The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 30

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1970: Episode 994

When Quentin encounters the specter of Dameon Edwards, do Angelique’s former
lovers stand a ghost of a chance at keeping it together? Trask: Jerry Lacy. (Repeat; 30
min.)

Quentin is shocked when the ghost of Angelique’s former friend, Dameon Edwards,
begins dripping blood around Collinwood. Trask, the butler, and Bruno barely maintain
their composure when informed of the manifestation.

Four years ago, this was day two of the Daybook, and it was a significantly different
animal. It was a good call on Wallace’s part, several months later, to limit me to just one
episode a day. Over the years, I went from little to say about an episode to sometimes
an embarrassing abundance. I often wondered if I would run out of things to talk about
regarding the show, and the notion is absurd.

The real star of this one is Dameon Edward’s suit.

That may actually be true.

The remarkable thing about that is the fact that this tight, haunted episode does not
need a fantastic costume or two to eclipse it. With the exception of Amy’s appearance at
the end, it’s a masculine episode… as much as one can be when the costume
department raids Bea Arthur’s closet. Which, come to think of it, is pretty butch. And my
point is proved. All seriousness aside, it is about men dealing with the ghost of a man,
all in the shadow of a woman who drove everyone to the brink of distraction or worse.
After all, when you see a frosted glass on Dark Shadows, you know it’s getting broken.,
And when you see someone named Trask break it, you know that the worst is in the
offing. It’s a tight mystery, with David Selby showing what must have been refreshing
nuance for his bellicose character in PT. Especially with Michael Stroka’s Bruno, who
likewise puts in one of his subtler, most believable turns in the role, Selby plays his
notes subtly and close to the vest… but not so close that we, as invisible confidants,
don’t have an idea of what’s in his hand. He’s playing the most cuckolded character this
side of a Moliere play, and now that Angelique’s dead and Maggie is in a fit elsewhere,
he has the pleasure of slow-roasting his rivals. Even the horror of a bleeding ghost is
obscured by a delight at what that means for seventy or eighty other lovers. It’s about
time they shared in the paranoia. Come on in, fifth battalion, the water’s awful.

I always enjoyed Jerry Lacy’s too-brief turn as Trask, the butler. showing a kind of
nervous and tight professionalism that introduces a new type of domestic at Collinwood,
and one we never realized was sorely missing. Of course, he has confidence; he’s got
the only dignified coistime in the installment. The rest are sporting either Collinwood’s
most quietly outlandish or, in the case of Quentin’s brown-shirted nightmare, ugliest
ensembles on the show. I can only assume that Mostoller lost a bet with Denise
Nickerson and she got to pick out the duds with all of the restraint someone her age
would show at catering. Is it as glorious as a craft services table equipped by Farrell’s?
Dare I say, even moreso.

First, it’s clear that Michael Stroka, hair so high I imagine him inflating it by blowing into
his thumb like a cartoon character, appears like he’s wearing one of Maggie’s vest and
turtleneck numbers she sports as the governess in Primary Time. Which may be why he
never stands in the episode. I’m sure he has winning gams, but he’s no Kathryn Leigh
Scott. (Apologies for objectifying both, but when the latest from Junior Sophisticates fits,
wear it.)

Dameon Edwards’ outfit is truly the astounding star, here though. A futuristic jacket,
belted with two buttons on a sash, sans lapel makes him look like Alan Sues auditioning
to play a Bond villain. This is over a shirt with a collar wider than most major home
appliances of the age, accessorized by a scarf that would be the envy of even the great,
late Deforest Kelly. It’s an outfit that could only have come about by Roddy McDowell
costuming John Saxon in a failed Gene Roddenberry pilot, and that’s where I want to
live.

Only a bachelor ghost could have the silent swagger commensurate to carrying off such
a suit, and it’s an amazing snapshot of fashions they were sure would take off and carry
us into a glorious future. It’s impossible to watch the episode and not be carried there,
also, and Dark Shadows’ penchant of showing us a past that never quite was is finally
matched by the suggestion of a present that should have been.

This episode hit the airwaves on April 16, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 16

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 738

When Dirk Wilkins works in the Ra, Laura comes back for more. But Quentin is Set to douse her flame for good. Dirk: Roger Davis. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Dirk instinctively recites a magical incantation that brings Laura back from the brink of death. She confronts Quentin, who has to deal with the strong emotions of Jamison, who has become very dedicated to his mother. Barnabas does an hilarious double-take upon entering Collinwood and seeing his former aunt alive and well.

