tomb of the collinses – Page 2 – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 598: I thought you might be looking for Adam

Occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes is searching the room in the long-deserted west wing of the great house of Collinwood where heiress Carolyn has been hiding Frankenstein’s monster Adam since #539 in July. Strange and troubled boy David Collins saunters into the room and greets him with a casual “Hello, professor.” When a flustered Stokes makes up a story about Carolyn sending him to the room to look for some old books, David calmly replies, “Oh, I thought you might be looking for Adam.”

We haven’t seen David since #541. The only time we saw him interact with Adam was when they crossed paths in the woods in #495, and in none of the countless scenes featuring Adam cooped up in this dusty little room has David been mentioned. Yet today he tells Stokes that he visited Adam there many times, and that the two of them became great friends. I take that to mean that Ron Sproat, writer of today’s script, wanted to show us a lot of conversations between David and Adam and was overruled by the producers. It’s a major disappointment Sproat didn’t get his way. David Henesy and Robert Rodan would have been a wonderful pairing. David Collins tells Stokes that Adam told him last night that he would be leaving Collinwood before morning, and that he would never return.

David tells Stokes about Ron Sproat’s good idea. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Carolyn enters the room and tells David to go. He eavesdrops on her conversation with Stokes. He hears Stokes acknowledge that he is in the room without her permission, confirming that he was lying when he claimed Carolyn sent him there. He stays long enough to hear that Stokes is anxious to find Adam because he is afraid he is in danger. He goes off to look for the big guy.

During Carolyn’s conversation with Stokes, it becomes clear that she does not remember the events of the previous night. Since that night stretched over 13 episodes, that is quite a gap. During it, a mate was created for Adam; Carolyn participated in the first attempt at that procedure as the donor of the “life force.” She did that under the influence of suave warlock Nicholas Blair; Nicholas later enlisted her in another task, after which he erased her memory. Perhaps she forgot everything she did while his spell was upon her. That would explain why she doesn’t remember anything about Adam’s mate or about his passionate goodbye kiss. The show was so much more interesting during the little interval when Carolyn knew what was going on that it is almost as big a disappointment to learn of this mind-wipe as it is to hear that we were denied a chance to see a friendship develop between David and Adam.

David goes to Eagle Hill cemetery to look for Adam. He sees Willie Loomis, bedraggled servant of David’s distant cousin Barnabas Collins, emerge from the old Collins family mausoleum. David hides behind a tombstone until Willie is gone.

David wonders what Willie was doing in the mausoleum. He goes inside, and decides to open the panel to the hidden chamber. There, he finds Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, bound and gagged. He calls her by name, and we cut to commercial.

This situation will be familiar to longtime viewers. In #124, David found his governess, the well-meaning Vicki Winters, bound and gagged in a secret room in the Old House on the estate. That time, he panicked and left Vicki still restrained.

After the commercial break, we spend some time with Willie and Stokes in the Old House, where Barnabas now lives. Thayer David plays Stokes. In #124, he played Matthew Morgan, the crazed handyman who was holding Vicki prisoner. Seeing him in this house with Willie at this point in the episode ensures that those of us who saw it will remember #124 and wonder how David’s response to the situation with Maggie will compare to his failure to help Vicki.

Willie then goes back to the mausoleum and finds David sitting on one of the coffins in the publicly known part. He asks David what he is doing there. David answers in a roundabout way. We start to wonder if he may have reverted to his old form and left Maggie where she was. But he eventually gets around to describing how Maggie behaved when he was untying her. Willie is terribly upset to find that Maggie is gone.

Willie abducted Maggie and locked her up in the mausoleum because Barnabas and mad scientist Julia Hoffman were planning to impose the role of “life force” donor on her. While there, she remembered that in May and June of 1967 Barnabas was a vampire who fed on her, imprisoned her, tried to replace her personality with that of his lost love Josette, and tortured her when she resisted. Willie doesn’t see any way to let her out when she has information like that. In the middle of today’s episode, Kathryn Leigh Scott and John Karlen have a big scene in the mausoleum as Maggie defies Willie and he begs her to be nice to him. They do an excellent job, but it is quite a relief to be out of that dungeon.

Episode 587: How can you hate yourself so much?

In April 1968, mad scientist Eric Lang promised Barnabas Collins that he could cure him of vampirism. The cure was an experimental procedure modeled on the one in Hammer Studios’ 1967 film Frankenstein Created Woman. A body constructed of parts salvaged from several fresh corpses was to be associated with Barnabas, and when the procedure was complete Lang expected Barnabas’ body to be dead and his mind to awaken in the constructed body. After Lang’s death, Barnabas’ friend, Dr Julia Hoffman, completed the experiment. To their surprise, the procedure ends with both Barnabas and the new man alive. Barnabas named the new man Adam. They take Adam to the dungeon in Barnabas’ house, and keep him there in horrifyingly bad conditions until he escapes. Adam of course hates Barnabas and Julia.

Lately, Adam has been hiding out in a long-deserted part of the great house of Collinwood. Heiress Carolyn Collins Stoddard took pity on him and has been looking after him there. He has fallen in love with Carolyn, to her embarrassment and his frustration. Carolyn has delegated the day-to-day responsibility for looking after Adam to unsightly ex-convict Harry Johnson. Adam’s former protector, occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes, visits from time to time. Adam’s most frequent and most influential visitor is suave warlock Nicholas Blair. Carolyn and Stokes are good, Nicholas is evil, and Harry is just distasteful.

