The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 4

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 980

By PATRICK McCRAY

Be careful what you wish for, Barnabas. You just might get it when the Parallel Time room takes you on a one-way trip into another dimension. Sky Rumson: Geoffrey Scott. (Repeat; 30 min.)

A desperate Sky Rumson's gambit fails. In the effort, Jeb plunges off Widow's Hill, Carolyn plunges into depression, and Barnabas forces Sky to shoot himself. With the danger passed, Barnabas is no longer distracted from the desperate pangs of bloodlust. In a last ditch hope that the rules will be different for him in Parallel Time, Barnabas explores the mysterious portal once more and finds himself trapped there.

Have you ever had the experience of watching a scene on the show, finding it well-acted and dramatically compelling, about matters that are absolutely crucial to the characters, but when it was all over, you'll be damned if you can remember what happened? It seemed like something was happening. Everyone was behaving as if something were happening.  And yet, turn the corner, and you're still at Worthington Hall. Masters of that particular medium are forced to do what I can only call a form of Zen anti-writing.  Everything has to matter. Everything has to have dramatic dynamism. But it must be limited to as little real growth as possible. 

And it has to happen in a medium designed to be both constantly compelling and yet accessible by audiences who can't afford to be excessively distracted. They’ve got ham salad to grind out by 5:30 and still have to give the kids a shot or two of benadryl before you-know-who gets home. Okay, you can't say that nothing happens. But what was it, exactly?  This strange chemistry is the reason that we can’t stop watching a soap opera once it begins resonating with us. Why is it so familiar? That unlikely fusion of constant tension wrapped up in the frustrating amber of inertia resembles daily life closer than any form of art that comes to mind. Even Dark Shadows. Maybe, especially Dark Shadows. We spend weeks and months waiting for some sort of inevitable change. When it happens, as it does in “reality,” it transpires with a blink-punishing swiftness.  It's always satisfying, and yet, it never quite lives up to our expectations. Sometimes, it’s better.  In fact, it often shames the impulse of having expectations by exceeding them while falling just short enough to keep us watching. 

Characters on soap operas see The Resolution as the end of their problems. We know that they serve to usher in new ones. To writers and producers, they represent opportunities. And for the writers and producers of Dark Shadows, they represent the possibility to electrify the culture, itself. The saturation of Barnabas and Quentin into the zeitgeist proves my point. Creating them created inadvertent cultural power for the producers. And with that came the pressure to sustain it. To top it. To remain on the cultural vanguard. And, through the injection of novelty, often through novel actors, shield themselves from the power of performers to see themselves as indispensable.  Everything after Barnabas, it’s safe to say, was an attempt to re-create that success. It’s easy to evaluate that success or failure based on how storylines resolve themselves, if they ever even do. I think it’s more interesting to look at beginnings and wonder about the aspirations within.

Few transitions are as dramatic as this one. Ultimately, few will be as strangely permanent.  Sky Rumson is gone. Barnabas doesn't even bother to bite him. Even if he enslaved Rumson as his blood-bound servant, he wouldn’t exactly be a familiar worth bragging about. Sky would probably knock on Barnabas' coffin multiple times a day. Asking for a glass of water or warning him that they sent a new milkman.  

Letting go of Sky Rumson‘s small potatoes; we must concede that Jeb is gone as well. It's not like the show didn't give the character a fair shake. His storyline kept going even after the primary threat presented by it was over for weeks.  As much as they tried, Jeb never took off like Quentin or Barnabas. I sincerely wonder what Dark Shadows would have looked like if Jeb had been as popular as the Collins cousins. Would they have needed Parallel Time to cover shooting the movie? Could they have afforded to go at all?

From a certain perspective, PT is the boldest and most awkwardly optimistic piece of storytelling on the show, designed to please fans while taking away all of the characters with enough saturation to carry an unprecedented feature film. But what if it were potentially more?

