The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 570

The Old House becomes a full house! When Barnabas tries to hide a suicidal Liz from Roger and a hypno-crazed Julia from Tom, can he find the time to stake the town’s newest vampire? Barnabas: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat. 30 min.)

When an insane Liz arrives at the Old House, Barnabas deduces the location of both Julia and Tom Jennings. After rescuing the doctor, Barnabas returns and engages Tom in deadly combat.

What to do with Julia?

It had to be a constant question in the writers’ room, both helped and made impossible by the fact that one of your best writers was married to her… and got the job through her. She’s not a love interest, but she is. She’s not an heroic protagonist, but she is. She even starts out trying to kill the most popular character. Julia is a mess of contradictions and not someone traditionally destined to be kept around. But she is. And as a result, she is one of the most unique characters in the history of television. Julia defies any label you might wish to put on her, and yet so many labels also apply.

Willie plays Jiminy Cricket so hard in this episode, I’m surprised he doesn’t turn green and sprout antenna. Rather than the usual haranguing, he takes the opportunity to give Barnabas a hard time about his feelings for Julia. Barnabas is loathe to admit it, but of course he cares about her. It’s actually a very human moment. As he says, she has become a part of his life. A strange part. Barnabas is too polite and under too much pressure to go further. If he were to be honest, Barnabas would probably add that he would more readily admit feelings of warmth for her if she were not also a colossal pain in the ass. She lectures him. She’s scolds him. She debates with him incessantly. And given the time from which Barnabas has come, he is perhaps the most liberal, advanced, forward thinking man on the planet for putting up with it. Because that is not how they rolled in the 1790s. It’s only because he had Naomi for a mother that I think he does. 

Freud said that behind every fear is a wish and behind every wish is a fear. As much as Julia wanted to cure Barnabas she was simultaneously fascinated with the concept of vampirism. It was the twilight between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and control over that meant control over life itself. Although it was one in a chain of thousands of wrongheaded moves, I think the 2012 movie was responding to something that rumbles under the text of the TV series. Only in one moment, though, when they had Julia turn herself into a vampire. And as much as she seems to hate it from Tom, Julia is also getting a lot of what she seems to want. Above it all, she is finally desired by a handsome, feral neck-biting man. And she hates it, but she keeps showing up. She keeps getting in the way of Barnabas’ gun. She keeps tying sheets together and sneaking out of the Old House after curfew.

Which is not easy in this episode. In real life, the Collinwood set had been accidentally destroyed when it was supposed to simply be cleaned. (You can imagine what it was like to be working with Dan Curtis around the time of that news.) Unfortunately, they also had to deal with Joan Bennett’s return, so the Old House was used constantly — here, it turns into a hotel for neurotic, morbid women, making Barnabas like the unwitting hero of the Pedro Almodóvar movie. No wonder he keeps going out to try and kill Tom Jennings. It’s a relatively peaceful task compared to what he’s dealing with at home. Liz wants to die. Roger wants Barnabas to get Juliet to pull strings at Windcliff. Julia wants to run so far away from Tom Jennings that she circumnavigate the globe and runs into him again “by accident.“ Victoria is still missing. Adam is at large. God only knows what’s going on with Angelique. He’s got Marie Wallace’s body decomposing in the basement. Nicholas is having fondue with Maggie. In the middle of all this, Willie stands there and has the nerve to call Barnabas insensitive!  I’m amazed that Barnabas doesn’t take the hammer and stake to him, first. Just as a warm-up.

No, a little bit of time spent staking the walking representation of everything you hate about yourself is just what the doctor ordered. And it’s just with Barnabas gets.

Dealing with Julia Hoffman is a complex matter. You’ve got to work out that stress somewhere.

This episode was broadcast Aug. 30, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1968: Episode 570

Julia is in the thrall of Tom Jennings as Barnabas continues his dogged search. After another excursion is fruitless, Willie cajoles Barnabas to admit that his determination to find Jennings is actually powered by his affection for Julia. Liz, wandering around in a paranoid daze, wanders into the building holding both Tom’s coffin and Julia. When Liz shows up at the Old House, Barnabas and Willie extract Julia’s location. After the rescue her, Barnabas returns to destroy Jennings. They grapple as the episode ends, and it appears as if Barnabas will be bitten.

Growth and dynamism are dangerous things in soap operas. The stories are supposed to move glacially so that nothing is missed when you’re out freshening junior, glazing the diaper, or putting tonight’s ham down for its nap. Or some arrangement of those activities. But while you’re up to your elbows in freshness, glaze, and sleeping hams, episode 570 is (sometimes) quietly hurling all of its characters out of their comfort zones and allowing the actors to either really act or at least have new things to indicate. Nary a scene goes by without characters having to make choices fundamentally different than those we ever would have imagined when we met them. Either that, or in the case of Liz, they finally fulfill what we’ve suspected all along. Honestly, the level of crazy that she shows in this episode is the ultimate fulfillment of what we’ve imagined was lurking since we first met her. I don’t think a curse caused this. I think a curse removed whatever veil of counterfeit sanity that Liz draped over herself. The fascinating thing is that Joan Bennett’s acting is no different. Liz still specializes in forlorned statements in a voice that sounds like Tara by way of Connecticut Lockjaw. But in this case, the character’s statements are far more dire. I’ll give Joan this; she’s consistent, classic Hollywood. Versatile? No. Grand? You bet.