When Nicholas found out about Adam, he forgot about whatever plans he may previously have had and focused on the goal of founding a new humanoid race. He has talked Adam into demanding Barnabas and Julia repeat the experiment to build a mate for him. Adam threatened to kill well-meaning governess Vicki Winters unless they complied. Now there is a patchwork female corpse and a lot of scientific equipment in Barnabas’ basement. All that is missing is a woman to donate her “life force.”

Barnabas and Julia were plotting to use Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. When Barnabas was a vampire in May and June of 1967, he abducted Maggie and tortured her in an attempt to erase her personality and replace it with that of his lost love, the gracious Josette. When that evil scheme collapsed, Maggie escaped and Julia used her preternatural powers of hypnosis to block her memories. Ever since, Maggie has had no idea of what happened during those two months, and she has thought of Barnabas as a wonderful person. Barnabas wants Julia to use those same powers first to bring Maggie to the basement lab, and then to block her memory in case she survives.

Barnabas’ much-put-upon servant, Willie Loomis, overheard this plan. Willie has a crush on Maggie. He tried to talk Barnabas and Julia out of their fell intentions, and when they would not listen he tried to persuade Maggie to leave town. She wouldn’t listen either, so he took it upon himself to abduct Maggie. He stole some chloroform from the lab, broke into her room, and took her to the hidden chamber inside the old Collins family mausoleum.

We open today in the front parlor of the Old House, where Adam is coolly explaining to Barnabas that he does not want Maggie to donate the “life force” for his mate. Barnabas angrily explains that it must be Maggie, because Julia has proven that she can control her. Besides, Maggie lives alone, so she can go missing for several days before anyone knows she is gone. Barnabas is the chief protagonist of this show, by the way.

Adam says that the only woman whose “life force” he wants to animate his bride is Carolyn. Barnabas says that this is impossible. Adam has been gradually learning the details of the experiment that brought him to life; only now does Barnabas tell him that in the original plan, he would die and come back to life in his body. Adam is bewildered by this. “How could you hate yourself so much that you wanted to change your body?” Barnabas does not want to confess his his former vampirism, so Adam doesn’t get an answer.

Adam meets Nicholas at the gazebo on the grounds of the estate. Nicholas wants him to ignore everything Barnabas said, but Adam is giving deep thought to all of it. It was Nicholas’ idea that Carolyn should provide the “life force,” and Adam enthusiastically agreed, believing this meant that his mate would be like her. He says now that he and Barnabas do not recognize themselves in each other, and Nicholas tries to brush this very apt observation off by saying that Barnabas would hide his similarities. Adam demands Nicholas assure him that Carolyn will not be subjected to any violence. She must want to participate in the experiment. As my wife, Mrs Acilius, pointed out, that condition is indeed a similarity with his “life force” donor- Barnabas had been preoccupied with the idea that Maggie and his other female victims would eventually come to him of their own will. While Nicholas is trying to quell the big guy’s concern, Willie happens by.

Adam starts to figure everything out, and wants to reason with Nicholas.

Adam hides while Nicholas confronts Willie. He puts a magic zap on Willie to compel him to release Maggie. After Willie goes, Nicholas tells Adam he will use the same painless technique to cause Carolyn to cooperate. Adam is skeptical, but Nicholas assures him that his doubts will be settled when he sees that Maggie is free before daybreak.

That may not quite work out. Willie made the worst possible choice of hiding place when he stashed Maggie in the hidden chamber of the mausoleum. Barnabas took her to that chamber for torture when she was his prisoner, and shortly after she awoke there her memory started to come back. By the end of today’s episode, she remembers that Barnabas was her captor. When Willie returns, he will find that he has quite a problem on his hands.

Episode 584: Terribly familiar

Recovering vampire Barnabas and mad scientist Julia are under pressure to create a female Frankenstein’s monster. The process they are using requires draining the “life force” from a woman into a constructed corpse. The other day, Barnabas announced they would force the role of donor onto Maggie, The Nicest Girl in Town and one of his former victims. When Barnabas’ servant Willie heard of this plan, he was horrified. Willie has a crush on Maggie, and is determined to spare her this fate.

Now, Willie has abducted Maggie and is hiding her from Barnabas and Julia. Barnabas is worried about what will happen if they cannot find another woman to use in the experiment. Julia says “If worse came to worst, I could do it.” Barnabas points out that only she is prepared to operate the equipment, and that she could not do that if she were serving as donor. She makes a feeble suggestion that their onetime lab tech, an unpleasant man named Peter who prefers to be called Jeff, might run the equipment. Barnabas says that Peter/ Jeff does not have her training. In any case, Barnabas had to fire Peter/ Jeff because he had reason to believe he was trying to sabotage the experiment, so he can scarcely trust him now.

This is not the first time Julia has offered to solve a problem by destroying herself, only for Barnabas to turn her down. In #350, when Barnabas was still a vampire and was desperately thirsty for blood, Julia volunteered herself as his victim. Barnabas was sufficiently moved to address her for the first time as “Julia” rather than with a distinctly contemptuous pronunciation of the title “Doctor,” but he still said the reason he was refusing was that he had use for her medical expertise. Barnabas’ cruel plan for Maggie suggested that he isn’t really any nicer now than he was as a vampire; this echo of that moment would suggest that he hasn’t even stopped seeing Julia, who after all loves him, as a kind of higher servant.

Willie has taken Maggie to the hidden chamber inside the old Collins family mausoleum. It was in this chamber that Barnabas was trapped in his coffin from 1796 until Willie inadvertently freed him to prey upon the living in #210. When she was his prisoner in #248, Barnabas took Maggie to that chamber and shut her up in the coffin there. While Willie tries to assure Maggie that she will be safe as long as she is with him, the memories that Julia used her preternatural powers of hypnosis to erase start coming back.

