The Dark Shadows Daybook: Jan. 19

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1198

By PATRICK McCRAY

As Barnabas embarks on a determined mission of cross-dimensional bloodlust, is he the victim of a larger trap? Barnabas Collins: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Shot by Lamar Trask,  Angelique dies in the arms of Barnabas, not hearing him proclaim his love. Savage in his response, Barnabas chases and stabs Trask, who finds himself trapped and dying in parallel time. Emotionally decimated, Barnabas returns to the present with Julia and Stokes to find that they have successfully altered the timeline for the better. Meanwhile, Letitia Faye and Desmond catch a brief glimpse of parallel time where Julia Collins discovers Trask’s body.

1198 is a dangerous episode. As the resolution of the primary series, it trolls fans as much as it fulfills their desires. There is no eleventh hour return of Kathryn Leigh Scott. There is no tearful reunion with Josette. Instead, Barnabas discovers happiness in the arms of a one-time enemy. As the program does what it can with what it has, it shocks more than satisfies. Seen now, it also divides viewers like few other decisions made over its run. 

Do we see Barnabas discovering his authentic love for Angelique or merely convincing himself that the only game in town is what he always wanted? Is the series putting viewers in the same position? Are fans of the Barnabas/Angelique romance responding to something illuminating in the text or are they just making the best with what they have, convincing themselves it’s what they wanted all along? Are you on Team Angelique or Team Josette? It might depend on when you saw it. 

For millions of viewers over several decades, the climactic twist of Barnabas’ true, romantic direction is something they saw only once… or never saw at all. Without VHS, DVD or frequently cycled reruns, his “real” love is more of a rumor or fever dream than a fondly remembered highlight of the series. Until the mid-00’s, there was no way to review the moment, nor scour any of the series for clues. Good thing, because there were no clues. The writers were making it up as they went along, and if they had known that Barnabas’ true love was Angelique, they would have telegraphed it years before. Of course, the show might have benefited from this. But the fact that they can’t even hint at his unrealized love makes it more of a surprise. 

And it makes the whole argument irrelevant. In 2021, Dark Shadows exists as a complete entity. The details of its authorship are just those: details. This is the reality of Barnabas Collins because it’s now part of a finished work. 

The answer to the Josette vs Angelique question may not be so clear-cut as just choosing one over the other. I used to think of Angelique as the hero because of her 11th hour transformation and the tremendous sacrifices she makes along the way. But upon this viewing, I was struck by a possibility I had never considered before. As a director, something I always tell actors is that any character, at any point, may not be telling the truth. Even if the author makes it appear as if they are, they might not be. So, in terms of her grand transformation, what if Angelique is making it all up?  Or some of it up. After all, she has always been perfectly happy to use her powers to influence Barnabas’ decisions. How he came about loving her was always less relevant than the fact that he simply did. No love spells (on him). She simply mastered the fine art of influence. First off… threats to family. That’s in 1795. Then, threats to him. That’s in 1968. In 1897, maybe jealousy over Quentin? 

But at the end, none of those things worked, did they? Not like making yourself the hero against your past villainy, wiping out a larger threat, and then creating loyalty by curing your own curse. Has Barnabas been manipulated by a vast disinformation campaign? I say this because his decision is ultimately swayed by, yes, the involvement of witchcraft, years after her initial efforts. If it’s ineffective to use your occult powers, simply impress everyone by removing them. One way or the other, you’re still exploiting the occult. One way or the other, you would never be in the position you are if it were not for witchcraft. Clever. And strangely Zen. 

Take the implications to episodes that never happened. We have no evidence that she’s really given up her powers. It’s not like there’s a meter we can check. If she can suddenly cure a near-incurable curse, she can make her abilities appear and vanish at will. Faking her own death is the longest-but-strongest game possible. Had the 1971 Primary Time storyline happened, it might very well have seen Barnabas exploring the timeline in pursuit of Angelique. At last, she would be desired and sought on a level to rival Josette. 

At last he would have her right where she wants him. 

It’s just an interpretation. Just a what-if, True Believers. Yes, a bleakly cynical one of multilevel manipulation, but you have met Angelique, right? 

This episode was broadcast Jan. 27, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 11

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1192

Samantha learns the terrifying secret of Joanna, but will it be enough to save her from becoming the next ghost of Widow’s Hill? Joanna Mills: Lee Beery. (Repeat. 30 min.)

After a startling imprisonment in Parallel Time, Quentin and Daphne escape to encounter Joanna Mills. After Samantha’s bullets pass through her, Joanna lures her onto Widow’s Hill, where she reveals herself to be a grotesque ghost, bent on revenge.

1840 continues to be the best-kept secret on Dark Shadows. It’s largely known for the surprising denouement of the Barnabas/Angelique storyline, and while the other arcs don’t have that kind of canonical weight, they can be tight, smart, and intriguing. Watching the Joanna Mills mystery conclude, we’re reminded of that. Like the beginning of the Leviathan story, 1840 seems to present both a main arc and an anthology running concurrently. In 1198, it wraps up a section of that anthology. The segment might be a challenge to get into (because of the ensemble of unfamiliar short-timers) but it pays off when you do. It’s one of those brief dimensions of the show like “The Stopping Off Place” story that ran a year before -- easily forgotten despite deserving of a mental dog-ear. I’m bending the page corner now.

