The Dark Shadows Daybook: June 6

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1967: Episode 281

When a seance brings Josette to the present in Vicki’s body, to whom will Barnabas propose? Roger Collins: Louis Edmonds. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Vicki, possessed by Josette, narrates her last moments on earth until Barnabas stops her. Later, Barnabas hears Vicki speak of her love of the past, and presents her with the music box.

“What is the value of suffering if it isn’t to be enjoyed?”
-- Roger Collins, guru--

Roger Collins walks away with this one, but who is Roger? I’m not sure he ever is quite as, I don’t know, Roger as he is in this one. It’s as if a real guy were raised by Quentin’s nephew in an intensely haunted house, dodging murder raps, fire-demon ex-wives, vehicular patricide, and a hard-drinking, nymphomaniacal niece who never quite “got the memo.” The writers heard about this real guy and based a character on him. And for one episode, he got to write all of his own dialogue. Every aphorism is a gem. He’s giddy over the costume party, and equally oblivious to the terror and suffering endured by the employee forced to go there. In other words, he’s a great guy and I wish the writers had featured THAT Roger Collins more. Or that Roger Moore Collins. One or the other. But like that great thespian of the English screen might have done, Louis Edmonds dominates the episode. This is despite his minimal screen time. Roger has a marvelously fresh sense of aristocratic defiance in the drawing room scene, and the rarity of seeing a Collins enjoy himself is too much to ignore. Edmonds knows he has a killer scene, designed to make him look like a million bucks. He’s a team player, Louis. Yeah, he could out act a number of his fellow performers, but he shows Louisiana good manners by not doing so. However, in this case, the thoroughbred simply needs to gallop at full speed.

Roger aside, we’re cementing the mechanics of the seance, here. I suspect the staff is well aware that 1795 finery, seances, and Vicki in peril are their next servings of bread and butter. Although that’s months away, the long-game strategy of Team Shadows allows them to get the audience so used to it all that, when it happens, it’s so natural that I’m amazed anyone time travels without a seance. The costumes feel right on the actors because they’ve been training us. Like we were all rats in Dan Curtis’ insane maze. My god, we’ve got to get back to the ship. Don’t you understand? It’s a zoo! With a cookbook! What, which episode is this? Shit, “Hocus, Pocus, and Frisbee”? You gotta be kidding me. I need a better agent.



Back to reality, the show is also straining, barely successfully, with shoehorning Vicki in as Josette. But it can’t do it too well. Because, you know, she’s not. But with Maggie in the nuthouse and Barnabas looking for reasons not to linger in Dr. Hoffman’s bedroom when she puts on that Sergio Mendes album, opens up a Whitman Sampler, and starts daubing Campari behind her ears, someone has to be Josette. I guess it could have been Dana Elcar, but I think he’s off the show by now. Vicki is awkwardly attracted to the past, and the seance features a performance that is suggestive of something else. As Moltke rhythmically pants, moans, and says “Faster!” a lot, I expect the camera to pan over to Rob Reiner’s mom telling Willie, “I have what she’s having.”

One of the many original elements to Barnabas Collins is the terror he suffers. He may take far more than he dishes out. Not only is he a deeply tragic man out of time, he’s also haunted by two ghosts. But one appears to everyone OTHER than Barnabas, and she’s the one who’d give him solace. He’s in love with the other one, but she spends all of her time possessing people and trying to out him. In 281, he’s confronted by both. What’s Josette’s game? Perhaps Josette is the force that drags Vicki through time. Perhaps it’s the only way she can warn her about Barnabas. Unless she’s not trying to warn anyone about Barnabas. If I were Josette, I’d be warning people about Angelique. And if Barnabas would just let her finish a simple possession, maybe she would!

This episode hit the airwaves on July 24, 1967.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: July 24

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1070


Can Barnabas forgive Julia’s seduction by a malevolent phantom before a sheriff from the future exacts vengeance? Professor Stokes: Thayer David. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas awakens to the sheriff trying to kill him. Surviving that, he meets with Julia and despite her intermittent control by Gerard, reassures her of his loyalty. Stokes soon perishes from spectral attacks after a seance, and Barnabas and Julia flee through a Time Staircase that takes them back to 1970, where a very loud young blonde girl demands to know who they are.

