videotape editors – Dark Shadows Commentary

Episode 1021: At the window, looking in

The opening voiceover tells us that vampire Barnabas Collins is about to “find an innocent victim, who will not only add to his grief and guilt, but also to his immediate peril.” Innocent victims can be so inconsiderate that way.

Barnabas has taken barmaid Buffie Harrington back to her apartment. She asks if she can give him a drink. He moves closer, and she takes him in her arms. He takes a drink, all right. She screams and collapses. As she hits the floor, Cyrus Longworth, MD, lets himself into the room and makes eye contact with Barnabas.

Barnabas claims that he ran into the room when he heard Buffie’s scream, which is not one of his more convincing lies. Cyrus insists on examining Buffie. In the nick of time, Buffie wakes up. She agrees with Barnabas that she is fine. Barnabas offers to stay with her. Cyrus does the same, to which Barnabas replies that he must have some business to attend to if he is in this part of town so late at night. Cyrus can’t deny that, and leaves.

Barnabas gives his new blood thrall some quick instructions, including strict orders to stay away from Cyrus. The next evening, Cyrus drops by Buffie’s place again, and she is as cold and unfriendly as Barnabas could have wished. As Cyrus is going, Buffie asks if he has heard from his friend John Yaeger lately. He says he hasn’t, but that she will be the first to know if he does. He leaves.

Barnabas materializes. Buffie is surprised that he was eavesdropping. Now that he knows Cyrus is close to Yaeger, he rescinds his order for her to avoid him. He says that Yaeger knows where his coffin is, and he wants to know everything he can about Yaeger for his own protection.

The next evening, Cyrus is back at Buffie’s. He is surprised she invited him. She says she hadn’t meant to be so rude the evening before. She asks about Yaeger, explaining that she has some things of his and is keen to get them back to him as soon as possible. Cyrus says only that he is sure Yaeger will be back soon. He leaves, and Buffie asks herself why Cyrus is protecting Yaeger.

Returning viewers know what Buffie and Barnabas do not. Yaeger does not exist. Cyrus has developed a potion which alters his appearance so drastically that even those closest to him do not recognize him when he is under its influence. Thus disguised, he calls himself “John Yaeger” and indulges his sadistic impulses. With this episode, the show sets Barnabas and Cyrus on a collision course. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde meet Dracula, here we come.

In the great house of Collinwood, another bizarre imposture is underway. Angelique Stokes Collins, the late wife of Quentin Collins, has returned from the dead, murdered her identical twin sister Alexis, and taken Alexis’ place as a houseguest. Her goal is to alienate Quentin from his new wife, the former Maggie Evans, and return to her previous place as mistress of Collinwood.

“Alexis” has been telling everyone that Angelique was murdered, which she in fact believes herself to have been. Since the coroner’s report ruled Angelique’s death the result of a stroke, Quentin does not take this idea seriously. “Alexis” has managed to persuade Maggie to do so, however, and when first we see them they are having a testy exchange over the question.

“Alexis” is happy to overhear this conversation. When the drawing room doors open, she presents Maggie with a bunch of flowers she has picked from the gardens on the grounds of the estate. Since the estate belongs to Maggie and Quentin, this is rather a childish gesture, but it pleases Maggie. “Alexis” goes to fetch a vase.

Cyrus shows up. Maggie goes upstairs while Cyrus and Quentin go to the drawing room. The men talk about Larry Chase, an attorney who represented both of them. Larry died in the foyer at Collinwood yesterday. At that time Quentin and Maggie were out together, so Larry was alone with “Alexis.” Cyrus says that Larry somehow froze to death in the foyer.

Angelique is alone with the flowers. She casts a spell causing them to shrivel and die. She then turns to the camera, looks directly at the audience, and gives her best “Ain’t I a stinker?” look.

In #346, Barnabas touched a bouquet of flowers, causing them to shrivel and die. That embarrassed Barnabas, as if he had lost control of his gastrointestinal system for a moment. It also alarmed well-meaning governess Vicki, but she never mentioned it again, and it certainly didn’t tip her off that Barnabas was a vampire. This incident shocks and befuddles Quentin and Maggie, but when he brings it up in their bedroom later she has already forgotten all about it and he agrees it wasn’t very important.

Even if it had made as big an impression as Angelique was hoping it would, destroying the flowers would probably not have advanced her goal of making Quentin suspect that Maggie is a supernatural force of darkness. He does notice the similarity to what happened to Larry, but since Angelique was with Larry when he died and Quentin and Maggie were together somewhere else, and since Angelique was in contact with the flowers for far longer than Maggie was, any suspicion it would raise would most logically be directed at herself.

