackery.” Roger ultimately agrees to participate if it will get rid of Guthrie. When he learns that Guthrie wants Laura to take part as well, he reacts incredulously.
Roger facing the “quack”
When Guthrie first came on the show, it was indicated that he would be staying in the house. But at the end of this scene, Vicki shows him out. Evidently he has taken rooms somewhere else. It’s confusing.
Carolyn is sure Laura can’t be talked into attending their séance. Nor does she see any other reason to keep her around. Over Vicki’s objections, she declares that she will confront Laura with evidence that she has been lying about what she did the night Liz was taken ill, and that once she has done this she will order her to leave the estate.
Carolyn does go to Laura’s cottage. She leads Laura to repeat the lies she told. When she springs the evidence on her, Laura tells more lies. Carolyn refuses to accept them, and Laura makes a menacing reply. Carolyn holds her ground, but does not order Laura to leave.
The episode originally aired on Valentine’s Day in 1967 (as they would say on the show, exactly 56 years ago!!!!) Mrs Isles was in the spirit of the holiday, as witness her blowing a kiss to the camera while holding the slate.
The announcements over the closing credits are delivered by someone other than ABC staff announcer Bob Lloyd. It sounds like the same voice we heard giving the announcements at the end of #156. I miss Bob!
At the end of last week, reclusive matriarch Liz left the estate of Collinwood for an extended stay in a hospital. It would seem that she took all of Dark Shadows‘ plot points with her. This is the third episode in a row in which we see nothing but characters reprising conversations that didn’t advance the story the first time we heard them. Writers Ron Sproat and Malcolm Marmorstein have been in charge of the scripting for twelve weeks, and they are clearly in big trouble.
This one has a bizarrely dumb opening. Yesterday, strange and troubled boy David took Dr Peter Guthrie, visiting parapsychologist, to the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. Dr Guthrie told David that he would leave him alone in the parlor for a few minutes to try to summon the ghost of Josette Collins. David stared at the portrait of Josette over the mantelpiece until it transformed. It became a painting of David and his mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, in flames.
Today’s episode picks up at that point. Dr Guthrie finds David standing on what returning viewers will recognize as the exact spot where he had left him two or three minutes before. Even someone who had never seen Dark Shadows before will look at the set and see that David occupies what must be the most conspicuous location in the entire house, between the foot of the staircase, the fireplace, and the front door. Inexplicably, Guthrie comes downstairs calling “David! Da-a-a-vid!” and announces “I was looking for you!” In a later scene, David will tell Laura that Dr Guthrie is nice but not very smart. After this senseless exchange, that line draws a laugh from the audience.
A conversation between Laura and her estranged husband, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins includes a couple of interesting remarks. Roger wonders whether Laura will succeed in what they both want and persuade their son to leave with her after their divorce becomes final. Laura’s assurance that she can win David over after a single night alone with him (“That’s all I need, Roger–one night…one night alone with him and you’ll never be troubled by him again…because he’ll belong to me…completely”) is delivered in the same jarringly sensual tone she had used talking to David in #159. Considering that David has already tried to kill his father, the suggestion that the danger Laura presents to David is something to do with Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex is not far to find.
Roger says that when they lived together, Laura’s receptiveness to other men’s attention made him jealous. She contradicts him, saying that the only reason he ever wanted her was that his nemesis, dashing action hero Burke, wanted her. We’ve seen time and again that neither Roger nor Burke is ever as excited about anyone else as they are about each other, and we’ve been invited to wonder what exactly went on between them before they became enemies.
When David comes to Laura’s cottage, the two of them talk about the idea that he might leave Collinwood and live with her. He brings up a point he hasn’t in their previous discussions of this matter, saying that well-meaning governess Vicki will lose her job if he does that. When Laura says that Vicki can get another job, and will probably get married and have children of her own soon, David insists that Vicki loves him more than she does anyone else. This is a touching moment for regular viewers, who saw David move from hatred of Vicki to friendship for her in the one narrative arc of the first several months of Dark Shadows that worked every time we saw it. The Laura story, whatever else it may be, is the grand finale of that theme, and therefore the logical conclusion of the show as we have known it so far.