If the episode has any message, it’s “don’t tick off a ghost.” Up until Joanna Mills, ghosts on the show reveled in their supernatural powers, and while they were incredibly powerful, there’s always the sense that they are limited to abilities like telekinesis and mind control. Joanna, though, successfully pulls off a hoax on a level that redefines what a ghost on the program can be. If Josette had possessed these powers, Angelique would have been the next unsuccessful cliff diver on Widow’s Hill. She’s intensely corporeal, fooling scads of people into believing she’s real and saving her big reveal for maximum impact. Actress Lee Beery brings a sense of placid control to the part, making her the perfect foil for the tightly wound, humorless Samantha as delivered by Virginia Vestoff. Her postmortem reveal is genuinely horrifying in a luridly Basil Gogos way, and in my book, that’s Louvreable. It’s another moment for parents of the age to have every reason to keep kids from watching, and even more reason for kids to go as Jim Phelps as possible to outwit household Standards & Practices. This kind of entertainment merits Ace bandage slings tied to bedframes, probably-lethally suspending kids upside down from the second floor, hovering like Spider-Man outside the family room where the forbidden images would spill forth. 

1192 even gives a goose to Parallel Time when Quentin and Daphne are briefly trapped there, sucked back to Main Time only because two Kate Jacksons in one place created a Crisis of Infinite Daphnes. For a moment, the story has intrigue and suspense beyond the typical Parallel Time voyeurism. We even learn who discovered Parallel Time -- Ernest Weisman of the University of Vienna. It’s a great nugget of trivia from Quentin I, worthy of Eliot Stokes, and it ties the seemingly random events at Collinwood to a larger mythology that longs to be explored by future writers. It pays to keep watching -- back to the beginning of the show -- after wrapping up the “present” of 1841 PT. Taking the larger context of the Dark Shadows mythos with us, what we lose in mystery and wonder, we gain in intrigue and detail.

As an aside, Joanna Mills was of course, the reason that the song, “Joanna,” was written. It’s one of the lovelier, if “Airport loungey” pieces of music from the show, but because it appears so late in the series and in the less-popular of the MGM films, the piece remains obscure. Even more obscure are the lyrics, which I wrote last spring.

JOANNA
Music by Robert Cobert. Lyrics by Patrick McCray.

I’m wearing pants...
They’re made of Lycra.
And they cling tight to me in oh so many ways.
They’re just pants, you see,
But pants for me,
To wear for all my days.

When I think of all the leather lederhosen
That People wear in far off Germany…
When I think of how they chafe, I guess I am supposing,
They’re proud we see that they are firm of knee.

I’m wearing pants...
They’re made of Lycra
And they cling tight to me in oh so many ways.
They’re just pants, you see,
But pants for me,
To wear for all my days.
To wear for all my days. 

This episode was broadcast Jan. 19, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 19

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1198

Lamar Trask shoots Angelique before she can hear Barnabas pledge his love. Barnabas is stabbed in the attempt to apprehend Trask, and stabs him in return. Trask stumbles into Parallel Time, never to return. Meanwhile, Desmond and Letitia are reunited, and he oversees the destruction of the staircase after Barnabas, Julia, and Stokes return to a restored 1971. Barnabas is shaken, but proceeds with his friends and Liz to see Roger speak at the opening of the other Collinsport Historical Society.

I have watched this episode far more than is healthy. It is theatre as opposed to cinema. It is about consequences more than action, although Barnabas does what he can. As Barnabas chases Trask, and they have exactly the awkward and inept fight that you would expect from two guys who have no idea how to spar, the mortician finds himself in the Parallel Time room in an awful irony. (I kind of wonder how the show would have fared had he survived and tried to blend in.) When that happens, I wonder how Barnabas feels about Collinwood. He says that, without knowing it, he committed the perfect crime, but did he or did the house? It is the closest we come to the house being a character and exacting vengeance for one of its own. We rarely think of Collinwood as a character, but Collinwood shows more free will than any of its inhabitants. Do the Collinses find time portals, doors to mirror dimensions, and the crypts of ghosts on their own or does the house reveal them when its residents need them? With this episode, I think we can argue the latter, and that understanding reorders everything we’ve seen. Of course, it pingpongs Vicki and Peter back and forth to 1795 and 1796 from 1968. Of course, it unfurls Quentin and Gerard to David and the family even though they’ve snooped endlessly through the house and never found them before. What, don’t you think that Roger and Elizabeth’s dad ever wondered why his uncle’s room vanished? And what about the way it toys with the playroom’s blueprint baffling presence? What about the way in which it turns a Parallel Time room into a Vertical Time room to take Barnabas and Julia into a future it wants averted? Or how it gets Julia out of harm’s way on a staircase through the centuries when she needs it most?

It’s both completely random and completely intentional, and in this one moment, it has more than an investment in the survival of its denizens. It cares for the very recently cleansed conscience of its favorite and estranged son, Barnabas Collins — for whom the house was built, and who never lived there except to save it. Turnabout, etc, etc.

It’s easy to talk about the tearjerking nature of the episode and of Jonathan Frid’s masterful performance as he, Lara Parker, Joan Bennett, Thayer David, and Grayson Hall say goodbye to their most beloved characters forever. Just as touching is when we see the future of the Collins family, not just in Tad but in Desmond, and by Desmond, I mean Willie. Because they’re all the same characters, metaphorically, just in the drag of different centuries. To see Willie and Barnabas as brothers, and to see Willie finally clean himself up and win “Carolyn,” with the approval of “Liz” is a beautiful balance to the loss that Barnabas is suffering.

The most strangely poignant moment is only seen as such when you ask why it’s happening at all. When the subject of Angelique’s funeral comes up, Stokes insists they leave before it takes place. His lame excuse is that the time portal may not wait if they stay any longer.

How emotionally tone deaf. How sad for Barnabas.

My theory? He knows that if Barnabas sees that ritual, he’ll never come back… either to 1971 or be the man he was the moment before Trask fired the weapon. And Barnabas needs to return if he is to ever traverse the time stream and rescue Angelique.

It’s the last and most important DARK SHADOWS story, and the one that has never been told.