We see a flashback, not to Maggie’s time at Barnabas’ mercy, but to #283, when she was Julia’s patient at Windcliff Sanitarium. Julia took her on a trip to the old cemetery north of Collinsport, and they went into the mausoleum. Julia did not know about the hidden chamber, and did not understand why Maggie became upset when they were in the publicly known part of the mausoleum. Maggie remembers visiting the mausoleum with Julia, and cannot remember why it frightened her to be there. But the fact that she recognizes the chamber as part of the mausoleum means that her memory of what Barnabas did to her is coming loose.

Maggie’s memory. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This creates a truly suspenseful situation. Maggie is an audience favorite with connections to several other characters, and so it seemed unlikely anything Barnabas and Julia did would result in her leaving the show. But if she remembers what they did to her and tells the police about it, they will go to prison. Since Barnabas and Julia are the source of all the action on Dark Shadows, that would mean the end of the series. So her memory coming back sets up a crisis that might be resolved with a significant change.

Perhaps Barnabas and Julia will force Maggie to donate her “life force” with the consequence that her body dies and she wakes up in the newly created woman, who just so happens to look exactly like her but to have a drastically different personality. That seems plausible, since the long-running storyline of her romance with hardworking young fisherman Joe seems to be over, the minor theme of her relationship with her hard-drinking father Sam had been resolved long before Sam died a few months ago, and we have reason to expect her to move out of her house, which has long served as our window into the working class of Collinsport. If Maggie is running out of story, they may very well decide to keep Kathryn Leigh Scott on as another character.

Closing Miscellany

The flashback is not made of tape cut from #283. It couldn’t be- the show was in black and white then, and is in color now. So they recreate it. It’s kind of adorable to see Julia in her old wig.

This was not the episode they intended to shoot. It was the dress rehearsal. Shooting the flashback scene put them so far behind schedule they didn’t have time to do the episode, and they had to send this footage to the network. I believe that is the only occasion they ever resorted to that desperate expedient. The camera is out of focus much of the time and occasionally does not seem to be pointed in the right direction, the microphones are misplaced so that it sounds at one point like Julia is referring to Maggie as “Greg,” booms and other equipment intrude into the shots, and the actors frequently blow their lines. In other words, it is in no way different from any other episodes.

Episode 516: Man of God

We open with a reprise of yesterday’s close, with mad scientist Julia Hoffman and servant Willie Loomis in the basement of the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. They hear a sobbing in the air; Julia knows it is the sound of the ghost of gracious lady Josette. Yesterday, the sobbing sounded like Kathryn Leigh Scott, who played Josette in the part of Dark Shadows set in the 1790s; today, it is a recording used in the early months of the series when a mysterious sobbing was heard coming from the basement of the great house on the estate. That sobbing was implied at that time to be Josette also, but in #272 it turned out to be matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Using the same recording for Josette, and playing it on a redress of the set used for the basement at the great house, would seem to be a way of admitting to longtime viewers that it was a mistake to resolve the Mystery of the Sobbing Woman that way.

The performer on the old recording is Florence Stanley. Stanley would become nationally famous in the 1970s as Bernice, wife of Sergeant Fish on Barney Miller and later on a spinoff series titled Fish. Fish was played by Abe Vigoda, who will later appear in a couple of episodes of Dark Shadows. I doubt very much Stanley and Vigoda ever talked with each other about their experiences on the show, but it makes me happy that they were both alums.

Abe Vigoda and Florence Stanley as Phil and Bernice Fish.

Julia figures out that recovering vampire Barnabas Collins has been bricked up behind a wall in the basement by the vengeful spirit of eighteenth century witchfinder the Rev’d Mr Trask. She orders Willie to chisel away the bricks and rescue Barnabas. Willie is confused and frightened by what Julia has told him, and resists her command. As he chips away, he is interrupted first by a strange, sudden chill and then by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. Julia conjured Trask up at a séance held on this spot a few days ago. But she at first refuses to acknowledge that he can be a real obstacle to Willie’s compliance with her commands, so she tells Willie to “shut up!” and get back to work. When Trask becomes visible to them both, Julia has no choice but to address herself to him.

Trask strikes a characteristic pose. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Julia tells Trask that, as a man of God, he must know that murder is wrong. This changes nothing; evidently Trask’s moral theology has evolved considerably since his physical death. Then she tells him that if he wants to correct a terrible mistake he made in life, he should forget about Barnabas and turn to the witch he hunted then, who now calls herself Cassandra Collins and lives at the great house on the estate. Again, no change. When Julia says that Cassandra is the one who ultimately caused Trask’s own misfortunes and that if he is going to take revenge on someone, it should be her, he disappears and the cold, clammy feeling of a ghostly presence goes with him. Willie gets back to work, and they get Barnabas out of his predicament in the nick of time.

In the great house, Cassandra plays a scene with Elizabeth. Cassandra has caused Elizabeth to be obsessed with death, and now causes her to believe she is one of her own collateral ancestors, Naomi Collins, who died in 1796. Cassandra leads Elizabeth to Naomi’s tomb and shows her the stone wall plates inscribed with the dates of the people buried there.

Cassandra does some more spellcasting to deepen Elizabeth’s misery and confusion. Elizabeth resists and runs out; Cassandra laughs gleefully. Her laughter stops when Trask appears to her, a torch glowing in his hand. He tells her that she is the witch, and that he has come to burn her. He commands “Burn, witch, burn!” and she bursts into flames.

