samantha collins – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 1128: Children’s songs

Six months ago, in the spring of 1840, Samantha Drew Collins learned that her husband Quentin Collins and their young son Tad had been swept off the deck of a ship during a storm at sea. The bearer of this distressing news, Quentin’s friend Gerard Stiles, reported that he tried to rescue Quentin and Tad, but could not. He could only surmise that they had died. A week and a half ago, Samantha married Gerard, only for Quentin to show up that very night, alive and well and reporting that Tad would be along soon. Quentin said that Samantha would have to choose which husband to keep, and that he would abide by her decision.

Today, Samantha chooses Gerard. This is devastating to him, since he was marrying Samantha for her money and now that Quentin is back she won’t have any. But he has to keep pretending he loves her, since admitting the truth would destroy his reputation and burn whatever bridges he still has with people on and around the estate of Collinwood. Quentin has made it clear he does not love Samantha and is sincere when he says he is willing to let her go. He also still regards Gerard as a friend, and is so rich and powerful that even a much better man than Gerard would think long and hard before forfeiting his friendship.

Samantha meets Quentin in their bedroom and tells him of her choice. She brings up his past infidelity and says that she was grateful to him for his candor about it, even though she refused to agree to a divorce when he asked for one a few years ago. He says he will talk to the lawyers about making everything official. He says there doesn’t seem to be anything more to say. She agrees with that. She says she will just take Tad and go.

At this, Quentin’s mood switches abruptly from vague glumness to white-hot rage. Most viewers will have expected that. The oh-so-mature, oh-so-civilized conversation between a divorcing couple has long been a standard scene in domestic melodramas, and it usually is a setup for a sudden explosion of crude and childish anger. Quentin tells Samantha that Tad must stay at Collinwood because he is his son. Samantha replies that Tad is not Quentin’s son. Quentin becomes even angrier, seizing Samantha by the arm, swinging her around to face him, and demanding to know who the other man is. Samantha refuses to give a name, but insists that Tad “is not a Collins!” Quentin vows that Samantha will never see Tad again, and says that he will kill her if she ever tells Tad that he is not his father.

My wife, Mrs Acilius, marveled at the weirdness of Samantha’s thinking in this scene, and I’ve noticed much of the commentary about the episode online focuses on it as a moment when the audience permanently loses interest in Samantha. For example, in a 2021 comment on Danny Horn’s post about this episode on his great Dark Shadows Every Day, “Goddess of Transitory” wrote:

And every time they try to give [Samantha] a new layer or motivation it’s both enraging and silly. Like when she honestly thinks Quentin, in 1840, is going to allow her to take Tad, his only son whom he nursed through shipwreck, Brazilian wretchedness and Boston off with her and Gerard, not a penny between them and head full of delusions? She has absolutely not been played as that kind of “totally unaware of social mores” character up until this point. She would be a divorced woman who ran off with her lover. No court or husband in the land is going to go sure, take Tad!

But let’s say, for whatever reason, she did think so. Quentin’s allowing her to choose for herself has made her think he’s on the same page about their stale, passionless marriage [and honestly, if you can go passionless around Quentin? you have a lot of problems, straight up] and will be glad to see the back of her, so this actually comes as a shock. What does she do?

She yells “TAD’S NOT YOUR SON!” in his face! In what universe, no matter how cracked across and mad, would she think that would get Quentin to go well, in that case, happy trails? Who on this planet is so unaware of all human behavior and motivation that they think telling someone the boy he has raised from infancy isn’t his is going to make him more receptive to her suit?

It really doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. The mere choice to do that renders Samantha totally unbelievable, and therefore unsympathetic.

Comment left 8 September 2021 by “Goddess of Transitory” on “Episode 1128: As Rome Burns,” Danny Horn, Dark Shadows Every Day, 25 February 2018.

The scene is interesting in the context of the show’s overall development. When Dark Shadows debuted in June 1966, its slow pace, vague stories, and reliance on the star power of Joan Bennett made it most appealing to an older audience. When it became a supernatural thriller with action moving at a breakneck speed, it picked up an audience of very young people.

Aside from occasional experiments with more adult themes, most notably at the beginning of the “Leviathan” segment late in 1969, Dark Shadows has been very much a kids’ show for years now. It is stripped across the week during the daytime, but often has only formal similarities to soap operas aimed at housewives and retirees. The triangle between Quentin, Samantha, and Gerard is a step back in the direction of that genre and an older audience. Not only is the triangle itself the typical soap opera situation, but in this one neither man actually wants the woman and it is only through a visible effort of self-deception that she has managed to convince herself that one of them does. Not many elementary school students are likely to be curious as to how people could get themselves into that position or what would come of it.

As “Goddess of Transitory” points out , it makes no difference to Samantha’s goals whether her claim that Tad is not Quentin’s son is true. Simply by saying it she has set back her cause enormously. It would be in her interest to persuade Quentin to listen to her sympathetically, and making this claim ensures that he will never do that again. It would be in her interest to gain the sympathy of the legal authorities and of the general public, and if she says that she had sex with some other man early in her marriage she will forfeit any share she might have of that. In our universe, the penalty for adultery in Maine in 1840 was a fine of up to $1000 and a term of imprisonment up to five years. While the laws in the world where Dark Shadows takes place may not have been the same, the mores and customs there seem to be similar enough that a woman would not do herself any favors by telling the story Samantha has presented to Quentin.

For the purposes of the drama, though, the plausibility of the story does matter. If we believe that Samantha is telling the truth, we expect this other man to show up and become part of the story. If we believe she is not, then she is acting just from an impulse to hurt Quentin, heedless of the fact that she will hurt herself much more substantially. As Quentin’s threats sound like things a small child might say while throwing a tantrum, so Samantha’s denial of Quentin’s paternity suggests the desperation of an equally young child in the same situation.

The last time the show dealt with a paternity question was in 1966 and 1967, when it took place in a contemporary setting. High-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins suspected that his enemy, Burke Devlin, was the biological father of David, the young son his estranged wife Laura bore early in their marriage. Roger hated both Burke and David enough that he almost hoped this was true, and Burke and David both openly hoped it was true. Laura came back to Collinsport late in 1966, and Burke kept trying to get her to say that David was his son. Laura wasn’t interested in David’s paternity, or in the conflict between Roger and Burke. She was an undead fire witch whose plans had nothing to do with romantic entanglements or family quarrels or business rivalries. By the time she went up in smoke, Laura’s storyline had gathered up all of the open narrative threads and carried Dark Shadows out of the category of conventional soap forever.

