Tag: The Old House

Episode 224: Alone in the growing darkness

We begin with a chat between strange and troubled boy David Collins and his (vastly) older cousin, vampire Barnabas Collins. David has questions about the portrait of his ancestor Josette that long hung in the house Barnabas is now occupying. Barnabas assures him that he will hang it prominently once the house has been refurbished.

Yesterday, David was wandering from set to set moaning that he couldn’t feel the presence of Josette’s ghost. This was a clumsy way of addressing a question that is at the top of the minds of regular viewers. Josette’s ghost has been decisive in all the storylines on Dark Shadows for the six months prior to Barnabas’ arrival, and the house Barnabas has taken over is her stronghold. Though she can at moments erupt into the foreground with awesome power, as when she and the other ghosts scared crazed handyman Matthew Morgan to death in #126, she is usually a vague, wispy presence. It is unclear how or if she can survive contact with a menace as dynamic as a vampire.

Josette communicates with David through her portrait, and when she was recruiting a team to thwart the plans David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, had to burn him alive, she took possession of artist Sam Evans and made him paint pictures warning what Laura was up to. Now Barnabas has hired Sam and is sitting for a portrait that he will hang where Josette’s was long displayed. In #212, Barnabas looked at Josette’s portrait and said that the power it represented was ended, and David’s reactions yesterday suggested he was right.

Portraits are not Josette’s only means of communication. During the Laura storyline, David had a recurring nightmare that may have been in part the product of Josette’s intervention. Someone else has a nightmare today, and it is clearly a warning about Barnabas.

While Barnabas is sitting for Sam, he makes a series of remarks about Sam’s daughter Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town. To those who know that he is a vampire, everything about Barnabas is creepy, but he lays such heavy emphasis on lines like “I believe her future is already assured” that it is hard to believe Sam isn’t alarmed. We dissolve from that sequence to Maggie in her bedroom* trying to get some sleep. That in turn dissolves to a dream sequence** in which Maggie sees herself in a coffin and screams. She then wakes up, still screaming.

Josette was able to use Sam as a medium, and to do so while he was in the front room of the same house where Maggie is sleeping. So those who remember the Laura storyline will see the nightmare as the opening gambit in Josette’s effort to oppose Barnabas, and will be anticipating her next move.

Between these two segments, we spend some time with seagoing con man Jason McGuire and his former associate, Barnabas’ sorely bedraggled blood thrall Willie Loomis. Reclusive matriarch Liz informs Jason that Willie has been living with and working for Barnabas. Jason had believed that Willie left town permanently several days earlier, and has no idea he is in any way connected with Barnabas. Liz wants to be rid of Willie. Jason likes to boast that he can control Willie, something we have never seen him succeed in doing, and assures her that he will be able to handle the situation.

Jason goes to the Old House and confronts Willie. He makes a number of sarcastic remarks questioning Willie’s masculinity, demands to know what kind of scam he is running on Barnabas, and grabs him by the lapels when Willie can tell him only that he is trying to lead a different sort of life. Jason is holding Willie and snarling at him when Barnabas shows up. Jason unhands Willie and is surprised at how meekly Willie complies with Barnabas’ command that he run an errand.

Barnabas catches Jason with his hands on his Willie

Barnabas tells Jason that he has spoken with Liz and that she has agreed to let him keep Willie. Jason tries to tell Barnabas about Willie’s past and boasts once more of his ability to control Willie. Barnabas cuts him off with “I can deal with him far more effectively than anyone.” That leaves Jason speechless.

In his post about this episode on Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn tells us that the scene between Jason and Willie brought a memo from ABC’s Standards and Practices office. A censor named Bernardine McKenna was concerned that Jason’s lines might suggest a sexual relationship between Willie and Barnabas.***

McKenna’s memo raises some questions about Jason’s whole relationship with Willie. When Jason was first introduced, we occasionally saw him on the telephone talking to someone who was evidently important to his plans. Eventually he started calling this person “Willie.” After Willie appeared in person, we kept waiting to see what Jason wanted him to do. Jason’s only project is to blackmail Liz, and he doesn’t need any help with that. Not only did we never see Jason give Willie anything to do, but Willie continually caused him troubles that made life so unpleasant for Liz that she considered calling the police, a move that would would have brought Jason’s whole plan crashing down around his ears. So Jason’s decisions to bring Willie along and to keep him around were not motivated by any immediate need for his assistance.

A couple of times, Willie threatened to expose Jason’s own terrible secrets. But by the time Willie was recovering from Barnabas’ initial attacks on him, those threats didn’t seem to have much substance, and yet Jason insisted on keeping Willie around Collinwood and nursing him back to health. Jason’s scenes with Willie in his sickroom show enough traces of tenderness and genuine concern that there must be some depth to their relationship.

The original plan had been to name the character, not “Willie,” but “Chris.” I wonder if that would have given Bernadine McKenna more to worry about. If we’d listened to Jason on the telephone with a mysterious “Chris” who was in some kind of partnership with him, we might assume that “Chris” was his girlfriend. When Chris turned out to be Christopher, we would set that thought aside. But we might not have forgotten it entirely. When we were wondering what the connection is between the men, one of the possibilities we couldn’t quite exclude might have been that they had been lovers.

*This is the first time we see Maggie’s bedroom. The living room of the Evans cottage has been a frequent set from the earliest days of the show, but this addition of a second room augments its importance and confirms that Maggie will be a major character in the current storyline.

**We’ve heard characters talk about their dreams before, but this is the first time a dream is shown to us.

***Danny read McKenna’s memo in Jim Pierson’s 1988 book The Introduction of Barnabas.

Episode 223: She isn’t watching over us anymore

Strange and troubled boy David Collins is in the Old House on the estate of Collinwood with his aunt, reclusive matriarch Liz. David laments to Liz that he can no longer feel the tutelary presence of the ghost of their ancestor Josette Collins. For more than 24 weeks, from #70 when the Old House was introduced to #191 with the conclusion of the storyline centered on David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, the Old House had been Josette’s sanctuary. Now it is “a new house, a new place,” and she’s gone. David is particularly sad that the house’s new occupant, the newly arrived Barnabas Collins, has removed Josette’s portrait from its place above the mantle in the front parlor and plans to hang a portrait of himself there.