The scene in the basement is great fun, as is Cassandra’s confrontation with Trask. But the parts with Cassandra and Elizabeth drag. This is the second time Elizabeth has moped around hopelessly and thought of nothing but death; the first time was a year ago, in late June and early July 1967. It was deadly dull then, and is no better now. The show simply does not know what to do with Elizabeth, and usually wastes the great talents of Joan Bennett.

There are a couple of famous production faults at the tomb. When they get there, the plate over Naomi’s casket still reads “born, 1761; died, 1821,” as it did before the show settled on the 1790s as the decisive period. When Cassandra causes Elizabeth to see the tomb as incomplete and still awaiting Naomi’s interment, the inscription is covered by a piece of cardboard painted to match the stone and clumsily pasted on it.

Episode 468: As free as you are

Vampire Barnabas Collins, desperate to save his own life after he aged extremely rapidly as the result of an attempt mad scientist Julia Hoffman had made to turn him into a real boy, bit his distant cousin Carolyn Collins Stoddard and enslaved her in #351. In #462, Barnabas was afraid that well-meaning governess Vicki Winters had learned his secret, so he bit her as well. As it happens, Vicki had not figured out that Barnabas was a vampire, so the bite was unnecessary. That was lucky for Barnabas. After he bit her, Vicki was noticeably less interested in Barnabas and less deferential to him than she had been at any point in the year or so she had known him.

Now, Barnabas has happened upon another mad scientist, Eric Lang. Lang has apparently succeeded where Julia had failed. Barnabas can go around in the daytime and do other things humans do. What’s more, Lang takes a look at Vicki’s neck and sees that the marks of Barnabas’ bite have vanished. Vicki remembers having the bites. Even after Lang has told her that they vanished because the reason for them no longer exists, she has an enigmatic look on her face when she stares into the mirror and studies the spot where they used to be. It was never clear what she made of Barnabas’ biting her and sucking her blood- maybe she just thought he favored an aggressive make out technique. She looks deeply puzzled now, but what exactly she is trying to understand is a mystery. She looks away from the mirror, then looks down, defeated in her attempt to find sense in her memories. Finally, she turns her back on the mirror and goes resolutely about her business.

For her part, Julia is in the great house of Collinwood with Carolyn. Julia is surprised that Carolyn is talking to her in a friendly manner, as she did before she and Barnabas “became so close.” Carolyn removes her scarf, glances in the mirror, and is delighted to see that the marks on her neck are gone. Carolyn asks what that means. Julia says that it means that she is free, as free as Barnabas, and that it must continue to be so.

Carolyn discovers her emancipation. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Unlike Vicki, Carolyn had a full briefing from Barnabas about his condition and its requirements, and she was deeply involved in his criminal enterprises for some weeks. Her joyous reaction to the disappearance of the marks leaves no doubt that she remembers something about this experience. There is nothing in any script after this to tell us what, but we will often notice actress Nancy Barrett giving a line reading or showing an unquiet reaction that suggests she remembers everything. I suppose you could say she was padding her part with these little signs, but the directors obviously didn’t object and it will be quite a while before the writers give her dialogue which forces her to stop doing it.

There’s also a lot of business in this episode with Vicki and an unpleasant man named Peter. Lately, Peter has been pretending to be someone else, even though the audience and Vicki know perfectly well who he is. Today the show suggests that this irritating little storyline is the consequence of Peter having amnesia. The episode ends with him, Vicki, and Julia opening the secret panel that reveals the hidden chamber in the Collins family mausoleum where Barnabas was trapped from the 1790s until 1967. That proves that Vicki traveled back in time to the 1790s and that Peter knew her in that era. Since the audience already knows both of those facts and none of the characters directly involved in the action has any reason to doubt either of them, it’s an anticlimactic conclusion.

When Vicki and Julia are entering the mausoleum, Vicki shines a flashlight directly into the camera. In at least eleven of the episodes made when the show was in black and white, characters entering darkened spaces did this with flashlights, often creating elaborate halo effects. Sometimes this appeared to be a blooper, several times it was obviously intentional. We’ve only seen it once or twice, briefly, since the show went to color in the summer of 1967. It’s nice to see it again.

Episode 460: Lies beyond the grave

In #365, well-meaning governess Vicki came unstuck in time and found herself in the year 1795. Now, Vicki is about to be hanged for witchcraft, and the last of the story threads that have been playing out around her are about to be tied up.

Yesterday’s episode ended in the study at the great house of Collinwood, where naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes shot a wooden bolt from a crossbow into the chest of vampire Barnabas Collins. At the top of today’s episode, Barnabas pulls the bolt out, telling Nathan that the bolt didn’t hit him. Barnabas’ voice is dubbed in over this, clarifying that Nathan missed his heart. We then switch to Nathan’s point of view and see Barnabas approaching for the kill.

After the opening title, we see that Barnabas is still in the study. Time has apparently passed. Barnabas’ father Joshua enters. Barnabas asks him if Nathan has been buried. Joshua says that he has, and lists the stories that he will tell to cover up all the deaths that Barnabas has been involved with over the last few months. Barnabas wants Joshua to shoot him through the heart with a silver bullet right now and destroy him forever. Joshua cannot do that, but he promises that he will put Barnabas out of his misery come daylight, when he is in his coffin. Barnabas asks two more favors of his father, that he free much put-upon servant Ben and that he prevent the execution of the wrongly convicted Vicki. Joshua promises to do these things as well.