I have every confidence that the production team looked at Jeb with hope. After two years of dizzying success, was anything outside the realm of possibility?  And if not Jeb, then Parallel Time. Yes, they had every reason to believe that Parallel Time could be a success, also. Why not? They had already done it once. In so many ways, 1897 is a Parallel Time story. It reflects a number of the earlier, more successful plot elements of the classic period but with the confidence and swagger of a show that knows what it's doing. Dark Shadows could have easily continued in 1897, and although everyone would be curious about the events taking place in the present, they were hardly bereft of pure DS entertainment. Among other things, it's Dark Shadows the way it could have been, had Dan Curtis known what he could get away with. After the mixed reception of the Leviathan arc, perhaps the team wondered if they should have stayed with the better mousetrap of 1897. Perhaps this upcoming storyline is a way to correct the mistake, if only metaphorically.

It feels as if the writers are yet again playing their own Monday morning quarterbacks by recreating the show based on even more of what has defined success. This means leaving something behind. The prospect of a successful introduction to Parallel Time explains a number of the more controversial choices of the movie. What kind of film kills off most of its major characters? Maybe one that is preparing audiences for the idea that Dark Shadows can continue without those characters. Obviously, the film universe and the television universe are two separate things, so we are speaking symbolically, not literally. Imagine that Parallel Time had been a roaring success. By the film’s release, the franchise would stand redefined. Could Parallel Time have become the series’ new home? In a post-Vicki universe, anything is possible. 

The potential success of PT was not in its novel concept. No one speaks of it in the same breath as “Mirror, Mirror.” Its strength simply lies in its freedom to rewrite the rules. But with tried and true elements that they had discovered, rather than as points of pre-production speculation.

David Selby is a success, so why not make him the head of the household? I would certainly tune in.  Kathryn Leigh Scott can clearly do more than just pour coffee, so what if she becomes the Mistress of Collinwood…  who is also a stranger? One who can view the mansion’s antics with the objectivity of an outsider.  In other words, Victoria Winters on spiritual steroids. While Grayson Hall plays a tremendous best friend, she's too good as a villain to waste. So, let her do what she does best. At least, what she does best when not in Gypsy drag. And look at how much more capable and intelligent they allowed Willie Loomis to become. Well, Parallel Time allows for that, also. Rounding out the ensemble, you have an Angelique who is deservedly a point of attention for everyone, rather than The Other Woman.  After all, they had seen exactly what Lara Parker could do, so why not make the spotlight even brighter? It may have been intended as more than a placeholder in the Dark Shadows saga. It feels like the a further refinement of marvelous elements they discovered while getting there. And, conveniently, you have your most popular character just waiting to be released. 

Why consider this? None of this happened, of course. Parallel Time was not a Barnabas nor Quentin-level success. Neither were the Leviathans. But look at these storylines based on their potential as well as their delivery. Because at this point, it was all about potential. If you've never seen the show, this might be objectively evaluate valuated as the start of the next big thing. When it's not that, it gives the rest of us a greater reason to sit back and reflect on what really made Dark Shadows, at its best, work.

This episode was broadcast March 27, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 462

The man of Vicki’s dreams returns from the grave to warn her that Collinwood’s most eligible bachelor is the wrong kind of ladykiller! Barnabas Collins: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Post-hypnosis session, Vicki and Julia discuss the verisimilitude of her trip to the past. In a dream, the ghost of Jeremiah warns Vicki that Barnabas will kill her. Later, Julia and Barnabas reach a seeming detente toward dealing with Vicki, with Barnabas pushing for collaboration. He then reveals that Vicki took the place of a governess who died in his time, and that her story rings true. After Julia investigates Peter Bradford and Noah Gifford, Barnabas speaks of his connection to the past with Victoria. After she confesses that she can’t see him harming her as Jeremiah warned, he summons her to him, anyway.

Today is the fourth anniversary of the Daybook, and there are a lot of things I can say about the experience. But what’s useful? The most important thing I look for and ask is, “How does the show change here?” 

I have a basic pattern to writing these. The last thing I write is the synopsis. Before that, the TV Guide. That’s the part I like most, but I don’t want to say everything in the recap and then not have an adline. So, I do the recap after. 