“Alexis” has more success persuading Maggie to suspect Quentin of the murder of Angelique. Maggie has a dream about the séance at which Angelique died. It ends with Quentin choking Angelique. She wakes up screaming that he shouldn’t have murdered his wife.

In fact, Quentin did choke Angelique at the séance, but Angelique has discounted that as a possible cause of her death. She thinks that someone else drove a pin into her head while Quentin was busy strangling her. How the autopsy missed that, she hasn’t told us.

Last week the show credited its videotape editors for the first time, the team of Danny Rosenson and Robert Steinback. Today is the first credit for another pair of videotape editors, Chuck Gardner and Indra Sadoo.

The music under the closing credits sounds quite different than it has the last couple of years. We were wondering if it was an old tape, and then, about halfway through, came the voice that used to end every episode- ABC staff man Bob Lloyd intoning “Dark Shadows… is a Dan Curtis Production.” I was delighted to hear him again, if only on an old recording used by mistake.

Episode 1017: Without hesitation

In April 1967, dangerously unstable ruffian Willie Loomis found a chained coffin. Believing the coffin to be loaded with jewels, he broke the chains and opened it. To his horror, Willie found that the coffin contained vampire Barnabas Collins. Barnabas bit and enslaved Willie, then ventured forth to prey upon the living.

In #230, Barnabas was in the process of taking Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town, as his victim. Willie secretly tried to save Maggie. When the rescuers Willie had tipped off appeared, he and Barnabas hid behind a wall and eavesdropped on their conversation. Barnabas realized what Willie had done. Enraged, he beat Willie with his heavy cane. In #232, Willie’s sometime friend, seagoing con man Jason McGuire, visited Barnabas’ home, the Old House on the estate of Collinwood. Jason saw that the left side of Willie’s face was covered with large bruises. Up to that point, the keynote of Barnabas’ character had been the care he took to conceal his evil nature from the world. It came as a shock to see that he had been so crazed that he left marks on Willie where anyone could see them.

After Maggie escaped from Barnabas, her memory of what he did to her was erased by several magical interventions, and she came to regard him with warm affection. By March 1970, a romance was blossoming between them.

In that same month, Barnabas discovered that an alternate universe could occasionally be glimpsed in a room in the long-disused east wing of the great house at Collinwood. Hoping to be cured of his vampirism, he managed to cross over into that universe in #980. He found that he was still a vampire, and that he was surrounded by strangers, albeit strangers with names and faces that were very familiar to him.

Willie’s counterpart is alcoholic author William H. Loomis. The new universe is a mirror image of the old one, so that while Willie unchained Barnabas’ coffin, Will puts chains on it. Barnabas kept Willie as a prisoner in the Old House and used him as a slave, while Will owns the Old House and keeps Barnabas prisoner, extracting information from him that he plans to use as the basis of a new book. Eventually Will became careless, and Barnabas bit him. Now Will and his wife, the former Carolyn Collins Stoddard, are both victims of Barnabas’ bloodlust.

Barnabas has managed to persuade the occupants of the great house that he is their distant cousin whose ancestor left Collinwood for Peru in the nineteenth century. While he was at the great house, he met Maggie’s counterpart. She is the wife of drunken sourpuss Quentin Collins, the master of Collinwood. Barnabas eavesdrops on their joyous reunion, which brings his own loneliness into sharp focus.

Maggie’s joyous reunion with Quentin brings misery to the lonesome Barnabas.

Barnabas goes home to the Old House. He eavesdrops while the Loomises argue. Carolyn has shaken free of her dependence on him and wants to warn people that there is a vampire in their midst; Will says Barnabas would kill her before she could ever do such a thing. Barnabas interrupts the conversation. He tells Carolyn that since she is a Collins, he feels a kinship for her that makes him reluctant to harm her in any way. When she asks if he would kill her and Will if they turned against him, he says flatly that he would do so “Without hesitation.” The show is often marketed as the story of a “reluctant vampire” who is determined to protect his family; this exchange shows both the basis for that description in Barnabas’ words and the limits of its accuracy regarding his deeds.

Barnabas goes into the hidden chamber off the front parlor of the Old House where his coffin is currently being kept. Before he turns in for the day, he tells Will to come back at nightfall with a cross and to prevent him leaving the chamber that night. He refuses to explain why.