Mrs Acilius and I agree that the best part of the episode comes in the four seconds after Laura hears someone knocking on her door. As we’ve seen several times, she is sitting motionless, staring into the fire, and only after the second knock does she stir. This time Diana Millay does a particularly good job of looking robotic while Laura tears herself away from the flames.
It registers on Laura that someone is knocking on the door
The best thing about the last two weeks has been the addition to the cast of John Lasell as Dr Guthrie. As of this writing,* it would appear that Mr Lasell is still alive; I’ve found addresses for John Whitin Lasell, Jr, aged 95 years, in both Los Angeles and Orange, New Jersey. Oddly enough, there’s also a Post Office Box in his name in Franklin, Maine. Franklin is about 40 miles from Bangor, down towards the coast where Collinsport would have been.
IMDb says that Mr Lasell was born 6 November 1928 in Worcester, Massachusetts. Wikipedia agrees about the date, but says that he was born in Williamstown, Vermont. The 1940 US Census records the 11 year old John W. Lasell, Jr, as a resident of Northbridge, Massachusetts and gives his birthplace as Massachusetts. There is a memorial to John W. Lasell, Sr, in Northbridge, commemorating his heroic death in the Second World War. So I think we can be confident that John Junior was a Bay Stater by birth. I’m inclined to think Wikipedia’s claim that he was born in Vermont is the result of confusion with dairy farmer John Elliot Lasell. John E. Lasell actually did live in Williamstown, Vermont, and does not appear to have been any relation to the actor. Also, Mrs. John W. Lasell, Sr, the former Frances Sumner, lived into her 97th year, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that her son is still around in his mid-90s.
Writer Ron Sproat stayed with Dark Shadows too long, and fans of Danny Horn’s great blog Dark Shadows Every Day will have fond memories of his frequent denunciations of Sproat. It is true Sproat had many glaring weaknesses. For example, he was pretty bad at inventing stories to tell, which you might think would get in the way of building a career as a fiction writer. But one strength Sproat undoubtedly had was a sense of structure. There might not be anything happening in one of his episodes, but you can count on him to make it clear why it isn’t happening, where it isn’t happening, to whom it isn’t happening, and who isn’t making it happen. Today there are some events, and between Sproat’s script and the work of the actors, it is plain to see what purpose each of those events serves in keeping the story on track.
As the episode opens, Lieutenant Dan Riley of the Maine State Police is visiting instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank Garner in an office. Regular viewers will be confused; we’ve seen this set several times, with exactly these decorations, as high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins’ office at the headquarters of Collins Enterprises. We haven’t seen the set since #69, and Roger wasn’t there at that time. So apparently Frank has moved in.
Frank hasn’t even moved the portrait of the Mustache Man from the spot where Roger had it when he was in the office. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die
Lieutenant Riley wants to pass along to Frank the information that the Phoenix, Arizona police have given him about a fire in Laura Collins’ apartment in that city. Laura is Roger’s estranged wife, and Frank is representing Roger in their upcoming divorce. It isn’t clear why Riley wants to tell Roger’s lawyer what he has heard about Laura. Later in the episode, Frank will tell well-meaning governess Vicki that Riley came to him because he is a “lawyer for the Collins family.” Perhaps that means he believed that Frank represented Laura. Throughout their conversation, Frank repeatedly protests that no one has any grounds for accusing Laura of anything, encouraging Riley in such a belief. I suppose it’s a lawyer’s job to collect damaging information about the opposition, but Frank does seem to be pushing an ethical boundary here.
The charred body of a woman was found in what was left of Laura’s apartment. Since the woman appeared to be the same age, height, and build as Laura, the room was locked from the inside, and everyone associated with the building other than Laura was accounted for, the body was initially identified as hers. Riley now tells us that the police have determined that the fire started in Laura’s apartment, and that a witness claims to have seen Laura in the building the day of the fire.
