All of the storylines in the part of Dark Shadows set in 1968 bear a heavy weight of repetitious elements. The “Dream Curse” consists of countless reenactments of the same dream sequence, almost all of them followed by at least one scene in which the character who had the dream struggles with a compulsion to tell it to someone else, and then by a speech in which we hear the details of the dream yet again. That curse was set by wicked witch Angelique, who for no particular reason keeps insisting that her name is Cassandra. Angelique is a time traveler from the eighteenth century, as is shouting man Peter, who for no particular reason keeps insisting that his name is Jeff.
Mad scientist Eric Lang tried to cure Barnabas Collins of vampirism by an experimental procedure that involved the creation of a Frankenstein’s monster. Angelique killed Lang before he could finish the experiment, but fortunately for Barnabas his best friend Julia is also a mad scientist, and she completed it. Barnabas named the creature Adam. Lang left behind an audiotape explaining that Barnabas will be free of vampirism as long as Adam lives, but that he will revert if Adam dies. Barnabas and Julia have not heard this message, but it has been played for the audience many times. Yesterday’s episode closed with yet another replay of the message, and today’s opens with still another. Since the message is nearly a minute long, it will soon have accumulated a full episode’s worth of airtime.
After the message, we see a new set. It represents the rocky shore below the cliff on Widows’ Hill. Barnabas is there with his servant Willie, looking for Adam. Adam jumped off the cliff yesterday. Since episode #2, that plunge has always been shorthand for certain death, so the opening voiceover introduces a new idea when it tells us that Adam’s leap merely “appeared to be” his self-destruction. Barnabas believes that Adam is still alive, though Willie does not. The two of them stand around and shout Adam’s name over and over; after the fifth or sixth repetition, Mrs Acilius and I cracked up laughing. At least they could have broken it up a little, and alternated “ADAM!!!” with “STELLA!!!”
The rocky shore below Widows’ Hill.
Willie had the dream last night, and now feels compelled to tell it to heiress Carolyn. Adam had abducted Carolyn and held her for a couple of days before he dove from the cliff; she is now at home in the great house of Collinwood. Willie wants to sneak into Collinwood to talk to Carolyn. Barnabas points out that Willie was only recently released from the mental hospital where he was confined after he took the rap for Barnabas’ abduction of another young woman, Maggie. If he sneaks into Carolyn’s bedroom it will go badly for him. Barnabas directs Willie to search for Adam inland, prompting Willie to flash a grin. The very first night Willie was back from the hospital, he disobeyed Barnabas’ orders and ran off to visit Maggie. So his grin tells us to expect that he will disobey Barnabas’ orders again, this time to visit Carolyn.
Willie goes to the great house. We see him standing by the wall, below the second-storey window of Carolyn’s room. In her room, Carolyn talks with her mother, matriarch Liz. She explains to her mother that she is neither frightened of Adam nor angry with him, but that she pities him, because he seemed like an inarticulate and lonely little child. After this conversation, Liz leaves the room. Willie scales the wall, slips in through Carolyn’s window, grabs Carolyn, holds her mouth shut, and forces her to listen while he starts to tell the dream. Carolyn bites Willie, screams, and Liz comes.
Willie flees through the window. Carolyn explains to her mother that she is neither frightened of Willie nor angry with him, but that she pities him, because he seemed to be deeply terrified by his dream. She says that she is afraid that she, too, will have the dream.
Three people who live in the house have already had the dream. One of them is Julia, who is careful about who she talks to. The others are strange and troubled boy David, who regularly confides in both Carolyn and Liz, and housekeeper Mrs Johnson, who tells everyone everything. It is surprising that neither of them has mentioned it to either Carolyn or Liz.
Sheriff Patterson, leading his deputies through the woods in search of a very tall man named Adam who has escaped from gaol, finds a scrap of Adam’s clothing on a tree. He looks ahead and sees the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. He remarks “That’s the old Collins house. Every time anything goes wrong around here, that’s where all roads seem to lead.” He takes his party toward the house. Once they are gone, Adam comes out from behind a tree, and goes in another direction. Unknown to the sheriff and his men, Adam is a Frankenstein’s monster. He is four weeks old and has a vocabulary of fewer than a dozen words, but he easily outwits Collinsport’s entire law enforcement community.
The Old House is home to Barnabas Collins, whom the audience knows to be a recovering vampire. The sheriff calls on Barnabas and recaps the story for his benefit. In his post about the episode, Danny Horn ridicules every part of this preposterous scene, getting half a dozen genuine laughs. I won’t compete with him, but I do want to point out that while in both Wednesday’s episode and yesterday’s, the sheriff said it took twenty men to subdue Adam and take him into custody, today he says it took six. Maybe by next week it will be down to one deputy and a mynah bird.
