The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 18

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1174/1175

As Quentin’s trial heats up, why do Letitia and Desmond find themselves on the stand for crimes of the black arts? Letitia: Nancy Barrett. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Samantha is confounded when her actual “Joanna Mills “ plot seems undone by an actual ghost. Gerard and Dawson plot to draw in Letitia into the trial. The next day, her testimony accidentally hangs Desmond with the blame for bringing the head to Quentin. Desmond is discharged as advocate and charged with witchcraft, too.

So, he spells it ‘Zachery.’ Well, there you go. 

And in such a nutty font. Why not? Especially when he uses it in a book that gets Desmond, Quentin, and Letitia -- by implication or by quote -- by the short hairs. One of the reasons I prefer the 1840 witch trial to the one 45 (or 3-ish) years prior is that, in this case, there’s vaguely more to have a trial about because the defendants, technically, are kinda/sorta guilty of some of the things ostensibly in the same neighborhood as the charges. It brings a challenging ambiguity to the event, and I can’t say that about 1795. It actually has something in common with the Scopes trial. Beyond the fact that John Scopes taught evolution in neither Dayton nor Collinsport.

In both of the cases, the issue -- as pop history understands it -- was not whether the practices of witchcraft and evolution were right or wrong. It was whether or not someone had broken a law. It was illegal to practice witchcraft. It is illegal to evolve in Tennessee. Quentin and Desmond certainly give them plenty of material to work with, and when I watch it, I feel like one part of culture is grabbing the other by the lapels in an attempt to talk some horse-sense.

And my, how culture has changed since Victoria’s trial. Fascinating how it’s transformed in the time since we met a ghost named Quentin, as well. In those instances, you can see snapshots of progress headed to now. Vicki, for instance, had nothing to do with witchcraft. It was an evil practice that caused misery to all. Well, all except Angelique. These things had to be secret at one time, even if tangentially involved. Victoria was from the future, for instance, and this secret would be her undoing, seen as the height of black magic. Barnabas was familiar with her secret, but gained understanding with it -- as did the audience. Little did he know that one day, by living in the future, Barnabas would be living in Victoria’s secret. And fighting for the future of it.

In 1897, Quentin II was a decent guy, eventually, despite the dark rites. Just grab a blue candle and look past them. But by the filming of the 1840 sequence, there were new household names to learn along with a new spiritual ethos on the rise. Sybil Leek and Jane Roberts, specifically, were names to know. Dark Shadows, itself, was an agent of pop cultural reevaluation. Edgar Cayce books were getting regular reprints, appealing to what would morph into the New Age movement over the next ten years. TIME Magazine asked if God were dead. It was finally a good time to be an occultist. Quentin and Desmond approach the black arts in Victorian finery, bearing full heads of hair, with matinee idol good looks and the intentions of benevolent pseudoscientists. They are not victims of mistaken identity, although they keep the occult jazz on the downlow. The villain is an ignorant society guided by the agendas of Gerard and Lamar. And the implication is that the audience will be cool with that. I suspect that’s the case. If the 1840 storyline is a herald of progress, it’s in that regard, because we’ve seen much of the rest of it before. As with much of the show, it’s cyclical storytelling; Dark Shadows returns again and again to do variations on specific themes, characters, and plot turns. Later variants may or may not be as lovable as earlier ones, but they’re always enlightening and always suitably different. In this case, what happens if we do exactly the same trial, but invert almost every important detail… down to the one-time and seeming powerlessness of Barnabas, himself.

The result is a vicious, tight courtroom drama with high suspense and genuine food for thought. This is what you get for messing around with a disembodied head.  But enough about the Scopes trial.

This episode was broadcast Dec. 24, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 17

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 652/653

When Maggie gets an invitation to move on up to the deluxe mansion on the hill, will she take her turn with a bat or strike out? Joe Haskell: Joel Crothers. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Liz is recovering, but still senses danger and refuses to sleep. Worried for the children, she instructs Barnabas to hire Maggie as tutor. Amy has a premonition of Joe as the werewolf’s next victim. At the Evans cottage, that’s exactly what happens.

I’m sure someone has a solution out there, but why isn’t Joe a werewolf? Or Tom? If Joe is a cousin, that means that he shares a grandparent with Chris, Tom, and Amy. This would be Quentin’s daughter, Lenore. In researching it, I was reminded that the first born is the only one to carry the curse, so it was nice for Fetus Tom to hold the door for Fetus Chris. Well, there goes that Daybook column topic. Either way, it’s fallout from the future and past. 1897 so beautifully colors the present that it’s sometimes a shame to see the show in broadcast, rather than chronological, order. If you’ve never done it, take advantage of streaming, etc, and give it a try. The first time through, it’s a mystery program. Not just whodunnit, but a whydunnit. After that, the show is yours, and don’t forget it. Some complain about the number of episodes. I say it’s a blessing. Even with the constant meddling in the timeline, a chronological reading beautifully colors the present, telling the story from the family-outward rather than the tale of a curious governess, gazing inward.