Since the show started traveling back in time, we have seen that some of the doubling of roles is supposed to indicate that the characters look like each other. During parts of the show set in 1995 and 1970, Tad’s ghost was mistaken for David, so regular viewers know that they look very much alike. And David is descended, not from Tad, but from a Collins cousin of his. Moreover, David Henesy played not only Tad and David, but also the twelve year old Daniel Collins during the segment set in the 1790s. Daniel is 57 years old now, the father of Quentin, and he is played by Louis Edmonds, who played Roger. So longtime viewers know that Samantha is lying when she says that Tad “is not a Collins.” If Quentin is not Tad’s biological father, a close relative of his must be.

When Samantha realizes Quentin will not consent to her leaving with Tad, she calls on a servant named Hortense. When we see Hortense, she is wearing a plain black dress with a lace decoration below the neck and carrying a tray with food, so we assume that she is a maid.

When Samantha addresses her by name, returning viewers will be confused. We heard a few weeks ago that there is a governess at Collinwood named Hortense. That was puzzling in itself, since Tad had been missing and presumed dead for six months at that point and the only especially young person in the house was Carrie Stokes, teenage granddaughter of a houseguest. Rich as the Collinses are, it is a bit much to keep a governess on staff just in case people want to bring their kids for a stay. However few their charges may be, governesses generally don’t wear maid outfits or bring meals on trays, so we might think this is a different Hortense.

Samantha takes Hortense aside and tells her to pack Tad’s bags. She will be taking him away tonight. While they are talking, Quentin’s brother Gabriel is eavesdropping at the door. Characters eavesdrop at the drawing room door all the time, but it is after all a childish thing to do. As a wheelchair user, Gabriel has to lean far forward to get his ear into position, making him look small and emphasizing his childishness. There are no adults at Collinwood at all, only children of various sizes.

Gabriel goes upstairs to Quentin’s room. How he gets himself from one floor of the house to another is never explained. He tells Quentin what’s going on. Quentin comes to the head of the stairs just in time to catch Hortense putting Tad’s bags inside the front door. He demands to know what she is doing. She stammers out a story about going up to check on Tad’s schoolwork, showing that she is after all the governess. Quentin tells her he knows what she is really up to, and fires her on the spot.

Hortense goes out and walks through the woods, apparently on the way to report to Samantha. She encounters a headless body. It kills her.

Virginia Vestoff’s performance as Samantha elevates this episode. She consistently finds a posture which it would be natural for Samantha to adopt and holds it very still, so that any movement she does make attracts our attention. Even while speaking, she moves only her eyes, and those not so as to break eye contact with her scene partners. When she looks from one side of the other person’s eye to another, the reflections of the studio lights flash in her eyes so that it looks like lightning is coming from her. Her deliberate use of her voice, intoning each line with care, contrasts with the rashness of Samantha’s behavior and leaves us wondering if she might somehow succeed in her ridiculous plans. I agree with “Goddess of Transitory” that as written, Samantha’s part in this episode should be fatal to our interest in the character. But Vestoff manages to keep it alive to fight another day.

Episode 1127: Dear Tad, you’re going to have two fathers now

Quentin Collins, sole heir to the Collins family fortune, took his young son Tad with him and sailed away on a cruise meant to take them and Quentin’s friend Gerard Stiles around the world. He left his wife Samantha, Tad’s mother, behind in the great house at Collinwood.

Six months ago, in the spring of 1840, Gerard came to the great house with sad news. Quentin and Tad had been washed overboard off the coast of Brazil. He had tried to save them, but could not. They must be presumed dead. To the dismay of Quentin’s younger brother Gabriel, his father Daniel decided not to change his will when told of Quentin’s death. Samantha remains as sole heiress of all Daniel’s vast holdings.

Gerard was invited to stay in the great house as a guest, and did so. In #1119, Samantha decided that her period of mourning had gone on long enough and married Gerard. In #1120, Gabriel found that not even this had moved Daniel to change his will in favor of him and his children. On the contrary, Daniel says that he ought to adopt Gerard, who is the son he should have had. It seemed that all the Collins wealth was fated to pass from the family with Daniel.

Before Samantha and Gerard had been married a whole day, Quentin turned up, alive and well and reporting that Tad would be along as soon as he recuperated from a mild fever. They had spent the last six months as penniless tramps making their way through South America on foot. It quickly emerged that Quentin had no particular feeling for Samantha; he regarded the Enoch Ardenesque situation as a comedy. He invited Samantha to choose between him and Gerard. If she chose to resume their life together, he would endeavor to make a go of it. If she preferred to start fresh with Gerard, there would be no hard feelings.

Samantha is having trouble deciding. Today, Gabriel taunts her, imagining how she broke the news to Tad: “Dear Tad, there is something I must tell you. You’re going to have two fathers now.” In fact, this doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. Quentin and Samantha cannot be bothered even to pretend they love each other, and whatever Gerard may feel for Samantha pales by comparison to his yearning to live at Collinwood and enjoy the family’s riches. If all had gone according to Quentin’s original plan, he and Tad would probably still be living with Gerard on board ship at this time, with Samantha just an increasingly distant memory. And despite the awkward situation in which they find themselves, Quentin still regards Gerard as a friend. His memories of their time together before the accident at sea must be very warm indeed to prompt that attitude.

I now pronounce you… Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The whole situation will remind longtime viewers of the conflict between high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins and dashing action hero Burke Devlin that ran through the first 40 weeks of the show, when it was set in 1966. Burke and Roger fought over many things, not least their past involvements with Laura Murdoch Collins, David’s mother and Roger’s estranged wife. Each man suspected that Burke was David’s true father. Roger and Burke noisily hated each other, but as Louis Edmonds and Mitch Ryan played them they seemed to have some very complicated feelings for each other that came from places other than wounded pride or class conflict or jealousy about Laura. When Laura joined the cast of characters, Diana Millay joined Ryan and Edmonds in making it crystal clear that Burke and Roger had always been more focused on each other than either was on her. In #139, they fought in front of Laura and forgot she was in the room. She rolled her eyes, telling the audience that it was the same as it ever was.

Laura turned out to be an undead fire witch come to immolate David in order to perpetuate her own supernatural existence. When that dawned on Roger and Burke, they set their hostility aside and worked together to protect David. In #187, the two of them took their places beside David’s bed and gave him some important news. They looked so natural together that it was as if they had been raising David together all of his life. Up to that point Roger had been unnervingly cold and evil, remarkably cruel to David and potentially deadly to well-meaning governess Vicki. After we see him and Burke co-parent David so tenderly, Roger is never a villain again.