Back in the great house on the estate, David sees dashing action hero Burke Devlin. He sits on the stairs with Burke and talks about his feelings concerning Barnabas, Josette, the portrait, and the Old House. Burke suggests he ask Barnabas to give him the portrait. David is thrilled by this suggestion, and declares that he will go to the Old House at once to ask him. Burke points out that Barnabas probably isn’t home. That doesn’t make an impression on David, but he does stop before going out the door. Burke asks if he is afraid to go there alone, apparently preparing to volunteer to go with him. David says he isn’t afraid, but doesn’t explain what feeling he does have that is holding him back.

David and Burke talk it out

David goes to the Old House and calls to Barnabas. No one answers. The howling of dogs fills the air from every side, frightening David. He calls to Josette. He does not feel her presence. The doors slam shut on their own; when he runs to them, he cannot open them. We conclude with a closeup of his terrified face.

Those three scenes might have appeared in a good episode, but this is not that episode. In fact, it is a real stinker, very possibly the single worst we have seen so far. There is one funny line, when Liz remarks that Willie Loomis’ “illness appears to have caused him no end of convenience.” And the actors and director do what they can. But the script defeats them all.

As David Collins, David Henesy appears to be delivering the lines Ron Sproat actually wrote when he says things like “If I blame [Barnabas] for anything, it’s for changing things around [at the Old House]… I just hope he hasn’t changed [the Old House.]” Some of the words that come out of his mouth may be flubs, but most of it is of a piece with what the adult actors are saying in response to him, and nothing anyone says is close to intelligible. This is one of the rare episodes when Henesy winds up roaming about the sets declaiming like some kid actor in a 60s TV show.

As well-meaning governess Vicki, Alexandra Moltke Isles is trying so hard to remember her own pointless lines that she stands stiff as a board every time she is on camera. Vicki and David’s scenes were the heart of the first 39 weeks of the show, often in spite of writing nearly as bad as what the cast is stuck with today, but their conversation on the stairs today is terribly dull to watch.

Joan Bennett and Mitch Ryan each had star quality in abundance, and so they manage to hold their scenes together. The opening scene between Liz and Vicki has some snap to it, David’s conversation with Burke is appealing, and when Liz and Burke have a scene in the study arguing about a business deal she made with a man called Hackett* things start to crackle. But even in that scene Bennett and Ryan stumble over Sproat’s awful dialogue and wind up in the ditch more than once. Her frequent glances at the teleprompter and a couple of alarmingly long pauses from him turn the crackle to a fizzle well before it is over.

Burke and Liz argue about the Hackett deal

The scene between David and Liz in the Old House is another defeat for Joan Bennett. David Collins’ nonsensical lines and David Henesy’s flailing attempts to find some kind of through line in them leave her standing in mid-air, and the scene goes on so long they repeat every point they have to make at least twice. By the third time through the sparse material they have to work with, not even she could make it interesting.

Moreover, regular viewers will be puzzled when Liz tells David over and over that the Old House and its contents belong to Barnabas. On Monday, in #220, Barnabas and Vicki had a conversation in the foyer of the great house about the fact that he was not going to own the Old House. There hasn’t been any indication of a change in that plan, but Liz goes out of her way to say three times, not that Barnabas is staying in the house, but that it is his. We are left wondering what she is talking about.

Burke and Vicki spend some time together. They stand in front of the portrait of Barnabas Collins in the foyer of the great house talking about Barnabas’ decision to hire Willie as his servant. Burke remarks that “Cousin Barnabas doesn’t seem too bright.” That’s a fun moment, but then Vicki sticks up for Barnabas and they have nowhere to go with it. The scene doesn’t end until they’ve spent a few more moments standing there jabbering.

Burke and Vicki sit on the sofa together in the drawing room. The nonverbal communication between them raises the question the show has been teasing for some time, whether Burke and Vicki are dating. As with Burke’s paternal moment with David, it shows that the actors and directors can create little stories to keep us interested when they can keep the dialogue out of the way.

Burke says he’s going to talk with Liz about a business matter that he can’t tell Vicki about. He then tells Vicki why he is concerned about the matter. These mutually contradictory lines are no better than David being upset that Barnabas has changed the Old House, and just hoping that he hasn’t changed the Old House. For a moment, friend Burke doesn’t seem too bright.

*A name we have never heard before on Dark Shadows.

Episode 221: A new Collins in Collinsport

Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, is closing up shop in the restaurant at the Collinsport Inn. A stranger startles her. He is the mysterious Barnabas Collins. Barnabas recently left his long-time residence in the cemetery five miles north of town and has been hanging around the great estate of Collinwood, but this is the first time we’ve seen him in Collinsport proper.

In the opening months of Dark Shadows, the restaurant, like the rest of the inn, was coded as the base from which dashing action hero Burke Devlin mounted his campaign to avenge himself on the ancient and esteemed Collins family. As the Revenge of Burke Devlin storyline ran out of steam, the restaurant emerged as a neutral space where new characters could be introduced without defining their relationships to the established cast all at once. In that period, Maggie was Collinsport’s one-woman welcoming committee.

Now, even Burke has given up on his storyline. The only narrative element of the show with an open-ended future is Barnabas, and once the audience has figured out that he is a vampire there’s no such thing as a neutral space where he is concerned. So it is not clear what, if any, role the restaurant will have from now on.

Barnabas asks if it is too late to get a cup of coffee. Maggie tells him it is, but relents after about a minute and reopens to serve him. She is charmed by his old-world manners and excited to learn that “there is a new Collins in Collinsport.” He tells her he is staying at the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of Collinwood, prompting her to marvel at the idea of someone living in a dilapidated ruin that is probably haunted. When she admires his cane, he explains that it is not only quite valuable, but is also a family heirloom and on that account his most prized possession.

Barnabas appears to drink the coffee, as he appeared to drink the sherry his distant cousin Roger served him when he visited Collinwood in #214. Usually vampires are supposed to limit their diet strictly to human blood, but just a few weeks ago Dark Shadows wrapped up a long story about Laura Murdoch Collins, a humanoid Phoenix, who raised everyone’s suspicions by never being seen to eat or drink. So they may have thought that it would be repetitious to follow the Laura arc so closely with another undead menace who betrays himself with the same sign.