To do that is a madman’s campaign, so here is an incomplete and inaccurate list to help you. The show jumps around a lot, and this will violate the warranty, but try it anyway.

1140, 1144 (1690)
365-460 (1795)
623 (1795)
662-666 (1795)
885-887 (1795)
938 (1795)
1110-1198 (1840)
701-885 (1897)
900 (1949)
1-365, 461-701,  (1966)
888-980 (1969-1970)
1071-1109 (1970)
1061-1070 (1995)

The closest I came to attempting this was when I wrote the Collins Chronicles in 2014 and began the series with the 1795 flashback, jumped to Barnabas being released in 1966, and then, when Vicki went through time, I jumped ahead to her return. This put everything from Barnabas’ point of view. Hard to think of it any other way, after.

This episode finds us focusing on Maggie, Joe, and unseen characters, like David and Vicki. All are knit up in the changing of the tutorial guard. Maggie is finally in the house as governess, despite any given qualifications other than availability and already being on contract at ABC. My assumption is that Maggie has a really weird degree from a semi-unaccredited college run by one of Sam’s beatnik friends, which admirably prepared her for a career in diner operations. (I’m sure David and Amy hear the word hegemony a lot.) Do you know why Vicki is a j-e-r-k? Because she took her job. It had to be the hottest gig in Collinsport, despite and because of having to live at Collinwood. I’m sure Roger dropped hints about it every time the check arrived at the table. Free coffee and pie for years, folks. And THAT’S how the rich stay rich.

Ultimately, it’s been a long time coming. The show has almost always been confused about its primary female protagonist. (My vote is for Liz, actually.) Yes, yes, ostensibly Vicki, but the minute the Josette portrait was “cast,” the focus shifted off of her. Even after Kathryn Leigh Scott played the part for months in a flashback, they unsuccessfully tried to shoehorn Vicki in as having the spirit of Josette. Whatever that means. Ultimately, not as much as they’d hoped. Looking at the early episodes, it’s curious to think of a time when Josette was the only supernatural presence. Or at least, the only one with a distinct personality. It’s only after 1795 that we realize how many competing specters are potentially haunting the joint. Bathia Mapes, Abigail, Naomi… yeah, Naomi! Where’s her ghost? The First Lady of Collinwood died on site! Not even on/off Widow’s Hill. The more the producers try to retro-bond Vicki and Josette, the more diffuse the character becomes. Meanwhile, Maggie says “Pop” a lot, drinks Cuba Libres at the Blue Whale, and waits for her promotion. When it happens, you can immediately feel that there’s a slightly more hip and aware vibe in the offing.

When Barnabas gives her the news, the show employs one of its cleverest editing tricks. For a program with a very deliberate, realistic, predictable editing style, this feels like something out of A Hard Day’s Night. About ten minutes in, Barnabas is on the phone in the drawing room, telling Maggie and Joe about Vicki’s disappearance. Barnabas gives the news, and it quickly fades to a shot of the couch, where Joe (with Maggie) is reacting, as if in the same thread of conversation. This is one of the show’s fastest transitions in time and a sophisticated piece of storytelling for the program.

Lela Swift and the gang have a lot of fun here other places, including the werewolf depicted in a human bed, sleeping peacefully until awaking profoundly confused. Stunt coordinator Alex Stevens has the most expressive eyes on the program. If I were a werewolf, awakening tucked in on a bed, I’d have the same reaction.

After awakening like this, he has little choice but to attack Joe Haskell. All shtick aside, it’s a brutal attack, and Joe seems even more vulnerable because of the business suit that gives him an extra veneer of sophistication. Joel Crothers beautifully delivers a mix of compassion and a strange impatience, and it looks like art mirroring life. We’ve been sensing the fraying of Joe Haskell for some time as he disintegrates mentally and as a voice of human reason. Both Crothers and Haskell have two more episodes after this. Like a tremor, Joe will go the way of madness, just as Maggie will a bit under two years from now. Casualties to mixing it up with immortals. It’s the price for being little people at Collinwood. Vicki paid it by murder and marriage in another century. Joe and Maggie will pay it at Windcliff. This episode was Joe’s breaking point. It was also Maggie’s. It will just take her and her optimism far longer to pay the price. That’s the cost of admission to a new world of gods and monsters. 

Joe is neither. He is, in fact, us.

