The ghost of Daphne Harridge wants to kill Quentin Collins, for no reason the show divulges to us; then she doesn’t, again for no reason we can see. Daphne insists teenager David Collins and Hallie Stokes not look at her, then insists they do look at her. David refuses to join hands with Hallie and Daphne to gain mystical knowledge, then demands Hallie join hands with him in a séance. Quentin is under Daphne’s power and unable to assist Julia Hoffman in her quest to free the great house of Collinwood from the hauntings; then he orders Julia to attend him while he performs an exorcism of the house.
In his post about the episode on his great Dark Shadows Every Day, Danny Horn said everything I wanted to say about how unsatisfying all of this is. The show has had its ups and downs. I call this segment The Re-Haunting of Colllinwood, because the A story from December 1968 to March 1969 is often called The Haunting of Collinwood and this is a recycling of that. The original Haunting of Collinwood was itself pretty slow-paced and frequently got bogged down with ominous games of dress-up. This time around the pace is again slow and the rounds of dress-up are even more tedious.
It is somewhat interesting to listen to Quentin reciting traditional Christian formulas as he conducts the exorcism. When we first got to know him, Quentin was a devout and enthusiastic Satanist. I suppose all religions lose adherents from time to time.
We come to the end of the first week of The Re-Haunting of Collinwood, a rehash of a story that they got all the good out of when they did it the first time in December 1968 to March 1969.
The story isn’t going anywhere we haven’t been before, but there is some good stuff in this one. Kathleen Cody does an excellent job of acting as teen Hallie Stokes, brooding and subtle as she protests to her friend David Collins about the strangeness of their situation. Miss Cody had a very bad day at the office yesterday, and it is good to see what she can do.
As David, David Henesy commits one of the more memorable bloopers when he is supposed to tell Hallie that “We need a lot more clues” to figure out what is going on, but actually says “We need a lot more cues.”
Director Lela Swift, a gifted visual artist, outdoes herself at several points. I would particularly mention exceptionally fluid shot when Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman are in the foreground, in the doorway of the drawing room, and Quentin Collins approaches the through the foyer. Quentin’s loose-limbed, swinging motion combines with Barnabas and Julia’s intensely static pose to create a sense of rapid movement within strict boundaries.
There is some new stock footage of the Moon illustrating a solar eclipse; even though the final shot shows the Moon sprouting a corona at totality, it is so refreshing to see color pictures in this context that we can write that off.
The eclipse itself fulfills one of the cryptic clues a future version of Barnabas’ distant cousin Carolyn gave him, that something important would happen on “The night of the Sun and the Moon.” A lunar eclipse is a night of the Sun and the Moon, all right, but it is not at all all clear that anything that happens today would have struck Carolyn as especially noteworthy, even if she were in today’s episode.
While he is watching the eclipse, Quentin says that he is sad about his great-grandson and great-grand-daughter, Chris and Amy Jennings, and Chris’ fiancée Sabrina Stuart. Chris inherited an old curse of Quentin’s and was a werewolf. Quentin has managed to escape the effects of that curse, and also of aging, but no one could find a way to help Chris. Some time ago, when the show was set in an alternate universe where Barnabas and Julia were staying, Chris, Amy, and Sabrina left. All Quentin says is that he was sorry to see them go “that way.” We never hear a reference to any of them again.
Chris’ storyline ran out of road several months ago, and he was Sabrina’s only connection. So it would be no surprise that they are gone, even if actor Don Briscoe’s health problems had not overwhelmed him. We’re free to believe that Sabrina took Chris to a big farm in the country where he could play with the other werewolves. Amy was so central to the original Haunting of Collinwood segment in 1968 and 1969 that it would be impossible to pretend there was anything new about the Re-Haunting if she were around, so her departure was also inevitable.
Teen orphan Hallie Stokes has gone to stay in the great house of Collinwood, a logical place for her since an ancestor of hers was an indentured servant there 174 years ago. I’m not sure where my ancestors were indentured servants 174 years ago, but now that I know the information comes with free room and board in mansions you can bet I’ll be looking into it.
Hallie was eavesdropping on a conversation among some adults in the drawing room. Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins recently returned from an inexplicable journey through time and space with warnings of an undefined disaster that will be happening later in this year, 1970. Hallie has gone to visit the other teenager in the house, grouchy New Englander David Collins. David greets her with a warning that if his governess catches them alone in his bedroom after dark, “I’m in for it.” David has been on the show from week one, and this indication that there are rules against him having sleepovers with girls is the first acknowledgment that he is not a small child.
