The Dark Shadows Daybook: January 18

 By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1971: Episode 1197

Guess what happens when the characters do all of the right things and suddenly have the prospect of happiness welcoming them with open arms? Miranda Duval: Lara Parker. (Repeat; Our Entire Lives)

Angelique interrupts the execution of Quentin and Desmond with the severed head of Judah Zachery. When its flesh dissolves with the death of Ivan Miller, even jaywalking tickets are forgiven by the judge. Unable to live with this outbreak of rampant justice and happiness, Lamar Trask shoots Angelique just before she can hear that Barnabas loves her. The End.

“Attention must be paid.”

So said the Widow Loman at the grave for someone prized only for his insignificance.

I have come back to these episodes more times than any other. This year, it feels irresponsible to devote more words to them. And yet, it feels irresponsible not to. A show the size of Dark Shadows is more than a television program; it is a companion. If you spent three hours on a hobby with a friend, twice a month, for six years, you’d develop an understandable bond. That stretch of time is how long it would take you to watch this story. It’s a feast of a tale. Many times, in ways good and bad, it feels endless. The story accrues around the edges, in no more rush than the real lives it punctuates. 1967 is always fresh. 1968 is always a rich and intriguing core sample. 1969 is always better than we deserve. 1970 always pales by comparison, trawling for us to apologize for it. 1971 is always too short… a reminder of what it’s like to still love something when everyone else stops. 

I remain unshaken in my assertion that Dark Shadows is the most realistic show on TV. It just kind of putters around, threatening to do something significant and then just kind of… usually not. Most of the news is bad. We get used to it.

And then someone is shot and killed.

I’m not being glib when I say that. No, not every tragedy is a sudden and fatal  gunshot wound. But I guarantee you that there is someone out there reading this who has lost someone precious, precisely that way. And that’s how this episode ends. 

The most famous quote about television is that “the medium is the message.“ In other words, the means by which we consume art is as significant a statement as the art being exhibited. Dark Shadows is many things that it had no intention of being. (Newsflash: this goes for all art.) 

Like all art, however, it is a teacher above all else. Primarily, it teaches us to look at ourselves from a completely different point of view. But if you watch the entire show, the very storytelling, itself, is the most significant message. Maybe more than one.

The most immediate one is, in the words of Folcroft Sanitarium director, Dr. Harold W. Smith, “Thou shall not get away with it.”

The assassination of Angelique is a convenience. The actors want to move to a fresh storyline. The writers are probably hoping that new characters will give them new ideas. And the ritual of storytelling inevitably veers toward drab moralizing. In this modern world dominated by an antediluvian ethos, we certainly hear a lot about forgiveness. And at the same time, we also live in a culture that absolutely revels in just desserts. 

We love forgiveness because it makes Oprah happy. It’s what we are supposed to do because somehow it will liberate us. It will certainly liberate the people in our lives who are sick of hearing us complain about something. It’s vaguely godlike, so I guess it’s got that going for it. 

But is it just me, or does a lot of the forgiveness we hear about seem to have its fingers crossed behind its back?

Why? We just can’t stand the idea of someone getting away with it. Any of it. And because we can’t make up our minds which of these things — beatific forgiveness or righteous punishment — we will fetishize more, we look to fiction to give us both at the same time. And who has to pay the tab? 

Angelique. 

So, of course Trask has to plug her. The fatheaded, arbitrary rules of the ritual that is fiction decree it to be so. There are plenty of Dark Shadows fans who love to sweep in at this point with a list of all of the horrible things Angelique has done, and I guess this… helps? But I hope you have a list of all of the rotten things Barnabas has done, because he’s just as deserving of the naughty step. And he pays, also. He pays an ongoing price too terrible for the show to make us watch.

And culture smiles on us for having it both ways. We applaud their 11th hour moral reversals safe in the “irony“ that they are being punished anyway.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it. The one thing these characters learn is that the past belongs in the past. All we have is the present. All we have are the decisions we are making right now. I spend 90% of my day apologizing for what I say the other 10%, and when someone is really going to town on me, I gently remind them that it won’t build a time staircase to allow me to make different decisions.