Tad is no likelier than David was to end up with two dads. Long before the show traveled back in time to 1840, we saw that Gerard’s ghost was the face of a disaster that reduced Collinwood to ruins in 1970 and was still taking the lives of those who dared venture there in 1995. We learned from other ghosts of those who had been on the estate in 1840 that Gerard murdered several people, Quentin and Tad among them. If history is to unfold again as it did that first time, Gerard will have to change. We have seen that he is greedy, dishonest, and cruel, but he hasn’t shown any enthusiasm for murder. And Quentin’s continued friendliness towards him suffices to show that he has a more agreeable side.

When the present-day characters were researching the Collinwood of 1840, they were surprised to find that there had been a man named Quentin Collins there at that time. They could find no reference to Tad or Samantha, and the only evidence of Gerard was his tombstone. So a resolution that leaves Quentin and Gerard living together happily ever after, but the rest of the family so scandalized by them that Daniel writes them out of history and leaves his estate to Gabriel and Gabriel’s children, would prevent the disaster while leaving in place a timeline in which the characters we know could be born and live the lives we have seen. I can imagine a story in which Gerard committed the murders only because he fell under the power of an evil spirit that promised to cure him of his same-sex desires. The disaster could then be prevented when he and Quentin decide to throw the conventional morals of the nineteenth century aside and commit themselves to each other.

Episode 1121: It has become a comedy

Six months ago, in the spring of the year 1840, a man named Gerard Stiles came to the great house of Collinwood bearing a sad tale. Quentin Collins, heir to the house and all the family’s fortune, had been washed off the deck of a ship at sea with his son, Tad Collins. Gerard had done what he could to rescue them, but Quentin and Tad could be presumed dead. Gerard was invited to stay at the great house as a guest, and that is where he has been ever since. Quentin’s widow Samantha has married Gerard, and Quentin’s father Daniel has said he thinks he should adopt Gerard. The couple stands to inherit everything once meant for Quentin, much to the dismay of Quentin’s younger brother Gabriel.

Now, Quentin turns up at the house, alive and well. The audience might have seen this coming, but the audience is familiar with the story of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Enoch Arden,” either from reading it in school or from seeing one of the many plays and movies based on it. Since that poem won’t be published until 1864, the characters are at a disadvantage.

Enoch Arden saw how happy his wife was with her new husband and decided to slink off into the darkness, never telling them he was alive. Quentin is even more gallant, telling Samantha that he will respect whatever decision she makes. If she chooses to resume her life with him, he will do his best to make a go of it; if she chooses to stay with Gerard, she can go with his blessing.

What this show needs is a good villain. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Quentin goes to the drawing room, and sees a man whom he recognizes as a distant cousin recently come to the house from England. He has been told that Barnabas Collins is visiting, and that he is a dead ringer for the portrait of his late father that hangs in an upstairs bedroom. What he does not understand is why Barnabas reacts to the sight of him with a shocked exclamation of “Quentin!” He asks how he knows him, and Barnabas claims to have seen a drawing of him.

The truth is that Barnabas is a time-traveler from the year 1970. In that year, Gerard’s ghost will precipitate a disaster that will destroy Collinwood and everyone in it. He recognizes Quentin because Quentin looks just like his great nephew, another Quentin Collins who is a friend of Barnabas’ in that future time.

Another ghost who was prominent in 1970 but who has not yet been seen in this period is that of governess Daphne Harridge. In fact, none of the 1840 characters has heard of Daphne, and the governess at Collinwood is someone named Hortense. Returning viewers have been in suspense as to when we would see Daphne. That suspense is ruined today when Kate Jackson does the opening narration. Barnabas spots a figure skulking about in the woods at the end of the episode; he’s the only one who is surprised to see that it’s Daphne.

Episode 1120: A son who can sail the ships

Gabriel Collins is frustrated by his lot in life. His father, the demented Daniel Collins, had planned to leave the family’s entire fortune to Gabriel’s brother Quentin. When Quentin’s friend, Gerard Stiles, reported that Quentin and his son Tad had been washed overboard during a storm at sea and were to be presumed dead, Daniel saw no need to change his will. Quentin’s widow Samantha is now Daniel’s sole heir. Gabriel, his wife Edith, and their two children are to receive nothing. As a wheelchair user, Gabriel’s prospects for employment in the year 1840 are quite dim, to say the least.

Over the last few days, Gabriel has been trying to improve his odds of inheriting by blackmailing Gerard into murdering Samantha. Now, Gerard and Samantha have come back from a trip to the village of Collinsport. Gabriel is disappointed to find that Samantha is still alive, and shocked that she and Gerard have married. He recovers his composure and tells the happy couple that Daniel will surely disinherit Samantha now.

Gabriel goes to Daniel’s room, the locked cell at the top of the tower on the great house at Collinwood. Daniel is kept there because of his unfortunate habit of mistaking women for his late wife and trying to murder them as he did her. How Gabrel got his wheelchair up the stairs to the tower room is not explained. Indeed, he is continually turning up by himself in rooms on every floor of the house, which no one asks any questions about.

Daniel tells Gabriel that Gerard asked him for Samantha’s hand in marriage and that he gave his blessing. Gabriel says that has has a complete dossier proving that Gerard is guilty of many crimes, probably including murder. This does not impress Daniel in the least. Daniel says that he ought to adopt Gerard, who is the sort of man who should be his son.

Gabriel has somehow got himself back downstairs to the drawing room. He tells Samantha that he knows facts about Gerard that she does not know. She refuses to listen to him, and leaves the room with an airy laugh.

Gerard enters and gloats about Samantha’s loyalty to him. Gabriel tries to leave the room. Gerard grabs the back of his wheelchair and holds him in place. Yesterday, Samantha slapped Gabriel in the face, and it was proof of Christopher Pennock’s success at making Gabriel a man we love to hate that we could sympathize with her. But that sympathy also grew from our fondness for Samantha. We’ve seen Gerard do nothing but run con games, and we know that he is fated to be the face of a terrible disaster at Collinwood in 1970. Appealing as James Storm is, Gerard has shown us nothing we can like. His assault on Gabriel is therefore much more outrageous than was Samantha’s. That’s as it should be- we’re supposed to be outraged. Gerard tells Gabriel that he has to be “a good boy” if he knows what’s good for him. There’s no way saying that can make us root for Gerard, no matter how much we may loath Gabriel.

Gerard takes hold of Gabriel’s chair, imprisoning him. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Gabriel’s cousin Desmond enters. He congratulates Gerard, but soon makes it clear he does not approve of the marriage. Gerard storms out, and Gabriel asks Desmond to run an errand for him. He gives Desmond a letter and says that if he presents it at the bank, they will give him his safe deposit box. Desmond agrees to bring Gabriel the box.