Adam has abducted heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard. When he eludes the police, he goes to the abandoned structure where he has cooped her up. He had left her there to go look for food. That mission was interrupted by his arrest. Now, she asks to go home. He is carrying her back there when they meet the sheriff, his deputies, and Barnabas at the top of Widows’ Hill. From the second episode, we have known that people plunge to their deaths from this hill. We’ve heard stories about several such incidents, have seen a number of characters come close to falling from it, and in #425 we saw gracious lady Josette make the fatal leap. Carolyn slips from Adam’s arms to the edge of the cliff; the deputies see him pull her up. She runs into Barnabas’ arms, and Adam falls.
After Adam’s fall, we hear a message that is very familiar to us, but that Barnabas and his friends have never heard. Adam was created in an experimental procedure that was meant to relieve Barnabas of his vampirism. His creator, mad scientist Eric Lang, died shortly after recording an audiotape explaining that as long as Adam lives, Barnabas will be human, but that he will become a vampire again if he outlives Adam. This message plays out over images of the waves crashing into the rocks of the shore. It’s an effective visual complement to the message, a metaphor for the overwhelming power that will engulf Barnabas and the rest of them if Adam is in fact dead.
Bewildered time traveler Vicki Winters is on trial for witchcraft, and it is not going well. Her lawyer/ gaoler/ boyfriend/ whatever else they don’t have the budget to hire another actor to play, an unpleasant young man named Peter, says that he wants the judges to see her as he does, as “a lovely girl who isn’t capable of witchcraft or anything else.” Unfortunately, Peter is right about Vicki’s capabilities- ever since she came unstuck in time and found herself in the year 1795, Vicki hasn’t done a thing worth mentioning.
Later, Peter catches up to much put-upon servant Ben Stokes. He persuades Ben to take him to the unmarked grave of wicked witch Angelique. Peter digs up the grave, but Angelique isn’t in at the moment, and there is no place to leave a message. Peter goes back to Vicki’s gaol cell and tells her that she may as well take the stand at her trial and tell the judges that she is a refugee from the 1960s.
In between these scenes, untrustworthy naval officer Nathan Forbes finds Ben and tries to pay him for information about a man who was once their mutual friend, Barnabas Collins. Ben indignantly refuses the money. When Nathan keeps trying to talk him into it, Ben handles him roughly, then stalks off.
This exchange will be of some interest to those who have been watching Dark Shadows from the beginning. Nathan is played by Joel Crothers, who in the parts of Dark Shadows set in the 1960s plays hardworking young fisherman Joe Haskell. In #3, hard-charging businessman Burke Devlin found Joe and tried to pay him for information about the Collins family. Joe indignantly refused the money.
It’s interesting to see Crothers reprising the situation, playing the opposite role. Burke had poured on a heavy display of oily charm in response to Joe’s quiet stiffening, telling a rather alarming story about the beginning of his rise to wealth and inviting Joe to adopt him as a father figure. By contrast, Nathan retreats rather quickly in response to Ben’s angry outburst, but then rephrases the offer in a hale and hearty tone, trying to assure Ben that he sees him as an equal and wants to be his buddy.
Neither Burke nor Nathan gets anywhere with his persistence, but each man’s approach is typical of him. As a man born into the working class of Collinsport who became a millionaire, Burke proceeds from an ironclad certainty that every wage earner in town wants to follow his example. He cannot doubt that Joe will jump at the chance to take his money and his advice. As a self-involved navy officer, Nathan believes that enlisted sailors will be sincerely grateful to him if he acts like their friend, and extends that belief to include governesses, ladies’ maids, bartenders, streetwalkers, indentured servants, and everyone else he sees as his inferior.
Ben’s angry response to Nathan’s proposition also echoes the early days of the show. When Dark Shadows was set in 1966, Thayer David played violently irritable handyman Matthew Morgan. When Ben lunges at Nathan today, he is the very image of Matthew lunging at Burke in #64. But where Matthew had to be restrained by bystanders and threatened by the sheriff before he settled down, Ben quickly backs off.