Will follows the strange command. While he is keeping Barnabas in the hidden chamber, Maggie comes to the house. Will and Barnabas hide behind the wall and eavesdrop on her conversation with Carolyn. Maggie goes on about the fine impression Barnabas has made on the Collinses, and she sounds quite taken with him herself. That leads to another reversal. While in #230 Barnabas and Willie’s eavesdropping led Barnabas to realize what Willie had been up to with Maggie, today Will and Barnabas’ eavesdropping leads Will to realize that Barnabas is afraid he will bite Maggie.

The end result is the same. His craving for Maggie’s blood overwhelms Barnabas. When Will tries to obey his original command to keep him in the chamber, Barnabas uses his mind control powers to weaken Will’s will. Will manages to continue resisting, holding the cross towards Barnabas. It looks like a fair fight, until Carolyn opens the panel and bumps into Will. Barnabas thrashes him with his cane and runs out. Carolyn tends to Will, paying special attention to the badly bruised left side of his face.

Barnabas goes to the great house. He finds Carolyn at the front door. He reminds her of his threats, and recedes into the bushes. When Maggie comes out to see what is happening, Carolyn makes a weak excuse for her late visit. The puzzled Maggie thanks her for her concern, and they part.

We then cut to a bedroom where Maggie is sleeping. A bat squeaks at the window, and Barnabas materializes. He bares his fangs and plunges his head towards her neck.

This is the 26th of 26 episodes of Dark Shadows to survive only as a kinescope after the original videotape master was lost. It’s always a pleasant surprise for me when these crop up, but it’s probably just as well there won’t be any more of them. The “Parallel Time” segment is the first part of the show to make really good use of color, so that the two kinescopes from it, this one and #1006, are the only ones to represent a significant artistic loss. One more videotape master went missing, for #1219, but they had stopped making kinescopes by then, so MPI Home Video whipped something up from an audio track that a fan recorded off the air at the time of the original broadcast. They added narration by Lara Parker and some stills from #1218 and #1220.

This episode marks an epoch in the development of Dark Shadows. For the first time, videotape editors are named in the closing credits. They have done a fair bit of videotape editing in the last few months, but now they formally acknowledge the editors as a permanent part of the show. Dan Rosenson and Robert Steinback, hail to thee!

Episode 977: Before dawn

An information management day. Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins has told his distant cousin, Roger Collins, about a parallel universe that is occasionally visible in a room in the long disused east wing of the great house of Collinwood. Today, Roger tells his sister Elizabeth about the room. Liz owns the house. We might wonder if she will have questions about what effect the presence of a spare universe on the premises will have on her property taxes.

Roger talks about the phenomenon while standing in the room with permanent houseguest Julia Hoffman, MD. He is incredulous when he notices that Julia is not listening to him. She cannot tell him what has distracted her. Unknown to Roger and Liz, Barnabas is a vampire. Julia has devised a treatment that is supposed to put this curse in remission, but it is not working at all. She has given him the last of the injections, and the only difference in Barnabas is that he is getting sick and feeling an unusually intense bloodlust.

Caretaker Chris Jennings, another distant cousin, comes stumbling home to his cottage on the grounds of the estate. He finds his girlfriend and ex-fiancée Sabrina Stuart waiting for him. Chris is another patient Julia has been unable to help. He is a werewolf. There was a full moon last night. Sabrina tells Chris he killed a man named Bruno. Chris is distressed that he killed anyone, but Sabrina points out that Bruno knew of his secret and was trying to use him to kill others. He was holding her and a man named Rumson prisoner, and when the police searched Bruno’s premises after his death they found Sabrina and Rumson imprisoned there. Sabrina keeps telling Chris she wants to marry him. Most of the time they will live ordinary lives, but one night out of 28 she will just have to lock him up in a special cell. Chris won’t hear of this.

My wife, Mrs Acilius, is a great one for love stories and an admirer of actress Lisa Blake Richards. Chris and Sabrina have run out of road on Dark Shadows, and are obviously going to be written out soon. Mrs Acilius wishes they could ride off into the sunset accompanied by the sound of wedding bells. So when Chris refused to marry Sabrina, she exclaimed “Stupid man!” I pointed out something Chris knows but does not mention to Sabrina, that his curse is hereditary. Any male descendants he has will also be werewolves. Mrs A conceded that this does complicate matters.

Roger saw Chris at Bruno’s place when he rescued him and Carolyn shortly before moonrise last night. Chris was at that time in the throes that precede his transformation. Chris ran off before Roger or Carolyn could see what became of him. Roger comes to the cottage to check on him.