Gerard calls on Daniel in the tower room. Daniel tells Gerard that he reminds him of Quentin. This is rather a bold move on the part of the writers. The first version of Quentin we met was an evil ghost who haunted the great house starting late in 1968; we first met Gerard as an evil ghost haunting Collinwood earlier this year. The stories of the two hauntings were both adaptations of Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw, and had a great deal more in common with each other than with the source material. James Storm’s costume and hairstyle as Gerard even evokes David Selby’s as that original Quentin.

In March 1969, the show traveled back in time to 1897 and we met that Quentin as a living being. He was the great-nephew of the Quentin who preceded Gerard as Samantha’s husband. He was a violent, drunken wastrel. We saw him with his siblings and other denizens of the great house who already knew all about those lamentable qualities, so he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. Since the 1897 Quentin had David Selby’s charm and easy manner and spoke in the witty dialogue of Violet Welles, we couldn’t help but like him. We saw that for all his faults, he truly loved his young nephew Jamison Collins, and we could root for that relationship. It was hardly a surprise that Quentin soon caught on with a large audience, making Mr Selby Dark Shadows’ second major breakout star.

The first such star was of course Jonathan Frid as vampire Barnabas Collins. Though Gerard may look like a miniaturized version of Quentin, so far in the 1840 segment he has been more like Barnabas. As Barnabas presented himself to the Collinses in the great house in 1967 as a living man, their long-lost cousin from England, so Gerard is continually pretending to be something he is not. We first heard of Barnabas as, in the words of the opening voiceover, “the strangest, darkest secret of all,” first learned of his supernatural presence as a disembodied heartbeat emanating from his portrait, and first saw him as a hand clutching the throat of the luckless Willie Loomis, so we knew that he was a monster; likewise, we first saw Gerard as an immensely destructive ghost.

The major difference between Gerard and Barnabas is that we still haven’t got to know Gerard. Barnabas set aside his “cousin from England” act when we saw him alone with Willie, whom he terrorized and beat unmercifully. The contrast between Barnabas’ savage cruelty to Willie and his suave pretense with everyone else kept us interested until the collapse of his first crazy scheme, his attempt to erase the personality of Maggie Evans and replace it with that of his lost love Josette. Then, we saw some glimmers of recognizable human emotions coming through his horrible personality, and we started wondering what sort of person could become what Barnabas was.

Gerard’s mask has slipped a couple of times, but only to reveal other masks underneath. We’ve seen that he was cheating Gabriel when he led him to think he was going to murder Samantha for him, and even his assault on Gabriel today is cloaked in passive-aggression, holding his wheelchair instead of hitting his body. In #1113, we saw him alone with Cockney showgirl Leticia Faye, whom he had brought with him to Collinwood as part of a scheme to get money out of the Collinses. The more he talked to her about that money, the more sure she seemed to be that she wasn’t going to see any of it, whatever Gerard managed to do for himself. So far, Gerard has been a type, Con Man, and a function, Villain. We have yet to see any reason to expect that he will become a character. Though Gerard is the face of The Destruction of Collinwood as we saw it a couple of weeks ago, before the trip back in time to 1840, Gabriel seems to be a much more promising addition to the cast at this point.

Gabriel and Samantha are in the drawing room. He tells her that his wedding present for her should be arriving at any moment. He also tells her that he hired Gerard to kill her, which she immediately dismisses as a lie. She tells Gabriel that he is as insane as his father. A few seconds later, Gerard brings Daniel downstairs. It is not clear whether Daniel heard her; if so, we wonder whether he would be more offended at being used as an exemplar of insanity or at being compared to Gabriel, the son whom he hates with such an unreasoning passion.

Gabriel objects that it is unsafe to let Daniel out of the locked room. Daniel replies that Gabriel is just like his mother. Since Daniel is obsessed with his murder of Gabriel’s mother, that response goes a long way towards explaining why he hates Gabriel so much.

Desmond shows up with Gabriel’s safe deposit box. Gabriel opens it in front of everyone, with much ado about how its contents will expose Gerard for what he really is. The box turns out to be empty. We remember that Gerard and Samantha went to the bank before their wedding, and wonder how he got into the vault and emptied the box. Though if we are wondering whether we will ever see Gerard do anything other than run games on people, the emptiness of the box may strike us as a suitable comment on what Gerard really is.

It seems that nothing can stop Gerard. Samantha embraces him and tells him he has made her forget all about Quentin. At that, the doors swing open and there’s Quentin, saying “I’m home!” As my wife, Mrs Acilius, pointed out, we’ve seen so many people eavesdrop through those doors over the last four years that it is hard to believe Quentin did not hear Samantha telling Gerard she was no longer thinking of him.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1864 narrative poem “Enoch Arden,” about a man lost at sea who returns to find that his wife has remarried in his absence, was hugely popular for a century after its publication, inspiring plays and movies, and prompting legislative bodies around the world to adopt laws defining the period after which a missing person could be declared legally dead. Dark Shadows adapted so many other hits of nineteenth century English literature that it is frankly a bit surprising it’s taken them this long to get around to it.

Episode 1119: Where the Devil is everybody.

Ben Stokes

From November 1967 to March 1968, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in the 1790s. In that period, we learned how scion Barnabas Collins first became the vampire we had met in April 1967, and more importantly learned that he could be interesting even if he were not a vampire.

We also met much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes. Ben was played by Thayer David, who first joined the cast of Dark Shadows in 1966 as crazed handyman Matthew Morgan. Matthew was so maniacally devoted to matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard that he inadvertently killed a friend of hers whom he imagined to be her enemy and was about to deliberately murder another of her favorite people, well-meaning governess Victoria Winters, when the ghosts who haunt the estate of Collinwood emerged from the background and did him in. When we met Ben, he was as open-hearted and kindly as Matthew was dark and twisted.

Barnabas was the one member of the Collins family who took a liking to Ben. He taught Ben to read. Later, Barnabas would press his father, haughty overlord Joshua Collins, to free Ben from his indenture. When Barnabas became a vampire, Ben repaid his kindness by protecting him and abetting his crimes. Eventually, Ben’s devotion to “Mistah Bah-nah-bahs” led him to recreate the very crimes that triggered Matthew’s destruction, killing a man in the course of a struggle and murdering a woman in cold blood. We saw that he and Matthew were two versions of the same character. Ben became what Matthew was after a few months in the shadow of the Collins family curse. Matthew had spent his entire life in the shadow of that curse, and so he was doomed from the beginning.