The contrast between Matthew and Ben goes to the heart of the eighteenth century flashback. Each is a formidable fighter. Each is excessively devoted to a member of the Collins family, Matthew to reclusive matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Ben to Barnabas. Each lands himself in trouble because of that devotion. But Matthew grew up in a Collinsport that had been laboring under a curse for many generations. He is unstable, irrational, dangerous. But for Ben, the curse just began a few months ago, long after his adult personality was fully formed. He is a sane man, and a good one. We can hope that he will emerge from Barnabas’ shadow and make a bright future. In that hope, we can see what the curse will cost not only the Collinses, but all the people of Collinsport.
Today is taken up with the witchcraft trial of bewildered time-traveler Victoria Winters. That is to say, the actors stand around the courtroom set and shout random nonsense at each other until it is time for the closing credits.
Two of the good actors whose talents are wasted in this episode. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.
The only line of dialogue that made an impression on me was Vicki shouting “That’s! Not! TROOOO!” when untrustworthy naval officer Nathan Forbes was on the stand falsely accusing her of something or other. In the first months of the show, Vicki often shouted that to strange and troubled boy David, usually in response to David saying something that the audience knew was perfectly true. In those days, the show’s slow pace and its focus on the budding friendship between Vicki and David gave Alexandra Moltke Isles and David Henesy a chance to overcome the crummy writing of their scenes together and show us what it looks like when two people learn to trust each other. But the part of the show set in the late eighteenth century moves at a rapid clip, and nothing human is at stake in the witchcraft trial. So when we hear another “That’s! Not! TROOOO!” this time, we miss the days when Mrs Isles was in a position to rescue us from the writers’ delinquencies.
When Nathan makes his entrance, we hear some music I don’t believe we have heard before. Christine Scoleri of Dark Shadows Before I Die identified it as a piece that it is on Dark Shadows: The Soundtrack Music Collection as “Cue 157: Dramatic Curtain.” It doesn’t fit the situation. It’s a busy little tune, suggestive of fidgety nervousness. It’s true that the whole trial is just so much fidgeting on the part of the show, but the background music really isn’t the place to complain about that.
Late in 1966, the ghost of Josette Collins emerged from the supernatural back-world behind the action of Dark Shadows and rescued well-meaning governess Vicki from homicidal groundskeeper Matthew Morgan. Early in 1967, Vicki and several other characters worked closely with the ghost of Josette to thwart the evil plans of undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins. After these experiences, Vicki felt so close to the ghost that, to some, it seemed possible that her personality might disintegrate and she might become a sort of reincarnation of Josette.
In November 1967, the back-world and the foreground traded places. Vicki came unstuck in time and found herself in 1795, where Josette and others whom she had met as uncanny entities are alive and she is the alien interloper from another world. Vicki did not in any way adapt to her new surroundings, and immediately brought suspicion on herself. Now she is in jail, spelled “gaol,” awaiting trial on charges of witchcraft.
Josette visits Vicki today and begs her to lift the curse that has brought a mysterious and apparently terminal illness to gallant gentleman Barnabas Collins. Despite her situation, Vicki is shocked that Josette believes her to be a witch. Unable to persuade her of her innocence, Vicki tells Josette that she is a time-traveler and sends her off to look for a book she brought with her from the future. Josette interprets this as a confession of witchcraft, and when she finds the book makes it clear that she could not possibly have interpreted it as anything else.
If the show had kept the memory of Vicki’s friendship with Josette’s ghost fresh, this might have been a powerful scene. But Josette’s ghost receded from the action after the Laura story ended in #191, and in #223 and #240 it was made explicit that she is no longer a palpable presence on the estate of Collinwood. We’ve barely heard of Vicki’s connection to Josette in recent months. By this point, even viewers who have been with the show from the beginning are unlikely to make a connection between Vicki’s behavior in her scene with Josette and those old stories. Instead, we see yet another case of Vicki being a tiresome fool.
Disappointing as that scene is, it is not the low point of the episode. That came in the scene immediately before. Actor Jack Stamberger appears as a doctor called to treat Barnabas. Doctors on Dark Shadows are ineffectual figures brought on to fill time, unless they are mad scientists who take a bad situation that is troubling one or a few characters and make it so much worse that it can be a major narrative arc. Stamberger’s part is of the former sort.
It is a particularly objectionable specimen of the category. The other G.P.s usually started with at least a theoretical possibility that they might do something to advance the plot, or turn out to be old friends with established characters who could show a new facet of their personalities in interaction with them, or at least bring out some unusual medical equipment that would be fun to look at. They’ve already foreclosed all of those possibilities before this doctor appears, so the scene is advertised as a waste of time.
