The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1967: Episode 222

With nothing to lose but his inhibitions, Barnabas explores the wild world of male modeling to win Maggie’s heart. Barnabas: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas, eager to have Maggie in his home, asks Sam Evans to paint his portrait. Probably also so he knows what he looks like. Sam agrees, and the two men start working late at night.

Barnabas awakens to find himself in a new world of gods and coincidences, although I suspect he’s wishing that Maggie’s dad were a contractor, given the state of the Old House wallpaper. The coincidence leads to one of Dark Shadows’ classic moments and raises questions about practicalities, as well.

Critics of the show would be hard-pressed to cite this with the usual cavils of chintz and camp. It’s spare and elegant, with Jonathan Frid delivering a performance that’s somewhere between little-boy-lost and utterly sinister. His chemistry extends to the entire cast, and the result is an unusually tight episode. It has an ending we all see coming, but is still redolent with mystery and implication. Sam insists on finishing a final detail on Barnabas’ portrait as the sun begins to rise. As he finishes, Barnabas has escaped, impossibly.

That’s the moment, and we enjoy it three ways. Even a new viewer is Barnabas’ secret confidant, knowing what Collinsport doesn’t. But we don’t know everything, including what he’s up to or how far this will go. And at the same time, we’re seeing Sam’s model vanish from his point of view, and can enjoy the eerie mystery, and wonder if either artist or model will return the next night.

As schemes go, this whole painting business is yet another moment that makes Dark Shadows the most poker-faced sitcom on TV. Like a love-struck 14-year-old, Barnabas comes up with every scheme possible to “just accidentally” keep running into Maggie as if he’s getting advice from Ralph Mouth and Potsie. This is right on the heels of the moment where he just-so-happens to leave his cane at the diner (so he has another excuse to see Maggie). In this case, he schemes to have Maggie’s dad paint his portrait under ludicrous circumstances so that he can again be in her company. You call it creepy. I call it adorable. It’s beyond a meet-cute. It’s Barnabas’ wacky concession that it’s a new world. What were his prior courting opportunities? He’s exhausted himself looking for a good cotillion or public hanging, and with those surefire heart-melters gone, he has no choice but to resort to schemes. I think such Puckish madness is the only reason WIllie puts up with him. Well, that and the threat of constant beatings. The comical highlight of the episode may be when Barnabas and Sam are awkwardly negotiating on a price, and Barnabas offers to pony up a grand. That’s well north of $6000 in 2020 money. But when was the last time Barnabas commissioned a portrait of himself? The last thing he paid an artist was probably three casks of rum and the promise to keep Ben Stokes off the lawn. Come to think of it, Sam probably would have gone for that, too, and never mind that he’s never heard of Ben Stokes. Barnabas is not exactly in his element here. Locked in a coffin since the Washington administration. Resorting to feeding off Willie. Living a renovation nightmare. Can’t find a good jabot at Brewster’s. And then there’s your ex-fiance. I mean, right there. So, how cool can he be? If he tried to play it smooth, he’d wind up looking like Sinatra in the love beads when he Did His Thing with the Fifth Dimension. And no one wants that.

Except for me.

In the best scene of the episode, the irony train roars through the Collinwood foyer at full blast. Maggie comes by to report to Vicki that Barnabas might as well be converting the Old House into an artist’s colony with impassioned and demonstrative treatises on naturism inevitably to follow after the fifth round of claret cups. Before they can call Sheriff Patterson to join in, Vicki introduces Maggie to the portrait, and Maggie is the one person who doesn’t bother with noting Barnabas’ resemblance, probably because she’s seen the last few episodes. Instead, she notes the eyes, and both women admit that it’s a relief to finally have someone pleasant around Collinwood. Liz? Roger? Are you listening? I’m not here to tell Mrs. Johnson that she’d get bigger tips if she’d smile more, although I have no doubt Burke said that once or twice after his fifth Tanqueray & Tang, but, you know, it might make breakfast a tad less funereal.

In seriousness, it’s a marvelously true and beautiful moment. They can sense it in him. Even though the audience is supposed to chuckle at the irony, Yes, we are supposed to think that Barnabas’ innate and radiant kindness is camouflage hiding the Beast. No. So great is his genuine spirit that even Angelique’s curse is eclipsed by it. This is only evident when you know the full story of Barnabas Collins, but it’s about fifty-three years too late for spoilers.

The show inevitably feels foreign when revisited after exploring its full expanse. Quiet. Focused. Affectionate toward its well-drawn characters. It is exactly the tone we need to root us in, and I mean it, the reality of these people. This moody tone poem in black, white, and creamy gray is the real world from which we depart. Knowing that it’s there is what allows us to stay invested into the wildest of futures, pasts, and parallels.