Barnabas brought the vampire curse on himself when he met the gracious Josette, jumped to the conclusion that she could never love him, and consoled himself in a brief affair with her aunt’s maid Angelique. Unknown to Barnabas, Angelique had a talent for witchcraft. When it turned out that Josette did love Barnabas and agreed to marry him, Barnabas cast Angelique aside. Humiliated and enraged, Angelique used her powers of witchcraft to make him into a ghoul and sentence him to exist forever without love. The vampire curse was dramatically satisfying, because Barnabas had been so selfish that it was fitting he should be reduced to a metaphor for extreme selfishness. And Angelique’s declaration that anyone who loved him would die gave an extra pathos to his underestimate of his own lovableness.

As his involvement with Angelique led to Barnabas’ destruction, so Ben’s involvement with her blighted his life. He met Angelique in #372, and thought she was making a sexual overture to him. Without further ado, he walked up to her and took her in his arms. She gave him something to drink first, which made him the victim of a spell that subjected him to her will. As Angelique’s slave, he did harm to Barnabas and others whom he loved, filling him with anguish and self-loathing. Ben did not share Barnabas’ selfishness, so there would have been little point in making him a vampire. But his desperate response to Barnabas’ kindnesses suggests that he, too, believes himself to be unlovable.

Now, the show has traveled back in time again. Mad scientist Julia Hoffman, Barnabas’ devoted friend in 1970, escaped a disaster in that year by passing through a time warp that took her to 1840, when the seeds of the disaster were planted. Barnabas used some mumbo-jumbo to project his 1970 personality into his body as it was in 1840 and joined her there. The two of them needed help establishing themselves in the Collinwood of that period. They found that Ben was living there and that he was still devoted to Barnabas. Ben was very old, but also amazingly resourceful. He was able to provide Julia with contemporary clothing and a set of luggage that she seemed to have left at the Collinsport Inn, and to substantiate the story that Barnabas and Julia were the son and daughter of the original Barnabas Collins. Now they are securely ensconced in the bosom of the Collins family. At the rate Ben has enabled them to go, Julia and Barnabas should be able to solve all the problems they face in another week or two.

Of course, it cannot be so. Ben sees that Desmond Collins, a cousin of the Collinses who live in the great house, has brought a severed head back from a trip to the southeastern coast of China. Ben recognizes this loathsome thing as an object that was mentioned in connection with a series of murders many years before. He has gone to Desmond’s home, a mansion known as Rose Cottage, and left a book with a chapter about the murders and a note urging him to destroy the head. He also spent some time looking at the head and telling it he was going to see to it that it was destroyed. That turns out to have been unwise; when Ben is walking home through the woods, the head appears to him and he cries out in distress. The next morning, Ben’s corpse is found. It looks as if he tried to cut his own head off.

The Happy Couple

In March 1969, Barnabas began the longest of all Dark Shadows’ excursions backward in time when he went to the year 1897. When he arrived at Collinwood, the matriarch of the house was dying. She was Edith Collins, nonagenarian widow of Gabriel Collins. On her deathbed, Edith reminisced about the difficult relationship she and her darling Gabriel had with Gabriel’s father, Daniel Collins, master of Collinwood. At the time, that startled longtime viewers. We had seen Daniel as a twelve year old boy in the 1790s segment, and he seemed pleasant enough. But if we were to believe that he was the man his daughter-in-law remembered decades after his death, he grew up to be bitter and estranged from his own nearest kin.

We have met the adult Daniel, and he is indeed a difficult sort. He is confined to the tower room in the great house because of his unfortunate tendency to mistake women for his late wife and to try to kill them as he killed her. He also has dementia, so that people have to keep telling him which members of the family are dead and what year it is. In fairness to Daniel, these points are extremely difficult for anyone to keep track of on Dark Shadows. We’ve also heard that Daniel has a heart condition that medical science as of 1840 is powerless to do anything about.

We have met Gabriel, too. He uses a manual wheelchair to get around; apparently he is quite skilled with it, since he keeps appearing in rooms on every floor of the house without any apparent assistance getting up and down stairs. He is a vicious bully, a characteristic Edith did not bring up in her deathbed reminiscences.

Today, we meet the young Edith. She is played by Terrayne Crawford, who in the 1897 segment played lady’s maid Beth Chavez. We haven’t seen her on the show since Beth’s final appearance in #880, though she did have a small part in the feature film House of Dark Shadows which was in theaters at this time.

Unlike the dying Edith of 1897, this version of the character despises Gabriel. There is an amusing idea in there. Perhaps in the 57 years between what we see today and what we saw then, Edith talked herself into believing that she and Gabriel had a lovely marriage and that only Daniel’s hostility gave them trouble.

If that was an idea they were planning to develop, they probably should not have given the part of Edith to Miss Crawford. She seems to be a very nice person, but she had severe limitations as an actress. All of the roles in the 1897 segment included dialogue which called for the depiction of multiple layers of feeling at once, and Miss Crawford was alone among the cast in failing to meet this challenge even a single time. So when Beth tells a devastatingly handsome married man that she doesn’t want him to make passes at her, that’s all there is to it- she simply does not want that, and he simply is a jerk for continuing to do it. We can see no conflict within her to set up a story in the course of which she will stop resisting his charms and begin an affair with him.

Eventually they started writing Beth as a one-dimensional character. That allowed Beth to be part of the story, but they did have to sacrifice some themes they had apparently meant to develop. So in her first appearance, Beth reacted with alarm when a Romani character dropped a hint that she was going to reveal to the Collinses that Beth was Romani, too. That fit with Beth’s origin as a servant who had come to Collinwood in the train of Jenny Collins, who was herself secretly Romani. But delivering on it would have required Beth to have more complicated feelings than Miss Crawford could be relied on to portray, so that was laid quietly to one side.

Showing the audience that Edith is the sort of person who will, in her own mind, eventually retcon her crappy marriage into a great but haunted romance would place even greater demands on a performer than would showing that Beth is hiding the facts about her ethnic background. But as we see her today, Miss Crawford seems to have become an even worse actress than she was playing Beth a year ago. She keeps changing her tone of voice in the middle of her lines for no apparent reason, making us wonder if she is trying to suppress the hiccups. That isn’t because she is tense- on the contrary, she is relaxed and comfortable, with a big grin on her face, an inexplicable affect when every conversation Edith has consists of everyone reviling and threatening everyone else.