Barnabas kisses Maggie’s hand in farewell

Maggie’s boyfriend, hardworking young fisherman Joe, comes bustling into the restaurant seconds after Barnabas leaves. Maggie is surprised that Joe and Barnabas didn’t pass each other, and puzzled when Joe tells her there was no one in sight anywhere near the inn. Neither of them had heard of Barnabas before.

Joe tells Maggie that a woman named Jane Ackerman had an unpleasant run-in with a man she couldn’t see earlier in the night. The fellow retreated before doing her any serious harm, but Joe seems fairly sure that whoever it was is a real threat to the women of Collinsport. So he wants to keep Maggie company. Maggie doesn’t seem worried, either for her own sake or for Jane’s. She’s just happy to see Joe, and gladly agrees when Joe suggests they go to the local tavern, the Blue Whale.

As Dark Shadows’ principal representatives of Collinsport’s working class, Maggie and Joe illustrate the point the opening voiceover made when it said that people “far away from the great house” of Collinwood would soon be “aware of” Barnabas and of “the mystery that surrounds him.” As a name we have never heard before and are unlikely to hear again, “Jane Ackerman” reminds us that there is a whole community of people for Barnabas to snack on.

As Joe and Maggie are heading out of the restaurant, she notices that Barnabas left his precious cane behind. She wants to go straight to the Old House to return it to him. Joe would rather wait until morning, but Maggie explains that she doesn’t want to be responsible for it overnight. This is a bit odd- they are in a hotel, after all, a business that specializes in keeping valuable property safe while its owners sleep.

Perhaps Maggie wants to see the Old House. Joe has been there many times. When we saw him there with Burke, searching for well-meaning governess Vicki in #118, he mentioned that when he and flighty heiress Carolyn were children, they would occasionally play there. He returned there during the Laura storyline. Even Maggie’s father has visited the Old House, participating in a séance there in #186 and #187. Maggie has never been there at all. So perhaps she just feels left out.

Maggie and Joe knock on the doors of the Old House. No one comes. As they turn to go, there is a closeup of the door knobs turning. Maggie and Joe hear a door open, and go in. They don’t see anyone, but candles are burning and Joe remarks that the front parlor has been fixed up. Joe goes upstairs and leaves Maggie behind, explaining that he knows his way around the place and it isn’t safe up there for someone who doesn’t.

Once Maggie is alone, Barnabas appears next to her. She is startled and cannot see how he could have got there without her knowing. He apologizes for once more catching her unawares. He seems surprised that she is not alone. When Joe comes downstairs, he is exceedingly polite to both of them.

After Maggie and Joe excuse themselves, Barnabas’ blood-thrall, the sorely bedraggled Willie Loomis, appears. With obvious difficulty, Willie forces out one word after another, and manages to ask Barnabas what he plans to do to Maggie. Barnabas is displeased with Willie’s presence and with his presumption that he has the right to question him. He climbs the stairs and looks down at Willie, full of menace and demanding that he go out and do the work Barnabas has ordered him to do. Willie tries to refuse, but cannot stand the look Barnabas is giving him.

Barnabas gives Willie his orders

During this staring contest, Barnabas and Willie are standing on the spots where strange and troubled boy David Collins and Barnabas had stood when we first saw Barnabas in the Old House in #212. In that scene, David and Barnabas were more or less eye-to-eye, and for a moment it seemed that Barnabas was contemplating violence against David. In this scene, Barnabas shows how committed he is to violence. He has a power over Willie that he gained by the extreme violence of drinking Willie’s blood, and Willie’s inability to resist Barnabas’ stare shows that power in use. Willie’s horror at the task Barnabas has assigned suggests that it also is violent.

My wife, Mrs Acilius, believes that the confrontation between Willie and Barnabas solves one of the behind-the-scenes mysteries about Dark Shadows. Why was James Hall replaced by John Karlen in the role of Willie? She points out that Hall, while he is a fine actor, had a lot of trouble with Willie’s lines, particularly in the long he shared with Dennis Patrick’s Jason McGuire. By the time Willie was recast, Jonathan Frid had been attached to the role of Barnabas for some days, and Frid never made it a secret that he was a slow study. So if there were going to be a lot of long conversations between Willie and Barnabas, Willie had to be played by an actor who could get his dialogue letter perfect day after day. That was John Karlen.

After Willie scurries off to do whatever evil chore Barnabas has ordained for him, Barnabas wanders over to the window. On his way, we see that the portrait of Josette Collins is no longer hanging in the spot over the mantle where we have seen it since our first look at the Old House in #70. At the end of that episode, Josette’s ghost emanated from the portrait and danced around the outside of the house. From that point, the Old House was chiefly a setting for Josette. Crazed handyman Matthew Morgan learned that to his cost when he tried to hold Vicki prisoner there and Josette and other ghosts ganged up on him and scared him to death in #126. Laura knew that she was entering the territory of a powerful enemy when her son David took her to the Old House in #141, and when Vicki had formed a group to oppose Laura’s evil plans she and parapsychologist Dr Guthrie went there to contact Josette. In #212, Barnabas addressed the portrait and told Josette that her power was ended and he was now the master of the house. Removing the portrait tells us that Barnabas is confident that he is not only a new Collins in Collinsport, but that he is now the Collins at Collinwood.

Barnabas then does something Laura did several times- he stares intently out his window. When Laura stared out her window, David would be violently disturbed, no matter how far away he was or how many obstacles were between him and his mother. These incidents were a big enough part of Laura’s story that regular viewers, seeing Barnabas stare out the window, will expect someone at a distance from him to react intensely.

We cut from Barnabas to Joe and Maggie at her house. Joe asks what time he should pick Maggie up tomorrow, and Maggie suddenly becomes disoriented. Kathryn Leigh Scott has a sensational turn playing that moment of lightheadedness, creating the impression that she is having a scene with Barnabas. As she recovers, she explains to Joe that she has the feeling she is being stared at. Then we dissolve to Barnabas in his window. Barnabas may not be Maggie’s mother, but apparently there is some kind of link between them. Perhaps kissing Maggie’s hand in the restaurant was enough to give Barnabas the power to creep her out even when he is miles away from her.

