The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 10

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1970: Episode 1079

When the power of a gorgeous ghost compels him, will Quentin complete an exorcism before the spirits change David’s wardrobe? Quentin: David Selby. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Daphne leads Quentin to a graveyard to see familiar tombstones. He vows to help, but it’s clear she has mixed intentions. He later tries to exorcise the house, but Daphne’s influence strops him. Meanwhile, Hallie goes from slave to the ghosts to the realization that she’s their prisoner as she and David attempt a seance.

I’m not sure what’s going on in this episode or storyline, but I can’t stop watching it. If anything is my takeaway on Dark Shadows, it’s that. Beginning with Vicki’s parentage, it’s a program about withholding information. 1079 elevates the unspoken to its rarest expression. That kind of ambiguity draws the audience into the storytelling process, and the rigor of it in this is equally demanding and rewarding. Some of the power of Gerard’s plan, if we can even call it a plan, is its allusiveness. The ultimate goal is the destruction of Collinwood, but fewer knives have been as serrated, and the horror of Gerard (since we know where it’s going) lies in the unnecessary damage he causes to those he’s marked for death or madness, anyway.

When the episode isn’t reveling in repressed sexuality, it’s venturing a little too boldly into deeper taboo on a rubber raft of counterfeit ambiguity. It begins with a visual metaphor so bold there might be no meta left at all. We find Quentin in the graveyard as Daphne points out her own tombstone. Quentin must have some sort of partial memory of being a ghost or being dead, or a sense of it, because even though the timeline has changed, he was once a zombie, after all. And he certainly understands being from another time. Given that, a dead woman from the 1800’s is someone Quentin can't resist. Is she silently imploring his help, or is he simply assuming that? Considering that, as they begin their embrace, she's holding a knife at his back without his knowledge, it sums up far, far too many relationships.

As the episode goes on, Selby gets to show an amazing range of sincerity and furtiveness as he attempts to exorcise the home, and probably its temptations, eventually sabotaging those same efforts and lying about it. Not only is he lying about it, he's enjoying the process. As he lies to Julia about the extent of Daphne's control at the end of the episode, he has a naughty, hostile smile that is worthy of Jack Torrance. And it's an example of a very human, very subtle moment that exists completely in the face. It really has no formal name, but David Selby has a disturbing degree of control of it nonetheless.



David and Hallie dominate the rest of the episode, forced into playrooms and roleplay with dialogue that you have to strain to hear as single entendre. This is difficult subtext to confront because of the singularly awkward age of the performers. Both were around fifteen, neither adults nor children. In an effort not to sexualize them (ewww), the show goes too far in the other direction as it vaguely infantilizes them. The net result feels even more perverse than if they’d let them be fifteen. The exact reason for insisting that David dress up and submit to the whim of a beautiful ghost (who is nearly his age peer) is unclear and disturbing because of that murkiness. The substitute costumes only further this. The selected outfits are of both the early 70’s and the 1840’s. They are the costumes of a very formal child or a very fanciful adult. Which is it? Which does Gerard want them to be? All of it, as long as it’s in paralyzing quantities. Gerard wants the adult David to know exactly what’s being done to him while the child David knows he’s powerless to stop it.

This episode hit the airwaves on Aug. 13, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: July 30

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 557

Adam refuses to divulge Vicki’s location to Barnabas, who is equally worried about Tom Jennings and the threat of multiple vampires in Collinsport. Jeff Clark then berates him for his inability to help, forcing Barnabas to follow a hunch and go to Stokes. The professor, under a deadline from Howard Hughes and Hugh Hefner, is none to pleased to have his business of correcting ancient Tibetan love making manuals interrupted, but receives Barnabas, anyway. Stokes is shocked at the kidnapping and agrees to help find Vicki, but refuses to reveal Adam’s location. Then Adam tells Stokes that he might just kill to teach ‘em all a lesson. So, there.

Professor Eliot Stokes gains fascinating dimension in 557. Normally, jovial and helpful, we see his protectiveness of Adam reveal an irascible and sternly just man within. Anton LaVey extolled “responsibility to the responsible,” and there are few other places where Barnabas gets both barrels of that. Stokes is perhaps the most inherently good man in Collinsport since his fellow freemason, Bill Malloy, took his last diving lesson. (Ironically, at the hands of Thayer David’s first character.) Stokes’ prime reason for siding with Adam and not Barnabas? The former vampire and Julia have withheld vital information for months. Yes, they have necessary trust issues, but this is Stokes we’re talking about. Adam may be a wildly unpredictable man-beast, capable of leveling Collinsport to sand before breakfast, but he’s also (until later in the episode) a prime graduate of Rousseau’s Finishing School for Noble Savages. He’s nursed greedily on the milk of morality that spurts abundantly from the ripe and straining teat of of Eliot Stokes’ moral tutelage. It takes a Nicholas Blair -- so often Stokes’ foil -- to teach him the less savory lessons in humanity. Stokes knows that there’s only so much danger in which Adam can find himself… Victoria Winters is another matter.