Technically, this is about Laura demonstrating her powers by returning from the brink of death -- thanks to Roger Davis and his mustache, the eternal reasons for the season. But that’s not what leaped out to me. Yes, it’s a fun episode, full of the arch moments, preening, and catty revelations that make 1897 great again. That’s why I chose it. That’s the experience I thought I would have, and it didn’t disappoint in those regards. But I didn’t realize I would tear up.

1795 is the story of how a boring man became an interesting one... but in an often boring way. 1897 is about how an interesting man became a boring one… but in an always interesting way. When does Quentin’s transformation -- his REAL transformation -- start? As well it should, it starts with Jamison. He’s the end of the journey, with a resonance that rings in Quentin’s ears long after death. He’s also a completely modern man-in-the-making. He’s the bridge between the world of gas lamps and gas guzzlers. The works of Lara Parker, author, notwithstanding, we know dashedly little about Jamison. But we can tell a lot about him by who loves him, teaches him, and sticks up for him.

Of course, it’s Quentin. And if Jamison is the Victorian era’s ambassador to the age of modernism, then Quentin is the ambassador to Jamison. You can see the culture buckling through the eyes of Quentin. In a world of rules and strictures, Quentin’s every breath is an act of defiance. It’s a shame that, when he arrives at the modern world, the man is too scarred to enjoy it. He was, perhaps, too much of the antithesis to Edward. But Jamison can be something more than either of the men alone, and I think Quentin knows that. Edward’s too far gone, and so is Quentin. Carl doesn’t count, and Judith (literally) doesn’t have a vote in the matter.

This comes into focus with the twinkle-eyed sincerity of his shameless manipulation of the boy. If Jamison came in from school, terrified over dreams, Edward would have sent him straight back with no sympathy. Quentin understands. And when Jamison has qualms over waking a servant to make him tea, Quentin has no stake in the hierarchy (except, perhaps, being in good with the boss when he finds himself in old age). He explains to Jamison that he’ll be at the top and needs to get used to the idea. Edward might have shamed him with the lesson; Quentin inspires. He does that out of expediency and love. David Selby’s miraculous range comes through once more, suggesting that Dark Shadows was a vehicle built for over two years just to accommodate his talent. Because he’s both totally serious and completely opportunistic. Maybe it’s one and the same for Quentin. Maybe he doesn’t need to lie to get what he wants. He just wants things he rarely has to lie about, because everyone knows he’s a bottom-feeding scoundrel with the tastes of a hedonist. It’s when Quentin wants something loftier that we have to wonder. In 738, there is a benevolent purity to the con. Like so many before and after him, Quentin knows he’s doomed, himself, and fights for a better Collins. That’s the transformation that’s been building in the show since the 1795 storyline. Barnabas is infected by the outside influence of foreign magic and rejects it. Quentin is saturated with it so far he’s forgotten who he was prior. It’s the threat of Laura that initiates his thoughts of the man he can be with it, however.

Appropriate that Barnabas enters to see her just as she’s really spreading her plume. If Quentin becomes his second brother-not-brother, it fits that the same catalyst for the alien and occult also infected his first brother-not-brother, Jeremiah. He escaped Laura twice. There is something patterned about dark haired, baritone, Collins men (and Roger) finding their downfall in blonde women (sometimes wearing wigs) with penchants for magic. Somebody write a dissertation already, I’d do it here, but I got two shows in Vegas tonight.

Laura has encountered the Barnabas bullet twice. She and he are almost as linked as he and Angelique, except here, he’s simply an adversary… and it’s a way for him to get a perspective on an “Angelique-type” from the outside. Ironic that they should miss each other in the 1960’s by only a few weeks. It’s the great issue of the Marvel Comics/Dark Shadows What If? that never happened.

This episode hit the airwaves April 23, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 10

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 472

When Roger visits Lang on a hypnotized mission of murder, who will be Ahab and who will be the whale? Roger Collins: Louis Edmonds. (Repeat; 30 min.)