Joshua and Barnabas. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Throughout this scene, actors Louis Edmonds and Jonathan Frid hold back tears. Patrick McCray remarks: “Crying is not the most powerful thing an actor can do on stage. Rather, it is the attempt not to cry that seizes audiences. In these moments, Frid and Edmonds seize. In a medium of love scenes, there is none more poignant.”

The performers have a powerful theme to work with, one that Danny Horn explicates when he considers the question of why Joshua is still alive at the end of this storyline. When she made Barnabas a vampire, wicked witch Angelique decreed that everyone who loved him would die. Yesterday, Joshua confessed that he feared he was incapable of love, and Barnabas told him that such a disability might save his life. But when we see Edmonds and Frid struggling against the urge to weep, we know that Joshua loves Barnabas very deeply indeed, as we have in recent weeks seen that he loved others he has lost. Danny explains:

The reason why Joshua is spared from the curse is that the love he feels for Barnabas isn’t the kind of love that Angelique recognizes, and so he slips under her radar.

Angelique’s love is selfish, and spiteful. She uses it as a convenient excuse for running over anyone who gets in her way. She doesn’t understand love that arises from respect, and strength of character. And she will never feel the kind of deep, honest love that Joshua now realizes for the first time that he is in fact capable of.
Danny Horn, from “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves,” posted on Dark Shadows Every Day 16 August 2014

Danny goes on to explain that, while others had love for Barnabas that included a selfless element, there was also something in their feelings that Angelique could recognize, while Joshua’s love for him comes entirely from this higher plane. The portion of Dark Shadows set in the years 1795-1796 turns out to be The Tragedy of Joshua Collins, not only because Joshua has the highest social status among the characters, makes the most important decisions, and is played by one of the best actors, but because he grows into the sort of person who is governed by this kind of love. When the world around him is being ground down into dishonesty and cheapness, largely due to the consequences of his own misguided actions, Joshua discovers a new kind of strength within himself. Even amid the ruins of a world he himself did as much as anyone to wreck, Joshua represents the hope that something better might yet come into being.

After daybreak, Joshua stands beside Barnabas’ coffin in the secret chamber hidden inside the Collins family mausoleum, the pistol in his hand. Joshua cannot bring himself to fire the silver bullets into his son’s heart. Ben enters. Joshua orders him to affix a silver crucifix to the inside of the coffin to immobilize Barnabas there, and then to chain the coffin shut. Joshua and Ben assure each other that Barnabas will never be released. Later, we see Ben in the chamber, alone with the chained coffin. He looks at it and says “Goodbye, Mr Barnabas, goodbye.” Thayer David delivers that line with an unforgettable simplicity.

Returning viewers know that Joshua’s plan to keep Barnabas confined will work only until April of 1967, when Barnabas will be freed to prey upon the living once more. That July, in #276, Barnabas will stand in the hidden chamber and say that, while in chaining the coffin rather than destroying him his father “thought he was being merciful, what he did was no act of mercy.” This remark, combined with a story he told Vicki in #214 about his conflict with Joshua, just may have been the germ from which the whole story of Joshua grew. At any rate, the promise ABC-TV made to its viewers when it aired this promotional spot in November 1967 has been fulfilled:

Back in the study, Joshua frees Ben and gives him a severance packet of $100, worth about $2500 in 2024 dollars. When Ben thanks him for his generosity, Joshua denies that he is being generous. I have to agree with Joshua there- that amount might get a fellow out of town, but he’d have to find a new job pretty fast if he wanted to stay in the habit of sleeping indoors.

Another servant brings a note while Joshua and Ben are in the study. The governor has refused Joshua’s plea that Vicki’s execution be stayed. She will be hanged tonight.

At the gaol, Vicki’s boyfriend, an unpleasant man named Peter, is brought to her cell. The gaoler tells them they have five minutes before Vicki will be taken to her death. It is little wonder Vicki’s last request was to have time with Peter. Spending five minutes with him is like living to a ripe old age. Peter vows to overcome death and reunite with her. The last time we heard that was when Barnabas died the first time. In #409, he used his dying breaths to ask gracious lady Josette to wait for him to return to her. Fool that she was, Josette did, leading to disaster for her. Returning viewers may well wince, not only at the ominous parallel with Josette’s grim fate, but also at the memory of the many tedious scenes in which Josette at first insisted that Barnabas was coming back and was then at a loss when asked to explain herself. Besides, we don’t want to see any more of Peter.

The scene of Vicki’s hanging is quite elaborate by Dark Shadows standards. They’ve built a fairly realistic gibbet, hired several extras, put hats on them, and given them burning torches to hold. They test the equipment with a heavy sack, slowly lead Vicki to the place of honor, ask her if she wants a mask, and command the Lord to have mercy on her unrepentant soul. The camera drifts up to the top of the rigging, leaving Vicki out of the shot. When the time comes, we hear the drop and see the rope tighten.

Swing time for Vicki. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

This marks the end of the 1795 flashback, but not necessarily of Dark Shadows 3.0. In #437, Vicki told Peter that she often had nightmares in her childhood, so often that she became a connoisseur of nightmares. She would stay asleep throughout the whole process, waking up only at the very moment she was about to be killed. That was a rather heavy-handed way of telling the audience that Vicki would ascend the gallows, put her head in the noose, and find herself back in the 1960s. Once she is back in her own time, what she has learned in the 1790s will have consequences for what she does next. So we can expect an epilogue of some kind before Dark Shadows 4.0 begins.