It’s one of the loudest episodes since episode 46, in which men with beards (of one kind or another) spend most of it shouting in Roger’s office. It may also be the shoutin’est until Keith Prentice joins the cast and acts as if he thinks the mic is broken, and thus he must raise his voice so that even viewers in Fresno can hear every word. It’s a tough day for Barnabas. He’s a man used to operational fiction and only wants some peace and quiet. Adam yells at him. Julia yells at him. Just when he’s ready to leave, Jeff Clark is hanging out at the door, waiting to yell at him. Then, Stokes yells at him. (Then, Adam yells at Stokes.) Geez, ma, stop givin’ me the business! No wonder he wants to visit Tom Jennings in the hospital. All Tom would do is hiss. And no wonder poor Jonathan Frid has unusually pointed trouble with his lines. He’s really lost at sea in 557, but as I always say, I’d forget my lines, too, under such circumstances. For me, those moments don’t rob the show of its realism, they heighten them. It’s especially bad for him because the only token he has of Vicki’s safety is that cheap ring Jeff probably got on sale from Wal-Mart (founded about five years before, thank you).

The Adam storyline gets a lot of guff, but it probably contains DARK SHADOWS’ most philosophical episodes. Barnabas, Jeb, and Quentin all deal with intense alienation, with Quentin’s starting before his curse. Jeb doesn’t care until the end of his storyline, but Adam is born with it. At least the other three can pass, but Adam’s scars send people running. And that was always a bit harsh of them. The makeup department had a responsibility that Jack Pierce dodged; they had to make Adam both a monster and a potential soap sex-symbol. It’s a clever trick of perception because the audience sees him as (very) ruggedly handsome while the characters view him as a patchwork golem. On a very realistic note, audiences of the time were used to Vietnam vets coming home in far worse condition, but that was a war that blessedly never reached Collinsport. Again, Robert Rodan is an unsung hero of an actor, delivering his existential angst with passion and truth. It’s a shame that his identification with an eventually unpopular character was probably a factor in Rodan not being recycled by Dan Curtis, despite being the dark-haired, blue-eyed “type” that typified the ruggedly handsome, DS norm (such as Selby, Lacy, Crothers, George, Ryan, Prentice, Storm, Bain, etc.)

Yes, 557 is loud, how can anyone contemplating the solitude of existence be heard without making some noise?

This episode hit the airwaves Aug. 13, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: AUGUST 13

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1968: Episode 557

Barnabas believes Adam’s threat to kill Victoria, so he reasons with Julia about furthering the experiment to give the promethean a mate. Upon visiting an unusually cranky Professor Stokes, Barnabas learns that Stokes revealed Adam’s origin to him. Stokes then visits a usually cranky Adam, whose bitterness at being created shocks the professor. Adam vows, again, to kill Vicki if he is unsatisfied.

Poor Jonathan Frid. He must have had a rough night. I am usually oblivious to his infamous (and completely understandable) line trouble, but in this one, it is so palpable that I totally understand why he retired from TV after DARK SHADOWS left the air. In his early dialogue with Grayson Hall, you can see sheer terror in the eyes of both performers as Barnabas haltingly recalls a trip to the hospital. This is followed by the “Frid Surge,” where Barnabas becomes far more committed and energetic when he turns to face the teleprompter. Of course, this gives him that great sense of vulnerability that was the secret to Barnabas’ success. However, when you counter this with Thayer David’s turn in the episode, which brims with articulate assuredness and passionate integrity, it hurts. The pain doesn’t come from embarrassment. Rather, it comes from my confidence that Frid could have acted the doors off the collected ensemble had the poor guy just been given another frickin day to study his sides. He’s still truthful. But it makes you wonder.

I especially wonder with a marvelous Gordon Russell script like this. While it brought out the shrill in Roger Davis, Robert Rodan issues a highly cerebral, emotionally packed performance. Rodan never receives the credit he deserves. Much of Adam’s stint on the show finds him equipped with an eloquent, even sesquipedalian command of the language. His inner conflict is as existential as it gets. No one sets a standard for virtue like Stokes, his one-time advisor. And yet, none match Nicholas Blair for charm and warmth. Oh, and he’s been friendzoned by Carolyn and is going through puberty. Great. Just… great. Where do you turn? Rodan balances this absurd chimera of conflicts with effortless aplomb that makes Cirque du Soleil look as clumsy as a Matt Helm fight scene.

Jonathan never gets this shot in this episode. But… he has more lines.

On this day in 1999, a radioactive explosion on Moonbase Alpha tore the moon in half, sending hundreds of scientists and pilots hurling into the farthest reaches of space. From the entire staff at CHS, we wish them well.