Chris is in the back changing out of his bloody clothes, so Sabrina answers the door. She tells Roger that Chris is there and that she was with him all night, watching over him because he was ill. After what he saw of Chris at Bruno’s, Roger has no doubt that Chris needed a nurse, and he tells Sabrina that he is glad he had such a charming one. The audience can understand that Sabrina wants to conceal Chris’ lycanthropy from Roger, but surely it cannot be wise for her to claim that she was in the cottage overnight. Not only are her true whereabouts known to everyone who was in or around the police station the night before, but since Roger was the one who found Bruno’s body and he found it on the grounds of Collinwood, even police as inept as the ones in Collinsport are likely to follow up with him. Besides, her imprisonment with Rumson is a sensational story, of interest to the press. Maybe we will move on to the next phase of the show before the facts come to light, but Sabrina can’t know that.

Sabrina is determined to persuade Chris to resume their engagement. She goes to the one person whose opinion Chris seems to respect, Barnabas. When she knocks on his door, Barnabas hides behind a partition. When Sabrina first arrived, she had seen Barnabas through the window of his front parlor, so she lets herself in. He finally gives up on hiding and pleads with her to leave. She ignores what he is saying and keeps talking. She plows ahead with her idea about how Barnabas can help her and Chris become a happy married couple. Barnabas struggles to resist his urge for blood, but cannot. He bites Sabrina, much to her surprise. Miss Richards’ understated exclamation of “Barnabas!” when he shows his fangs and goes for her neck is very nicely done, it really sounds like a woman puzzled that a trusted friend is violating her personal space.

Sabrina staggers back to Chris’ cottage. She collapses in his chair, and he sees the puncture wounds on her neck. They are much bigger than the marks we’ve seen on Barnabas’ previous victims. I suppose he really was a lot hungrier than usual. Chris doesn’t know that Barnabas is a vampire, and the cliffhanger leaves us wondering whether he can avoid finding out.

Probably the most memorable shot in the episode is a very impressive bit of videotape editing. Roger and Barnabas are standing at the door to the Parallel Time room, watching Roger’s counterpart interact with Liz’ and Chris’. Parallel Roger walks toward the door. He exits the room, not into the space Roger and Barnabas occupy, but into the hallway as it exists in Parallel Time. He vanishes from their view, and the effect also winks out in the room, leaving Roger and Barnabas looking into the bare, dark chamber it is in the house they know.

Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

The videotape editors do not yet figure in the closing credits, which is a shame. They really are the stars of today’s show.

Episode 938: Memory lane

For the last eleven weeks, the A story on Dark Shadows has been about the Leviathan People, a mysterious race of Elder Gods who are trying to retake the Earth from humanity by enlisting a few people in central Maine into a secret cult and saddling them with responsibility for an ungovernable monster. The cultists have agreed to go along with the monster’s murders and other acts of physical violence, but drew the line when he asked them to call him “Jabe.” He answers to “Jeb” now.

The Leviathans chose old world gentleman Barnabas Collins as the first leader of the cult. This put him at odds with his longtime best friend, mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Now Barnabas has become disaffected from the cult, and he and Julia bring each other up to date on recent developments.

It was a night much like tonight… Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Julia and Barnabas’ conversation frames a series of clips, two of them selected from episode #884 and fulfilling Dan Curtis Productions contractual obligations to feature Roger Davis and Kathryn Leigh Scott in a certain number of episodes. There is also a newly produced clip of Barnabas’ induction into the Leviathan cult, in which a hooded figure named Oberon explains the terms and conditions of membership. When we first saw Oberon, the part of his scalp we could see was completely bald, but he has a tuft of hair growing there now. His part today is so dull that you can’t very well blame actor Peter Lombard for refusing to shave his head for it.

There is also some new information at the end of the episode. Barnabas says that Jabe can raise the corpses of those he has killed and use them as “an Army of the Dead.” We cut to a new grave with a marker reading “Sheriff Davenport.” The other day Jabe killed a law enforcement officer named Davenport; Davenport appeared to be the sheriff of Collinsport, but it turns out “Sheriff” was simply his first name. Sheriff’s hand bursts out of the soil.

Sheriff Davenport’s grave marker. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

I watched the closing credits, wondering if today would be the day they finally acknowledged the videotape editors. It’s due- there have been several obvious cuts over the last few weeks. But they are still toiling in anonymity.

