The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 11

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 450

In 1795, there is one force that can stop Angelique, and it just arrived at Collinwood. Bathia Mapes: Anita Bolster. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Bathia Mapes arrives to determine the nature of the curse and its solution. Meanwhile, Joshua deals with a mad Millicent and Barnabas is drawn back to the tower room. There, Mapes begins a battle with the force cursing Barnabas.

When we first learn about the supernatural as kids, it is the quintessence of the mysterious. We’ve spent a years of awareness learning the rules, and here is a system of action that breaks them. To what is it connected?  What possibly explains it? When I first saw Dark Shadows, I was in a quiet awe of the vast mythology that explained how the house Got This Way. I was in equal awe of the cosmology that empowered those forces. Could it ever be explained? Of course not. And when you’re a kid, and everything is inexplicable, like magnets or the electoral college, this makes about as much sense as anything else.

Then, the paranormal all loses its sense of wonder because we pretend to understand it to death. It becomes like religion, systems of reincarnation, or D&D. We either discover or make up all manner of elaborate, insert-tab-a-into-slot-b instruction manuals for how a paranormal universe works. This crystal cures this. This orc can be killed only by that. This star cluster absolutely means you’re gluten intolerant. And so on. It’s just as true for monster media. Vampires have about as much written about them as do dogs and cats. But in the name of celebrating our sources of wonder, we accidentally kill them with comprehension.

Dark Shadows, perhaps due to hurried writing for a medium that no one’s going to see again, defies that. Yes, there’s a lot to understand and bicker about and make charts and graphs over. I do it a lot, myself. But at its best, the show is about the opposite. It makes all of us Victoria Winters out of confident Joshuas. We make fun of Vicki for not understanding, but that’s the point. She’s never meant to really understand what’s going on. We are never meant to understand what’s going on. Our job is not to understand what’s going on; it’s to connect through the experience of not being able to do so.

Bathia Mapes reminds us of that. Just when the show is at the outer end of strange, and Barnabas is summoning the voices of ghosts, and Joshua has lost all control of the Newtonian harness of causality, she shows up. The lighting is suddenly a dark and textured expression of the new dimension of Joshua’s world, plunging us into a Rembrandt painting. The dialogue has a sudden and Marlovian urgency and poetry. On a show accustomed to talking around problems, implicating with extreme prejudice, this episode speaks to the very heart of them. And yet, only one person knows what’s going on, a strange and confident sorcerer/precursor to Elise in INSIDIOUS.

In a show where the supernatural frequently bullies the Collinses around, it takes a formidable person to give it what for. Even Stokes would concede that there are none like Bathia, looking and acting for all the world like the EC Cryptkeeper prior to death. She gives DS mythology new depth and familiar resonance by again treating a curse like a curse. On most of the show, the curse is considered the causal agent for the real problem, vampirism, and the only cure is a stake to the heart. Mapes treats the curse as the ongoing crisis, itself. She warns the Countess against being loved by him, and suddenly we get why Julia survives for as long as she does. Masks drop with thunderous noise. In no other timeline do we go from sacred denial to profane truth as in 1795, where the Enlightenment smolders down to to a muted hell over four and a half months. As the characters go mad from the truth, and Barnabas roars with the voice of Angelique, we finally get one character who knows what’s going on. It is the greatest testament to Angelique’s awesome ability that she doesn’t last long.

But it’s jewelbox epic of a battle. These episodes won’t be matched for sheer pain until we learn of Quentin’s son’s death or the eventual death of Angelique. And even then, I’m not sure that this is a sustainable quality that the show can ever rival again.

This episode was broadcast March 15, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 4

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1231

The 1680 flashback arc begins with the dire betrayal of an unscrupulous occultist until an unforeseen twist brings the 1680 flashback to a stunning conclusion. Brutus Collins: Louis Edmonds. (Repeat; 30 min.)

In a flashback narrated by Morgan’s possessing ghost of James Forsythe, we venture back to 1680 where we see how the room was cursed. Dastardly Collins patriarch, Brutus, uses occult powers to punish and kill James Forsythe, one of his victims in business -- and the man who’s making him a cuckold with his wife, Amanda. The curse shall impact the future of the family, until a Collins has the strength to spend the night there. Having revealed this, Forsythe’s ghost is released.

It’s 1841PT and the show has 14 installments left. Moreover, everyone will be out of a job… at least in Collinsport… in twenty days. Given that Dark Shadows has a happy ending (unless you’re named Melanie), this Damoclean vacuum is more of an impending threat than anything Gordon and Sam could have devised. And once you know the production schedule’s destiny, it’s hard to watch these without that fate in mind. Although Dan Curtis admitted that he wasn’t much of a presence in the last months of the show, 1231 has a lavishness that reminds me of the spare-no-expenses showmanship behind his two, epic War miniseries. An on-set presence or not, Curtis was not a man to go out on a whimper. Even if (or because) it’s just one episode, the show is blowing as much scratch as possible, and it’s a tiny metaphor for the take-no-prisoners, gutsy, audience-first attitude that always guided the show. Imagine the hand-wringing that must have transpired about the 1795 storyline. I’m sure someone, somewhere needed convincing. Now, we do an entirely new flashback for just one episode. Nearly a century prior to that first one. In a parallel universe. Cancellation be damned, Curtis was not going to change to suit common sense nor artistic timidity. It was everyone else’s job to catch up with him.