Episode 454: The course of history

Throughout its first 38 weeks, Dark Shadows told the story of well-meaning governess Vicki and her attempts to befriend strange and troubled boy David (David Henesy.) This story reached its conclusion in #191, when David’s mother, undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, beckoned David into the flames of a burning fishing shack. David ultimately fled from the shack, running into Vicki’s arms. Once David had chosen Vicki and life over his mother and death, there was nowhere for their story to go. Since there was nothing going on in any of the other narrative arcs on the show at that point, #191 marked the end of Dark Shadows 1.0.

In #365, Vicki became unstuck in time and found herself in the year 1795. That inaugurated Dark Shadows 3.0, successor to the period when we got to know Barnabas Collins, vampire. Today’s opening voiceover tells us that the eighteenth century flashback is almost over. Longtime viewers will get this message not only from the voiceover, but from an echo of #191. Daniel Collins, played by David Henesy, runs from the fishing shack, thereby escaping from mortal jeopardy, and goes to Vicki in search of safety.

Daniel escaped from the fishing shack. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Vicki has utterly failed to adapt to the eighteenth century, with the result that she has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death. With her repellent boyfriend Peter, Vicki has escaped from gaol. Fugitives Vicki and Peter are hiding out in the secret chamber hidden in the Collins family mausoleum when Vicki has a dream that young Daniel is about to be murdered by naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes. Before Vicki’s witchcraft trial, she had been Daniel’s governess, and he is still her friend. He ran into her and Peter after they escaped from gaol, knows that they are in the mausoleum, and is faithfully keeping their secret.

Vicki has brought with her from the 1960s the knowledge that Daniel will be the ancestor of the Collins family she knew in her own time. She fears that her dream will come true, her young friend will die, and his descendants will never be born.

As it happens, Nathan is scheming to kill Daniel. Nathan has married Daniel’s sister Millicent. After the wedding, Nathan discovered that Millicent had signed her vast fortune over to Daniel. If Daniel dies, the money all reverts to Millicent. So Nathan summons his unsightly henchman Noah to a fishing shack on the grounds of the estate of Collinwood and demands that he abduct Daniel, put him on a boat, and throw him into the ocean. When Noah balks, Nathan threatens to go to the constable and turn Noah in for the crimes they have already committed together. The show has out of its way to demonstrate that Noah isn’t very bright, so it isn’t a complete shock that he would think it was safer to murder a child than to call Nathan’s bluff.

Noah finds Daniel in the woods, grabs him, takes him to the fishing shack, and tells him they will be taking a boat ride together. Noah is then distracted by the wind, allowing Daniel to run away and find refuge with Vicki in the hidden chamber.

Throughout her time in the 1790s, Vicki has made a series of attempts to prevent the terrible events recorded in the history of the Collinses. She has failed every time, and the past has fallen into the same shape it took when these events originally played out and a woman named Phyllis Wick was the governess at Collinwood. But by trying to save Daniel, Vicki is not trying to change the course of history- she is trying to preserve it. It is not explained whether Phyllis rescued Daniel in the first version of this history, or if Nathan’s murder plot was somehow the result of Vicki’s intervention. Either way, it reinforces the message of the opening voiceover. Vicki has now passed all of the tragic milestones of the period, and is left with nothing to do but to contain damage that she herself might have done. It is time for her to go home.

Episode 453: Legal guardian

In December 1966, crazed handyman Matthew Morgan (Thayer David) abducted well-meaning governess Vicki and held her prisoner in a secret room behind the bookcase in the front parlor of the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. Vicki had run into Matthew there when she saw his dusty footprints leading up to the bookcase in #115. Vicki’s charge, strange and troubled boy David Collins (David Henesy,) did not know that Matthew had abducted Vicki, and was convinced that he had gone into hiding because he was unjustly accused of murdering local man Bill Malloy. So when David found out Matthew was in the Old House, he brought him food and water. In #120, David heard Vicki’s muffled voice behind the bookcase; in #123, he pulled the bookcase back and found her; in #124, he was too frightened to help her escape.

Now, Vicki has come unstuck in time, and found herself in the late eighteenth century. She made a promising start, landing a position as governess to the children at Collinwood, among them Daniel (David Henesy.) But she has adapted poorly to her new surroundings, so poorly that she has been convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Accompanied by her boyfriend, an unpleasant young man named Peter, she has escaped from gaol. Vicki was shot in the arm while escaping, and is still bleeding. She and Peter have made their way to the Old House. There, much put-upon servant Ben (Thayer David) at once gives Vicki and Peter such help as he can.

When a knock comes at the door, Ben tells Vicki and Peter he will hide them. He goes to the bookcase, and Vicki whispers “The secret room.” When Vicki first saw Ben, they were in this parlor, and she was frightened because she mistook him for Matthew. In her hushed voice and the look of awe on her face when she sees Ben trying to save her life by putting her in the room where his Doppelgänger will try to kill her in 1966, Alexandra Moltke Isles’ Vicki conveys the thought that Ben and Matthew really are two versions of the same guy. Ben is a kind-hearted sort whose fierce loyalties sometimes overcome his good sense; Matthew a paranoid ogre whose single-minded devotion to matriarch Liz leads him to kill and menace those dearest to Liz. The difference between the two men begins in the events that have been taking place around Vicki in the 1790s. Ben grew up in the ordinary world of day and night, where natural laws apply and there is hope for goodness. Matthew has spent his whole life in a town laboring under an ancient curse. Matthew’s crimes would be the fruit of Ben’s virtues, had Ben been warped by the evil of centuries that hangs over the Collinsport of the 1960s.

While Vicki and Peter huddle in the secret room, Daniel bursts into the parlor. Ben tries to hurry him out, but the lad notices a trail of bloodstains leading to the bookcase. Before Ben can stop him, Daniel opens the bookcase and finds the fugitives.

