The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 19

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 215

Maggie congratulates Burke on his handling of Willie Loomis when Joe arrives and explains in shock that his uncle’s calf has been drained of blood. Willie comes in, despite Burke’s prior warning, and collapses at the bar. Jason and Burke discuss Willie’s condition, and Jason confronts his former lackey.

With his nervously indefatigable sense of tally-ho in the later portions of the show, it’s easy to forget the truly portentous, necrotic essence that Barnabas brought to the show. There is an ugly and unforgiving feeling to what’s happening to Collinsport that goes beyond Lucy or Mina simply becoming a little pale. Dead cattle and a battered, terrified street kid are just a prelude. It seems so antithetical to the nostalgic charm that he uses with Vicki and the family. He’s like a deadly, carnivorous insect that has chosen to camouflage itself as innocently as possible. I’d argue for this being a Jekyll and Hyde riff, but there’s no remorse. Barnabas has almost two centuries to think about what he wants and deserves and has been denied. When it comes to wanting to see the world burn, the Joker barely has a smouldering match compared to Barnabas.

This is the first real episode to go beyond a romantically rhapsodizing, anti heroic man of mystery and show the dead rot under the Inverness cloak. Ironic that he’s not even there for the episode. We can thank the honest and shaken turns by the reliably truthful Joel Crothers and John Karlen for making Barnabas truly scary. Awed reactions to an offstage force engage the imaginations of the viewers, and together they can create a character that few actors can top. Jonathan Frid is one of them, and that’s a high compliment. (The nauseated confusion shown by Joe will take a lot to justify.)

The other contributor is Mitch Ryan. It’s one thing for John Karlen to show Willie’s vulnerability, taking a 180 turn from who we first met. It’s something else for the strongest character on the show to come to a dead halt over it. Willie has a fear so authentically-yet-subtly conveyed that Burke goes from wanting to slug fellow ex-con, Jason McGuire, to avuncularly collaborating with him on Willie’s condition. Barnabas’ effect is so profound that it changes loyalties and unites former enemies in a matter of seconds. Our fears have been justified; it will be impossible to know what Barnabas is capable of in the future, but there is one thing he cannot be: underestimated.

On this day in 1967, film producers finally got back to Ian Fleming with CASINO ROYALE. All kidding aside, it’s a wild mess of a mish mash and, if you turn off expectations, pure fun.

This episode hit the airwaves April 24, 1967.

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.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 19

By PATRICK McCRAY
Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 479

 As Lang is about to operate, Barnabas arrives, frightened that his vampirism is returning. Lang reveals his plan to transplant Jeff’s face onto the creature awaiting Barnabas' life force. Barnabas knows that with Jeff’s face, he will never be able to hide the monstrous choices made by the real man who wears it. Lang uses Barnabas’ sense of love for Victoria and fear of destroying her as a vampire to gain his assistance. Barnabas, tortured, begins to leave when Victoria arrives, looking for Jeff. Lang leaves to misdirect her. Alone with the bodies of Jeff and the creature, Barnabas hears her fear of losing Jeff. This is too much for him. Galvanized into heroism and moved by her right for love — even for Jeff Clark — Barnabas releases Jeff from his bonds. The time has come, he decides, "to say enough."

Lang returns to find Barnabas refusing to allow Clark to be Lang’s victim. Jeff overhears their debate. Barnabas suggests that they tell Jeff he is simply delusional. Jeff, actually awake, springs up with a scalpel. Lang claims that it could be another murder on his conscience, and that he will descend into madness. Jeff, confused, is again knocked unconscious by Lang, who says that he will be dead soon. Lang returns Jeff to the table. Barnabas suggests that Julia can hypnotize Jeff into forgetting the events in the lab. Julia can keep Lang’s secrets, and Barnabas knows that he can use Julia’s dark past as leverage to ensure her silence. As Jeff comes back to consciousness, he calls for Vicki. Barnabas calls for Julia only to find himself staring down the barrel of Lang's gun.

Show of hands. I think a fair number of us are here because we enjoy taking DARK SHADOWS too seriously. I know I do. Having said that... There are only five or six episodes of DARK SHADOWS that truly matter to the arc of the story at its most essential. Of those, this may be the most important. No kidding. To invert what's said in THE DARK KNIGHT, "You either die a villain, or you live long enough to see yourself become a hero." Sometimes that takes over 170 years. Just a single year after Willie staggered into the Blue Whale, bitten and humbled — and one year after Joe discovered the calf drained of blood — we find Barnabas saying “enough.” If you want the one episode in which Barnabas reclaims his true sense of self and discovers a sense of grit that he never knew in early 1795, it’s this. For me, this is where Barnabas changes and the series changes. Is it because he’s no longer a vampire? No. I don’t think so. And will he backslide? Many times. But if you’re looking for the true Barnabas Collins, episode 479 is where he lives. 1968 needed him. And so does 2016.