Blood, thunder, and all good things (unless you’re Professor Stokes) arrive in episode 1070, both wrapping up 1995 and using it as a launchpad for the series’ darkest and most daring storyline. Make no mistake, it’s also drenched in enough sexual subtext and, well, text, to send all of Little Rock diving under pews.

This is a period of intense episodes, where our characters are pushed to their limits, divulging nervous truths and betraying themselves and others the way they always feared was inevitable. They are our heroes and under circumstances of total, existential doom. It remains a challenging storyline to watch because it removes the one constant of the series: Collinwood will always be home. Well, no it won’t. In other news, friends and family members of viewers were being shot at in Vietnam, and the joy of the moon landings was losing altitude. Dark Shadows was as much a product of the Zeitgeist as it was a producer of it. When Barnabas declares his fealty to Julia, he means it, but there is also a halfheartedness and desperation lingering under the words that betrays their lack of steel.

Rather than waft around the edges of the plot and slowly insinuate his evil, as did his predecessors in villainy on the show, Gerard wages a full-on assault as his calling card. And after the Leviathan lethargy and a Parallel Time villainess who wasn’t necessarily there, he’s a welcomed change -- direct and unambiguous. The heroes will have enough ambiguity of their own production in facing him. Julia shows us that in a display of vulnerability that sums up Gerard’s power with exactitude. She’s betrayed Barnabas for Gerard and… I think she kind of liked it. There’s a fear that she’ll do it again, and the fear under the surface that I sense is that she will want to do it again.

And if this isn’t reeking of sexual guilt, I don’t know what is. Barnabas even greets Julia after her seizure by Gerard by remarking that Julia has “been with him.” Okay, it’s as good a verb as any, but coming from Jonathan Frid, it has a sense of Victorian reproach that combines disturbingly with Grayson Hall’s tightly strung guilt. Her sickened fear at her own potential for harming Barnabas is a disturbing admission of weakness from the doctor. Thanks to James Storm’s oily intensity, it’s easy to see why Julia is drawn in and just as easy to see why she seems to feel so dirty about it. Gerard seems to inspire his victims to not only engineer their own destructions, but to want to do so. He is unique in villains in that sense. Gerard is a master in the judo of encouraged self-harm. He is the voice that makes you so curious about jumping off that balcony that it seems almost inevitable. Humans are masters of self-destruction. All Gerard does is get out of the way. And cheer them on.

Thayer David will have more episodes as Eliot Stokes, but knowing that doesn’t remove the shock of his endlessly sudden death. 1080 also introduces the Time Staircase, a bizarre invention of the writers that is quintessentially Victorian in its vague unlikeliness. However, with trips to other time periods becoming more common than a quick stop at the Blue Whale, it’s tremendously economical. More than that, it’s fun. Leave it to Dark Shadows to make a dark, shameful, existential apocalypse a FUN, dark, shameful, existential apocalypse.

This episode hit the airwaves July 31, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: July 24

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 810

Quentin stops Charity from calling the police by proving that her father murdered her mother. She bargains for the whereabouts of Tim Shaw. As Magda tries to locate him, they learn that Quentin’s infant daughter is dying. After fighting Aristede for an ineffectual, magic medallion, Quentin and Magda summon the ghost of Julianka for help. Instead, the ghost of Jenny appears.

