The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 22

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 459

By PATRICK McCRAY

In the wake of his mothers suicide, Barnabas Collins vows to take revenge… if his father doesn’t shoot him with a silver bullet, first. Joshua: Louis Edmonds. (Repeat; 30 minutes)

Hearing that his mother is dead because of revelations by Nathan Forbes, Barnabas goes about the business of revenge. Meanwhile, Forbes responds with a crossbow. 

In 1795, the cherished friends and beloved relatives around Barnabas Collins have been dead for years. Barnabas was, too. Until, and you see this coming, he died. This would all be “electrocuting a dead horse” except that this arc mentions the concepts of death and life constantly. When Jonathan Frid delivers the line telling Forbes that bullets will have no effect because he’s already dead, he’s savors the words with unusually deliberate relish. In fact, he is at his most Shakespearean in this episode. Not because of an accent. Not because he stands around posing in tights, using archaic language. No, for legitimate reasons. Listen to his treatment of the really grand statements.  Words are stretched into multisyllabic wrappings over decisions and discoveries of cosmic import.  He’s not only getting the most out of their intentional weight.  He has found the dreadful music of death and revenge and the language that describes them.

We take death for granted on Dark Shadows. In 1795, it’s not just a consequence. It is the subject of philosophical heft without weighing the audience down with ascetic and academic self-consciousness about it. Death is both a metaphor and a very real state of being. For once, it has, by explored implication, been given proper attention… and by implication so has a meaningful life. We stand on the battlefield of fallen characters who have no voice. Well, except for one.

By finally standing outside of Life, there are no more appearances to keep up. Really, all of the rules of the living are what cost Barnabas his life. Was he in love with Josette? Perhaps social class taboos and a marriage prospect with a business prospect chaser kept him from confessing his true feelings, even to himself. I don’t call that living. 

The fact that Barnabas walks and speaks and feels is all of the proof we need that, on this program, death simply releases a cursed figure to explore living. Joshua, on the other hand, is a prisoner to expectations. His need to appear in control is so pervasive and toxic that it takes being in the throes of death for his wife to say she still loves him. 

Of course, the real journey of the storyline belongs to Joshua, reluctantly exploring and admitting the moments of humanity forbidden to him otherwise. It’s unclear how Joshua became so incredibly stoic, but I will guess that life at sea, having to coexist among pirates and slavers, changes a man. His charting of an underdeveloped sense of humanity exists less on the page, and so Louis Edmonds must be lavishly praised for his efforts to do so. In theory, it’s a broad part. Shouting. Taking umbrage.  Being at a loss for words on a nearly hourly basis. You know, those things are easy. They are a puckish southerner’s spoof of New England finery.  Underneath that is a keenly focused, gently urged character evolution. Frankly, if the actions of Angelique could not bring that about, the character would lack humanity, completely.

More than anywhere else, we see the effects of the curse. Exactly what she said: those he loved would die. But why make him a vampire at the same time? Of course, so that he could be the cause.  The triple somersault of irony being that, outside of the domain of the living, subsisting by the ethics and standards of the dead, Barnabas would eventually live to a point that he realized he loved Angelique. And that’s the one part of the curse that, in 1840, she forgot to lift. This isn’t a soap opera. It’s Shakespeare writing a Greek tragedy commissioned by Rod Serling. 

On a technical level, it’s not a soap opera either. An episode like this is the payoff that we somehow knew was possible while making our way through often hundreds of episodes of semi-repeated exposition with a sidecar of looming implication. Every time Dark Shadows has an episode like that, it carries with it an implicit promise for something more. This episode is as tight and propulsive as anything written for prime time. Frid, Edmonds, Joel Crothers, and Thayer David glide through the action with equal parts passion and confidence. There has never been better chemistry on the program than with Jonathan Frid and Louis Edmonds as Barnabas and Joshua. Opening with the immediate fallout from Naomi‘s suicide, and with the ticking clocks of Victoria's fate and the oncoming sunrise, it manages to go about solving its problems (and inventing new ones) with purposeful urgency that never devolves into sloppiness or panic. It’s too busy addressing the problems of the living with the insight of the dead.

This episode was broadcast March 28, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 22

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1243

Morgan traps Bramwell in the haunted room, but can the family stop him from touching a corpse? Julia: Grayson Hall. (Repeat; 30 min.)

The family realizes that Bramwell is trapped in the room in Kendrick’s stead, but can do nothing. Morgan manipulates Catherine into being trapped within, also, and she and Bramwell receive instructions to refrain from touching the corpses of James and Amanda unless they, too, want to be possessed. Which they don’t.