Gabriel is in a good mood despite Edith’s loathing for him. He is blackmailing the evil Gerard Stiles into murdering Samantha Drew Collins, widow of his brother Quentin Collins. This will leave Daniel with no choice but to leave the Collins fortune to Gabriel. Samantha has no suspicion that anything like this is going on, but she does know that Gabriel hates her and cordially returns his hatred.

Gerard has told Gabriel that he will give Samantha a poison that will cause her to have a fatal stroke while he and she are in the village and Gabriel is at home, so that she will die in front of witnesses and no one will suspect him even if it is discovered that the stroke was artificially induced.

Gerard comes back to Collinwood. Gabriel menacingly says that “If you tell me anything went wrong…” Gerard replies that nothing went wrong. It is done. Delighted, Gabriel asks for all the details. Gerard says that he and Samantha made a stop at the police station to arrange for Ben’s body to be released for burial. Gabriel asks if it happened at the police station. Gerard says no, then goes on to say that they went from there to the bank. Gabriel asks if it happened at the bank. Gerard says no. He then says that they went to the courthouse. Gabriel is thrilled at the idea that it happened at the courthouse, and Gerard confirms that it did happen at the courthouse.

Gabriel asks where the body is now. Before Gerard can answer, the front door opens and the body comes walking in. What happened at the courthouse was not Samantha’s death. It was Gerard and Samantha’s wedding. Gabriel is dumbfounded.

Gabriel absorbs the news of the wedding. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

When he first joined the show in January 1970, Christopher Pennock had some troubles with line delivery that limited him almost as badly as Miss Crawford’s weaknesses limited her. But he has grown by leaps and bounds over the last ten months, and he really breaks through as Gabriel. The three “It happened in the–” questions and his responses to the answers they elicit are pattern from a bit that was old when Gallagher and Shean did it in vaudeville in 1910, but he and James Storm execute it so well that it feels fresh today. The expression on his face when he learns that Samantha has married Gerard is just exquisite.

The measure of Pennock’s success came earlier in the episode, when Samantha slapped Gabriel in the face. Virginia Vestoff is likable enough that her characters can get away with almost anything, but not even she could sell an audience on an able-bodied person who physically assaults a wheelchair user. But Pennock has established Gabriel as such an utter louse that we can see Samantha’s point.

Also in this episode, Samantha clears the toys out of a space known as “The Playroom.” It is explicitly acknowledged that her son Tad had outgrown the toys in it long before, a point the fans like to make whenever The Playroom is mentioned. Samantha has set aside her earlier resolution to leave the room unchanged to honor Tad, who was washed away in a storm at sea and is presumed dead, along with his father Quentin. She has decided the time has come to move on from the past.

The time warp that brought Julia to 1840 was localized in The Playroom, so we wonder what clearing it out will do to the prospects for a return trip. Also, The Playroom occasionally popped into being, complete with Tad’s old toys, in 1970 and in 1995, due to the influence of a bunch of ghosts of people from this period. So while first-time viewers will not likely find any significance in Samantha’s redecoration project, returning viewers may have many questions about it.

Episode 1116: Her temperature could rise

Friday’s episode ended with one of the most effective scenes in all of Dark Shadows. Vampire Barnabas Collins summoned his latest victim, Roxanne Drew, to the gazebo on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood. Roxanne looked at Barnabas adoringly and told him she was willing to die for him. He took her up on this. He bit her, draining her body of blood and letting it fall to the floor of the gazebo. He told her that her corpse would be found in the morning and that her family would grieve for her during the day. At dusk, she would rise as a vampire and would belong to him forever. He walked away from the gazebo, leaving her body lying there. Jonathan Frid and Donna Wandrey showed the full terror of this unimaginably cruel scene. The result chills the audience as deeply as anything they have shown us.

Today, it turns out Roxanne isn’t dead after all. That gives Roxanne’s sister Samantha a chance to find her, and Barnabas’ friends Julia Hoffman and Ben Stokes a chance to hide Roxanne from Samantha and to keep her from dying. When Barnabas finds out what Julia is doing, he moves to attack her, but collapses in the nick of time.

Julia uses some medical equipment she has improvised to give Roxanne a blood transfusion. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

There is also some activity involving Samantha and the evil Gerard Stiles, but that’s basically it. They can’t all be gems of course, but last week was a such bright spot that these twenty two minutes of busywork come as a big disappointment. We can only hope the show gets back up to speed soon!

Episode 1112: There are people here who do remember Barnabas Collins

Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has traveled back in time from 1970 to 1840. Julia’s best friend, vampire Barnabas Collins, was unable to follow her into the past. Julia and Barnabas met in 1967 and became friends in 1968. In this period, Barnabas has been trapped in a chained coffin in the secret room of the old Collins family mausoleum for decades. She misses him so deeply that she convinces herself he must have used some mumbo-jumbo to project himself from 1970 into his body as it is in this time. She unchains the coffin and lets him out. He does not recognize her, and within seconds has his hands on her throat.

In the nick of time, Barnabas’ old retainer Ben Stokes shows up and tells him to let Julia go. Barnabas is shocked to see that Ben is far older than he was when last he saw him. Ben explains that 45 years have passed since he chained the coffin. Barnabas’ reaction settles a question that the vampire lore we have so far seen on Dark Shadows had left open. We have not known whether Barnabas experiences the passage of time while he is sealed in his coffin. Now, we see that he does not. That doesn’t stop him from throwing a big fit when Ben tells him that for the sake of all that is holy he must let himself be sealed back in; he pouts that he has already spent 45 years there, as if he had suffered consciously through all of them. That point will be exploited to broadly comic effect in Tim Burton’s 2012 feature film titled Dark Shadows, in which Johnny Depp’s version of Barnabas is closed in his coffin for a minute and a half and when the lid is reopened wails “How many centuries!?” This scene is played more subtly, but regular viewers will be just as inclined to laugh at Barnabas’ extravagant self-pity.

Ben tells Barnabas Julia’s preposterous story of a journey back in time from a future in which she is his fast friend. Barnabas tells Ben that he has gone mad, but Ben insists that he believes the story, bizarre as it is. Indeed, as a vampire Barnabas is hardly in a position to dismiss tales of the supernatural.

We got to know Ben from November 1967 to March 1968, when Dark Shadows was set in the 1790s. Young Daniel Collins was also a character on the show then. Daniel is in the cast of characters again now. He is the master of the great house of Collinwood, but is a man old before his time because of a severe mental illness and a heart condition that nineteenth century medicine is powerless to treat. When we saw that Ben and Daniel were in the story, longtime viewers realized that the 1840 segment would be a sequel to the 1790s segment. And indeed, Barnabas’ manner and tone of voice when he rises from his coffin are an exact match for what they were at the end of that part of the show. Jonathan Frid picks up right where he left off in #460. I know classically trained actors are taught to do things like that, but he pulls it off so brilliantly that I can’t help but wonder just how it was done.