Daniel discovers the fugitives. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Daniel is as convinced of Vicki’s innocence as David will be of Matthew’s, and he is eager to help her and her friend. Ben says he will take the fugitives to a safer hiding place, and forbids Daniel to follow them. Of course Daniel does follow them, and sees them enter the Collins family mausoleum in the old cemetery north of town. He cannot see inside, where Ben opens a secret panel and ushers Vicki and Peter into the hidden chamber behind. This chamber will be hugely important in 1967. Vicki will hear about it in that year after David, who spent a week trapped there ending in #315, tells people about it in #334. But David will be unable to show the chamber to Vicki or anyone else, and most adults assumed it was just something he had imagined. Vicki is astonished to see it today.

Daniel goes home to the great house of Collinwood, where his brother-in-law, naval officer/ sleazy operator Nathan Forbes, handles him roughly and demands to know where he saw Vicki. When Daniel denies having seen Vicki, Nathan asks him how he came to have a bloodstain on his sleeve. He tells Daniel that Vicki was wounded when she escaped from gaol, and declares that it is her blood on Daniel. He warns Daniel that it is a crime to withhold information about a fugitive. Daniel keeps denying everything.

Back in the hidden chamber, Vicki is asleep. She dreams that Nathan is trying to kill Daniel. Returning viewers know that this is in fact true. Nathan married Daniel’s sister, fluttery heiress Millicent, because wanted her vast fortune. He found out on their wedding day that she had signed everything over to Daniel. It has occurred to him that if Daniel should die, it will all revert to Millicent, so he is scheming to bring that death about. Vicki has been in gaol since all of this started; nothing she has seen or heard could have led her to conclude that Nathan was a threat to Daniel. We must take it as a message from the supernatural world. This is not the first time we have seen Vicki receive such a message while in a concealed place. In #126, when Matthew was bringing an ax to decapitate her, Vicki was visited in the secret room behind the bookcase in the Old House by the ghost of gracious lady Josette bringing her good news.

The segment of Dark Shadows set in the 1790s is nearing its end. They have killed off most of the characters, have stopped introducing new ones, and those who remain are all facing crises that can be resolved only by further reducing the number of people available to participate in the action. The echoes of #123 and #124 will underline that point for viewers who have been with Dark Shadows from the start. Not only did those episodes tip Matthew into the final part of his storyline, they introduced David’s mother, undead fire witch Laura Murdoch Collins, marking a new phase of the show. Calling back to those installments, and condensing the action of #115 through #126 into a few minutes, they are telling us that the end of the 1790s segment is near, and that when it comes it will come fast.

Episode 416: Poor lost children

We open in the drawing room of the great house of Collinwood, where Naomi Collins (Joan Bennett) is drinking alone. Her husband Joshua (Louis Edmonds) enters, returning home after an absence of some days, and greets Naomi with a loud expression of scorn for her alcoholism. She looks up and recites these lines: “A little bird flew to the window. It hovered there for a moment, and then flew away. The first bird of the morning.” Many times, Joan Bennett found ways to show the viewers of Dark Shadows why she had been one of the biggest movie stars of her generation, but this is not one of those times. She delivers this little speech stiffly, as if embarrassed by it.

Joshua is about to leave the room when Naomi tells him that their daughter Sarah died the night before, on her eleventh birthday. He is thunderstruck and says that he cannot believe it. Naomi replies, “Yes, that is what we must do- not believe it!” With this line, Joan Bennett recovers her footing. As matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the first 73 weeks of Dark Shadows, when the show was set in 1966 and 1967, Bennett created a character who had devoted her entire life to this motto. Now that the show is set in the late 18th century, we see that the Collinses had been living by it for hundreds of years. Once she starts playing a character who is wrestling with denial, Bennett is in familiar territory, and she is terrific to watch.

Joshua believes that the bewildered Victoria Winters (Alexandra Moltke Isles) is a witch, and that a spell she cast on Sarah caused her death. He goes to the gaol in the village of Collinsport where Vicki is being held, awaiting trial on witchcraft charges. We see her in her cell, the first time we have seen this set. Joshua confronts her there. She denies his accusation. She tells him she is a time-traveler displaced from 1967 and that she has been trying to use her knowledge of history to rescue people from the fates that she has read about. This is true, as it happens, but of course Joshua is not favorably impressed. He tells her to enjoy the few sunsets and sunrises that she will see between now and the day she is put to death.

A week before, Naomi and Joshua’s other child, their forty-ish son Barnabas (Jonathan Frid,) had died of a mysterious illness. Joshua decreed that no one must know that Barnabas had died. He had Barnabas’ body interred in a secret chamber hidden inside the Collins family mausoleum, and put out the word that Barnabas had gone to England.

Unknown to Joshua or Naomi, Barnabas has become a vampire. Joshua’s remark to Vicki about sunrises and sunsets thus carried an ironic charge for regular viewers. When Barnabas emerges from his coffin after this sunset, his friend, much put-upon servant Ben Stokes (Thayer David,) tells him Sarah has died. Barnabas blames himself for this. Sarah had seen him with blood on his face, and in her fear had run away. Alone in the night, she suffered from exposure. Barnabas tells Ben that he will go into the village of Collinsport, confess everything to the authorities, and let the sunlight destroy him. At least that will save Vicki. Ben pleads with him to find another way, but Barnabas insists.

