From April to July 1968, Dark Shadows was bogged down in a repetitious story called “The Dream Curse.” Each of a dozen characters had the same nightmare, in which they were in a small room with several doors. Behind each door they saw something that was supposed to be frightening.
When occult expert Timothy Eliot Stokes (Thayer David) had the dream in #508, he defied its rules, caused wicked witch Angelique to appear in it, and brought the curse to a halt. Angelique had to cast another spell later to restart it.
Now the show has gone back in time and is a costume drama set in 1897. Thayer David plays sorcerer Count Petofi, who is among other things a vision of what Stokes might have been as a supervillain. Petofi has learned that both vampire Barnabas Collins and mad scientist Julia Hoffman have traveled to 1897 from 1969. Petofi is convinced that they would not have made this journey unless they knew exactly what they were doing and had a foolproof plan for getting home. Petofi does not know Barnabas and Julia very well.
Petofi and his servant Aristide are holding Julia prisoner in their home, an old mill. This might be called a hiding place, except that virtually everyone in the village of Collinsport and its environs has visited Petofi and Aristide there at least once. There’s so much foot traffic in and out of it someone could make a fortune if they set up a food cart outside the door.
Yesterday, Petofi forced Julia to tell him that she and Barnabas each came back in time by meditating on a set of I Ching wands. Petofi then cast the wands, and his “astral body” was transported to a room very much like that in which the nightmares of the Dream Curse took place. At first it seems that he will match Stokes’ performance when he had The Dream. There is in the world one person over whom Petofi has no power and who is sworn to kill him. All Petofi knows is that this person is Rroma by ethnicity, and is going to try to use a particular scimitar to cut off his right hand, where his magical powers are concentrated. As Petofi is entering the room, he sees the scimitar. When the unseen person holding the scimitar points it at Petofi’s throat rather than his wrist, he realizes that he is not in jeopardy, and he orders the wielder of the scimitar to be gone.
In the room, Petofi opens a couple of doors. Behind one is Barnabas baring his fangs; behind the other, a wall of fire. One of the notable features of the room are red velvet curtains hanging from the ceiling to the floor. Fans of Twin Peaks sometimes say that “Once you learn to see it, the Red Room is everywhere”; I guess they’re right.
Petofi keeps his cool when he sees the gimmicks behind Door #1 and Door #2, but he does seem uncomfortable when he hears the voices of a male chorus singing a Romani song. After a moment, he finds his magical right hand squeezing his throat. All of a sudden he is back in his physical body, with Julia and Aristide by him, strangling himself. Petofi’s powers are so great that there are times when it seems that he will overwhelm all opposition and leave the show without a story to tell; the image of him crushing his own windpipe with his right hand suggests that he will ultimately be a victim of his own power.
Petofi recovers. He is sure Julia created his experience; he cannot conceive of events taking place outside anyone’s control. This marks a contrast with Stokes. Stokes, an upright and decent man, knows that Barnabas and Julia are keeping many secrets from him. When he has to work with them, he grumbles about this and makes it clear that he has dark suspicions. But though Stokes wishes he knew more about them, he does not press them very hard to reveal what they are hiding. Further, he was the one who explained the I Ching to them, including that meditation is a process of giving up control. Unlike Petofi, Stokes can easily accept that there are things that happen whether or not anyone wants them to.
When Julia cannot answer any of his questions, Petofi tells her why he keeps Aristide around:
Look at Aristide here. In point of fact, I don’t need a servant. The boy himself is no intellectual giant. He detests all forms of culture. Why then do I keep him on? Because I am a man who by nature shuns all forms of violence. I loathe the sight of blood. Aristide, on the other hand, has no such scruples. He revels in every form of torture and bloodshed known to the mind of man. I believe he even invented a few himself. He kills without the slightest feeling for his victims. He will kill you, Dr. Hoffman, if you do not tell me what I want to know.
As Aristide, Michael Stroka’s reactions when Petofi delivers this speech are quite funny. He looks really wounded when Petofi says that he is “no intellectual giant” and that he “detests all forms of culture,” but when he starts talking about how sadistic he is, he brightens up. When Petofi tells Julia that Aristide will kill her unless she tells him what he wants to know, he looks positively blissful.
Since Julia has nothing to tell, Petofi leaves Aristide to do his worst. He ties her to a chair in the back room. He rigs a string to the trigger of a revolver so that turning the doorknob will fire a round into Julia. He tells Julia that he hopes Barnabas will come to her rescue and therefore be her executioner.
Barnabas does shows up and confront Aristide. He turns the knob. We hear a shot, and see Julia slumped over in the chair.
One of the recurring faults on Dark Shadows is that when people are bound and gagged, they often have to use their teeth to hold the gags in place. Today they don’t even bother wrapping the cloth around Grayson Hall’s head- Michael Stroka just tucks it into her mouth. The suspense as Barnabas approaches the door depends on Julia’s inability to warn him not to turn the knob, and the closing shot loses its shock value when we can see Julia still biting down on the cloth. So this time it really is a problem.
Dark Shadows Commentary 