Ben had laid out a plan for Julia in yesterday’s episode. He told her to present herself at the great house of Collinwood as Julia Collins. She was to tell the Collinses that she was the daughter of the Barnabas Collins who left for England in the 1790s, that she has been living in America, near Philadelphia, for many years, while her brother, Barnabas Junior, had stayed in England. She was to say that Barnabas Junior has written to her saying that he wanted to meet her at Collinwood and to feign surprise that her brother is not already there. She would say that her bags were at the Collinsport Inn. They might then invite her to stay at Collinwood.

Julia leaves the mausoleum. When Barnabas rushes out to claim more victims, she peeks out from behind a tree and watches him go. She now has nowhere to turn but Collinwood and no plan to follow but Ben’s.

Samantha Collins, daughter-in-law of Daniel and the lady of the house at Collinwood, is in the woods when she senses a malign presence. She starts running, and we see Barnabas. By the time Samantha bursts into the front door of the great house, she is on the point of tears. She tells her brother-in-law Gabriel Collins and houseguest Gerard Stiles that she felt that something evil was in the woods. She didn’t see whatever it was, but has somehow come to the conclusion that it was “tall.” Yesterday Gerard, who is a clairvoyant, had a vision of Julia; he described her as tall. Neither Jonathan Frid nor Grayson Hall was much above average height, while the cast included several actors who were. For example, Christopher Pennock, who plays Gabriel, was well over six feet. Gabriel uses a wheelchair, so this role does not emphasize his tallness, but we can’t help noticing it when they keep banging on about the great height of two medium-sized people.

Gerard says that he will go into the woods to investigate. Samantha tells him not to, that she wants him to stay with her and make her feel safe. She tilts her head towards his chest. Samantha’s husband, whose name is Quentin Collins, is missing at sea and presumed dead. In this moment, we see that she is considering Gerard as Quentin’s successor.

Gabriel speaks up. He tells Samantha and Gerard that there is no reason to investigate, since the police are all over the grounds. A woman was found dead earlier in the evening, her corpse drained of all blood. The presence Samantha sensed must have been, not a man, but the animal that killed that woman.

By opening the coffin, not only did Julia needlessly expose herself to the gravest possible danger and release a monster who has already taken one human life and will doubtless take more. She also put an additional obstacle in the way of her own effort to establish herself at Collinwood. That she will present herself and announce Barnabas to the Collinses on the very night the vampire attacks start makes it all but impossible for them not to connect the two of them with those attacks.

Samantha answers a knock at the front door and finds Julia. Julia feigns surprise that Samantha does not recognize her name. She is startled to see Gerard, whose ghost she met in terrible moments in the years 1970 and 1995, but composes herself quickly. Samantha invites Julia in. She tells the story Ben had crafted for her and expresses surprise the Collinses had not received the letters she sent.

Ben shows up and Julia makes a show of recognizing his name. She says that her late father often spoke warmly of him, and that he will be impressed by how much Barnabas Junior looks like his old man. They embrace. By that point, Samantha and Gabriel are sold. Samantha insists Julia stay at Collinwood, and sends Gerard to the inn to fetch her bags. Gerard pounces when Julia says Barnabas Junior will be glad to see Collinwood “again”; she explains that their father told them so much about the place that it feels like they’ve been there before.

A toast to the new arrival. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Gerard does fetch a set of bags from the inn. Apparently Ben had supplied those, as he had earlier supplied the period-appropriate clothing Julia is wearing. He’s a very handy fellow to have on your side, that Ben.

In the morning, Ben joins Julia as she is returning to the mausoleum. He tells her sternly that they must chain the coffin back up and that she must never return to the secret room, no matter how sure she is that her version of Barnabas is summoning her.

They find they are too late. The coffin is gone. Both Julia and Ben know that Barnabas has a compulsion to stash his coffin at the foot of the cellar stairs in the Old House at Collinwood, and Julia also knows that Barnabas’ second choice for a hiding place is behind the bookcase in the parlor of that same house. Julia also knows of a cave near the beach where Barnabas has hidden his coffin a couple of times. So it would seem that they should be able to take the chains with them to those places, find the coffin, and take care of the matter before lunch. But for some reason they just give up.

Back in the great house, Gerard confronts Julia with an earring he found on the dresser in her room when he was putting her bags away. He tells her its mate was found in the long-disused playroom upstairs two nights ago, and asks her how long she has been lurking around. She denies everything, failing to quell his suspicions. Freeing Barnabas to prey upon the living may have been the most foolish thing Julia could possibly have done, but it was not much wiser of her to leave one extremely distinctive earring in such a conspicuous place when she has lost its mate she knows not where.

It was Gabriel who found the earring. He showed it to Gerard shortly after, prompting Gerard to have his vision of the “tall” Julia. Gerard and Gabriel have a scene early in today’s episode, before they meet Julia, in which they go back over the matter of the earring. We can see not only that Gerard is onto Julia, but also that Gabriel has a plan of some kind in which he is planning to involve Gerard. Combined with Samantha’s obvious interest in Gerard, that in turn suggests that we will see how multiple members of the household entangle themselves with him and put him in a position from which he can become a threat to the future of Collinwood.

In the closing credits, Grayson Hall is billed as “Julia Collins.” It has been their custom to list characters by the names they use, even when the audience knows those names to be false. So after Angelique Collins rose from the dead, killed her sister Alexis Stokes, and assumed Alexis’ identity in #1000, when the show was set in an alternate universe, Lara Parker kept being billed as Alexis until all the characters who were fooled by her imposture were off the show. Actors sometimes wander onto the set during the closing credits. My wife, Mrs Acilius, imagines someone doing so while still in character, looking at a credit that gives away someone’s true identity, and pointing at it with wide eyes and an “Aha!” Maybe they were trying to protect Julia from that.

Episode 1110: A room filled with toys

Mad scientist Julia Hoffman has escaped from a band of zombies who were wrecking the great house of Collinwood. From her perspective, it is a few moments after she saw her friend, vampire Barnabas Collins, wrestling with the zombies and urging her to save herself by walking down a mysterious staircase. But she soon discovers that she has left the year 1970 and made her way to 1840, when both the zombies and the ghosts who have triggered their destructive actions were living human beings.

Julia enters the staircase from a playroom that is only intermittently present in 1970 and walks down its two flights. She exits into the same playroom, which is a normal presence in 1840. We saw this same distortion of space in #1070 and #1071, when Julia and Barnabas used the staircase to escape from the far-off future year of 1995 and return to 1970. It was an effective way of expressing the magical nature of the staircase and the playroom then, and is still effective the second time.