So much of the 1897 storyline feels like primetime show that’s wandered onto daytime tv. After all, as any bored kid in the 70’s with chicken pox will tell you, soaps are not bastions of action and adventure. In 810, after slogging through lengthy scenes of Charity Trask panicking over Quentin, fuming over her father, and pining for Tim Shaw, we are treated to one of DARK SHADOWS’ rare but hilarious fistfights. These are usually left to David Selby (or Christopher Pennock), and in this one, he dukes it out with Aristede. The deck is stacked in Quentin’s favor from the beginning. He’s fighting a man usually seen either napping, primping, or admiring his jewelry (all of which -- including napping -- Michael Stroka does with panache). Lucky for Artistede, he battles with the aid of the “Dancing Lady,” an unimposingly small piece of plywood cut into the shape of a wavy knife. Of course, he has no idea how to use it. He holds it blade-out rather than gripping the handle and keeping the blade pointing backwards... for slashing on the upswing, stabbing on the downswing, and it’s bad news for anyone who tries to seize the wrist or forearm. But I digress. Or do I? Aristede’s incompetence is, as always, his undoing. Quentin makes fast work out of him to steal his magic medallion and save the life of his daughter, ailing from the curse of a dead gypsy.

Just read that last sentence over and over again. This is the 800th episode of the show. 799 episodes earlier, we saw the first episode, and I can guarantee that no one involved imagined anything contained in this one. In the prior episode, a severely scarred, bleeding, werewolf-ravaged girl was the subject of the lingering camera. In this, blasphemous prayers to the ghost of a gypsy are the only hope for a dying baby. After that three-year descent into weirdness, Standards and Practices must either look older than the mutated Barnabas or they simply surrendered and camped out at happy hour until 1971. And in a year? The camera will be drinking in the sight of a dead Carolyn, murdered by a ghost, on screen, and morbidly displayed in a haunted playroom in a fetishistic tableau. You know, for the kids.

Not that the beginning of the show lacked bar room brawls and scrappin’, but I don’t need to list the ways in which this is different. The show continues to find ways to top itself, and the circus tent seems to have no roof. Moments later, Quentin’s murder victim/spouse will violently rock the casket-shaped cradle of her own dying daughter. To save her, of course. A demonic doomsday cult cannot be far behind.

Nor should it be. The time slot may be daytime, but the show is anything but.

This episode hit the airwaves Aug. 1, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: July 16

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 804

Edward encounters Jamison, now possessed by Petofi, and is rewarded for ripping off the lad’s now-artificial hand by being transformed into a doddering butler. Petofi, on a mission to force the family to return his hand, continues to terrorize Collinwood by transforming Charity Trask into Pansy Faye, a lowbrow music hall singer. It’s part of the Count’s plan to reveal the inner selves of all at Collinwood. Charles Delaware Tate arrives to ostensibly paint Edith’s portrait. Finding that she has died, he insists upon painting Quentin. Barnabas and Quentin discuss the latter’s loss of a child and his newfound sense of morality and purpose. After Charity’s psychic trance suggests that Quentin murdered Carl, Barnabas kidnaps the bewitched Jamison.

It’s taken three years for the mind-switch episode of GILLIGAN’S ISLAND to infiltrate daytime soaps, but it finally arrives in high style in episode 804. The result is another slice of wackiness that, if it weren’t for the specter of Quentin’s lost child and murdered brother, would deserve a laugh track. Quite purposefully. This was arguably the apex of the show’s popularity, with market saturation that went far beyond the bored and distracted hausfrau for which the soap medium was designed. The writers had a chance to write, not just write repetitive exposition. DARK SHADOWS was finally a show, and the writers were determined to get the most from the opportunity. Nothing else describes the freedom to explore the wild heights of drama, humor, imagination, and creativity that they display here. Successfully! Why didn’t the entire medium go here as the rule, not the exception? The fact that they did not is a fact that should shame DARK SHADOWS’ contemporaries and descendants. Yes, sometimes we would get the exception with a program, but it was just an exception, not the rule. But beyond content creators, we should shame audiences who were so dull and unimaginative that they spent decades to come lapping up water instead of champagne. And I make no apologies; DARK SHADOWS 804 is Dom Perignon. It’s fun, light, constantly inventive, never boring, and has just enough of a thoughtful kick that you remember the experience.

In the midst of this, it leaves puzzling questions and implications. My favorite is at the beginning; what happened to Jamison’s hand? Is it on Petofi’s stump? Is Petofi wandering around with a boy’s hand on his meaty wrist? Is that more shameful than a wooden hand? And where did Jamison get the little, wooden hand that Edward pulls off? Did Petofi leave it under his pillow?