Worse, watching Stamberger’s performance is like sticking your head in a bucket of itching powder. His scene partners, Kathryn Leigh Scott, Lara Parker, and Grayson Scott with dialogue, and Jonathan Frid with moans and anguished facial expressions, are all totally committed to the period setting, and really do seem like gentlefolk inhabiting a mansion in a previous century. Stamberger doesn’t even try to do what they are doing. He puts on a growly voice that might have been acceptable if he were playing a trail-boss in a Western, but that doesn’t have much place in any scene set indoors. It certainly doesn’t make sense for a man in genteel surroundings who talks about nothing but how helpless he is. He doesn’t maintain eye contact with any of the ladies long enough to put himself into the same space with them. He bungles most of his lines, and even those he speaks as written he follows by shuffling his feet, breathing heavily, and looking around. Dark Shadows was, for all practical purposes, done live; if videotape editing had been freely available, it’s hard to imagine director Lela Swift wouldn’t have stopped the scene and taken the time to smack him upside the head.
On his Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn argues that Addison Powell was, as he stylizes it, THE WORST ACTOR EVER TO APPEAR ON DARK SHADOWS. I’m not sure who deserves that title, but today Stamberger locks up the award for Most Irritating Performance.
Yesterday, the ghost of Jeremiah Collins started to bury wicked witch Angelique alive. Today, we see that he barely got her dress dirty. She’s lying on a mound next to the empty grave when we find her.
This is the one where Angelique marries Barnabas. It ought to be packed with incident. There is a lot of activity, but like the live burial, it doesn’t amount to much. It’s a real disappointment.
One particular weak spot in the episode is the officiant at the wedding, the aptly named Reverend Bland. Actor Paul Kirk Giles does what he can, but as soon as the Rev’d Mr B realizes that something unwholesome is going on he declares that he is getting out of the place. Apparently his conception of the duties of a pastor consists of avoiding people who might need help confronting the spiritual forces of darkness. It doesn’t matter- Bland’s squeamishness disappears after Barnabas orders him to stay and perform the wedding.
After the wedding, Angelique returns to her bedroom. There is a gift that hadn’t been there before. Opening it, she finds a music box. The music box was a big deal in 1967, when Barnabas was a vampire and he thought that a woman who listened to it would turn into his lost love, the gracious Josette. This is the first time we have seen the music box during the segment of Dark Shadows set in 1795. In 1967, Barnabas told various stories about the origin of the music box, but the one thing that remained consistent was that it was meant for Josette.
Barnabas and Josette were engaged when the 1795 segment began, but that ended when Josette and Jeremiah conceived a mad passion for each other and eloped. Unknown to Barnabas, that was the result of a spell Angelique cast in hopes of getting Barnabas for herself. Barnabas responded to the elopement by killing Jeremiah in a duel. He has told Angelique that he still loves Josette and always will, but that he knows there can never again be anything between them. Moments after he had told her that, Angelique agreed to marry him. Evidently it was to be a sham marriage.
Jeremiah’s ghost has been railing at Angelique for raising him from his grave, and apparently he wants to be avenged by making the sham marriage even shammier. When Barnabas comes into the room, he sees the music box, explodes in rage, and storms out.
In life, Jeremiah never knew that Angelique was behind his and Josette’s passion. He has evidently learned that and other of her secrets, and is using them against her. Perhaps Angelique put more of herself into him than she intended.
On The Collinsport Historical Society, Patrick McCray says that this is an important episode because Barnabas and Angelique’s wedding is the basis for some developments much later in the series. That’s true, but by the time he’s talking about the show isn’t very good any more. So I consign it to the ranks of the “Stinkers.”
As I’ve gone along making these notes, I’ve occasionally been moved to tag episodes as “Genuinely Good” or “Stinkers.” Since no episode of Dark Shadows aired 56 years ago today- 23 November 1967 was Thanksgiving Day in the United States, so ABC showed football games instead of its regular programming- I’m taking the opportunity to list the installments to which I gave these labels.
Genuinely Good Episodes
#25. Written by Art Wallace. Vicki finds an incriminating piece of evidence in David’s room.
#32. Written by Art Wallace. Roger and Liz face the fact that it was David who tried to kill Roger.
#50. Written by Art Wallace. Vicki and Carolyn see Bill Malloy’s body below the cliff.
#59. Written by Art Wallace. The sheriff comes to Collinwood and questions Roger.
#68. Written by Francis Swann. Roger encourages David to murder Vicki.
#69. Written by Francis Swann. Mrs Johnson visits Burke in his hotel room.
#87. Written by Francis Swann. Roger finds Vicki in the sealed room and releases her.
#102. Written by Francis Swann. David has a conversation with the portrait of Josette.