With the Angelique painting missing, Julia and Barnabas take the discovery of Lang’s head mirror in Roger’s bedroom as an indication that Roger is trying to kill the doctor. They show up in time to prevent Roger from stabbing Lang with a harpoon from the scientist’s collection. Lang, however, resists the notion that this is voodoo. After a Stokes encounter, Barnabas and Julia discover that the painting, theoretically with Roger, is back at Collinwood. Lang also suggests that Barnabas might have more luck with Vicki if he looked like someone she’s attracted to.

Is there a way to adequately address the strangeness of episode 472? Yes, but I won’t avail myself of it. Not when there are shallow and puerile double entendre to cite. Because I think it’s intentional. This episode was shot on April 8. A week prior was April Fools day, and there is a possibility that 472 was written then. Or revised. Or sketched out. Or vandalized. Let’s face it, some form of this text was on someone’s desk at that point. The show was just becoming comfortable with itself. They were now immune of the cancellation threat that loomed the prior year. The audience loved whatever the writers did. It was high time for Gordon Russell to have fun. And he did.

Jonathan Frid and Addison Powell have a comic chemistry that belongs in Noel Coward for half of the year and alongside Gallagher and Sheen for the other. Powell begins the episode as a white-haired Gomez Addams, enthusiastically selling Barnabas on his new key to love and survival -- just look like Roger Davis. As long as Barnabas will allow some kind of extreme Roger Davis makeover, Vicki will be his. The details of HOW to look like Roger Davis are just those -- pesky details. And now, Frid gets to do something completely different. His well-worn shtick with Julia and Willie is to suggest an extreme solution that forces them do bug-eyed doubletakes. (Well, takes, anyway.) Finally, the hand is on the other foot as Frid luxuriates in the pleasure of Powell doing the heavy lifting while he roils with deadpan incredulity. The show has finally gotten so implicitly outrageous that Barnabas, who was brought into the fold of conservative, daytime hundrummery to liven it up, gets to be the measure of realism. The recovering vampire from the 1790’s is now the most relatable character for entire episodes. Let that sink in. And it’s only taken about a week or so. When the show premiered, it took that long for characters to join a subject and a verb. Now, Roger is hypnotized, Vicki is obsessed with one man from the past while being the obsession of another man from the past, Barnabas is a (mostly) cured romantic lead, and Julia has gone from trying to kill our hero to being Monk & Ham, Spock & Bones, and very much a smoky voiced Jiminy Cricket to him. She and Barnabas have slipped into an effortless partnership, and as he explains “What’s an Angelique” and she doesn’t use it as a new reason to poison him, we see a series being born.

Then there’s Roger asking to hold Dr. Lang’s harpoon.

I’m not making this up. And there is no way on Diabolos’ red Earth that writer Gordon Russell wasn’t smirking at Standards and Practices’ inability to make effective objections. I won’t say “phallic frenzy,” because we’re in mixed company. But you and I are seasoned sophisticates of the world. We’re not bourgeois. Have the rubes and wet blankets left the room? Good. We’re alone. Between us, “phallic frenzy.”

Of all the props. I mean, of all the props. And Roger keeps asking about it... when he’s not insisting on preemptive care for a stroke. Fortunately, and I’m not making this up, while the whammified Roger is ostensibly there because a prophetic dream told him he would die that night, the dream also said that his death wasn’t for a few hours, so tell me about that harpoon. Let me hold it. You seem to be an expert on harpoons. I still have a few hours left to chat about harpoons before we have to talk about the unseen voice that foretold my doom. Right now, I want to know more about your hobby.

And the more they talk about harpoons, the more ridiculous the word becomes.

Say it.

“Harpooooon.”

It just sounds funny, and that’s on top of the weird connotations. Of course, we’ve already heard that Roger stole away with Angelique’s painting, whereupon he booked a room at the Collinsport Inn for himself and the amorous artwork, locking himself away with it for the afternoon. Um, okay. That’s not even subtext. That’s just text.

The actors admirably play it as straight as humanly possible. Powell later gets to swap the comic dynamic he had with Jonathan Frid, going from playing the nut to playing the norm as he attempts to take Roger seriously and look past the subtext. Somewhere, Leslie Nielson was taking notes. It won’t be long, however, that he’s once again rolling his eyes and proclaiming that he’s a man of science! This is as Barnabas is explaining how Angelique used black magic to torture the doctor. His evidence? Lang’s head mirror was found in Roger’s bedroom.