This episode hit the airwaves on May 3, 1967.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 24

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1970: Episode 1001

What’s better than Lara Parker? Two Lara Parkers! Dark Shadows is seeing double in this very special episode where Angelique inaugurates her new life by beginning a spree of murder, malice, magic, and mirth! Chris Collins: Don Briscoe. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Angelique rises from the grave, draining Alexis of her life energy, exchanging clothes with her, and consigning her to the coffin to take her place at Collinwood. Cyrus begins changing spontaneously into Yaeger as Quentin moves to destroy what he things is Angelique’s body.

Dark Shadows passes its 1000th episode, and with no more milestones left, it slides into entropy, a perspective only possible when seeing the series as a whole. To put the division of the story into perspective, it has 224 episodes left. That’s only a few more than carried the story between Vicki’s arrival in Collinsport and the unleashing of Barnabas. 200 after that moment? We’ll find ourselves in the thick of the great man’s origin in 1795. The end of the next 200 brings Barnabas to the height of his struggle to reclaim his core goodness through both working for and fighting against Nicholas and Eve, seeing how easily his second self, Adam, falls from innocence to malevolence. The eventual triumph makes a proper midpoint for the series and over the next two hundred, our first hero -- Vicki -- leaves, and Barnabas enjoys the full height of his power before having iy taken away. The journey to episode 1000 will lead to his complete immobilization in Parallel Time while the series builds the necessity for him to stop running. In the final arc of the series, he realizes (like Dorothy Gale) that he lost nothing; a good man forced into the service of evil doesn’t become evil. In the right circumstances, he finally stops seeing himself as the man who was defeated by his own past and recognizes that the future is eternally unwritten.

You know, then it’s all 1841PT. And we all know how THAT is? Amiright? Amiright? And howabout that airline food? What’s up with that? Here’s a joke Jim Pierson told me over a curling match: an Irishman, Istvan, and a Leviathan walk into the Blue Whale….

… and the bartender says, “Aristede can stay, but only if the Caretaker gets to watch!”

1001 is all about unholy twins -- Angelique and Yaeger -- taking replacing the rightful hosts. The horror here is Dark Shadows at its most meta, because what else is Parallel Time but an unwelcomed substitute that seems interesting on the surface, but leaves us, like Barnabas, a chained prisoner who’s beginning to fear that this sinister duplicate might never leave? On some level, the writers had to be aware of that, even if it were never spoken aloud.

And before that sounds like a catty strike at the show, think about how that tight audience identification helps the overall story. Dark Shadows begins as the saga of someone seeking a home. But it never quite takes, does it? Barnabas refashions his house over and over again, only to lose it over and over again. In the case of Parallel Time, he thinks he’s found a better home, only to realize that he should have valued what he had in the first place, even if it smells like Teen Jeb. Perhaps we should have, also. But once he realizes that, it’s too late. When he returns to Collinwood, it is already a smoldering hulk he failed to save… before he even gets the chance.

Dark Shadows is rampant with twins, doubles, and alternate sides. Of course, any drama is (actor vs. part), and none more than those in which we follow performers taking on parts so numerous that we stop identifying roles and simply note the actor beneath as the real character we follow. But PT is literally the show’s twin, born while the crew is creating yet another twin for the big screen. As we see Angelique take over for Alexa, and John “Lounge Hulk” Yeager burst out of Cyrus of his own volition, the show feels like it is finally being honest. Twins are intrinsically nightmares. If they are worse than us, we dread their potential havoc and implication. If they are better than we are, we dread them even more. We’ve been fighting to maintain our optimism while the show grinds away, and just when it’s wise to give up, the evil twins at least get it over with and assume the places of the good. PT thus earns its place, if not as a second home, then as a proving ground for Barnabas to see who he really is.

Lara Parker’s doubled performance, timed exquisitely, allows her to demonstrate range like few other moments granted to any actor on the show. She’s at her most maniacally fierce, so much so that we glimpse a strange rage boiling under the skin of a Memphis debutante who’s escaped the south but not quite the 1960’s. It’s a performance that, sure, what the hell, it’s acting… but it’s acting with a realism more easily interpreted as real. Parker, here, represents what makes the show so vital, and what makes her so vital to the show. It is that fusion of impossible beauty, impossible knowledge, and impossible rage that fascinates us, frightens us, repels us, and makes it impossible to turn away.

One veteran not to survive this moment is Don Briscoe. It’s his last, haggard, exhausted episode. Briscoe remains a paragon of gentle magnetism and relatability. He’s what we’d like to see in ourselves, and somehow that guy snuck onto the set. His presence, even as a villain, was immediately reassuring that we, inexplicably but clearly, had a friend at Collinwood. He was holding a place for us at the table, not as impossibly macho as Burke nor as neurotic as Willie, Briscoe was the truest audience surrogate on the show. It’s a colder show -- and world -- without him.