#103. Written by Francis Swann. Vicki and Burke investigate Roger.
#112. Written by Ron Sproat. Liz rescues Vicki from Matthew.
#126. Written by Ron Sproat. The ghosts of Josette and the Widows, accompanied by that of Bill Malloy, rescue Vicki from Matthew.
#146. Written by Malcolm Marmorstein. Sam burns his hands.
#182. Written by Ron Sproat. Roger begins to suspect that Laura might really be a supernatural being and a threat to David.
#253. Written by Joe Caldwell. Maggie gives Willie her ring. The first really good episode of Dark Shadows 2.0.
#254. Written by Joe Caldwell. Carolyn and Buzz announce their engagement.
#258. Written by Malcolm Marmorstein. Maggie talks with Sarah.
#260. Written by Ron Sproat. Maggie escapes from Barnabas.
#265. Written by Malcolm Marmorstein. First appearance of Dr Julia Hoffman.
#318. Written by Gordon Russell. Barnabas and Julia hide in the secret room of the mausoleum while Sam and Woodard search the outer part.
#325. Written by Gordon Russell. Sarah comes to David in a dream.
#327. Written by Gordon Russell. David communicates with two aspects of Sarah that don’t communicate with each other.
#333. Written by Ron Sproat. Burke and Woodard search Barnabas’ basement.
#344. Written by Joe Caldwell. David knows what’s going on and has given up hope of changing it.
#345. Written by Gordon Russell. Burke is missing and feared dead.
#348. Written by Joe Caldwell. Julia tries to save the experiment. The first episode of Dark Shadows to fully integrate color into a coherent visual strategy, and probably the best episode of the series up to this point.
#351. Written by Gordon Russell. Barnabas adds Carolyn to his diet.
#363. Written by Gordon Russell. Tony catches Carolyn going through his safe, then Sarah appears to Barnabas.
#364. Written by Gordon Russell. Sarah confronts Barnabas.
#365. Written by Sam Hall. A séance at Collinwood has an unexpected result. This is the final episode of Dark Shadows 2.0.
I credit the writers, because there were only two directors in this period of Dark Shadows, Lela Swift and John Sedwick, and they didn’t differ sharply in approach. The rest of the production staff was the same in every episode, so the writers were the only ones whose names seemed like they might give a clue as to what set the best episodes apart from the worst ones.
I’m very surprised to see Marmorstein’s name in this list three times. Joe Caldwell was making uncredited contributions to the writing from #123 on; #146 is very much in his style, and I suspect he was its true author. But Caldwell was getting on-screen credit by the time of #258 and #265, so I think those must actually have been Marmorstein’s handiwork. Granted, neither of them is all that close to the top of the all-time great list, and the actors and directors do a lot to elevate them. Even so, they do prove that Marmorstein was not the total incompetent he so often seemed to be.
One thing I notice is that many of these episodes feature long-delayed confrontations in which the character learns information they hadn’t expected and can’t use right away. So in #25, David talks with Vicki and for the first time makes an explicit statement about his father’s accident, while Liz talks with Roger and for the first time makes an explicit statement about Vicki’s origins. In each case, the explicit statement is an obvious lie and the person telling it demands that the other go along with it. Hearing the characters talk about issues they’ve been evading for a long time relieves some worn-out suspense, while the actual content of the conversation builds fresh suspense as we wonder what use Vicki and Roger will make of the knowledge that David and Liz are lying. And of course the similarity between David’s behavior and his aunt’s shows that the boy is carrying on a family tradition.
In #32, Roger and Liz finally admit to themselves and each other the fact that David caused the accident. While they set to work covering this up, Roger tells Liz that he isn’t sure David really is his son. Liz refuses to entertain the question, but it sets us up for the storyline centering on David’s mother Laura.
Jumping ahead to #258, the conversation between Maggie and Sarah shows that Sarah is able to interact with the living and suggests that she wishes Maggie well, but is just as inconclusive as were the conversations in #25 and #32. Sarah’s conversation with Barnabas in #364 shows that she is angry with him and trying to rein him in, but also shows that she has little direct influence over him.
Stinkers
#223. Written by Ron Sproat. David runs around and screams.
#249. Written by Ron Sproat. The family looks in the locked room and doesn’t find anything.
#266. Written by Ron Sproat. Liz is depressed.
#268. Written by Ron Sproat. Liz is still depressed.
#272. Written by Joe Caldwell. Liz has revealed her secret, and no one knows what to do about it.
#298. Written by Ron Sproat. It seems as if Maggie is going to remember what Barnabas did to her, but then she doesn’t.