The saddest part about episode 1197 is that the present is the one thing these characters are denied. That’s nothing to feel good about. That’s nothing to applaud. And perhaps, it’s nothing to applaud in our art. Perhaps that’s the message we should actually be taking away.

When significance erupts in the mundanity of our everyday lives, it is shockingly sudden. There’s no taking it back. And then, the show ends. There’s no montage. There’s not even a funeral at which Barnabas can insist that attention must be paid.

If you’re going to forgive, mean it. Move on. Do it in the name of the future that Angelique and Barnabas never got. 

This episode hit the airwaves on January 26, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 18

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1197

Angelique, Barnabas, and Quentin unite to face their ultimate challenge. Barnabas: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat. 30 min.)

Angelique arrives at Quentin’s execution with the head of Judah Zachery, identifying it as coming from the home of Charles Dawson. Desmond uses the distraction to shoot Gerard, and he is finally released from Judah’s hold. When the head of the warlock dissolves into a skull, Angelique’s story has new resonance. She is held for questioning and Barnabas returns home to see his own son, Bramwell, attempt to win Catherine back in the Parallel Time room. Barnabas determines to express his feelings to Angelique. When he approaches her to do so, Trask bursts in and fires a pistol at her.

1197 is rife with some of the most profound moments in the series… some that are really there… some that play out in my mind’s eye based on implications and wishes. In classic, Dark Shadows tradition, it’s also bang-up entertainment. And it’s the start of goodbye.

I can’t ignore that when I watch it. The idea makes my chest tighten, and the execution has a strange, terminal excitement that exists in no other installment. It’s a resolution without a price -- until the very, very final seconds. Before that? It begins with a sequence so satisfying that I want to take up smoking just so I can have a cigarette afterwards. Appropriate salute for a show of the era.

It’s still hard to imagine that this is the penultimate installment in the whole thing. But it is. Keep that in mind. 1841PT is underrated, and it’s also an epilogue, existing outside the continuity we care about. Most viewers will be lost without thinking abstractly… or approaching it first, as the only Dark Shadows they know. But this… episode 1197? This is the real beginning of the end. It’s the series saying goodbye. It’s how nearly 1225 episodes of continuity depart without knowing it. And what was it like for viewers at the time? For the more aware, every day was alpha and omega. With no seasons and no full bundles dropping on Netflix at once, each  episode was the next, and the last, and a cliffhanger for more, and the final chance any of this might ever, ever, in any form, be seen.

Dark Shadows is a ruthless-yet-delicate show. For one with such a male-heavy cast, it is often effete. But not here. Not now. There are too many feelings at stake for the show to be obsessed with preserving them under glass. It may be a saga that begins with Louis Edmonds passive-aggressively sneering at Joan Bennett, but it ends with David Selby swaggering off the blindfold on an execution block. He’s got a backbone like the Rock of Gibraltar, but a Victorian scientist to the end, it’s never at the expense of his precision and dignity. Ending the show on a flashback gives us a sense progress and a point of departure against which we can measure the very first episode. On no other show can we reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we’ve strayed, all at once. 

The bravado of Desmond and Quentin -- and even poor, sad Gerard -- make wonderful counterpoints for Barnabas. Especially true as the great man commits to the most dangerous truth and choice of his life: true love. The pivot for him is the Parallel Time sequence. At this point, the PT sequences have become the Dark Shadows equivalents of lame musical guests on SNL -- time to hit the head, check text messages, and light some hookah coals.  But in 1197, the interlude is a beautiful metaphor, screened for Barnabas by a godlike Dan Curtis to spur him to take the chance he must. Seeing your own son and twin from the present and future at once is an Escheresque mirror without equal. Then to watch him struggle to overcome the loss of the duplicate of the love you’ve denied yourself because, for one reason, she’s not adequately respectable? A woman denying you for someone even more respectable than yourself?