1231 is one of the show’s boldest episodes. Because of its rarity and obscure, 1841PT address, it’s also one of the most easily overlooked. Watching the show at this point is to watch it obsessed with big pictures and goodbyes and last times. (Like this is the last time Louis Edmonds will narrate an episode.) In that chaos of nostalgia and fate, it’s vital to remember these gems as little highlights of the series, and ones that make the Mr. Best storyline seem longer than solving the murder of Bill Malloy. Packed into this episode, we get a flashback narrated by a man possessed by a ghost, and that’s enough right there. But add to it infidelity, a cruel and conniving Collins patriarch, a sycophantic spinster who turns on him, betrayal by a beautiful wife, and an occult serum that will create a vengeful ghost? You got a stew going. It is a core sample of the show’s essence, narrow to the point of laser-like. It’s not just part of Dark Shadows. It is Dark Shadows. It’s also kind of silly. To the point of simultaneously allowing us to see the show through the eyes of its critics. This may be what all of the show looks like to them -- wacky costumes, antiquated sets, hairpieces, and discussions about things other than contemporary humdrummery.

Why does it let us see it that way, too? It feels like 1795 is kind of the cosmic limit on Dark Shadows flashbacks because it is so rich with the essence of the mythos. It’s Ur-Shadows. There’s a quintessential Americanness to those post-Colonial times, and Dark Shadows works partially because it Americanizes story aesthetics we largely associate with England. By placing these events in America and putting the Founding Family in vaguely Georgian drag, the show in 1795 lives and breathes in the same visual atmos we associate with Washington and Adams. Going back earlier is to go back to an era prior to the United States. Prior, really, to Dark Shadows in the most cosmic sense. The costumes and spartan set appointments feel borrowed from another show.

In these flashbacks, my instinct is to go, “There, there, that’s how it all started. That’s how the family became cursed.”  Well, yeah, kind of. I guess. But like everything in 1841PT, it has to be seen metaphorically. Which is arguably impractical. Especially in this weather, and with these shoes. But why start thinking practically at this point? Art is a metaphor, so it’s too late to draw the line within story. The mirror is now layers and layers deep, but it still reflects something important. It’s a flashback within a flashback in a parallel universe first seen in yet another flashback, visited by characters from a present that’s 48 years old. If relatability ever existed in this chain, why draw the line now?

Brutus is both villain and hero in a small-c-crucible sense. Even though he says he’s unleashing the curse because of James Forsythe, his wife’s betrayal, and his sister’s streak of goodness, I think Brutus realizes that he’s the real cause. Why else would you curse future Collinses over the crimes of people who, by and large, were not, you know, Collinses? And why else would you make the ticket out of the curse be the mental wherewithal to survive a night haunted by the ghost of the man you killed? This is the act of a man who questions his own mental wherewithal. It’s, pardon the expression, a cry for help from someone who will be haunted by James Forsythe (and his guilt over Forsythe) far longer than just one night. Not only is he sharing the wealth, Brutus is also posting a want ad/warning so that a better Collins might emerge. It’s the heat and pressure needed to finally create a Collins worthy of the name.

I am always hectored by the question of, “What does it mean to be a Collins?” I used to want to come up with a noble list worthy of a Starfleet officer. It’s the other way around. We’re not born into greatness. We’re not noble savages. Money just perfumes the rot. The more apt question is, “What does it take to be better than a Collins?” Maybe that’s what Brutus is after, too.

If you’re going out on a note, grand-yet-specific, that’s a good one to play.

This episode was broadcast March 15, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 15

By PATRICK MCCRAY

Vicki awakens from a dream where a robed Nathan Forbes threatens the life of young Daniel, leading her to believe that Forbes may actually harm Daniel and disrupt the lineage and timeline of the Collins family. At Collinwood, Forbes asks Daniel why he is looking for Naomi and Joshua, and Daniel responds that he’d rather be adopted by them than be in a position where Forbes could control his money. Later, when Noah demands money from Forbes, he realizes that Forbes has the power to frame him for Maude Browning’s death. Thus, he agrees to kidnap Daniel for him and deposit him in the ocean. Noah duly kidnaps the boy, who hastily escapes and seeks refuge in the mausoleum with a gun-wielding Vicki. Noah is not far behind.

What is it about Craig Slocum that is so strangely fascinating? His parts are lilting-voiced professional sleazeballs and victims, inevitably whining, sulking, and acting, well, like a grownup David Collins. And yet, this WillieBot seems like the most realistic person to wander into Collinsport. Is he the Kramer Painting of DARK SHADOWS?

On this day in 1967, LIFE magazine named Jimi Hendrix the “most spectacular guitarist in the world.” Or maybe that was Roy Clark. I get them confused.