#299. Written by Ron Sproat. It seems as if Barnabas is going to bite Vicki, but then he doesn’t.
#356. Written by Gordon Russell. Julia sticks her notebook in the clock, giving the clock the star turn it has been waiting for.
I suppose the first thing you’ll notice is that I didn’t come up with the “Stinkers” label until after Barnabas joined the show. If I’d thought of it sooner, Malcolm Marmorstein’s name would have graced the list many times. Also, there probably would have been some episodes there that aired on Fridays, as they didn’t really start to make an effort to do anything special at the end of the week until about halfway through Laura’s arc.
But I’m not going to go back and add the label to episodes from the first 42 weeks. I didn’t have any particular thought of making “Best” and “Worst” lists when I put them on; I was just marking some of my posts as raves or pans. So I’d be imposing a false organization on them if I went back through and did that.
Writer Ron Sproat had his strengths, but was blind to what particular actors could and could not do. Grayson Hall, who played mad scientist Julia Hoffman, had one very conspicuous weakness- she could not control the tone of her voice when she raised it above a normal conversational level. She had asthma, and in the course of her performances she was often required to smoke. As a result, her screams, shouts, sobs, and cackles all came with a terrible croaking sound. This episode consists of very little aside from Julia’s raised voice, and it is a disaster.
Julia’s sometime partner in crime, vampire Barnabas Collins, has turned on her and cast a magic spell meant to drive her crazy. She sees some ghostly apparitions that may or may not be the result of this spell. It’s hard to be sure; at the beginning of the episode, she is in the Collins family tomb having an argument with the ghost of Barnabas’ little sister Sarah, whom regular viewers know to be real. So it’s not like we can say with confidence that anything is in her head.
Julia’s psychological stress gives Sproat an opportunity to adapt a script he wrote for the show that Dark Shadows replaced on ABC’s daytime schedule, a soap opera for teenagers called Never Too Young. The 18 April 1966 episode of that show was almost a one-woman drama, featuring Jaclyn Carmichael as Joy Harmon, who struggles to keep her sanity while home alone.* While nothing supernatural was going on in Never Too Young, Sproat left many elements intact- both start with confrontations reprised from the previous episode, in which the main character is alienated from the person who represented her last hope; each woman beats on a locked door and calls for someone who is absent to come and let her out; each plays Klondike solitaire; each receives a distressing telephone call; each is terrified at the end of the episode when she sees the doorknob turning. Evidently Sproat regarded the script as his finest work, and wasn’t going to allow Grayson Hall’s physical inability to play the part deprive him of the chance to remake it.
As the 22 minutes unfold, Julia progresses from the mausoleum, where she looks disturbed while we hear her speaking calmly in a recorded voiceover, to the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood, where she looks calm while she has a panicked tone in the recorded voiceover, to her bedroom upstairs in the great house, where she both looks and sounds panicked. She’s alone on camera for the great majority of the time, making hideous noises that bring bad laughs.
For over a week, Julia has been trying to escape Barnabas’ wrath. The other day, we heard her ask herself why she didn’t just leave town. There are some strong episodes in this period, but that is such an obvious question that it undercuts them all. This episode is far from strong, and throughout it we are reminded of just how unnecessary it all is. Barnabas decided to kill Julia because she obstructed his plan to seduce well-meaning governess Vicki by planting disturbing images of him in Vicki’s unconscious mind; he had been set on killing strange and troubled boy David because David had caught on to some of his secrets. Julia is alone in the house in part because Vicki and David have gone to Boston for a few days. For all Barnabas knows, David is this very minute telling Vicki everything he wants to hide from her. But as soon as they are off the estate and out of his sight, he stops worrying about them. So all Julia has to do is hop in her car, drive off someplace, and the drama is resolved.
The conflict between Barnabas and Julia is the only story going on Dark Shadows right now. Lawyer Tony Peterson is suing the Collins family business, but when they had a scene about that last week they played it off camera and used the actors’ voices as background noise to cover some of Julia’s doings. Clearly we are not to expect much from that. All Vicki and David have to do to be safe is go to Boston, Sarah is quiet unless murderers come to her tomb and bother her at home, and everyone else is settled in a sustainable situation. So if Julia leaves town, or reconciles with Barnabas, or is killed, it doesn’t seem that the show will have anywhere to go. By all appearances, we are heading directly for a blank wall.
*I learned about this episode from a comment left by “Robert Sharp” on Danny Horn’s Dark Shadows Every Day. He links to the video I embed above.