Episode 218: Crime encouraged

Three locations on the great estate of Collinwood have featured prominently in two or more storylines on Dark Shadows: the great house, the long-abandoned Old House, and the cottage. The great house is the only permanent set, and is the site of most of the action. The cottage has been vacant since blonde fire witch Laura left the show in March, and came to be so strongly associated with her that it will likely remain vacant until the audience doesn’t expect her to come back. As the abode of ghosts and ghouls, the Old House is likely to become central to the show as it takes its turn to the paranormal. And indeed, in his first full episode, the mysterious Barnabas Collins had gone to the Old House and announced to its invisible occupants that he was claiming it as his own.

The physical condition of the Old House evokes an extinct storyline. When the series began, the Collinses were running out of money, and their vengeful foe Burke Devlin had vowed to use his own great wealth to ruin them completely. Now Burke has lost interest in vengeance, and the business stories have vanished altogether. If we aren’t going to be hearing about the Collinses’ precarious financial position, we won’t be able to explain why they have let a huge mansion on their property go completely to ruin. Even if the locals are too afraid of the place to do any work there, a family rich enough to have a secure grip on the assets we hear about would be rich enough to hire an out-of-town crew to fix the place up, or tear it down, or at least clear it out and seal it off. So the Old House is going to have to be transformed to get the last of the narrative clutter left over from the first 39 weeks out of the way.

Today, Barnabas asks reclusive matriarch Liz and her brother, high-born ne-er-do-well Roger, if they will let him live in the Old House and use his own funds to rehabilitate it. Liz is stunned by the idea and doesn’t know what to say. When Barnabas offers to pay whatever rent they might wish to charge, Roger exclaims that they wouldn’t dream of charging him anything at all. At that, they cut to a startled reaction shot from Liz. Regular viewers will find this reaction hilarious. Liz owns the place; Roger owns nothing and is staying there as her guest. Liz is quite surprised at Roger’s generosity with her property.

Liz reacts to Roger’s generosity with her property

Jonathan Frid is excellent in this scene. Barnabas is at once faultlessly well-mannered and entirely relaxed, gentle with Liz’ unease and warm to Roger’s enthusiasm. Everything they can see suggests to Liz and Roger that Barnabas would be a valuable addition to any household.

We, of course, know that Barnabas is an undead creature released from a coffin to prey upon the living. Watching the scene with that knowledge, we are in suspense as to Barnabas’ intentions. It seems clear that he wants Liz and Roger to like him now and to voluntarily give him what he wants. We do not know if he will go on wanting that for any length of time, nor do we know how he will respond if they oppose him in any substantial way. Because Barnabas stays entirely in character as the human he is pretending to be, we have no clue as to how far the act he is putting on diverges from his true motives. For all we know, Liz and Roger’s oh-so-courtly, oh-so-amiable cousin may be planning their deaths at this very moment.

Before he leaves the house, Barnabas has a conversation with seagoing con man Jason McGuire. Jason is blackmailing Liz, and has forced her to accept him as her house-guest. He is a throwback to an earlier period of the show, an in-betweener brought on the day after Laura left to clear away the last non-paranormal plot elements and to help introduce Barnabas.

Jason is clueless that the show changed its genre from the noirish crime drama it more or less was in the fall of 1966 to the supernatural thriller/ horror story it has been since. That cluelessness was illustrated in the opening of the episode, when he has followed his friend and sometime henchman, the sorely bedraggled Willie Loomis, to the Tomb of the Collinses. He has figured out that Willie tried to rob the graves in the tomb, but cannot imagine what he actually found there. Today, Jason looks around the interior of the tomb, baffled that Willie seems to have disappeared, and wanders off helplessly. Barnabas then appears and watches him go, the future of the show seeing off an emissary from its past.

Jason wants to know more about the legends that Barnabas’ relatives were buried with their jewels, the legends that gave Willie the idea of robbing their graves and thereby led to Barnabas’ release from his coffin. Barnabas tells Jason those legends are false, and rehearses his whole “cousin from England” bit. Not much happens. Still, the conversation is fun to watch, because the actors are both on top of their game and the characters represent different directions Dark Shadows might have taken at different points in its development.

Episode 212: Haunting the rooms

We’ve spent over 42 weeks with the ancient and esteemed Collins family of Collinsport, Maine- reclusive matriarch Liz, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, flighty heiress Carolyn, strange and troubled boy David, and David’s well-meaning governess Vicki. Liz owns all the biggest things in and around the town, but the family is isolated and embattled. Someone bought up Liz’ debts and tried strip her of all her assets, her only servant went on a killing spree and was stopped only by the intervention of ghosts, Roger’s ex-wife showed up and turned out to be a murderous fire witch from beyond the grave, and now Liz herself is being blackmailed by seagoing con man Jason McGuire. Jason even forced Liz to share her home with his rapey henchman, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis.

Today, an unexpected visitor comes to call on Liz at the great house of Collinwood. He identifies himself as her distant cousin, Barnabas Collins, the last survivor of the English branch of the family. This is the first Liz has heard of the existence of such a branch, but Barnabas’ resemblance to an eighteenth century portrait that hangs in the foyer is strong enough to make his claim plausible. He charms her with his old world manners. Regular viewers, knowing how lonely Liz must be, are not surprised that she is delighted with him.

Liz taking in in the information about her previously unknown relative
Liz warming to Barnabas’ company
Liz falling a little bit in love with Barnabas

Many commentators think it strange that this cousin from England does not have an English accent. I don’t see why. The last character on Dark Shadows to speak with an accent that had anything to do with the show’s setting in central Maine was killed off in #186, and Barnabas has the same mid-Atlantic accent Liz and Roger use. Since he goes on at length about himself as a typical member of the Collins family, we might assume they’ve all been talking like that for hundreds of years.

David plays in the long-abandoned Old House on the grounds of the estate. He sees Barnabas silhouetted in the doorway and greets him. Barnabas enters only after David has spoken to him.

David sees Barnabas

David thinks that Barnabas is the ghost of the man in the portrait. When David tells him that he is on intimate terms with several ghosts, Barnabas gives him a hard look and takes a step towards him.

David thinks Barnabas is a ghost

Barnabas reacts to David’s remarks with such a stiffly attentive face and such a deliberate movement of the body that we might sense menace. A man preparing a deadly attack might look like this. But David does not pick up on any danger. He chatters happily away about his ghost friends. As he does, Barnabas relaxes.