That’ll get to a guy. For Barnabas, it’s a Marley’s Ghost moment. He’s completely transformed for the first of several times in just a few minutes. My favorite moment of potential energy is just after he’s seen off his shadow brother -- Quentin -- into his new and free future. Alone in the foyer, having seen someone leave him and Collinwood smiling for once, Barnabas turns toward the drawing room, where he knows Angelique awaits him. And for just a fraction of a second, you know he catches a glimpse of his portrait. Is he imagining his first moments in the Collinwood of 1967? How can it not? The entire journey allusively flashes by in an instant. It’s a moment of everything, abridged. Like the end of Cyrano, it has a genuinely terrible ending, and I mean that in the best way. Lara Parker gives it a bit of a melodramatic twist to her depiction of having been shot. Anything realistic would have been too much to watch. We need the cushion of art in a moment so incredibly cruel.

In episode 411, Barnabas discovers the nature of Angelique’s curse. He responds by executing her, and if that chain of moments forms the nadir of their relationship, 1197 is the summit. If we look at the 1795 flashback as the start of his story, then 411 and 1197 bookend his journey. In both episodes, only Barnabas survives.

Is it a ritual? To what end? Why does death await Angelique at either end of this spectrum? Miserable survival for Barnabas. Of what possible benefit is this? Especially twice. None. Because he’s not supposed to benefit. We are. The audience. We benefit by watching where his choices lead him. In both instances, Barnabas’ central sin is dishonesty with himself. It’s easy to understand why he’s initially blind to his love in the year 1840; he’s seen Angelique torment the inhabitants of three separate centuries. It’s harder in 1795 because his denial is more complicated. Maybe it’s a matter of social class and family pressure. Maybe it’s timing. He certainly loves Josette, and she provides none of the challenges posed by Angelique.

Love, especially in fiction, and even more especially in pop fiction, is so tempting to quantify. A bit like a character stat in a video game -- an achievement you unlock by revealing Judah. It’s far more complicated, and its unclarity leads to the inevitable fan cry of the true believer, “How could he love Angelique more than Josette… especially after all that she did?!”

I don’t think it’s an issue of more nor less. For one thing, Josette isn’t here. Hasn’t been, by Barnabas’ internal clock, for about 175 years or so. I mean, not really. Her ghost has given him the permission to move on. And it’s clear that Roxanne seemed like a good idea at the time, but, you know, um, yeah. Swipe left. That leaves Angelique by default, but how can he look past her misdeeds?

The only salient fact is that he does. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. Baffling. Yet, it’s strangely, horribly, wonderfully, inexplicably, infuriatingly, and unfairly right.

That’s what makes it love.

This episode was broadcast Jan. 26, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 7

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 936

Carolyn goes from funeral to fun when her eulogy attracts the most eligible bachelor in Collinsport! Jeb: Christopher Pennock. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Paul is dead, Jeb is born, Roger is antsy, and Barnabas isn’t feeling too well, himself.

Why Barnabas? Why did they choose him? I’m sure there’s a more literal explanation, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that he was on TV, and that’s free publicity. Snake cults don’t run on love and good intentions. I assume Barnabas’ propensity for immortality is what led him to manage the Leviathan project. Oberon and Haza probably mentioned something else from his resume at the interview. They should have negotiated with Mr. Best and had Quentin transferred from his job cutting lemons at the High Hat Lounge. Neither Barnabas nor Quentin show a lot of management potential, but Quentin routinely caters Jeb’s lunch with his fist. They could have actually held Amanda Harris hostage, threatening a further, extreme coiffure. Josette was only good until a seance would come along. Given that it’s Collinsport, a seance is pretty much guaranteed with greater promptness and regularity than the bus to Logansport. But Barnabas is their guy. 

Right now, it’s like he got drunk and joined the Shriners without realizing what a demand it would place on his schedule. Barnabas comes off like a mid-century Catholic school administrator who’s been to a post-Vatican II educational convention and has to tell the brothers to stick to time-outs instead of running them down with Buicks as proscribed in the Book of Leviathan. David, even hypnotized David, is in need of discipline, but Jeb’s going a tad far. Bill Malloy would probably just have keel-hauled the boy, but ocean travel mellows a man. In all seriousness, if Jeb’s attack on David does anything, it allows Barnabas to display his sense of decency at the outrageous attack. Now that Jeb is aboard, Barnabas no longer has to sub as villain, and he makes up for it in this episode, putting out fires where he can. 