Yesterday, mad scientist Julia Hoffman discovered that vampire Barnabas had sent his distant cousin and devoted blood thrall Carolyn to steal the notebook in which she recorded Barnabas’ secrets. Julia knew that this meant Barnabas had decided to kill her, and that only by keeping the notebook hidden could she save herself.
At the beginning of today’s episode, Julia hides the notebook inside the clock in the foyer of the great house of Collinwood. At the end, Carolyn notices that the clock has stopped chiming. The foyer clock is a very impressive piece of property, and it’s always nice when it gets screen time.
Vampire Barnabas Collins creeps up on well-meaning governess Vicki from behind. He touches her neck, and she is startled.
Stifling a giggle
This scene plays twice. First, before the opening title sequence, then again immediately after. The first time around, Vicki stifles a giggle when she sees Barnabas. The second, she seems frightened.
Frightened
Barnabas does not bite Vicki. He apologizes for startling her. She says that no apology is needed, and she stands very close to him. They talk about the Moon and the night and about what incredible romantics they both are.
Incredible romantics
In #285 and #286, Vicki contrived to get Barnabas to invite her to spend the night in his house. In #293, she invited Barnabas to tag along on a date she was having with her depressing boyfriend Burke, and while Burke stood there she had eyes only for Barnabas. In this conversation, Vicki reluctantly turns down an invitation from Barnabas so she can go on some more dismal dates with Burke.
Mad scientist Julia Hoffman interrupts Barnabas and Vicki. After Vicki excuses herself to get ready for her date, Julia demands that Barnabas leave her alone. Barnabas says that he means her no harm. This is all too believable- twice before today, we have seen Barnabas enter a room where Vicki was sleeping and leave without biting her. It’s starting to seem unlikely that she will ever have a place in the vampire story. Since the vampire story is the only plot going on Dark Shadows, that leads us to wonder why she is still on the show.
This scene takes place on a new set, a courtyard with a terrace and a fountain. It looks very much like a set in the 1965 film The Sound of Music, the one where the Countess who is supposed to marry Captain von Trapp has the conversations that remove her from the love triangle and leave the path open for von Trapp to marry Maria. That movie was such a big hit that it seems likely that they had it in mind when they designed this set for scenes concerned with the love triangle involving Vicki, Burke, and Barnabas.
Julia’s intervention leads some to believe that there is another love triangle budding in which she will vie for Barnabas’ affections, but I don’t see any trace of that in Julia’s stern manner today. She simply seems to be concerned that Barnabas stop preying on people while she performs the experiments that are supposed to cure him of vampirism.
In later years, Grayson Hall would claim that she decided on her own initiative to play Julia as if she were in love with Barnabas. She said that by the time the writers and directors caught on to what she was doing, they had received so much enthusiastic fan mail that they had to let her go on doing it. In response to this story, Danny Horn makes some uncharacteristic remarks in his post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day:
It’s a great story, especially because it appeals to the audience’s secret belief that the actors really are the characters that they play. We love to believe that, especially for daytime soap opera characters, who we spend time with every day.
But really, everybody who watches television believes that the characters are real. That’s why we love to hear about unscripted moments that were invented during rehearsal. As intelligent adults, we understand that writers and directors and producers create the characters, and then the actors show up and say the words. But there’s a little child inside of us, who wants to be told that Julia Hoffman is real, and she lives inside Grayson Hall.
Danny Horn, “A Human Life,” Dark Shadows Every Day, 2 Jaunary 2014.
As the blog went on, Danny put more and more emphasis on the chaotic process by which Dark Shadows was created. I suspect this passage was something he wrote in haste. Even at this early stage, he had made it clear that he knew that it was not true that “writers and directors and producers create the characters, and then the actors show up and say the words.” By the time he finished in 2021, his main theme had long been that the real subject of Dark Shadows was “a team of under-resourced lunatics desperately struggling every day to make the most surprising possible show.” That team most definitely included actors padding their parts in ways they could do only because the show was done live to tape, with edits never done if not absolutely necessary, and often not done even when they were.
Julia visits Vicki’s room and helps her choose an outfit for her date with Burke. Julia urges Vicki to avoid Barnabas, because he has a crush on her and it would hurt him to encourage him in it. Vicki says that she has never seen any sign of such a crush. Nor have we- he has talked with his sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie about a plan to take Vicki as his next victim. Aside from giving her an enchanted music box that is supposed to brainwash her, he has been remarkably leisurely about the whole thing. If anything, she is the one who has been pursuing him.
