The Dark Shadows Daybook: June 19

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 525

When Roger lets slip that Vicki once was tried as a witch in 1795, Nicholas hatches a scheme to rescue Angelique with the help of black magic and hypnosis. Nocholas: Humbert Allen Astredo. (Repeat. 30 min.)

Jeff awakens from a dream where Nathan Forbes berates him as Peter Bradford. Upon waking, “Jeff” realizes that this evidence ensures that he is Peter Bradford. At Collinwood, Nicholas connects Vicki to the painting and induces Roger to explain her convictions about 1795. He realizes that she knows the location of Trask’s execution tree, and uses her knowledge to locate it. There, Nicholas performs a ritual to summon Angelique. The sound of screaming indicates he may be a success.

Dark Shadowsis a paranoid’s delight, and is sure to leave you with reflexes and impulses that will last a lifetime -- an eternal gift to make a neurotic out of anyone. Vicki shows amazing fortitude and professionalism. Here she is, at her job, and living there -- living at her home and work -- is someone who is clearly the witch responsible for her murder. But, you know, the witch says she isn’t and is married to your boss, so you have to play along. Then, a sleazy guy with a mustache shows up, kisses hands, and claims to be her brother, which may be worse. One night, you come downstairs for your nightly brandy & bullion and catch him making weird hand gestures at a painting that looks like said witch… then he asks to “borrow it” for reasons that seem uncomfortably Kentuckian. Who borrows a painting of someone who looks like their sister? Nicholas Blair, that’s who.

This kind of stuff goes on there all the time. People at Collinwood, in the name of lack of evidence, lack of witnesses, or just a desire to be darn nice, end up sleeping three doors down from all manner of apocalyptic ne’er-do-wells, and they just lump it. Can you trust anyone?  I’m always wary when life throws me a guest star. The Collinses. Spend enough hours watching a show about them, and you’re in serious danger of taking that home and to work. Word to the wise.

525 is a joyous little core sample of the good stuff on the program. It’s Jonathan Frid’s day off, and the writers are determined to keep the suspense and ratings high. A wacky dream sequence with Nathan Forbes laughing maniacally is a reliable way to start any episode, corporate event, or bris. Joe must be either really tired of being associated with this weirdo or strangely proud, because it’s happening with a constancy that must make him think that Forbes is doing two sets nightly at the Blue Whale. All’s well, however, because it knocks a big chunk of the Jeff Clark identity crisis out of consideration. Quickly, we move to Nicholas sleazing around Vicki and drinking it up with Roger, finally comforting him with the company of a fellow fop. You kind of wish Burke Devlin would show up and try to intimidate Roger NOW… now that his buddy Nicholas is there. They’d just laugh at his taste in shoes until Burke skulked away to pen an angry letter to Brewster’s department store in furious shame.

Roger, on cue, spills the beans about Vicki’s conviction that she’d traveled to 1795 and was harassed by a witch hunter named Trask, tipping Nicholas off to the location of the Sacrificial Tree. It’s easy to be a villain on Dark Shadows. It’s not a job so much as a vacation. Nicholas just sits around the drawing room and drinks and leers at babes until people deliver exactly the exposition he needs, on cue. What’s left? Hypnotize Vicki, go to the tree, and call back Angelique. All in a day’s work.

Let’s praise Humbert Allen Astredo for carrying the show so effortlessly that it feels like we’re watching a talented writer unselfconsciously improvise rather than some guy reciting lines and working through blocking. It’s to the show’s credit that they didn’t simply hand over the storyline to him in perpetuity. How do you not screw up a scene? Include Nicholas Blair. It would be enough to make the rest of the ensemble paranoid. And, I guess, they share the wealth with us.

This episode hit the airwaves July 1, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: June 10

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 779

When Quentin learns Barnabas’ secret, the results could be deadly… but for which Collins? Carl Collins: John Karlen. (Repeat. 30 min.)

Barnabas mourns for Rachel, and thus, another Josette, when Angelique warns him to turn away from his mission in 1897. Quentin, after hearing of the powers of Petofi’s hand, learns of Barnabas’ secret hibernation chamber from Carl, and then promptly locks the snitch within. Magda begs Angelique for help, but Angelique says that Barnabas must learn for himself. What lesson? I suppose that he can’t rely on her to consistently mess up his life. She does this by refusing help that could end it. Carl escapes before the vampire rises, vowing that tonight would be the last night of Barnabas Collins.

In a long, long list of Episodes with Everything, 779 barges in like Ethel Merman as the Widow Loman and demands that attention be paid. As a viewer, I am the most eager of Borgnines.

It begins with triumph, as Barnabas reassures Magda that the Dirk Danger is gone and then visits the cemetery to reflect. Because he’s that kind of hero. A Josette is once again dead, and Barnabas’ trip to Rachel Drummond’s grave to take cosmic responsibility for her death now has the regularity of Otis checking himself into the Mayberry jail. Angelique visits, and what follows is another beautifully tense and romantic two-hander between Jonathan Frid and Lara Parker. He insists he stay in 1897, and she reassures him that the worst is yet to come. She shows a strange devotion. He not only represses the urge to set her on fire again, maybe having gotten it out of his system on his last trip to 1795, but he is deaf to her warning. What’s tantalizing, especially having seen the series before, is contemplating what she has seen. What does she know? Is this the Final Angelique in a timeline where Barnabas never (so far) went to 1840? It raises more questions that it answers. The easiest resolution is that she’s just lying. But why would she do that? Maybe she knows that reincarnation is on its fastest cycle and that Kitty Hampshire is already on a steamer and headed for town. Because it’s an eventual ticket back to 1795, again, more inevitable heartbreak, and a breakfast with Oberon and Haza.

More than likely, she’s speaking of the coming of Count Petofi. With the shoutout to the older part of the series out of the way, thanks to Laura and Dirk’s deaths, the show is wasting no time moving along to the main event, which is the Count. Count Petofi and the Leviathans are unique threats on the series, making the Collinses more bystanders than related targets, and this feels like an initiative for the show’s future storytelling that never came through. Nevertheless, Magda’s mention of Petofi’s hand and King Johnny Romano instantly expands the world of Dark Shadows beyond Collinsport, and still it’s woefully inadequate to prepare us for what is to come. And that would ruin the surprise. But honestly, little can adequately brace (or spoil) audiences for the rollicking banquet Dan Curtis would grill up over the the next dozen-plus weeks of 1969, which had to be the greatest three months to be a kid in the history of ditching summer reading for something actually interesting. Take that, Herman Hesse, and the Demian you rode in on. Sam Hall and Gordon Russell -- you know, writers with a gift for interesting storytelling -- led the charge with the Count and the King (and probably Basie and Presley, too) to make the Dark Shadows universe feel global while keeping it all in the familiar climes of Collinsport. In a metaphysical sense, the exchange that Magda and Angelique have, where the witch belittles the soothsayer’s amateur abilities, likewise solidifies the show as one where soapy cattiness over who-flirted-with-whom has been replaced by one-upping over the occult.

Finally, Quentin chooses between brothers. And he chooses properly. Sometimes, you go with the vampire for the block and the win. True or false, Paul… there is a cutting irony to Carl nearly dying by what can be read as the ultimate practical joke, borrowing his own gun to lock him in the vampire’s bedroom that he was tattling about moments before?

It all depends on where Barnabas bites first, Peter.

That notwithstanding, it’s a defining moment for Quentin and, considering where Barnabas was two years before, the series as well. 

This episode hit the airwaves June 19, 1969.