This episode hit the airwaves on April 27, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 218

Barnabas asks for the Old House from Roger and Liz. The former seems enthusiastic, but the matriarch is undecided. Meanwhile, Jason threatens Liz to not ask too many questions about the missing Willie. He and Barnabas meet.

Roger inaugurates the episode by dismissing Jason and Willie as a “couple of sea tramps,” as if he were living in a 1930’s cartoon. Which is a pretty likely, apt description of Roger’s later world now that I ponder it. I wondered why Roger was so likable in this episode, and it made me realize the profound impact of Barnabas on this world. Roger is a consummate snob at the top of Collinsport’s food chain. It humanizes everyone else to have him as society’s unfair and out-of-touch judge and jury. But after the many hours that a soap opera forces you to spend with a character, either general affection or Stockholm Syndrome is bound to kick in. It's natural to develop a fondness for them, even if they start out open (and remain) something of a villain. This is certainly the case with Roger. To whom can he look to find a superior? Absolutely no one, and that's the point. (And I'm not counting his sister in this case.  Joan Bennett is more of a deity then a human.) In fact, Roger doesn't even really have an equal. In a world without that social Swiss army knife, Professor Stokes, Collinsport is a lonely place to be for the most important man in it. Until Barnabas. Not only does he become the main bad guy for a time, but he also tops Roger in the social savoir-faire department. Instead of having to implicitly or explicitly passed judgment on everyone else, Roger can simply relax, have a brandy, and get down to some old-fashioned banter with another confirmed Bachelor. No wonder he wants him in the Old House nearby. It's clear the writers enjoy it, and so does Louis Edmonds. Everyone gets to lighten up a little bit with the character who was destined to be lovable.

On DARK SHADOWS, the aristocracy may be in charge and they may pass judgment on everyone else, but all of that judgment goes both ways. We may dream of being (or at least having the wealth and maneuverability) of a Collins, but we also get to be one of the gang at the Blue Whale, makin’ fun ‘o those fat cats in the spooky joint on the hill. At least, until Barnabas comes along. Then, as the show shifts so that he is our focus, rather than being on Vicky or Burke, and it becomes less and less important to see the aristocracy as pitiful. They are neither pitiful nor laudable. They simply are.

If the characters on DARK SHADOWS speak any language, it is fluent implication. Usually, it's Roger, and it's usually when he's trying to weasel out of something. In this, the war of words is between Jason and Barnabas. Jason spends most of his time making veiled threats. He’s no match for Barnabas, and Barnabas knows it, and Jason knows that Barnabas knows it, and Barnabas knows that Jason knows that he knows it. The result is that Jonathan Frid smiled as Barnabas, an event so rare that, when he saw it, it meant six more weeks of Parallel Time.

Barnabas more-or-less gets the Old House. 1795 wasn’t even a glint in Dan’s eye, but he could not have set up the mythos more perfectly. Of course, Barnabas wouldn’t want Collinwood. The Old House was his home; Collinwood was the retirement village for mom and dad. What kind of show spends nearly a year setting up the location for a protagonist they don’t even mention for nine months or so? This one.

This episode hit the airwaves April 27, 1967.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: April 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 222

Vicki is surprised to see a reformed Willie renovating the Old House when she comes to issue Barnabas a dinner invitation. When she leaves, Barnabas asks why Willie was so eager to see her go, mocking his considerateness. Barnabas later visits the Evans cottage, where Sam reports on another attack and Maggie swears she feels followed. Barnabas commissions a portrait from Sam, paying him a thousand dollars on the stipulation that they only work at night and at the Old House. After they begin, the sun starts to rise. Lost in a moment of distraction, Sam finds that Barnabas is missing.

If you want a truly emblematic episode of the first days of Barnabas, this is a marvelous choice.  It’s a disciplined, ascetic, tense slice of paranoia and menace. Is it a good representation of the overall series? No, but that doesn’t stop it from being cited as one. In many ways, I wish there were a DARK SHADOWS for which this was the poster child. But, and please don’t take this the wrong way, 222 is too good. On average, DARK SHADOWS is goofier. It has a Masterpiece-Theater-meets-Republic-Studios weirdness that cannot be denied. This belongs to a darker, subtler show. It’s both an eventful episode and one under an almost Hitchockianly tight control. The family is snowed. Barnabas is fully confident in a plan that he executes flawlessly. Willie fights to follow his conscience despite the torture he faces.  The best qualities of the well-meaning are turned against themselves. If Barnabas had remained as successful in all the episodes as he is in this one, he’d have become Mr. Maggie Evans in a month. The episode is shot with a bleak and noir atmosphere impossible in color by anyone save Gordon Willis. The writing is almost on a grim, BIG SLEEP level. It metes out only the information the audience absolutely needs, and then shorts that inventory by a sentence to keep them appropriately tantalized.

On this day in 1967, the US performed nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. Someone probably became a superhero or something in the process.

This episode hit the airwaves May 3, 1967.