David Selby bests a wonderful challenge 804, going from saucy cad, an easy part to play, to a normative voice of morality and reason. In other words, the downer. He does this and still keeps the character consistent. Entertainingly following that arc is a true test of an actor, and the transformation is completely successful. Frid did it as well, as did Lara Parker and even John Karlen, before. With Quentin, the shift is the least gradual and is rooted in the most inner pain. We see it happen before us, but the character never loses his edge. If anything, Quentin’s lines echo with the knowledge that caused so much of this. Rarely does a drunk remember the night that forged his hangover. Quentin vividly recalls the choices that earned all of Collinsport the hangover he now shares with them.

Also intriguing is the concept of people revealing their inner selves. Pansy Faye is easy -- from prim, religious schoolmarm to an outrageous flirt. Edward is a tad stranger. To whom does he so wish to be subservient that he transforms into a sycophantic butler? His form of indulging is to serve. In the age of 50 SHADES awareness, the implications are a little kooky. Of course, Louis Edmonds adds to this subliminal kinkiness. When he says that there should be a place at Collinwood for a man willing to do “anything,” Edmonds rolls his eyes at Selby in a manner just not quick enough for today’s widescreen televisions to sell as anything but the fractional leer that it is. It makes me wonder what Quentin and Barnabas would have become, if anything, had their inner sides been unleashed. Back to Pansy Faye, Nancy Barrett finally discovers the role that will give her so much fun and be such a perfect match that she kinda-sorta plays it in 1840, as well. We also have Barrett and the show’s most reliable earworm, “I Wanna Dance with You” paired together, and she’ll sing it only slightly more than Ginger Grant sang, “I Wanna Be Loved by You.” Which is a lot.

And it brings us back to GILLIGAN’S ISLAND, as well it should. The circle is now complete. 

This episode hit the airwaves July 24, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: July 24

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1070

Barnabas awakens in his coffin to find the sherrif ready to kill him, so he eliminates the lawmen in self-defense. Upstairs in the Old House, Julia confesses to divulging Barnabas’ secret to the sheriff. She is under the command of Gerard, but Barnabas quickly trumps the phantom with vampiric mind control, releasing the doctor. Summoning Stokes, Barnabas insists on a seance to reach Carolyn and find out more information about Collinwood’s doom. In the ceremony, Julia is possessed by Carolyn, who reveals the six clues that led to the fall of Collinwood. Gerard appears, ending the ceremony and killing Stokes. Julia vanishes, and Barnabas finds her with Gerard in the playroom. She is about to kill herself when the ghost of Carrie appears and reveals a door. Barnabas drags Julia through it and down a strange staircase. Emerging, they find themselves in an undamaged Collinwood where a twin of Carrie demands to know who they are.

Beginning with a rousing start of pure action, episode 1070 is an express train of action that doesn’t stop until the closing credits. Not only does it end 1995 with true blood and thunder, it sets the tone for the breathless Ragnarok storyline to come… itself a springboard for the 1840 flashback that concludes the series and brings the story of Barnabas to a close that is both deeply satisfying and terribly sad. Barnabas is certainly ready for the fight, and this episode puts an exclamation point on that. He has gone from an uncertain and paranoid victim at the beginning of the series to heroism of Homeric bravado and unshakable determination. His loyalty to Julia is a testament to her own heroism, and we see him in 1070 as fully engaged in the defense of his home and family. It is simple, rousing, bold, and sans pretense. Barnabas Collins is every bit the tactician we saw him as when he first appeared as the series’ villain, but one transformed by the events of the series into its uncompromising champion. The flashforward began in the ruins of Collinwood, and it just kept increasing the pressure and urgency with the deaths of beloved characters that it audaciously unfurled. It is both quintessential DARK SHADOWS and totally unlike the small and timid program that debuted just four years prior.

On this day in 1970, the USSR performs nuclear Test at Eastern Kazakh/Semipalitinsk. It was not in relation to the birth of November 1992 Playboy Playmate, Stephanie Adams, also born on this day.

That’s the official story, anyway.