Laura checked into the Collinsport Inn the day of the fire and has been in and around town ever since, as many witnesses can testify. Riley says that there is no indication that Laura has been on an airplane recently, and it would seem impossible to travel from Phoenix, Arizona to central Maine in a few hours any other way.
The lieutenant goes on to say that because the room was locked from the inside and the woman who died in the fire made no attempt to escape, the police suspect murder. This is nonsense. An attempt to escape might have been evidence of murder, not the lack of such an attempt. And if the room was locked from the inside, how did the murderer get out?
Frank doesn’t raise these objections, but just blusters through a lot of verbiage as he protests against any suggestion that Laura should be suspected of murder. The lieutenant keeps pointing out that Arizona isn’t his jurisdiction, so he doesn’t have anything to do with it. He’s just a messenger.
Some scholar of acting really ought to make a frame-by-frame study of Conard Fowkes portrayal of Frank in this scene. He has plenty of dialogue, he’s challenging statements made by a policeman, he raises his voice, makes gestures, moves around the room, looks down moodily and up excitedly. Yet he is still so bland that it is difficult to remember a word he says. It is far beyond my understanding of the actor’s craft to explain how Fowkes manages to be so consistently dull no matter what the character is doing.
When Frank is a small part of an episode, I think of his blandness as a note of pure realism. He is just the sort of person you would expect to meet in a small-town law office in 1967, and indeed it is reassuring to think that someone who has obviously never thought of putting himself in the spotlight would handle your sensitive legal affairs. The last person anyone should want as a lawyer is some guy who habitually makes himself interesting to watch on television.
Today, Frank is the leading man of the first half of the episode, and comes back with a key part in the second half. Giving that much time to a performer with such a bland screen presence does serve a purpose. None of the characters has really committed to the notion that they have to worry about crimes and physical danger, much less that they are facing a challenge from the realm of the supernatural. As far as they know, the whole story today is about a couple of romances and a child custody matter. That’s the right speed for dull, amiable Frank Garner.
That the characters don’t yet know the true dimensions of what they are facing in the storyline is one of the points this scene has to make. The other is that we will be hearing more about the investigation in Phoenix, and that it will advance the plot.
I think an acting problem muddies this second point. Today Vince O’Brien takes over the part of Lieutenant Dan Riley from John Connell, who played him in #143 and #144. As Connell played him, Riley was an out-of-town cop, not the least bit awed by the Collinses of Collinsport. His matter-of-fact speaking and impatient listening made it clear that the family’s connection to the case in Phoenix was not going to result in the discreet, abbreviated treatment that the local authorities have given them. But O’Brien’s version of the character is noticeably quick to agree when Frank makes a statement. When Frank does a TV lawyer “may I remind you” about the elements of a murder charge (elements which he gets wrong, but hey, it’s TV, not law school,) O’Brien’s Riley is agitated. He shows defiance by declaring “You don’t have to remind me” in a harrumphing voice, but his wide eyes and trembling legs show that he is intimidated to be in a discussion with the representative of the mighty Collinses. There’s no point in bringing in an out-of-town character if that’s what you’re going for- the residents of Collinsport can show you what it’s like to live under the thumb of the people in the big house on the hill. And it introduces a doubt as to whether anything will come of the investigation, a doubt which leaves us wondering why we just spent so much time watching these two guys talk to each other.
Meanwhile, Vicki is visiting dashing action hero Burke Devlin in his hotel suite. Burke has asked her to come. Yesterday, she told him that she was suspicious there was something sinister about Laura, and he had listened attentively. Later, he met with Laura and the love he once felt for her had flared back into life. So today, he wants to tell Vicki that Laura is A-OK and she should do everything she can to help her.
Like the scene with Frank and Lieutenant Riley in Roger’s office, this scene has two points to make. First is to establish Vicki as a credible protagonist for the rest of the storyline about the danger Laura presents to her son, strange and troubled boy David. Second is to show that Burke is so smitten with Laura that he won’t be much help in protecting David.
