The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 26

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1092

Julia’s plan to put Maggie into intentional danger results in Maggie being put into intentional danger. Maggie: Kathryn Leigh Scott. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Julia uses Maggie as bait to find her attacker, but the plan fails. As she and Barnabas continue to decode prophecy and study Rose Cottage, the children are drawn to the playroom by Carrie’s taunting voice. There, they see themselves as dolls in the dollhouse.

1970 is Collinwood but not Collinwood when Barnabas and Julia return from Parallel Time and 1995. Roger and Liz are gone, as are any outsiders who are not menacing weirdos like Roxanne and Sebastian. I didn’t know how much I would miss Sam and Burke and the Blue Whale, which is the Drawing Room for the Common Man, quite so much. The stories have been so exotic that we really haven’t had time to mourn them. But the bread and butter of so much of the show was playing off rich from not-rich, isolated from urban, sherry from Stroh’s, etc. This perhaps became irrelevant with the introduction of Quentin, a man of pretty common sensibilities with an aristocratic last name. Losing that chemistry is a shame because it grounded the show and the family. Take that away, and disorientation sets in. Never before has the Collins family felt more isolated and helpless. Are these things even going on? Don’t bother to look, the mirror was blinded a year ago. The Collinses always saw themselves as the saviors of the commoners, but it’s the other way around. The last of the townsfolk, Maggie, is finally being sacrificed. It’s the price she pays for climbing Mt. Olympus. She was right to warn Vicki and a chump for ignoring her own advice.

1092 begins with Maggie being allowed to wander the Collins estate so that Julia can track down her assailant. When that fails, she and Barnabas refuse to alert the authorities, which might have been a lifesaving move. It’s as if they and the series want her to die. Maggie has been astonishingly indestructible, and it takes a team effort of malice, hunger, and negligent friends to finally pour her into Sebastian’s car. But with sensible average folk around, there is no way that the Collinses would have stayed in that house. I mean, it’s Quentin, the kids, Barnabas, and Julia. Carolyn, too. That’s a double room at the Collinsport Inn and a couple of sleeping bags. It might be close quarters, but Gerard can have the house. Doesn’t happen. In a vacuum of pragmatism, this is what we’re left with, and it’s intentional. Horror may be the ultimate expression of art because both are about stripping down the essentials until the only remaining choice exists by default.

The children fight inevitability and are victimized by it all at the same time that they symbolically enact it. (Kathy Cody’s best acting on the show is her eerie voice work as the gloating voice of Carrie.) Another element that makes this Collinwood-not-Collinwood begins with David Henesy’s narration. He’s not supposed to be doing this, and his voice is not supposed to be that deep. He and Hallie even argue over whether or not she’s a guest, and David gives her the bad news that she’s become a lifer. So… is she the next Vicki or Carolyn? Yes, no, too young. All answers apply, ultimately making her another element that doesn’t quite fit, and doesn’t quite fit… on purpose. It keeps Collinwood alien to us. Because this upcoming trip is not about saving David or Collinwood. Whether he knows it or not, this trip will ultimately be about Barnabas saving himself.

Barnabas continues to wander through a liminal forest, and in the words of Michael Corleone, every time he thinks he’s out, they pull him back in. 1897 seemed to be the forest, and 1970, home. It was a specific place to which he could return after Parallel Time, but nothing’s the same when he does. The household is different. Even Julia’s hair is different. The forest has followed him into a present that may be more unfamiliar than Parallel Time. By the time he returns home to 1971, Collinwood is finally the familiar same, but he is not. That’s the irony, and it’s not a nice one.

Is he being manipulated? We all are. Viewers and our sympathies. Heroes and their supposed true loves. 1092 is talking about this is loud silences and a final image both chilling and satirical when we realize we are in the dollhouse with them.

This episode hit the airwaves Sept. 1, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: August 19

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 566

Barnabas becomes suspicious of Julia when she begins sleeping all day, wearing high collared shirts, and longing for the embrace of the undead. Tom Jennings: Don Briscoe. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Julia is attacked and bitten by Tom, and later denies it to WIllie, who takes her to Collinwood to recover. She instructs Mrs. Johnson to leave her alone, and when the housekeeper brings her a letter from Barnabas, she tears it up. Later, Julia is summoned by Tom for the second meal of the day, and upon coming back to Collinwood, her bite marks are discovered by Barnabas.

I know that alcoholism isn’t funny. And drunks aren’t funny.

Having made that clear, Dark Shadows was produced before these modern opinions, and we’re swimming in its pool, so get that lampshade off your head and jump in. Once you’ve seen the episodes enough times, which could mean just once, it becomes pretty clear that the writers often had a good time by doing an episode in drag. I don’t mean that Sam Hall was wearing a dress, because I always saw him as more of a smart, designer pantsuit kinda guy, much like future tv hunk, Bea Arthur. No, I simply mean that the episodes are often about something else. Usually with no conclusion. Just an opportunity to explore a situation or human moment that was fun or challenging or necessary to write about. All you have to do is re-frame a little bit of the context.