Only on Dark Shadows (and the TV of the age) would voodoo be the most reasonable explanation for finding a grown man’s personal articles in the bedroom of another grown man. I mean, yeah, it’s true. But it’s also a strange memo from another age. In some ways quaint. In some ways sad. Was Gordon Russell pointing all of this out, if only in code? If he were not a member of the family, he was most inevitably a friend.

This is how to handle political moments. Tuck them so deeply into plots that people tell you you’re seeing things, and it’s all in your fevered imagination, and you need to grow up. Yeah, whatever. It was a repressed and miserable time. This episode is a subtle and comical moment of the Venetian blinds being parted. On purpose. Not on purpose. Not sure. But there. Not literally. The truth is sometimes too important to state literally.

And let’s say that sometimes a harpoon is not a harpoon and that head mirrors get left in bedrooms for reasons other than voodoo. There’s a juvenile part of us that might giggle at the implications, but that chortling passes. When it does, there is a mature part within us that speaks up and wonders if this were code. Because there was a need and reason for code in 1968. That’s a vital history lesson, if only in my mind. That’s a tribute to yet another facet of Dark Shadows. Code is communication. Code is an act of resistance. Even seeing code where none might be is an act of resistance. And there was a lot to resist in 1968. And still, in 2019.

Harpoon.

This episode hit the airwaves April 16, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 16

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 212

Elizabeth and Barnabas talk of his remarkable knowledge of the family history, although he politely declines her offer to stay at Collinwood. Later, after meeting Vicki, he encounters David at the Old House. When David leaves, he gazes at the portrait of Josette and explains that he’s back to stay.

It’s hard to watch 212 without very strong feelings, and few modern viewers will ever share them with those who saw the episode in 1967. Contemporary viewers see the opposite story, in fact. In a world without Barnabas Collins and “a soap opera about a vampire,” 1967 audiences saw a show where familiar Liz, Vicki, and David meet their English cousin. They’d started the show nearly a year before, and as viewers of that era, they saw the events through the family’s eyes. For us, Barnabas is our context. We start DARK SHADOWS with him, and we learn the family and related details as he does. Although it would be interesting to induce a temporary amnesia and see the show as they did on its first broadcast, the contemporary reading is much more intriguing.

If you’ve never seen the show before, everyone is a stranger. If you’ve been through at least once, as is the case with most viewers, you already know Barnabas as the “main character.” You know his unfortunate origin, and you know his sometimes-heroic future. Given that, 212 is an episode rife with fear and sadness, but those emotions belong to Barnabas. Although the bangs may not yet be there, Barnabas wrings his hands like a champ. Imagine this from Barnabas’ perspective. The evil aunt you killed -- from your perspective, a month or so ago -- answers the door and introduces your mother who committed suicide when she learned your secret. Is it any wonder that he accidentally talks about remembering Collinwood and its first inhabitants? He was supposed to be its master only a subjectively scant time before. Then, he goes over to the Old House where his kind-of nephew tells him that the OTHER woman who committed suicide over him is haunting her own painting. Jonathan Frid gives a vampire performance like no other prior to this. Yes, he’s obsequious, but it’s not just to win the loyalty of locals. He’s experiencing genuine sentiment, loss, regret, and longing. Just as Vicki is lost, without a family, in a house that both is hers and is not, so is Barnabas. The only difference is that he understands that he should.

In most vampire stories, he’d be something like Jerry in FRIGHT NIGHT, there to feed and revel in ee-vil. Maybe talk about a master race at some point. Barnabas is a man out of time, first, and a vampire, second. He’s not a comfort eater; food’s not on his mind 24/7. All he wants is for his father’s ghost to know he’s free to “live the life I never had. Whatever that may turn out to be.”

With a lesser actor, we’d be given the obvious choice on that last line. He’d probably gloat. Barnabas dreads his own potential, and in his delivery, Jonathan Frid communicates an awed uncertainty that sets up a character on a fearful quest. He’s no conqueror. Like any of us, he’s just out to rediscover the modest happiness he thought was everyone’s birthright.

Ron Sproat never intended for this episode to be from Barnabas’ perspective any more than he planned on creating a protagonist who would carry DS until its end. But that’s exactly what happened.

This episode hit the airwaves April 19, 1967.