Burke guides Vicki into his kitchen, a cozy space where people can confide in each other. Last time they were in this space, she made coffee for him; this time, he makes coffee for her. He’s remarkably dainty about it, sifting cream and sugar in separate cups. He makes a pitch about how remarkable Laura is, how he’s rethought everything they said yesterday, and how a fine woman like her deserves Vicki’s trust and support.
Vicki is unimpressed. She was in the room when Laura telephoned Burke yesterday, and heard him agree to meet her at one of their old places. She presses him to explain what has changed his mind, and he won’t give a clear answer. She asks how well he really knows Laura, and he looks dreamily off into space and says that he knows her better than anyone else. She asks if his feelings for Laura might be clouding his judgment, and he demands she change the subject. When Burke urges her to persuade David to grow closer to his mother Laura, Vicki replies “I’ll do what I can for David.” Burke says “You’re hedging.” Vicki replies coolly, “I can’t help it.” When he repeats his urging, he tells her she doesn’t look convinced. She replies, “I can’t help how I look, either.”
Vicki’s strength and intelligence and Burke’s dreamy infatuation should impress anyone watching this scene, but especially viewers who just saw yesterday’s episode. When Vicki is asking Burke what happened between yesterday and today to change his mind, she is waiting for him to talk about the meeting he arranged with Laura while she was right next to him. He never mentions it, and his repeated statements that all he has done is think more deeply implies that he does not remember that Vicki heard him talking to Laura. He is so captivated with Laura that the sound of her voice erases his awareness of everyone else, even of someone he is trying hard to persuade of an important idea.
Shortly after Vicki leaves, Burke receives another visitor from the great house of Collinwood. Flighty heiress Carolyn shows up. Carolyn is pouting because Burke hasn’t been paying attention to her since her Aunt Laura showed up.
This scene has one major point to make, which is that the budding Burke/ Carolyn romance is not going to be blooming this winter. Nancy Barrett’s Carolyn bursts off the screen as she bounces from one extreme to another, trying to attract Burke by pushing her breasts at him, trying to anger him by suggesting that her mother Liz and her Uncle Roger were right when they said he was just using her to get at them, trying to embarrass him by bringing up the obstacles between him and Laura, trying to break through his reserve by flinging her arms around his neck and pleading with him to love her.
Burke tries to let Carolyn down easy, smiling at her, caressing her face, hugging her, kissing her on the forehead. But signs of boredom and irritation keep slipping out. He tells her that the time has come for them not to see each other any more, and there can be no doubt he means it.
Burke, bored with Carolyn
Vicki goes to visit Frank. Frank blabs everything to her that the lieutenant had told him.
Vicki is deeply concerned about the idea that Laura might be a murderer. Frank keeps telling her that there’s probably nothing to that idea, but Vicki resolves at the end of the episode to do whatever she can to keep Laura away from David. Having established Vicki as a character strong enough and smart enough to square off with Laura in her previous scene, this scene shows us her decision to do just that.
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.
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.
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.
In the great house on the estate of Collinwood, reclusive matriarch Liz and instantly forgettable young lawyer Frank worry about where well-meaning governess Vicki has got to. Since Vicki is a witness in the investigation of the death of beloved local man Bill Malloy, and she has been the target of at least two attempted assassinations in the last 24 hours, the sheriff and his men are searching the grounds of Collinwood looking for her.
As it happens, gruff caretaker Matthew is holding Vicki prisoner in his cottage on the estate. Matthew had blurted out a confession that he killed Bill, and has now decided he must kill Vicki to keep her quiet. Vicki tries to persuade Matthew that he will be better off with her alive, but he will not change his mind. As he is putting his hands around her neck with the stated intention of breaking it, the door opens. Liz enters. Startled, Matthew unhands Vicki. She tells Liz that Matthew killed Bill and is about to kill her.
Art Wallace’s original story bible for Dark Shadows, which circulates under the title Shadows on the Wall, had called for Liz’ brother, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, to be exposed as a murderer and a deadly threat to Vicki. Roger would fall to his death in the course of his final attempt on Vicki’s life. That was still possible a week ago.