David chatters happily to Barnabas

Returning viewers know that Barnabas is not in fact from England, but that Willie released him from a coffin where he had been confined for many years. He resembles the portrait painted in the eighteenth century because he sat for it. He embodies a malign supernatural force that we heard calling to Willie through the portrait and that the caretaker of the old cemetery has said creates a palpable aura of evil that emanates from the tomb where, unknown to him or anyone else, Barnabas’ coffin lay hidden.

None of the characters in today’s episode knows these things, but when David goes back to the great house he shows that he is onto something. He tells Liz and Vicki that he thinks “there’s something funny” about Barnabas. After Liz leaves, David explains to Vicki that Barnabas does not seem angry, as does the man in the portrait, but sad, terribly sad, as if he were “haunting the rooms” of the Old House. Evidently David is rehearsing the part of Captain Shotover in Shaw’s Heartbreak House, with his famous speech about how “We don’t live in this house, we haunt it.”

Vicki functions as an internal audience in her scenes today. She is the recipient of some flowery gibberish from Barnabas about the loveliness of the syllables in her name, and afterward agrees with Liz that Barnabas is very charming. She has a conversation with Liz about whatever is happening in the Jason/ Willie story, and reacts with alarm when Liz says things we are supposed to find alarming. Finally, she is someone in front of whom David can speak freely enough to tell the audience that we’re going to wind up feeling sorry for Barnabas.

Passive as Vicki is in her time on screen today, her opening voiceover is a bit more intriguing. The first 270 episodes of Dark Shadows open with brief monologues by Alexandra Moltke Isles in character as Vicki. Usually, these monologues allude to events in the story. The implication would seem to be that Vicki either knows what is going on or will eventually find out, and that she is speaking to us from the future, where she is looking back on the events we are about to see. This has very much included the advent of Barnabas. In the opening of #202, Vicki told us that Willie was destined “to awaken and unleash a force that will affect the lives of everyone”; in #209, she said that he had “stumbled onto the darkest and strangest secret of all”; and in #210 and #211, she again referred to his grave-robbing expedition and its fell consequences.

We’ve had two major breaks so far from the pattern that establishes Vicki the speaker of the opening voiceover as the person who already knows what we are in the process of finding out. Vicki opened #15 by saying that she had at that point in the story befriended David, something she was in fact months from doing. She opened #102 telling us that Roger was the only person she had to fear, when in fact Roger was the least of her problems. Now, we break from it a third time.

Today’s opening voiceover runs thus:

My name is Victoria Winters. Night is drawing nearer and nearer to Collinwood, and the man who disappeared into another night has not been found. But out of the falling dusk, another man has come, a stranger who is not a stranger, a man with a face long familiar to those who live at Collinwood, a man who has come a great distance but who still bears deep within him a soul shaped by the far country from which he came.

Some may argue (as the Dark Shadows wiki does) that “the far country” might be a reference to death, and so this monologue might be delivered by someone who knows that Barnabas has risen from the grave. But if you know that, you aren’t likely to say that he “bears deep within him a soul,” since we usually hear that vampires don’t have souls.

Vicki has been, not only the narrator, but the point of view character and the chief protagonist of Dark Shadows up to this point. So when we ask whether her voiceover suggests that she might remain unaware of Barnabas’ nature, we are asking if she will continue in that role.

The blackmail storyline was the only one going on Dark Shadows between #201 and the arrival of Barnabas. It has an expiration date, not only because Liz will eventually run out of stuff to surrender to Jason, but also because actor Dennis Patrick agreed to play Jason on condition that he be allowed to leave whenever he wanted, but in no case later than the end of June. The show has been trending heavily toward the supernatural thriller/ horror story genre since December. Indeed, Jason’s first entry into Collinwood in #195 comes with a hint of the portrait of Barnabas, suggesting that his purpose was to introduce Barnabas to the show.

So, while they could not possibly have foreseen that Barnabas would be the hit he actually became or how they would go about rebuilding the show around him, it was likely that if ABC renewed Dark Shadows and it continued beyond #260, Barnabas would have to be a presence in one way or another.

This might offer Vicki a way back in. The previous deadly threats, crazed handyman Matthew Morgan and blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, were both thwarted by Vicki’s relationship with the ghost of Josette Collins. Josette’s portrait hangs at the Old House, and her spirit is strongest there. Since Barnabas is already at the Old House, perhaps we should expect Josette to help Vicki defeat him as she helped her defeat Laura.

The first question that expectation brings to mind is whether Barnabas is also connected to Josette, and if so how. Today, he identifies Josette to David as “our ancestor.” It has been established that Barnabas is the son of Joshua and Naomi Collins, that Joshua and Naomi continued to live in the Old House after David’s ancestor Jeremiah Collins built the great house, that Jeremiah was not the son of Joshua and Naomi, and that Josette was married to Jeremiah. In the closing scene today, Barnabas makes a speech to the portrait of Josette, telling her that he claims the Old House for himself and that she and Joshua no longer have power there.

Barnabas’ bracketing of his father and Josette as the two relatives who thwarted him would suggest that those two were closely related. I think the likeliest explanation at this point is that Jeremiah and Josette were the parents of Joshua and Naomi, and that Barnabas’ grandmother took his father’s side against him in their climactic battle. All of that is subject to change, of course- Jeremiah, Joshua, and Naomi are only names, and for all the heavy lifting Josette’s ghost has done in the story since December of 1966 she has spoken only a few words and barely shown her face. So even a drastic retcon wouldn’t require explaining any memorable images away.

If Josette is Barnabas’ grandmother, it would seem that he would know a lot more about her than even her friends Vicki and David do. So Vicki is going to have to be on her toes to recruit Josette and deploy her in a battle against Barnabas as effectively as she did in her showdown with Laura. If, as the opening voiceover suggests, Vicki is going to remain oblivious to what Barnabas is all about, Barnabas’ declaration that Josette’s power is ended will prove correct. In that case, Vicki’s future on the show would appear to be sharply limited.

Episode 185: Soon we may know all there is to know

Strange and troubled boy David Collins finds visiting parapsychologist Dr Guthrie writhing in agony on the floor of the drawing room. David calls for well-meaning governess Vicki.