Jonathan Frid has far more to do, too. This may be the closest that Barnabas has come to admitting affection for Julia. Frid seems more engaged in the material, as is John Karlen, his Jiminy Cricket. Both men are reaping the benefits that can only come from acting in the longform medium of the soap. Usually, actors in plays and films only get a few pages of a glimpse into the characters; they have to extrapolate and invent the rest. Acting in a soap poses the opposite challenge; remembering, rather than manufacturing, scores of hours of character work. It might have been overwhelming. Neither Frid nor Karlen have the grip on the lines that I think they’d like. However, as I’ve often contended, this just makes it more realistic. (I forget my “lines” in life all the time.) The episode concludes with a struggle between Barnabas and Jennings, and is far more visceral and high stakes than we’re used to.

The show is giving us a tremendous setup for new character dynamics. Willie has Barnabas’ number on every level. Barnabas has admitted to feeling something more than professional courtesy for Julia. And once Liz is better, the entire ensemble of good WASPs will be forced to pretend that nothing happened. Topping this off is the sight of television’s first and most emotionally complex vampire becoming perhaps its first vampire hunter. Given Barnabas’ track record of seeking cures and compassion, why would violence be his first resort with Jennings? My theory is that Barnabas knows exactly how dangerous another vampire can be. If Jennings finds a cure before Barnabas finds him, bully. But Jennings seems to savor his power, making that unlikely and Barnabas’ mission imminently reasonable.

I keep a small list of above average episodes where worlds change and you can actually show the program to doubting friends. 570 is an easy addition.

On this day in 1968, Ringo Starr temporarily left the Beatles, driving his desperate and hapless backup performers (McCartney, Lennon, and Harrison) to creative bankruptcy without his aggressive, driving, demanding influence. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: AUGUST 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date: Episode 312

As Victoria reveals her sensitivities, a seemingly sympathetic Barnabas tells her exactly what she wants to hear until she is lulled into inattention and he has the opportunity to strike. Inevitably, Carolyn interrupts. The search for David continues, and with that comes the discussion of Sarah -- David was looking for her when he went missing. Joe concludes that the Old House is the only place they haven’t searched. Over Willie’s objections, Barnabas encourages Joe and Sheriff Patterson to thoroughly case the joint. Barnabas’ reasoning? Willie has already made them suspicious; this is the only way to calm the waters. Barnabas maintains his cool until the search party demands to rifle through the basement. Thinking quickly, Barnabas claims to have lost the key, and just as Joe is offering to repair any damage done by kicking the door down, they find that David may be alive elsewhere on the estate.

Funny episode. The modern sitcom has all but eschewed the laugh track in swankier circles. Now, we have only the reassurance of a show’s genre to tell us it’s a comedy. If I told you that this were a wryly observational sitcom, and had you no other knowledge, you might agree. First, Barnabas does every condescending trick in the book to distract Vicki with the illusion of his sensitivity. He does everything but roll his eyes as he agrees with everything she says while plotting to get into her veins. Later, as Joe and Patterson come to search the Old House, he and Willie turn into the Honeymooners as they passive-aggressively bicker about whose fault it is that they’re being searched at all!  Finally, just when we think Barnabas has pulled it off, Willie gets the last, nervous, inner-laugh when Joe just happens to remember the basement, and Barnabas stammers for an excuse to bar him, sounding as flustered as a prom date trying to rationalize the presence of a box of condoms in the back seat to his date’s father. Barnabas and Willie have one of greatest and most uniquely subtle comic partnerships in the history of television. Why does he put up with him? Wait, who’s the “he,” and who’s the “him”? Exactly. It could go for either. They need each other and, despite their better judgement, they love each other. Like all great romances. Platonic or otherwise.  

Hey, welcome back, Dana Elcar. It’s been 38 episodes, and the overheated housefrau of 1968 America and I have been jonesing for our Pattersonian fix. I wonder what the show would have been like if Dana had remained a fixture, appearing in every timeline? Anyway, where was Dana in his absence? Maybe shooting THE BOSTON STRANGLER. It would come out in October. Perhaps that’s cutting it too close. 1968 was fertile year for Elcar. He appeared on six different TV series that year, two feature films, and two different movies of the week. Take that, Tab Hunter.

In history, it’s the birthday of Keith Moon and Barbara Eden. They never shot a film together. At least, publically.