Now that we’ve heard Matthew’s confessions, we know that Roger isn’t going anywhere. Not only does that keep one of the show’s most engaging actors, Louis Edmonds, in the cast; it also opens a long list of story possibilities. Perhaps Roger and Vicki will reenact the climax of Jane Eyre, and the dark-haired governess will marry her charge’s father. Perhaps the horrendous relationship between Roger and his son, strange and troubled boy David, will improve in some way, or perhaps David will make another attempt to kill his father. Certainly we can expect more scenes between Roger and Liz, as the show plays out the first of its signature relationships between Bossy Big Sister and Bratty Little Brother.
Further, Liz tells Frank and the sheriff that there are three residences on the estate- the great house, the Old House, and the caretaker’s cottage. One of Matthew’s previous attacks on Vicki took place at the Old House, and we’ve twice seen a ghost there who is clearly marked as someone who will be coming back again. Vicki is trapped in the caretaker’s cottage now, and the great house is the main setting for the series. By listing the three locations in this way, Liz is telling the audience to expect to see more of each of these sets, not just in this storyline but in the stories to come.
Well-meaning governess Vicki has found what she believes to be evidence that beloved local man Bill Malloy was murdered by high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. She fears that if Roger knows what she has found, he might kill her next. Since Vicki and Roger live in the same house, she has to be careful.
At the end of yesterday’s episode, Vicki had gone to town. In today’s opening scenes, Roger talks with his niece, flighty heiress Carolyn. Carolyn doesn’t know what’s on Vicki’s mind, and has blithely told Roger the vital information. When Roger finds out Carolyn doesn’t know where Vicki is, he asks his son, strange and troubled boy David. David strings his hated father along for a bit with unsatisfactory answers, all the while inviting him to contemplate a drawing of a man being hanged for the murder of Bill Malloy.
After Roger leaves the house, David opens the doors to the drawing room. He lets Vicki out. This is not only the first time in this episode we know that she was in the house. It is also the first time in any episode we see Vicki and David acting in concert as friends. Vicki’s attempt to befriend David has been the one story on the show that has worked every time we’ve seen it. Now that they are working together, that story has kicked onto a higher gear.
A knock comes at the front door. It’s Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. Maggie is bringing Vicki’s purse. Vicki is astounded- she hadn’t even missed it, much less realized she left it at the restaurant Maggie operates. Maggie insists that Vicki tell her what is bothering her. After a show of reluctance, Vicki tells her that she has found evidence that Bill Malloy was murdered, that she knows who the murderer is, and that if the murderer knows that she knows of his guilt he will be a threat to her. She therefore dare not share her knowledge with Maggie, lest she expose her to the same danger.
Maggie reacts sharply to this. Her father was suspected of killing Bill until the coroner ruled the death an accident, and her reflex when that ruling is challenged is to defend him. She tells Vicki that “I don’t understand you. You pussyfoot around pretending to be so friendly with everyone, and all you succeed in doing is stirring up trouble. As a matter of fact, all the trouble in Collinsport started the day you arrived.” These are startling words for The Nicest Girl in Town to address to our point of view character. But we don’t see her say them, or Vicki react to them. Instead, the camera is on David, eavesdropping at the door. That the show directs our attention to David even when Vicki and Maggie are having such a dramatic moment leaves no doubt that he is at the center of the most important events going on right now.
While we hear Vicki trying to defend herself, Carolyn catches David spying on them. Vicki and Maggie come out to watch her rough him up.* David runs off, and Carolyn leaves for a date.
Afterward, Maggie presses Vicki for more information. She offers to take her home to spend the night with her and her father, Sam- “unless he’s the one you’re talking about.” Vicki tells her not to be silly. Maggie relaxes. Having ruled Sam out, Vicki makes a remark that also rules out dashing action hero Burke Devlin. Since Sam, Burke, and Roger were the three suspects everyone in town was talking about before the coroner’s ruling, that shouldn’t leave Maggie much difficulty guessing who Vicki thinks killed Bill or why she is uncomfortable in the house.
Francis Swann wrote this one, and he often plays up the similarities between Roger and David. While Vicki, having at first told Maggie she couldn’t possibly tell her anything, is telling her everything, Roger enters from the same door David had used a moment before, and stands at the same spot where David had listened to them.