As Guthrie struggles, the image of David’s mother, blonde fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, is superimposed on the screen. This visual effect lies somewhat beyond Dark Shadows’ ability to achieve clearly. One of the hallmarks of the show is its ambition; time and again, their reach exceeds their grasp. But that adds to the excitement of it- there is always the chance that the next time they try something extraordinary, it will actually work.

Look at this pile of shapes long enough, and you’ll make out an extreme closeup of Laura over an image of the struggling Guthrie

Guthrie clutches at David. David is a true New Englander in his reaction to Guthrie’s touch. When a man hugs him, he recoils and gives a horrified look.

Whaddaya, fruity?

As Guthrie holds onto David, we see Laura looking confused. Apparently her spells don’t work against someone in contact with David. As he regains his strength, Guthrie thanks David for saving him and tells him that he is “the key.”

Guthrie is getting some people together to have a séance in the Old House on the grounds of the great estate of Collinwood. The ghost of Josette Collins has been trying to warn people about the danger Laura poses to David. Josette spends most of her time haunting the Old House, so he thinks she should be able to speak most clearly there.

After David rescues him, Guthrie knows that Laura is trying to use her powers to silence him and that he will be helpless if he is alone. He gets into his car to drive by himself into town and back. Vicki knows that Laura is nearby and has been thwarted because David was out of her control. She leaves David alone just inside the front door while she wanders off for several minutes. Malcolm Marmorstein wrote today’s script, so those are only the most glaring of several inexplicable acts of stupidity in it.

While David is standing in the entryway waiting for Vicki, Laura sweeps in and asks him to come away with her at once. He tells her that he can’t go tonight- Vicki is going to take him someplace special. When Vicki finally drifts back in, she stands her ground. She tells Laura that “Soon, we may know everything there is to know.” She is wearing a very sweet smile when she says this, but Laura’s reaction and the background music both make it obvious that it is a threat.

After Vicki and David leave, wildly indiscreet housekeeper Mrs Johnson comes out and tells Laura that “his nibs”* Guthrie can’t hide everything from her with his whispers. She saw the table and four chairs they took to the Old House, and it’s her guess that they are going there to have another séance. She also tells Laura that Guthrie is by himself on the road into town at the moment. Laura seems very interested, as if this is information for which she will find a use.

Vicki and David enter the Old House. Vicki sets up the table for the séance and tells David that they will be trying to reach Josette. He is jubilant at the prospect.

Drunken artist Sam Evans shows up for the séance. He and David have a pleasant conversation about the portrait of Josette hanging above the mantle. Sam is impressed by its artistic achievement, and amazed at its fine condition amid the decay of the long-vacant mansion. Indeed, the fact that the canvas is unstained by mold after decades in an unheated building is some of the most blatant evidence that more is going on in the Old House than meets the eye.

On the road, Guthrie starts talking to himself, complaining about the other drivers using their high-beams. Eventually it dawns on him that Laura is causing him to see a blinding light. This realization takes a frustratingly long time. It does make sense if you stop and review what we have seen so far. Laura’s spells disorient and confuse the people subjected to them, so we can figure out that Guthrie might still have some brain fog as the result of his experience at the beginning of the episode. But as this scene is written, it feels like Guthrie is just an idiot who doesn’t know that he should pull over when he can’t see the road.

The car crashes. We see Laura in her cottage, a satisfied look on her face. In the flames of her hearth, we see Guthrie’s car blazing. We’ve just seen the first on-screen murder in Dark Shadows.

I’ll miss Guthrie, but it shouldn’t be a surprise that he is killed at this point in the show. His role was to figure out what the audience knows about Laura, to present this information to Vicki and her friends, and to isolate Laura from any potential allies. He has completed all of these tasks. That leaves only three paths forward for him.

The first is what actually happens, for Laura to kill him. That gets him off the show, precipitates a crisis that gives the “Phoenix” storyline its climax, and establishes Laura beyond all doubt as a deadly threat who must herself be destroyed in order for the other characters to be safe.

The second path would be for Guthrie to defeat Laura. Within the series as it has been developed so far, that would be unsatisfying. Laura has deep relationships with all of the main characters who were on the show before Guthrie joined the cast in #160, and she has been driving the story for months. If Guthrie is the one to stop Laura, we’ll be left wondering why we bothered with the first 32 weeks.

In particular, the only relationship on the show that has been interesting every time the characters are on screen together is that between Vicki and David. At first David hated Vicki, then they became fast friends, now we are afraid Laura will turn him against her. The logical way to crown that storyline would be for Vicki to rescue David from a danger that has been looming over him all his life. So the Laura story really ought to end with Vicki saving David from Laura.

That resolution comes with its drawbacks. It is so logical an outcome that we’re all expecting it. So it won’t come as a surprise, and we don’t know whether the show is up to developing a convincing, dramatically powerful sense of inevitability.

An even more serious problem is that once Vicki has rescued David from Laura, there won’t be anywhere for the show to go. The other stories have all either been resolved or been lying around doing nothing for so long that there is no reason to think they will ever become interesting. If Guthrie, rather than Vicki, rescues David, that might represent a new start. Dark Shadows would relaunch as the occult files of Dr Guthrie. If they had gone that way, it’s hard to see what use a show like that would have for the existing characters and setting.

The third path was suggested yesterday. Guthrie tipped his hand to Laura, telling her virtually everything he knew. He explained that he was doing this because he wanted to study her. He wants to stick around as the friend and associate of a domesticated Laura.

Laura laughed at Guthrie’s idea. She has her plan, and she is uninterested in any alternative Guthrie might present. Further, she is the wrong sort of character to keep on Dark Shadows indefinitely. When she was first introduced, Laura was thoroughly mysterious, vague, and insubstantial. She was the perfect adversary for Josette, the Widows, and the other wispy presences that make up the supernatural back-world behind the action that we see.

In recent weeks Laura has become more dynamic and has forced Josette more and more into the foreground. If she were to have a friend with whom she could discuss her problems and plans openly, Laura would be so strong that her mere presence would rip the crêpe-paper world of Josette, the Widows, and the rest of them into tiny shreds. If they are going to scrap that side of the show’s universe, they would probably be better off doing it with a fresh character who hasn’t already been defined in relation to everyone else, and certainly better off if the character came with a more familiar mythology than they have given Laura.