Hallie reports on the conversation she heard, much to David’s irritation. She then says she can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her. At that, Barnabas’ voice comes from the door asking who she thinks is watching her. She is afraid of Barnabas and wants to get back to her own room as quickly as possible. That’s a sign of healthy instincts, since Barnabas is a vampire, but he really did find evidence that a disaster is coming and he really is trying to save everyone by preventing it. He lets Hallie go, and bids a relaxed good night to David.
When Barnabas and his friend, Dr Julia Hoffman, returned from the distant future year of 1995, the first people they met were matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and roguishly handsome anomaly Quentin Collins. They told Liz and Quentin everything they knew right away, and today Barnabas gives another complete debriefing to Hallie’s uncle, Professor Timothy Eliot Stokes. So we might think that the characters have finally learned that keeping secrets unnecessarily just prevents people working together to solve their problems and we are finally going to let the story flow. But no such luck. Liz’ daughter Carolyn was a pivotal figure in 1995, but for no reason they bother to specify Barnabas decides to withhold all information from her today.
They do give a reason for Barnabas’ failure to tell Hallie anything about what he saw in 1995. Quentin told Barnabas yesterday that Hallie is psychologically fragile and couldn’t take any disturbing news. But since she just winds up eavesdropping and getting some alarming facts with no context and no indication that there is anything she can do to help the situation, this backfires. What is more, it was predictable it would happen. David scolds Hallie for eavesdropping, prompting her to point out that he is an inveterate eavesdropper himself. Everyone in the house has known this about David for four years, so there is simply no excuse for expecting that the adolescents will stay in the dark about what is being discussed in the drawing room.
Perhaps the oddest moment of the episode comes when Barnabas is talking to Stokes. He tells him that he and Julia saw Hallie’s ghost in 1995, looking exactly as she does now, suggesting that her death is imminent if she remains at Collinwood. Stokes, who seems remarkably cheerful about the whole thing, says with a bright smile “Perhaps I should take her away!” Barnabas says that no, “I wouldn’t do that.” He explains that it might upset Liz if they did so. Since he just told Liz the whole horrible story yesterday, it seems a bit late to make shielding her from distressing news one’s top priority, but Stokes goes along with it.
David has a dream in which Hallie is wearing an old-fashioned long orange dress with puffy sleeves. He does not know it, but this was the dress Julia and Barnabas saw a girl wearing in 1995. This girl was a ghost who looked exactly like Hallie but was named Carrie, and who danced a minuet with a boy who looked exactly like David but was named Tad. Later, Hallie finds Carrie’s dress laid out on her bed.
In late 1968 and early 1969, Quentin was an evil ghost who took control of David and his friend Amy Jennings as the first step towards driving everyone out of the house. In the course of that, there was a lot of monkey business about moving clothes in and out of closets. The original “Haunting of Collinwood” segment had its strengths and led to the trip back in time to 1897 that turned out to be Dark Shadows‘ greatest triumph. But the time spent worrying about where various items of clothing were being kept and why did not make for gripping television, and longtime viewers will wince to see that the incipient Re-Haunting of Collinwood is going to recapitulate that element.
In the posts that follow, I link to comments I made on Danny Horn’s blog Dark Shadows Every Day. Unlike most daytime serials, Dark Shadows tended to restart itself from time to time, dividing the show into major periods. I’ve tagged most of these posts with the periods of the show to which they refer.
There are several ways of periodizing the show. The scheme I use is this:
Episodes 1-45 “Meet Vicki”
Episodes 46-126 “Meet Matthew”
Episodes 127-192 “Meet Laura”
Episodes 193-209 “Meet Jason”
Episodes 210-260 “Meet Barnabas”
Episodes 261-365 “Meet Julia”
Episodes 366-466 “Meet Angelique”
Episodes 467-626 “Monster Mash”
Episodes 627-700 “Meet Amy” (subdivided into “Chris the Werewolf,” 627-638, and “The Haunting of Collinwood,” 639-700)
Episodes 701-885 “1897″ (subdivided into “Meet Quentin,” 701-748, and “Meet Petofi,” 749-885)
Episodes 886-969 “Leviathans”
Episodes 970-1060, “Meet Another Angelique”
Episodes 1061-1198, “Meet Gerard” (subdivided into “1995,″ 1061-1070, “The Re-Haunting of Collinwood,” 1071-1109, and “1840,″ 1110-1198)
Dark Shadows Commentary 