Like son, like father
When Vicki shows Maggie out and declines her repeated offers to stay with her or to take her home, Roger hides in the shadows of the foyer, as we have seen David do many times. He waits by the door until Vicki comes back in.**
Once Vicki is alone, Roger creeps up on her. He grabs her from behind, covers her mouth, and orders her to keep quiet. Roll credits!
After a few episodes written by Ron Sproat, it is refreshing to get back to one by Swann. Sproat has been good so far at keeping the actors busy, but he doesn’t really understand their craft. Working from a script by Swann, each member of the cast can trace a line of development through the episode that gives the story structure and its events significance. Sproat’s first episodes have had some exciting moments, but the characters in them are just pieces being moved around a board. The excitement, when it comes, is that of watching a well-played chess match. Today, we have people to care about, not just the game the writer has devised for himself to play.
*This sequence is the first time we see all three young women in the same shot. With David Henesy, it also features four cast members all of whom are, as of November 2022, still alive.
Carolyn grabs David
**This is the first we see the wall extending from the door toward the front of the set. It is decorated with a metallic device. The theme of the house would lead us to expect a portrait of an ancestor on a spot like that…
Dark Shadows never really stuck to the soap opera tradition calling for Friday episodes to go at a whirlwind pace, build to a shocking revelation, and end with a cliffhanger that brings the audience back after the weekend. The practice of giving a single writer responsibility for a full week more often meant that Friday was an anticlimax that showed his exhaustion. Episode #95 last week was Ron Sproat’s first Friday episode, and in it he tried to play by those usual rules. Today, he doesn’t have enough story to keep things moving very fast, but there is a cliffhanger.
In #95, well-meaning governess Vicki realized that the fountain pen she found on the beach at Lookout Point belonged to dashing action hero Burke Devlin, and jumped to the conclusion that Burke dropped it there while murdering beloved local man Bill Malloy. Today, Vicki has learned that Burke didn’t have the pen the night Bill died. Rather, it was in possession of high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins. She has re-jumped, now to the conclusion that Roger killed Bill.
Vicki dashes from her home in the great house of Collinwood to see Burke in his hotel room and tells him what she thinks. She no longer has the pen, and it occurs to her in the middle of the conversation that the pen doesn’t actually prove anything about Bill’s death. Burke is frustrated that Vicki isn’t ready to go to the sheriff, but eventually agrees that they don’t have enough evidence to move against his enemy Roger.
The scene between Burke and Vicki goes on for a long time, and does not lead to any definite conclusions. It would have no place in a conventional Friday episode. It is important, though. Burke is a hot-headed fellow who rarely admits that he is wrong about anything, least of all about a topic that relates to his bête noire, Roger. Not only does Vicki get him to do that, she also shares an intimate scene with him in his kitchen where she makes coffee. After that, he keeps touching her. The sequence leaves little doubt it is just a matter of time before a Vicki/ Burke romance takes hold.
Something’s brewing
Back in Collinwood, flighty heiress Carolyn is quarreling with strange and troubled boy David Collins about Burke. Carolyn has a dinner date with Burke tonight. David regards this as unfair. Burke, whom David idolizes, is the sworn enemy of the Collins family. Therefore, David’s father Roger and his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz, forbid him to see Burke. If he cannot spend time with his favorite person, he does not see why his cousin should be allowed to go on dates with him.
When David tells Roger about Carolyn’s date with Burke, Roger tries to forbid her seeing him as well, but he has little authority where Carolyn is concerned. In the course of their argument, Carolyn mentions that she told Vicki about Burke’s pen. Roger realizes that this means that Vicki will now suspect him of killing Bill. We’ve seen Roger do cruel things to protect himself, and know that he wants to get rid of Vicki. Indeed, at their first encounter he startled her while she was standing on the edge of a cliff, nearly prompting her to fall to her death. So now that he sees her as a potential accuser in a murder case, we must regard him as a danger to Vicki.
Dark Shadows Commentary 