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Showing posts with label March 12. Show all posts
Showing posts with label March 12. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 12



By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 979

When Jeb takes on Nicholas Blair, does he count on also fighting the demon’s ghost? Jeb: Christopher Pennock. (Repeat. 30 min.)

Jeb stuns Nicholas by turning the shadow curse on him, sending him back to Hell. However, Nicholas’ ghost sends Sky on a mission to kill Jeb, later manipulating dreams and voices in the minds of Carolyn and her new husband. In a dream sequence, Sky and Jeb are seen plunging in combat over the edge of Widow’s Hill.

You can smell the end on Jeb more powerfully than Bruno’s cologne. I always find these end moments to be especially exciting. Seeing something end on Dark Shadows makes me feel like I’m breaking the rules. The experience of the show is about enjoying journeys, not destinations, yes, yes. We know. Yet, a journey is defined by its destination, even if you’re not supposed to care about getting there. Well, I, for one, do. I watch to see how these characters triumph. And you can’t blink. Paying attention consistently is the key, and that’s in a medium designed to not be consistently attended. Like everything in life, the struggles last far beyond their expiration dates. The victories pass in an instant. Being able to say, “I was there at Jason and Liz’s almost-wedding” is a badge of extreme pride. It meant that you hung in there and made the show more than a convenience. It’s worth that.

Keep in mind, it’s a just a show. This is America. You can watch it however you want. And consider the dedication it took to produce it. The cramming of lines. The grueling hours. These things make the show an achievement beyond what we see between opening narration and closing sting. I think this resonates with the show’s most ardent audience. These messengers don’t tell of the Battle of Marathon after running from it. The story is the run. That’s what makes these endpoints so outstandingly satisfying.

This one, especially so, because Jeb is taking such action within it. Often, endings happen to characters. In fact, such an ending happens to Nicholas Blair in this very episode, and we feel a strange sympathy for Sky as he realizes the bittersweet mission of being the last Leviathan. He’s determined to help and knows full well he’s not up to the job. Sky, we’ve been there.

I think that by giving Jeb a victory early on in the episode, it masterfully misdirects our expectations. Next stop, his escape. Yes, yes? Um, no. But they even do that a bit circuitously, having it live in a prophetic dream. It’s a cliffhanger, literally, but not, and it’s also a strange tribute to Republic serials. They’d often change crucial facts between cliffhangers and resolutions. Then, they hoped you wouldn’t catch them trying to get away with anything. Here, the Dark Shadows writers hope you do.

And I wonder what would have happened had Jeb been a success.

Barnabas established the possibility that a villain, with enough popularity, could be kept around, perhaps becoming the story. Now, when I see a villain offed, I assume this didn’t happen, and I ask myself what they lacked. Was Jeb too hip? God knows, I’m not, and when I visit Collinsport, I feel safe because Collinsport is where hipsters go to have bad things happen to them. They don’t even
have a band in Collinsport. They have a jukebox with the half-dozen songs that Bob hates the least. Buzz? Jeb? Bruno? Your table is ready. Yes, the hairdos and medallions lure in certain viewers, but then Dark Shadows, itself, keeps them.

Why wasn’t Jeb a success? Turn the question around. What would they have done with him had he stayed around? Unless they explored his eleventh-hour relationship with the 1790’s and Peter Bradford, he had no real past. No intrinsic relationship with the Collinses except by marriage. Does he still have powers? I don’t know. But we can’t see him when he Hulks out, so what’s the point. Barnabas and Quentin take on a strange, if hirsute, sexiness when they monster it up. So, he’s an edgy human. Well, the show has moved past the point of that. It’s a new world of gods and monsters, and Jeb is ultimately too little of each to hold his own. The real tragedy is that he knows it.

This episode was broadcast March 26, 1970.

Monday, March 12, 2018

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 12



By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 451

Millicent continues to behave erratically as Joshua and Bathia try to rend the curse from a possessed Barnabas. Joshua shocks Victoria by pressing for her release. Bathia eventually is immolated by the spirit of Angelique.

Bathia, it was nice knowing ya! Actually, it was! 451 begins the wrap up of 1795 with bold and uncompromising writing by Ron Sproat and Jonathan Frid’s Shakespearean knack making you think that actual blood will fall from a thundering sky, no matter the material. But Anita Bolster’s turn as Bathia Mapes is what sells it. A seasoned performer from Dublin’s famous Abbey Theater and the Broadway stage, DARK SHADOWS signaled one of her last appearances. One of our most avid readers uses “Bathia Mapes” as their online pseudonym -- or do they? It might be a gesture of camp, but it might not. Mapes only appears for a brief moment in the series, but between the performance and the script, she’s as memorable at the last episode as she is in 451, three years earlier. A hawklike crone, she seems to be such the keen match for Angelique that we never see her death coming. As if we needed any more reason to fear Angelique, Bathia’s death provides. Mapes is at a Stokes-level of formidability, and if Angelique can posses Barnabas and turn a potent sorceress into a pillar of flame, her powers know no limit.

She could even convince Roger to abandon life as a confirmed bachelor. 
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