Neither of the Collinwood 1701-D staff (David and Carolyn) have an easy time of it in this one. Carolyn now permanently thinks of her better qualities as Stoddardian, and I can’t blame her. David’s no doubt looking into restaurant management opportunities in Panama, although I imagine pedestrian dangers are even more severe than in Collinsport. Roger suspects foul play, but #1 Dad may be too late on that one. Overall, it’s a bad day for parenting at Collinwood when Roger is the responsible one. Liz is too busy pouring herself a congratulatory Campari and Yoo Hoo for attending a funeral that’s not hers. Parenting has always been problematically demonstrated at Collinwood, and the rest of the series evidences that as Liz and Roger become increasingly distant. Excluding a few warm moments coming up, this sequence is a turning point in the kids’ erosion of trust in their parents. Of course, the story is shifting violently toward Barnabas’ journey rather than domestic travails so there’s not as much time, but Carolyn and David will pay various prices when Gerard attacks. The show can only pretend that this is a loving home for so long. The absent parent is always the preferred one for the kids, even when they’re trying to burn the kids alive. Dark Shadows has always been about sins of the past. With Laura gone, Roger steps up as much as he can, but that’s limited by fact that life at Collinwood got complicated when his ex-wife flamed on, and grew stranger from there.

I know this episode is “about” Carolyn, Jeb, and Carolyn & Jeb -- and about Barnabas’ futile attempts to unsmoke the cigarette of snakecultery. But I’m wondering more and more, “Where is Roger Collins?” In this arc, he’s taken into Quentin’s confidence and fights “on the team” more than he ever has. But even as he ostensibly participates, it’s not to an impressive degree. But what’s he going to do, issue a catty memo? Again, perspective splits between production and story. As far as production is concerned, Roger’s days as a villain are played out. He has to stay because of his plot function regarding David, a successful mini-heartthrob and story catalyst. Roger and Liz also make good civilians to remain vaguely threatened, vaguely unaware, and vaguely available to hear and deliver exposition. But with only +/- 6 parts to spread around per episode, the increasingly supernatural ensemble edges out the mortals.

But within the Dark Shadows universe, itself, what explains it? After you’ve seen your grandfather’s brother come back from the grave and try to kill Burke Devlin’s your son, you don’t have to touch that hot stove twice. Roger’s participation dwindles drastically after early 1969 when Barnabas leaves for the 1890’s. Gone on business for the beginning of the Leviathan arc. Gone again for Gerard’s haunting. In fact, Roger will not be seen after episode 979. For the character, that’s only six more episodes and the show still has nearly a year and a quarter left. A key reason that Dark Shadows feels less and less like Dark Shadows right now and onward? Well, Kitten, you’re looking at it. Liz doesn’t fare much better. She has fewer than 30 episodes left, although she is the first character we see at Main Time Collinwood and will be one of the very last. If the show (as we know it, on 1198) feels like Dark Shadows in its final moments, that’s it.

Because we’re influenced about what makes up the series by when we enter it, for most of us, this makes the latter section of the show feel alien to us. This is purely subjective, however. Start your viewing later, and Roger and Liz are strangers on a series belonging to Barnabas and Julia. Those heads of the family are absent for nearly 20% of it -- nearly 25% if we discount the pre-Barnabas segment.

This transition is all the more dramatic as Christopher Pennock is finding the character. He’s discussed being uncertain about his sure footing as he began as Jeb, but the character is written with the same ALL CAPS WITH WHICH HE ACTS HIM. Where is subtlety in bringing to life a primordial snake god man-messiah? You tell me. Storm and Selby, the other high-water marks on the hottie hunk scale, had the benefit of not speaking for their first months. So, not only did they get comfortable with the ensemble, but their speaking roles were entirely new characters. Few have had to so so much so quickly, and Pennock acquits himself with high style.

This episode was broadcast Jan. 26, 1970.