Besides, if they keep Laura on the show they’ll face complications with the actress. Diana Millay is getting more and more visibly pregnant, a big problem for a character who is supposed to be something other than alive. And after her son was born, she scaled back her acting career. After Dark Shadows, she appeared briefly on The Secret Storm, then retired altogether to concentrate on writing. So even if they had wanted to keep Laura on the show, Millay might not have wanted to commit to an indefinite run on a daily production.

So, death it is for Dr Guthrie. It’s too bad they didn’t bring actor John Lasell later in some other role. He had a tremendous range- an actor who could play both the understated, virtuous, and thoroughly Yankee scientist Dr Guthrie and the flamboyant, sinister, and very Southern John Wilkes Booth of the Twilight Zone episode “Back There” could be effective in any part.

John Lasell as John Wilkes Booth in “Back There.” Image by imdb.

*The first time we hear this expression on Dark Shadows.

Episode 141: The ashes of the old

Well-meaning governess Vicki finds that her charge, strange and troubled boy David, is up early. He is standing in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood. What is he doing in the drawing room? Drawing, what else? He is using the top of the piano as a drafting board as he finishes a sketch of a Phoenix in flames. His mother, mysterious and long-absent Laura, had told him the story of the Phoenix last night while Vicki eavesdropped. David had been having an extremely disturbing recurring nightmare in which his mother beckoned him to join her in a sea of flames; now he’s had a good night’s sleep and is cheerfully creating an artwork on a theme closely related to the one that had so gravely tormented him. Evidently hearing his mother telling the story of the Phoenix was good therapy for him.

David’s drawing of the Phoenix. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

Vicki suggests they get an early start on the day’s lessons. David expresses vigorous disapproval of this plan. Laura comes into the house and asks Vicki to let her spend the day with David. When David’s father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger, took Vicki away from David for a day in episode 71, Vicki got in trouble the next day with the person who actually hired her and pays her salary, reclusive matriarch Liz. Roger lives in Liz’ house as a guest, but at least he lives there. Laura is only visiting after a long absence, and to Liz’ dismay she wants to take David away from Collinwood. So regular viewers will wonder what Vicki is thinking when she agrees to take the day off without clearing it with Liz.

The impromptu school holiday turns out to be an opportunity for a lot of recapping. Vicki goes to visit her friend, Maggie Evans, at the cottage in town Maggie shares with her father, drunken artist Sam Evans. Vicki and the Evanses recap up a storm. Maggie is particularly worried that her father is, for some reason he himself doesn’t understand, painting a portrait of Laura Collins, nude and surrounded by flames, with a space left blank for a smaller figure to be added.

Sam Evans’ painting of Laura in flames. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

David takes his mother to his favorite place, the haunted Old House on the grounds of the Collinwood estate. David hopes that the ghost of Josette Collins will manifest itself to them while they are visiting. This idea makes Laura intensely uncomfortable. David wonders if this is because she is afraid of ghosts. Considering what we have seen suggesting that Laura is herself connected to the supernatural, the audience is more likely to see her attitude as a sign that she has reason to expect a showdown with the ghost of Josette.

David explains that the ghosts appear to only one person at a time. He insists that Laura spend a few minutes alone in the room with the portrait. When she does, it glows and the spooky music plays. When David comes back, she lies to him, denying that she saw anything unusual.

David takes Laura’s hand, and they leave the Old House. Once the parlor is empty, we see Josette’s portrait glow again. We have been watching the two of them from Josette’s perspective.* We know that seeing David and Laura has stirred her up out of the mystic back-world implicit in the action of the show, but we do not yet know in what way it has stirred her up. Does she have intentions, or is she some kind of inchoate energy? If she does have intentions, what are they? Does she fear for David’s safety and want to protect him? Is she attached to him as a friend and unhappy with his mother’s plan to take him away? Does she plan to take possession of David in some unwholesome way? At this point, all of those possibilities are open, as is the possibility that Josette has no intentions at all and does not know what is going on.

*Mrs Acilius contributed a great deal to this paragraph.

Episode 126: Do not be afraid

In the long-abandoned Old House on the estate of Collinwood, fugitive Matthew is sharpening the ax with which he plans to kill his prisoner, well-meaning governess Vicki. In the great house on the same estate, strange and troubled boy David is struggling with himself. His hated father, high-born ne’er-do-well Roger Collins, and his idol, dashing action hero Burke Devlin, are waiting for him to tell what he knows about Matthew and Vicki, and he keeps asking for assurances that he won’t be punished if he tells.

While David’s pathological fear of punishment keeps her rescuers at bay, Matthew finishes sharpening his ax. In the secret chamber where she is bound to a chair, Vicki receives a visitor- the ghost of Josette Collins. The ghost tells her she need not be afraid. Vicki asks why not. The ghost simply repeats herself and vanishes. It is by no means clear that the ghosts mean to save Vicki from Matthew, or that they could keep him from killing her if that is what they want.

David finally tells Burke and Roger where Vicki is, and they get some shotguns. David delays their departure still further by pleading to go along with them. Meanwhile, Matthew is in front of Vicki, starting to swing his ax at her head.

Matthew hears ghostly voices and breaks off in mid-swing. He runs out of the hidden chamber to the parlor, where the ghost of beloved local man Bill Malloy comes strolling in to the room, singing one of the more family-friendly verses of “What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?” Matthew starts swinging his ax wildly at the ghost, which laughs at him. Four more ghosts, representing the famed “Widows,” follow, and he swings at them.

Bill and the Widows. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

In her place of confinement, Vicki can hear Matthew screaming, but cannot hear the ghosts plaguing him. She calls out to Matthew, who falls silent. Burke and Roger come in, she calls to them, they find her and release her from her bonds. Matthew in a chair in the parlor, dead of fright.

With its six ghosts, this is one of the most spectacular episodes of the entire series. It is also one of the most effective. It’s no wonder Patrick McCray resumed his posting about episodes with this one after skipping a couple of months’ worth.