I think the reason that drinking was kind of funny for so long was that the drinkers were often in on the joke, and the joke kind of changed before, during, and after the imbibing. “Morning after“ humor is a strange mix of regret, everyone agreeing to ignore the obvious after-effects, and the paradoxical pursuit of hair of the dog. In this case, the dog is Tom Jennings. Because if you look at this episode and kind of ignore the bite marks on its neck, it looks for all the world like Julia is sleeping off a hangover and everyone is either trying to deny what they know or find out what they fear. And it’s not just a minor hangover. This is, in the immortal words of Robert Urich, “a full, adult-size bangaroo.” It’s also perfect commedia dell’arte, where the hapless servants are trying to understand the decadence of one half of the household and then cover it up to the rest. What can Mrs. Johnson possibly be thinking? She worked for Burke Devlin, so whatever it is, it can’t be new.

In the midst, Barnabas is more of a fussbudget than ever. He had to put up with months of Nathan Forbes and, I’m sure, more than one night of Jeremiah in his cups, thumping around the almost-Old House while chasing maids or sneaking in doxies from the docks. In the 20th century, that level of wanton sherry consumption might pass at Collinwood, but this is his house, thank you, and Young Loomis and Dr. Hoffman were hand-picked because they didn’t go in for those sorts of shenanigans. Which is why he wants to get to the bottom of it, even more. And Willie does everything to keep him from knowing. And Julia, knowing exactly what Barnabas is up to, tears up Barnabas‘s note, because it probably said, “Lay off the sauce and get back to work, you lug.”

The scene where Willie and Barnabas have their confrontation in the lab is priceless, because someone has forgotten his lines, and I can’t wager which one it was. But Barnabas seems so appalled at what’s happened that awkward silence mixed with helpless astonishment are indistinguishable from a fully-voiced response. If anything, it’s more realistic. I mean, what do you say? This is an episode with no really progressive dialogue, just evasion and implication with Tom Jennings in the middle.

Tom is the bartender here, and he’s worse than the clientele. Actually, that’s stretching it all. Tom Jennings is a very peculiar vampire. Maybe one of the scariest, because he’s the most consistently feral. Via makeup and performance, Don Briscoe emphasizes the undead and driven quality of the monster, stripping away the velveteen refinement and leaving a working-class killer underneath… and perhaps the portrayal is a commentary on class paranoia by the writers. (It’s a reflection, anyway.) Barnabas can be trusted with the satanic powers of the undead; he’s been to university. But a guy like Tom Jennings? Lock up your Doctor Hoffmans! There’s a union man on the loose!

Episodes like 566 are situational popcorn. Even when monotonous, they are character-driven delights to watch. Like any good sitcom, I know exactly what’s coming and yet it always satisfies. Actually, it satisfies on a more metaphysical level even than that. Barnabas had his chance with Julia and he ignored it. Rather than see her victimized, I almost see her avenged, and the vaguely post-coital splay and daze in which she’s found by Willie and Barnabas after her two encounters say far more than what’s on the page. Is Barnabas horrified because she was claimed by a vampire or by a vampire other than he? 

This episode hit the airwaves Aug. 26, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: AUGUST 26

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 571

Although Tom chokes Barnabas into unconsciousness, the sun forces him to retreat into his coffin. When Barnabas comes to, he wastes little time in staking Tom, only briefly wondering if anyone had ever stood over him this way. Simultaneously, Julia is cured and comes to, the wounds gone from her neck. Meanwhile, Roger finds Liz cowering behind a chair in the Old House. She swears she’s seen a coffin, and agrees to go back to Windcliff if it can’t be found. Meanwhile, Nicholas Blair visits the convalescing Julia, arming himself with irony, a smart floral bouquet, and a smile. None of it takes. At the site of Tom’s coffin, Barnabas and Roger find nothing. Roger is ready to lock Liz away for good when Julia insists that she may be better cared for at home. Alone with Julia, Barnabas concludes that the staking of Tom was only the beginning; the person who turned him is still a threat.

This is one of those grand places where Barnabas gets to spiritually atone, exorcise the demons of his past, vicariously destroy the worst in himself, and yet show a strange sympathy to his quarry all at once in the moments before Tom’s (second) death. It yet another turning point for the Great Man, and sly Gordon Russell can’t let the gravitas be untrod upon for long. No sooner does he get back that we see the grand Joan Bennett hiding behind a wing-back chair like Jack Tripper evading Mr. Roper. In some cases, I’d wager the humor were accidental. With Russell? No way. Not in the same episode that Nicholas forces his way into the Old House with the only permutation of politeness that could make it possible, and under just the right circumstances for Barnabas to let him do it. With the house unguarded! The guy just can’t get a break. Then, rounding things out is the Eddie Haskellian plea by Julia for Roger to Let Liz Stay. If you’re looking for the ridiculous and the sublime, this episode swings. It may be one of the best selections to introduce newcomers to the wild range that is DARK SHADOWS at its most ebulliently eclectic.

On this day in 1987, the Fuller Brush company opened its first retail stores. Relevant only because Humbert Allen Astredo once sold Fuller brushes, and it was while doing so that his vocal talents were first noticed. It was a compliment that eventually propelled him into show business.