Vicki and Burke are out by the fountain. He remarks that she has been very quiet, and she refers to having a lot on her mind. This raises our hopes that she is thinking about what Julia told her and is going to ditch Burke and go to Barnabas. They start talking about their wretched childhoods. Previously, we had heard that Burke’s mother died when he was young and that his alcoholic father supported the family by making lobster pots; now Burke tells us that when he was nine his father left the family. It’s hard to see much point in this retcon; most likely the writers had just forgotten about the earlier story.
Vicki mentions that there was one nurse at the Hammond Foundling Home whom she liked. In the early days of the Dark Shadows, she would often reminisce about her ridiculously bleak experiences growing up in this fictional orphanage. Usually she would get a faraway look in her eyes and smile, then tell some story that started with an appalling horror and got worse and worse as it went. This time, she again stares off into the distance and smiles, so that viewers who have been watching from the beginning brace themselves to hear that the nurse turned out to be the worst abuser of all, or that she was murdered in front of Vicki while the other children laughed, or that she ran the kitchen the winter they ran out of food and had to resort to cannibalism. But no, Vicki is just sharing a pleasant little memory. The show is a lot less hard-edged now that it’s about a vampire.
Not that they’ve stopped presenting horrible images altogether. No, they show us Burke kissing Vicki.
When Burke was played by Mitch Ryan, he was a great kisser, a talent he displayed with Vicki among others. But Anthony George does not appear to have seen anyone kiss before he attempts it. As he points his lips at Alexandra Moltke Isles, she stiffens her neck, a move that may have suggested excitement if her partner were doing something recognizable as a sign of affection, but that in this context looks like she’s suffering from whiplash. After his first failed effort, he rests his head on her shoulder and looks miserable.
Attempted kissAfter the failure
We pull back from Burke’s fumbling and see Barnabas at the gate to the courtyard, looking forlorn. I’m sure the writer and director wanted us to take this image as a sign that Barnabas is feeling sorry for himself, but the scene he’s been watching with us is so dreary that we would all have the same look on our faces.
Barnabas has seen the sorry spectacle
Some attribute George’s phenomenally bad kissing to his sexuality. I don’t buy it. Joel Crothers was also gay, and we’ve seen Joe Haskell give convincingly sultry kisses to two actresses. Louis Edmonds was gay too, and when Dark Shadows finally gives him an on-screen kiss two years from now he will do just as well. And the actresses unanimously testified that Jonathan Frid was the best kisser in the cast. Furthermore, the other conspicuously inept kisser on the show was the emphatically heterosexual Roger Davis (whom we have yet to see.) So George’s failures in this department are his alone, and do not reflect on any demographic group of which he was a member.
In the house, Vicki and Burke continue their vain struggle to kiss. Julia walks in and apologizes for intruding. She does not leave, nor does she take her eyes off Vicki and Burke. That makes sense- after all, she is still an MD, and it would appear that whatever is wrong with Burke might require some kind of medical intervention.
Vicki excuses herself to go to bed, and Burke asks Julia to join him in the drawing room. There, he denounces Vicki for her “vivid imagination,” a terrible quality that must be stamped out. He tells Julia that Vicki has experienced two hallucinations recently. We know that these were not hallucinations at all, but actual visitations from the ghost of Sarah Collins. Burke doesn’t know that. However, he does know of another sighting which led him to angrily accuse Vicki of being insane, when she saw Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, walking in a cemetery. At the time, everyone thought Maggie was dead, but now that it has been revealed she is alive, he removes the incident from his bill of particulars against Vicki.
Burke is furious with Vicki for having an imagination and wanting to be part of the story
Burke and Vicki, like most of the other characters, believe Julia’s cover story that she is an historian researching the Collinses for a book about the old families of New England. He asserts that helping Julia with her project is having a bad effect on Vicki, because she must “live in the present.” Julia asks if this means that she must live with him. Burke agrees that it does.
To Burke’s surprise, Julia agrees that Vicki should stop helping her and stay away from anything suggestive of past centuries. The two of them talk about how Vicki must be watched and controlled lest her imagination “run wild.” Julia is a mad scientist in league with a vampire, so this sort of talk is to be expected from her, but Burke is supposed to be on Vicki’s side. His frank intention to crush her imagination, expressed alternately with undisguised rage and airy paternalism, is as repulsive as anything we have seen from Barnabas.
Upstairs, Vicki is asleep. Barnabas opens the door and walks into the room. Again he thinks about biting her, again he doesn’t. He opens the enchanted music box, looks at her a bit longer, and leaves the way he came. If Barnabas doesn’t get off the dime soon, Vicki may marry Burke and become useless forever.