Can we get to at least one happy marriage?

Even up to the end, Dark Shadows understands the luxury of abundant pacing. Which is not to say it’s slow. The functions here are to show Catherine thrown in the room, survival within, healing the ghost of Brutus, the rescue attempt of others, and the final confrontation with Morgan. As any Gilligan’s Island scholar can tell you, all of that can live within the real estate of 24 minutes with room for a gorilla (Keith Prentice -- har har) to spare. These writers get three episodes out of it, and none of it feels padded.

Given the cyclical nature of the series, is this the end or the beginning? Yes, no, and neither, given that it’s a parallel universe. Dealing with the punishment of betraying spouses starts the series with the long-brewing aftermath of Liz and Paul, and it ends the series with Morgan and Catherine. If we go from the premise that Liz is Victoria’s mother, then questionable (at best) fidelity is a factor of both couples, as well. Wouldn’t that be tidy? Unfortunately, Vicki was born in 1946 and Paul was “murdered” in 1949. Which, and this is an admitted tangent, makes me wonder about the father and what Paul thought about this, or where he was in the first place.

Or is it a tangent? I can’t imagine that he missed the pregnancy, and it was after the war, so it stands to reason that he was around. But then, he never mentions it during the leviathan storyline. And when discussing his own murder, you’d think that the subject of his wife’s mysterious pregnancy might come up in casual conversation.  It commonly does, according to marriage counselors.

The connection is that both storylines deal with unhappy marriages, thwarted desires to escape them, children of questionable parentage, and murder as a preferable choice over divorce. Of course, that was unthinkable in Morgan’s time and nearly as unthinkable in Liz’s. Perhaps one of the reasons the show has yet  to be successfully revived is because one of the course ends lying under the mantle is no longer a sin. An inconvenience, perhaps. Painful one. But not a sin.

Both storylines also celebrate, if you can call it that, female autonomy in these situations. Okay, it’s autonomy loosely defined and drawing outside the lines — in Liz’s case, with Paul’s brains. But both women feel trapped. Both take extreme measures to escape. Both stories equal dark fantasies for the intended audience of housewives. Liz gives Paul what-for when he tries to leave. Catherine? More complicated. She marries the Rich One, who goes mad(der) over her having her Bramwell and eating it, too. Then, we get to pity her because her husband is a lout. It’s a subtle shift of statement and fantasy that still lets both women be agents of agency and yet victims of male maleosity, anyway. Both are locked (almost) alone in haunted (sets of) rooms as a punishment, like housewives trapped at home alone. And, most importantly, they look great, doing it. Of course, once Barnabas enters the picture, the show somewhat shifts to depicting male protagonists of female wrath. It doesn’t begin that way, nor does it end in that fashion, either. But even that has the fantasy of, “Well, I wouldn’t treat Barnabas that way.”

And central to this is Lara Parker, going from taking out her anger on Barnabas to suffering the price of loyalty to him. (If we see Catherine and Bramwell as warped analogues.) She can’t help loving that man of hers. She flexes the muscles of jealousy, which wasn’t always an option for women at the time (in the late 60’s, wooden soldiers and scarves were in short supply)... and then suffers the fate of being on the business end of jealousy at the end of the run.

I say, lock Morgan and Angelique in the room together and call it a series.

This episode was broadcast March 31, 1971.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 22

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1971: Episode 1243

Bramwell explores the haunted room and discovers the bodies of James Forsythe and Amanda Collins. Julia explains that if he touches them, he’ll be possessed. Meanwhile, Morgan tells Catherine that he knows she’s carrying Bramwell’s child. She persuades him to let Bramwell out, but instead, he locks her in the haunted room with her lover.

Entering the last three episodes, reflection is inevitable. Although, yes, it was “just the ending” to “just a soap opera,” it’s also neither. It’s the first of Gordon Russell’s last two scripts, and so a fine writer with hundreds of pages of investment is going to have something to say in and about this sprawling adventure of monsters and metaphors.

The episode is rich with parallels. Bramwell is trapped in the forbidden room with the ageless corpses of Andrew Forsythe and Amanda Collins. The latter was the wife of Brutus Collins, the ghost who rules the haunted chamber. She cheated on him with Forsythe, thus explaining the specter’s grumpy mood. The episode ends when Morgan, cuckolded by Catherine, tricks his wife into trapping herself in the room with her lover (and his brother), Bramwell. Two jealous and obsessive men -- Brutus and Morgan -- trapping two sets of lovers in a toxic room.