Episode 915: Emergency Leviathan Broadcast

In #701, old world gentleman Barnabas Collins traveled in time from 1969 to 1897. For the next eight months, ending in #884, Dark Shadows was a costume drama set in that year. On his way back to a contemporary setting, Barnabas took a detour to the 1790s, when he was a vampire. Before he left the 1790s, he was abducted by and absorbed into a cult that serves supernatural beings known as the Leviathans. At their behest, he took a small wooden box with him to November, 1969, and functioned as one of the leaders of the Leviathan cult in that period.

The first six weeks of the Leviathan story has had its strengths. Ever since Barnabas was first cured of vampirism in March 1969, he has been under the impression that he was a good guy and has been doing battle with various supernatural menaces. He was hopelessly inept at this, and created as much work for the other characters by his attempts at virtue as he formerly did in his unyielding evil. That has made him a tremendously productive member of the cast, but it does leave him with a tendency to seem harmless, even when he is trying to murder his way out of a problem. But Barnabas the Leviathan chief has been ice-cold and formidably efficient. Even though not much has yet been done to hurt anyone, seeing him in this mode adds a note of terror to the proceedings.

Moreover, the Leviathans have voided Barnabas’ friendship with mad scientist Julia Hoffman. Since the relationship between the two of them has been the heart of the show for over two years now, from the hostility of their early days to the close bond they formed in the summer of 1968, this reinvigorates the action. It is as interesting to see them fight with each other as it is to see them collaborate against a common foe, and their hate scenes gain an extra depth because we keep wondering about their eventual reconciliation. If they play their cards right, they should be able to keep this up for months.

Today, it all falls apart. Barnabas has drawn a huge following of very young fans who run home from elementary school to watch the show. The 1897 segment was a triumph in large part because it had a core of stories that could hold the attention of adults while also appealing to the preteen demographic. But the Leviathan arc has so far had little to offer anyone but grownups. Apparently the kids were writing angry letters, because this episode, rushed into production at the last minute and bearing signs of haste in every shot, turns Barnabas back into the would-be hero who was such a klutz that he couldn’t even stay in the right century.

The creature who emerged from the box Barnabas brought from the past now appears to be a 13 year old boy and answers to the name Michael. In the opening scene, Michael orders Barnabas to kill Julia. Barnabas declares that he will not, and goes home. There, he tells his troubles to the box, then falls asleep in his chair.

A hooded figure appears to him. This hooded figure says that he is a Leviathan, and tells Barnabas he must comply with Michael’s commands. The Leviathan is not named in the dialogue and there are no actors’ credits at the end, but reference works based on the original paperwork call him Adlar.

Adlar sets out to explain Barnabas’ position, much as Marley’s ghost did to Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The shortened production schedule shows in inconsistencies that litter Adlar’s speeches. At one point he says that the Leviathans needed Barnabas to transport the box from the eighteenth century to the twentieth; at another, he claims that they are holding his lost love Josette prisoner in the eighteenth century and will inflict a new, far more horrible death on her than the one she died the last time Barnabas was in the 1790s, a threat they will be able to carry out only if they have their own means of traveling back and forth through the years. Barnabas doesn’t pick up on this or any of Adlar’s other inconsistencies; perhaps he is too distracted by the many jump cuts that make this episode look like the videotape was edited with a rusty butter knife.

Adlar threatens to make Barnabas a vampire again, then disappears. He does not tell him that he will be visited by three spirits, one representing his past, another his present, and the third the future he is risking by his present course of action, but this is in fact what happens. Barnabas goes outside, and sees a bat. It was a bat whom he first saw on this very spot who initially made him a vampire. Barnabas rushes inside, looks in the mirror, and does not see a reflection. He thinks of his mouth, and feels fangs growing there.

Next comes Megan Todd, a Leviathan cultist who with her husband Philip is fostering Michael in their home. Barnabas cannot take his eyes off Megan’s long white neck. Megan keeps telling Barnabas that he is the only one she can confide in about her concerns with the progress of the Leviathan plan; he keeps demanding ever more stridently that she leave at once. His bloodlust may explain why he doesn’t notice the continuity problem in the scene. They’ve made the point time and again that it is only while Barnabas is giving orders to her and Philip that Megan remembers that he is their leader. At other times, she thinks he is an outsider. But Megan is the only one who can tell Barnabas a story of family life in any way paralleling that which the Ghost of Christmas Present brings to Scrooge’s attention at the Cratchit house. Continuity has to go if the episode is going to fit into the form of A Christmas Carol.