It is notable that Burke and Roger do not actually save Vicki- the ghosts of Bill and the Widows do. When Matthew first tried to kill Vicki in episode 111, it was reclusive matriarch Liz who saved her. Now, it is again a female-led effort, though as the victim of Matthew’s first homicide Bill does get a chance to help. I suppose that fits with the nature of the genre- daytime soaps are addressed to a predominantly female audience, so it only makes sense that female characters will drive most of the major plot points. It doesn’t bode well for the future development of Burke- he’s a dashing action hero, after all, and if all the dashing actions are going to be precipitated by women, girls, and feminine ghosts he’s likely to be left out in the cold.

Episode 70: David is gonna show me some ghosts

This one resets the series.

Reclusive matriarch Liz calls well-meaning governess Vicki into the drawing room in the great house at Collinwood. She asks Vicki where her charge, problem child David, is. When she tells her David is upstairs in his room, she asks Vicki to close the drawing room doors, explaining that she does not want their conversation overheard.

Of course David comes downstairs and puts his ear to the doors as soon as they are closed. Liz starts talking with her about some recent plot developments, and we hear a commotion outside the doors. Tightly-wound caretaker Matthew has caught David eavesdropping. Liz sends Vicki and David away, and talks to Matthew about events we saw several days ago.

David starts telling Vicki about the ghosts who haunt Collinwood, and shows her a drawing he made of one of them. Vicki is impressed with the drawing, and shows it to Matthew. Matthew accuses David of going to the Old House and copying the portrait hanging there. Vicki has never heard of the Old House- nor has the audience, it’s the first reference to it. David denies Matthew’s accusation, and says that it is a drawing of a ghost he has seen.

Vicki takes the drawing to Liz, who immediately recognizes it as Josette Collins. She opens the family history to the page featuring a portrait of Josette, and asks David if he copied that portrait. Again David insists it is a drawing of an actual ghost he has seen. The day before yesterday, in episode 68, we saw David studying that page, so it is quite plausible that he did copy it. Still, regular viewers will remember that in episode 52 the book opened itself to that same page when no one but the audience could see, so we might also wonder if David is telling the truth.

Flighty heiress Carolyn tries to talk her mother into hiring a housekeeper. When she mentions that one thing a housekeeper might relieve Liz of is her loneliness, she answers wryly, “You forget, dear, I have all of David’s ghosts.” In this reply, we return to the ambiguity of the first weeks of the show, when, in conversations with Vicki, one character after another would use the word “ghost” in a metaphorical sense, to refer to present difficulties resulting from unresolved conflicts in the past. Vicki would invariably respond with some line like “Surely you don’t believe in ghosts!,” as if they were talking about literal ghosts. And each time, the response would be that they did indeed believe in literal ghosts, and that if she stayed in the old dark house on the hill for any length of time she would believe in them too. Aside from the book opening itself in #52, the ghostly manifestations we have seen so far have been equivocal, possibly hoaxes, possibly tricks of the light. Even the incident of the book was small and symbolic. The ghosts could still dissolve into the atmosphere and into mere metaphor.

Determined to befriend David, Vicki agrees to go to the Old House with him to look for ghosts. We are treated to 90 seconds of location footage of Vicki and David walking through the woods to the Old House. This is by far the longest exterior sequence in the entire series, and it is done with extraordinary ambition. Most of Dark Shadows’ exterior shots are not only extremely brief, but are accompanied only by music. In this one, the actors’ voices are dubbed throughout, and multiple sound effects are added.

Vicki and David walking to the Old House. Screenshot by Dark Shadows from the Beginning

Vicki and David enter the Old House. As they do so, David shines his flashlight directly into the camera and creates a halo effect. This would not seem desirable, but it will be done dozens of times in episodes to come. It’s probably a mistake here- maybe a mistake most of the time- but they do it so often, there must have been some kind of intentionality behind it.

The first flashlight halo

Vicki and David examine the portrait of Josette hanging above the mantle. Vicki is impressed with its likeness to David’s drawing. David tells her that he has been through every part of the Old House, but denies that the portrait was his model. He tells Vicki of the legend that Josette’s ghost is trapped at Collinwood until another girl falls to her death from Widow’s Hill, and goes on and on about his hope that Vicki will be that girl.

This charming conversation is interrupted when the door suddenly opens. Frightened, David breaks off in the middle of telling Vicki that he wants her to die and clutches at her for safety.

I want you to die! Please save me!

In a moment like this, we can understand why Vicki keeps believing she can reach David. She knows that he is deeply disturbed, and that his violence may well turn against her. But she can also see inside him an awareness that he needs a friend. She has decided to risk his worst in hopes that his sense of that need will eventually break through his rage.

It is Matthew at the door. He scolds Vicki and David for visiting the Old House after he had told them how dangerous it is. The three of them talk a bit about the legends, then Matthew insists on leaving. Vicki turns to David, apparently willing to stay there with him. David looks bitterly at Matthew, and says that there is no point in staying. Josette won’t appear when Matthew is around, because she doesn’t like him. When Matthew says the place should be torn down, David becomes upset and says that he will tell Josette to kill him if he tries it.

The three of them do leave. Then something happens…

We see the vacant parlor of the Old House. The portrait of Josette begins to glow. A figure takes shape, and walks down from the portrait to the floor. It vanishes from the parlor, and reappears outside. It dances among the columns surrounding the house, glowing an unearthly white. Josette has come all the way out of the back-world into the foreground. We can expect her to stick around. Perhaps others will follow where she has led.

Josette’s ghost emerges from her portrait. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die
The ghost of Josette dances outside the Old House. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die

On his blog Dark Shadows from the Beginning, Marc Masse cites the book Dark Shadows: The First Year, by Nina Johnson and O. Crock (Blue Whale Books, 2006.) I think you might have to go to Dark Shadows conventions to find a copy of this book. I’ve certainly never seen one.

Evidently, Johnson and Crock had access to much of the original paperwork generated by the makers of the show. Today’s closing credits are truncated by a technical fault. The only writing credit shown is Art Wallace’s story creator tag. Fandom has jumped to the conclusion that Art Wallace wrote the episode, but the documents show that Francis Swann did. That makes sense- the two of them have been swapping weeks, with Wallace writing five episodes, then Swann writing five. Swann wrote the other four episodes this week, and Wallace wrote next week’s five, so it would be a deviation from the pattern if Wallace wrote this one as well. Since the episode is such a watershed in the development of the show it is tempting to attribute it to the original writer. But clearly, it is Swann who gave us our first looks at the Old House and at Josette.