Sarah’s remains have been deposited in a vault in the outer part of the mausoleum. Naomi comes in to look at the vault again; Joshua follows her. Naomi has many bitter words for Joshua; he is ready to lament the deaths of their children. Barnabas and Ben, hiding inside the secret chamber, listen to this painful conversation.

For viewers who have been watching Dark Shadows from the beginning, the scene of Barnabas and Ben eavesdropping on Joshua and Naomi evokes two earlier scenes with particular force. In #318, Barnabas and his associate, mad scientist Julia Hoffman, stood on the same spots where Barnabas and Ben stand now, listening as two local men talking in the outer chamber revealed knowledge that might expose their many crimes. In #118, crazed groundskeeper Matthew Morgan, also played by Thayer David, held Vicki prisoner in a different secret chamber, and the two of them listened as another pair of local men searched for Vicki just outside. In those episodes, Frid and David played men who were bent on murder, but whom we knew to be unlikely to kill their intended targets. Today, they are playing characters who are both desperate to stop killing, but we know that they are doomed to take more lives.

After Naomi and Joshua leave, Barnabas tells Ben he cannot turn himself in. The family must not be disgraced. He tells Ben to come back in the morning with a stake made of holly and to drive it through his heart. He gives him this command in just the same words the witch Angelique had used in #410. Ben had not at that time known what had become of Barnabas, and had complied only because he was under Angelique’s power. He resists Barnabas’ command now, saying that he cannot destroy one who has been a true friend to him. Barnabas tells him he is already destroyed, and that staking him will be a mercy. Ben reluctantly agrees.

Episode 414: Walks the night

There was a lunar eclipse on the night of 24 January 1796; it reached its maximum at 10:09:20 Eastern time. In our time-band, that eclipse was not easily visible in central Maine, but in this episode we see that in the universe of Dark Shadows, it was spectacular there. Caddish naval officer Nathan Forbes and fluttery heiress Millicent Collins come inside from the terrace of the great house of Collinwood after watching the eclipse.

In the drawing room, Nathan proposes marriage to Millicent. She gladly accepts. Matriarch Naomi Collins enters. Millicent is worried Naomi will disapprove of them being alone together so late, while Nathan wants to tell her of the engagement. Before they can say anything, Naomi tells them that her daughter Sarah, whose eleventh birthday is day after tomorrow on the 26th, has gone missing. Nathan volunteers to take charge of the search parties.

Sarah had been looking for her big brother Barnabas. Unknown to her, Barnabas has become a vampire and has been snacking on the women who frequent the waterfront of the village of Collinsport. In yesterday’s episode, Sarah caught a glimpse of Barnabas, followed him to the cemetery, and wound up in the outer room of the family mausoleum, near the secret panel behind which Barnabas’ coffin is hidden. At the top of today’s episode, the door out of the mausoleum slams itself shut and Sarah is unable to open it.

That moment suggests a solution to a riddle that has been part of Dark Shadows ever since Barnabas joined the cast of characters in April 1967, when the show was set in contemporary times. Doors in structures associated with Barnabas would close themselves and trap people. Sometimes this advanced Barnabas’ objectives, but just as often it was an inconvenience to him. Today, he most definitely does not want Sarah to be in the mausoleum. Part of the curse that made Barnabas a vampire is that everyone who loves him will die. Barnabas has killed the malign Angelique, the witch who placed the curse on him, but he is still a vampire- the curse lives on. So perhaps the curse itself has a power that makes the doors slam shut, keeping Sarah in this cold room until she falls ill.

At the waterfront, Barnabas meets a woman named Ruby Tate. Ruby is fashion-forward, to say the least; her outfit would become stylish nearly a century later. It’s the sort of thing that might have been admired by the women Jack the Ripper killed in the Whitechapel section of London in 1888-1891. Indeed, this foggy scene is a fairly obvious reference to the Whitechapel murders.

Ruby smiles for the last time. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Barnabas is alarmed when Ruby recognizes him and calls him by name. He is befuddled when she tells him she had heard that he went to England- he doesn’t know that his father Joshua is spreading that story to conceal his death, which Joshua believes to have been the result of the plague. Ruby keeps saying that the other girls will be jealous when she tells them she spent the night with Mr Barnabas Collins, alarming him further.

In the early months of the show, the story of Burke Devlin’s quest for revenge on the Collinses had occasionally brought up the contrast between the working class village of Collinsport and the lordly family on the estate of Collinwood and suggested class conflict as a theme. Those suggestions were never very richly developed, and lately we have spent so much time holed up with the Collinses in their mansions that it is startling to see them through the eyes of the villagers. Ruby’s excitement at pairing off with one of the area’s grand aristocrats reminds us that the curse threatens the future of more than one family.

Ruby promises Barnabas not to tell anyone about him, but does notice him looking at her strangely. Something clicks, and she cries out “It’s you!” Barnabas draws closer. Fleeing him, she falls into the water. Barnabas calls Ruby’s name, but cannot stop her drowning.

Apparently Barnabas found someone else to attack after Ruby drowned, because his face is smeared with blood when next we see him. He returns to the mausoleum. Sarah sees him. He keeps his face turned away from her while she pleads with him to take her home. He keeps telling her to go without him. He finally turns to look at her. She sees the blood and shouts “You’re not Barnabas! You’re not, you’re not!” She runs out of the mausoleum, and dawn breaks.

Ruby Tate is played by Elaine Hyman. Hyman was busy as an actress in New York for decades before her death in 2020. She was in three plays that made it to Broadway, and her TV credits included episodes of The Sopranos, Broad City, and several iterations of the Law and Order franchise. She’s a sensation as Ruby, it’s a shame this is her only appearance on Dark Shadows.