Suddenly, Barnabas finds himself in an alley by the waterfront. A sign behind him says that he is next to the Greenfield Inn; we saw this sign in #439, set in the year 1796. Evidently the Greenfield Inn is a long-established, though not very reputable, place of lodging.

A woman approaches him. She is very aggressive about insisting he take her with him wherever he is going. He is reluctant at first, urging her to seek friends at the Blue Whale tavern, but she won’t take no for an answer. All of a sudden, he brightens and looks at her with desire. She says she is afraid of him. He asks if she wants to go, and she screws up her courage to declare that she will stay with him. He bares his fangs and attacks. The rough videotape editing adds to the violence of the scene. There is no sensuous bite, only a flash as he lunges at her and then is standing up again, protesting that he didn’t want to do it. When the camera zooms in on the bleeding marks on her neck, it is surprising to see that he didn’t rip her throat out altogether.

We cut back to Barnabas’ house. He is dozing in his chair, and the woman, displaying vampire fangs of her own, walks in through the front door. She approaches Barnabas. He awakens, and is horrified. Adlar tells Barnabas that “she is not up to your usual standards.” She’s standing right there, that’s pretty tactless. Also, she is future four-time Academy Award nominee Marsha Mason. The only other Oscar nominee Barnabas bit was Grayson Hall as Josette’s aunt, the Countess DuPrés, in #886. Hall was only nominated once, so if anything this woman is a step up for him.

Four time Academy Award Nominee Marsha Mason. Screenshot by Dark Shadows Before I Die.

Adlar makes the woman disappear, and shows Barnabas that he is not really a vampire again. With that, we see that she is a shade of a future that may come to be, not one that is already ordained. Adlar also tells Barnabas that it is not now necessary to kill Julia. But he does say that Barnabas will have to do something to ensure Julia’s silence, or else Josette will suffer. Barnabas hangs his head and says to the mirror that he has no choice to obey.

Episode 631: The curse of the undead

Old world gentleman Barnabas Collins, himself a recovering vampire, bursts into well-meaning governess Victoria Winters’ bedroom just in time to prevent another vampire from claiming her as his victim.

Once the coast is clear, Barnabas explains to Victoria what happened, using the word “vampire” and telling her what it means. For the first 40 weeks Barnabas was on the show no one used that word, and even when Victoria was briefly Barnabas’ victim in March 1968 it seemed she didn’t understand what it was all about. The scene of Barnabas bringing Victoria up to date is interesting, but it could have been so much more. Victoria is played today by Betsy Durkin, making her second appearance in the role. Had Alexandra Moltke Isles still been in the part, it would have been electrifying to see Victoria reconnected with the plot after her long exile. Miss Durkin does what she can, but as a new face she simply does not bring the iconography of all those hundreds of episodes in which we saw Mrs Isles held at arm’s length from the story.

Barnabas and Victoria identify the vampire as the late Tom Jennings. Victoria tells Barnabas that she had, earlier that evening, gone to see suave warlock Nicholas Blair and confront him about his plans to marry Maggie Evans, The Nicest Girl in Town. Barnabas is shocked to learn of this plan, and agrees with Victoria’s surmise that Nicholas must have made Tom a vampire and sent him to kill her. He promises to take care of the problem, but won’t tell her how.

For his part, Nicholas is dealing with a visit from Tom’s brother, the mysterious Chris Jennings. Chris was introduced in #627, Mrs Isles’ last episode as Vicki. He is a drifter who refuses to answer any questions about himself, but he has plenty of questions for other people about what happened to his brother. While Nicholas is dodging Chris’ inquiries, he glances out the window and sees Tom. This implies videotape editing, since Tom and Chris are both played by Don Briscoe and Tom’s makeup is slightly different than Chris’. Chris himself notices a figure at the window, but does not get a good enough look to know who it is.

Later, Barnabas comes to see Nicholas. Nicholas has extorted Barnabas and his friend Julia Hoffman, MD, to perform an experiment. Only they can do the experiment, and if it is not completed, Nicholas’ boss, Satan, will punish him. Barnabas says that he and Julia will not continue working unless Nicholas can assure him that neither Victoria nor Maggie will be harmed and that Tom Jennings will be destroyed. Nicholas gives him those assurances, and he leaves. As dawn approaches, Barnabas slips back into Nicholas’ house. He meets Tom there. He uses two candlesticks to make a cross, and at the sight of it Tom is immobilized. The sun rises, and Tom vanishes, destroyed forever.