This episode was broadcast Dec. 24, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: DECEMBER 5

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 912

Who’s blonde, diminutive, power hungry, and may be looking at a spanking from Barnabas? For once, it’s not Carolyn. But who? Chris Jennings: Don Briscoe. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas must exert increasing control on Alexander as Amy is pulled into the fold of the Leviathans. Julia tracks down Harrison Monroe, who tries to scare her off like an Oz potentate. An assertion that she has news from Charles Delaware-Tate grants her entry into Monroe’s house.

1897 rubs off on a guy. Well, guys like Sam and Gordon, those irrepressible upstarts in the writer’s room. That storyline had been the show’s most creatively dense endeavor, built around the core mystery of a ghost assassin and his motives. Surrounding that was a parade of other weird tales and eccentric wackos, making the sequence as elaborate and ornate as the era housing it. The program’s next core story -- Julia opposing a demonic messiah bent on world domination -- was even more ambitious. Even if their reach exceeded their grasp with the execution of that sequence, the writers told the myriad associated and coincidental stories with inventive brio. Paul Stoddard lives! Josette finally goes to haunt someone else for a change. There’s the last we see of Chris Jennings. An avenging Angelique. The return of Nicholas Blair. Heck, the return of Quentin and the mystery of Grant Douglas. They even find time to bring back Amanda Harris, square off with a personified version of death, and dramatize the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. I’m pretty certain that a giant spider is involved, and somewhere, the lost castaways of the Minnow feel safer. There’s even a flashback to the 1940’s. This is only in the space of about 3-4 months. Sounds like a long time, right? You’ve been spoiled.

In the first year or two of the program, it would have taken nine weeks just to show Liz buttering a piece of toast. But after 1897, this storyline density is the standard for the audience and maybe the writers, themselves. And they still have not exhausted themselves. So, while we’re at it, let’s briefly turn the show into The Wild Wild West. When it comes to the final days of Charles Delaware-Tate, not only do the writers turn it into yet another plot thread, they memorably resolve a character who didn’t really need a resolution. I suspect it answers the demands of no one, and it answers them with a generous panache that overcomes the most steadfast apathy. It’s an era of mini-mysteries -- little adventures and diversions whose only real problem is being more interesting than the Leviathan A plot they decorate. Notice that the B plots evaporate around the time that Jeb enters. They pad out just enough time for the Leviathan baby to grow up into a soap opera heartthrob. And Christopher Pennock certainly deserves the singular attention of the show. Unfortunately, the A plot doesn’t match nor enhance his talent. It’s a tall challenge to compete with the recent memory of the android duplicate of a 100 year-old Roger Davis. Trust me, I've tried.

The show has really entered a fascinating point in its transformation. Almost all of the mini-plots  resolve loose ends that tied the show to the past, earliest days. Who would have thought that, in so short a time, we would get the death of Paul Stoddard, emotionally wound Carolyn so severely that her man chasing days end, watch Josette tell Barnabas to get over it, already, say goodbye to Chris and Amy, deal with Amanda Harris -- for whatever that is worth, see Angelique get married and overcome, for her longest stretch, her obsession with Barnabas... and enjoy the security that Quentin, a little less than a year after meeting him, is now a threat to no one?

In the most macroscopic sense, the Leviathans are the least important thing going on. This segment of the show is like a KonMari exercise in clutter busting. Unless it gives joy to the audiences and writers, out it goes. Many of these plot elements have gone beyond motivating the characters. Instead of driving them to a destination, they are just, like Josette with Barnabas, driving them in circles.

This has an interesting effect on the next storyline. (And it almost makes me wonder if they were intending to stay in Parallel Time had the ratings been high enough.) Parallel Time is certainly enticing because our major concerns and questions have just been answered or eliminated in Primary Time. The other edge to that sword cuts out a lot of suspense and urgency to get back from Parallel Time. Once things get to that point in that dimension, the main reason to come home is to escape from, rather than escape to.

Because the Leviathan storyline kind of just ends, and then ends again with Jeb's subsequent death, it feels a little bit like a non sequitur for the Dark Shadows universe. I really strain to try and come up with things outside of Carolyn that are permanently changed, subtracted from, or added to by the Leviathan storyline. As far as the overall story of the series goes, these little subplots were not diversions, fillers, and misdirections as the Leviathan story developed. It's the other way around. The arguably disposable Leviathan storyline now feels like the MacGuffin while the real action of resolving many of the show’s mysteries is executed with surprising efficiency.

After Parallel Time, what's left? Literally, the apocalypse. From episode 1, the program was telling us that we were welcomed at both the beginning and the end of the world. The road is finally clear to deliver it.

This episode was broadcast Dec. 24, 1969.