Although DARK SHADOWS’ main story literally ends at the end of the 1840 story, 1841PT can’t be ignored... if you choose to enjoy the show as one, complete story. What function does the last chapter serve? 1841PT comments on the series and story in a number of ways, testing and rewarding the archetypes that have inhabited the series from the beginning. 1243 echoes back to 1795 with a strong ethos. The vampire and witch elements are so entertainingly lurid that the emotional pain of infidelity and the accompanying messages are eclipsed. If we make one stretch, it’s easy to consider 1795 to be the (out of sequence) “beginning” of the story, if not the series. At its heart is the pain of the romantic betrayal inflicted on Angelique. A jealous overreaction. Nearly two centuries of ensuing misery. And then a discovery at the end that Angelique and Barnabas were actually the lasting couple in defiance of convention and expectation. Barnabas was supposed to marry the proper Josette rather than the low born Angelique. This is just as Catherine married the highfalutin Morgan rather than the rough hewn Bramwell. In both cases, with a brutal ardor, romance persists despite socially sanctioned pairings. To an audience of housewives, this was an attractive and subversive message. Be the Angelique. Pursue the Bramwell. At the very least, it’s wish fulfillment. In both cases, as well, they are trapped in a haunted place that is only conquered by their brave fidelity. For Barnabas and Angelique, it is all of 1840. In 1841PT, it’s narrowed down to a single room, bafflingly older than Collinwood, itself. Barnabas wasn’t prepared for the aftershock of Lamar Trask. His son, however, was, and Morgan crafted his own end.

Well, two more chapters from now.

On this day in 1971, Merle Haggard was a big winner at the Academy of Country Music awards, beating out fellow PBS luminaries, Alistair Cooke and Louis Rukeyser. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 22

By PATRICK MCCRAY

Aired on this date in 1991: Revival Episode 12 (series finale)

In 1791, Vicki awaits execution while Barnabas accidentally drives his mother into near-catatonic, delusional madness. A snooping Abigail meets her end at Barnabas' hands, and Joshua, discovering this, arranges for Trask to visit via Ben Loomis. Barnabas and Ben extract an admission of Vicki's innocence from Trask, before walling him up for the public good. Peter Bradford takes the document with him to a magistrate, but Angelique's powers cause it to be forgotten. Meanwhile, Sarah dies, having hidden from Barnabas on a cold, Maine night. Daniel barely lives, thanks to Vicki's knowledge of treating fevers. Barnabas begs his father to kill him, but he cannot. Instead, he assigns Ben to chain his son forever in the mausoleum. In the present, Maggie breaks Julia's strange possession, only to become possessed by Angelique, herself. 

At a certain point, it almost resembles the end of THE WILD BUNCH. Cold, nihilistic, with a slash-and-burn viciousness regarding its own body count, the episode feels as if they know it's a swan song after the royal rogering of the Gulf War and NBC's lackadaisical management. Not the case, however. This was filmed in November of 1990, months before they would go to air. Still, it exists in the context of "The Best of Both Worlds," and even if they weren't Trekkers, the creative team now lived in a world where genre television went there. Again, there's almost nothing unsatisfying about these 1790 episodes of the 1991 series. Grand and sumptuous in every regard, they use handsome appointments to highlight what's already the star: the writing. These are dense episodes, full of action and plot-plot-plot after the occasionally pokey first six installments. I don't know how they play for those unfamiliar with the show, but -- excluding the missing Nathan Forbes -- this really demonstrates how arguably labored and plot-piebald the 1795 sequence in the original series could get. Especially in episode 12, we get a constant barrage of heartbreaks and triumphs, including wacky exorcisms and the end of Abigail, Sarah, and a drunken Trask. The performances are as fine as the best in genre television, with special kudos going to... well, the entire cast. Stefan Gierasch and Jean Simmons handle Naomi's descent into madness with tenderness and dignity, and Gierasch's stony heart continues to crumble as he becomes perhaps the saddest collateral damage of all of this: the one cursed to survive. Along with him is Jim Fyfe, playing a deeply sentimental man with a subtlety that adds a resonant counterpoint to the broad approach he explored as Willie. 

I remember communicating over Prodigy with young Joey Gordon Levitt, who implored fellow Prodigians to hector NBC, which I did. I knew it was hopeless, but it was something. I would have been far more perturbed about the cancellation, but... the show ended on a satisfyingly high note and never got a chance to get bad. The Gulf War can always be blamed for its ratings failure, and I rarely show it to people who don't deeply enjoy it. The show is a great ambassador for the franchise, and I hope it will continue to be honored as such. 

On this day in 1991, NBC made a big, dumb mistake. So there.