When they opened the playroom door on their return to 1970, Barnabas and Julia saw a girl in the corridor. That girl appeared to be a ghost named Carrie whom they had met in 1995, but turned out to be a living girl named Hallie Stokes who had moved into Collinwood while they were away on their bizarre cosmic journey. Now, Julia opens the door and sees the living Carrie in the same corridor.

Hallie was the niece of occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes and therefore a descendant of much-put-upon indentured servant Ben Stokes, whom we got to know from November 1967 to March 1968, when the show was set in the 1790s. We learn today that Carrie is Ben’s granddaughter, and that he and she are staying in the great house as the guests of Daniel Collins.

We saw Daniel in the 1790s segment. He was played then by David Henesy, who was eleven years old at the time. Mr Henesy looked a lot older in September 1970 than he had three years before, and he was an accomplished young actor. But it would likely have been beyond even his abilities to play a character well into middle age, so when we see Daniel from the knees down later in the episode we can be fairly sure he will turn out to be someone else.

Julia sees a confrontation between Carrie and a tall young man in a wheelchair. The man turns out to be Daniel’s son Gabriel. He insists Carrie open the door to her grandfather’s bedroom and push him in. Carrie objects, and Gabriel sneers that she is not to tell a Collins what to do at Collinwood. He berates her, saying that while others may indulge her because they are impressed by her good looks he sees only her impudence. She capitulates to his demands.

In the room, Gabriel turns his abusiveness against Ben. He orders Ben to break some bad news to Daniel. Word has come that Daniel’s son Quentin and Quentin’s son Tad have been lost at sea. Ben protests that Daniel is in no condition to receive such news. Gabriel digresses and says that he cannot make his own living; Ben tells him that many men in worse condition than he is have done, which only makes him angrier than he was to start with. Gabriel regrets his inability to stand up and strangle Ben. We can see that he’s a true Collins; they are a strangley bunch. He then says that he is now likely to become Daniel’s heir, and threatens to evict Ben and Carrie from Collinwood when he does. He menaces Ben with the prospect that he will use his position to make Carrie’s life difficult if he does not obey him now. Ben gives in.

Gabriel bullies Ben. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

When Ben returns to his room he finds Quentin’s wife, Samantha Drew Collins, waiting for him there. He tells her that the news did not prompt Daniel to change his will. She is still in line to inherit the estate when Daniel dies.

Samantha goes to the drawing room, where she finds Gabriel playing a one-handed game of chess. She is smugly pleased with his dismayed reaction to the news that Daniel has not changed his will. She exits and later returns with word that Daniel has escaped from the tower room. The Collinses have always made a practice of keeping mentally ill family members in that room, and Samantha and Gabriel are so frightened by his escape that we can assume Daniel’s illness disposes him to violence.

Julia emerges from the shadows in Ben’s room. Ben is alarmed to see her, and horrified when she identifies herself a friend of Barnabas’. She claims that she is not a monster, which is a defensible claim, given a very narrow definition of “monster.” When she tells him about traveling back in time from a future period when Barnabas is free to prey upon the living and she is his best friend, he says that she is mad. She denies being mad, which is what a person would do when they are as far from sanity as she is. Ben is leery, but agrees to help her. He escorts her back to the playroom and tells her to stay there until morning. Of course she leaves the room very shortly thereafter, and as soon as she enters the corridor Daniel grabs her by the throat.

The drawing room is downstairs; Ben’s room and the playroom are upstairs. No one seems to be helping Gabriel get from one floor to another, and there is no sign of any ramp or other contrivance that would make it possible for wheelchair users to get themselves from one floor of the house to another without help. Odd as this is, it is not a first on Dark Shadows. In January and February 1970, strange and troubled boy David Collins used a wheelchair in a few episodes because David Henesy had actually suffered a leg injury. David kept going up and down stairs by himself, without explanation of how such a thing was possible. I suppose they got few enough letters complaining about the illogic of that movement that they decide they could get away with it again.

Carrie has three scenes. In addition to her encounter with Gabriel, she talks with Samantha in the playroom and with her grandfather in his room. As Hallie, Kathleen Cody was in a state of maximum nervous tension from the start, so that she had nowhere to go in response to anything that might happen. As Carrie’s ghost, she often swung to the opposite extreme, being so blandly cheerful that she made no impression at all. She did put in a few good performances in the 1970 segment, however, and she is quite good as Carrie today.

Samantha is played by Virginia Vestoff, making her Dark Shadows debut. Vestoff was a distinguished performer who is now remembered chiefly for her role as Abigail Adams in the original Broadway cast of 1776 and of the 1972 film based on that musical. The Broadway cast also included several other Dark Shadows alums- David Ford (Sam Evans #2, Andre DuPres) as John Hancock, Emory Bass (Mr Best) as James Wilson, Daniel F. Keyes (The Cemetery Caretaker) as Josiah Bartlett, and Peter Lombard (Oberon) as a stage manager and understudy for the roles of Stephen Hopkins and Thomas Jefferson. All of those, aside from Lombard, also appeared in the film. Vestoff died of cancer in 1983, aged 42, a major loss to the world of the theater.

A great deal of emphasis is placed today on Samantha’s maiden name, Drew. We have in the last few months met two characters named Roxanne Drew; we can take it that Samantha will turn out to be related to one of those in some way.

Longtime viewers, learning that Daniel and Ben are in the 1840 story, will readjust their expectations. Most of what we saw in the ten weeks leading up to this uncertain and frightening journey into the past was recycled from a story that ran from December 1968 to March 1969 and culminated in a trip to the year 1897. So we may have come in thinking there would be a retelling of 1897. But seeing Ben and Daniel, we have the prospect of a sequel to the 1790s segment. That does sound like a fresher idea.

The episode is certainly structured very differently than were the first episodes of either the 1790s segment or the 1897 segment. Those featured a relatively wide variety of brightly lit sets full of busy people, getting us off to a fast start in a new world. Today most of the action takes place in the playroom, Ben’s room, and the corridor between them, with a couple of brief glimpses of the drawing room. We keep cutting to Julia standing very still behind one partition or another as she eavesdrops on the dialogue. We are operating within a very small space, but hearing about people who are far outside that space and whom we are confident we will meet soon. So rather than leading with the equivalent of a panorama of our new surroundings, they are opening the space up for us a little bit at a time. That makes it easier to keep the action moving rapidly and clearly, and also leaves us wanting more.