Usually, at this point, I have only a vague idea of what I’m going to say. Sometimes, I take notes, but I usually ignore them because I get more interested in other things. But I’ll start with some general feeling about the episode, like this:

Cleaning up the biggest narrative risk taken by television since Elvis was glimpsed from the waist down takes more than one episode, and it will get one episode. Maybe more. Maybe, years of them. They have to keep the show absolutely the same, and transform it radically to accommodate heroes who become villains and upcoming villains far more dastardly than ones in the past… even if they are from there. The show may have more dramatic moments. More climactic moments. But it has few that are as openly transformative; we see the time lapse of the flower opening, yet it’s no time lapse.

That’s left me with options. I have imagery that’s got something vaguely poetic, because, you know, flowers. So, I could go profound. Because, you know, flowers. And I used the word, “transformative.” Or I could go glib. I dragged in Elvis, which automatically heralds a potential joke. Maybe about Quentin’s sideburns. But mentioning Elvis on TV also means that I can go with the theme of television history or follow the weirdness-of-60’s-teen-idols, both of which tie in to Dark Shadows. If I go with the concept of transformation, which leaves most of those options open, I’d better do it well, because it’s a frequent theme of the column, and I don’t want to repeat myself. I’ll probably go with where this fits into the show, unifying the ideas of the show transforming with and through a character transforming. 

And I know I need to work in something about the constant references to Julia’s new hairstyle. But if you’re a fan, you know she gets a new hairstyle. 

What’s great is that they spend an inordinate amount of time talking about it. Almost as if Grayson Hall’s husband wrote the episode. Sam clearly lost a bet here, just as Grayson seems to have lost a bet at the time of episode 1177, where he forces her to do a multi-act monologue about the show’s most impossibly complex storyline, 1840. That home could have been a micro-WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, except the son was real and they never killed him.

And now, I’m a little surprised, because there may be more to the Julia Hair Narrative, or “Hairrative,” that I thought. It’s all in the timing because this is a genuine turning point for the character, intentionally so. Barnabas is changing due to the lost love of Maggie/Josette, the possibilities of Miss Winters, the relief that Carolyn kinda gets stuff done, and the fact that Vicki knows his secret. Sort-of-but-not. Most importantly, Barnabas is changing because the audience loves him, so they’ll introduce REAL villains for him to fight. To do that and be constantly undermined by Julia? If he didn’t just kill her to save time, we wouldn’t take him seriously as someone who can stand up to Nicholas and Angelique. And he needs someone intelligent and capable of action as a confidant. Soaps are almost all dialogue, he requires a receptacle who can ask bright questions and trigger worthy challenges. Willie is not the man for that job. Both he and Julia will tell Barnabas that he can’t possibly do whatever it is that he’s planning, but Willie will just say it because it’s his job to tell Barnabas he’s wrong. Especially once he gets the necktie. Julia not only takes great pride in telling Barnabas that he’s wrong, but WHY he’s wrong. The haircut helps. I’m sure they didn’t intend it as such, but artistic intentions are ultimately meaningless compared to interpretive consequence. And the consequence is that as her hair changes, she changes.

Okay, so what? UNCLE called and said that Mark Slate wants his hair back and dyed blond again.  But what else? And I’m serious here. It’s talked about a lot -- by people who like the show and those who don’t. It’s two things. It’s modern and it’s masculine. The latter makes Julia (visually) even less of a romantic prospect, but she’s going for being less of one, too. It emphasizes her visual strengths -- the sharp eyes and sharper cheekbones. It’s modernity is ideally timed. After 1795, the females who visually harken back to that era will always echo it. Similarly, those who don’t will always be in stark contrast. Julia is a fine counter for Collinwood because it’s about the past and she’s about the present and future, iconoclastically so. The same goes for how she stands out against Barnabas, with past versus present. But he’s moving into the present more and more. We can compare “Present Barnabas” with “1795 Barnabas.” Julia, so different than Barnabas, now has a hairstyle that’s far more similar than it was before. She’s not a reflection, but she is an echo, usually carrying a message that he doesn’t want to acknowledge, but is the direct feedback he needs. A present voice for a man we now see as far more of the present than he once was.

Barnabas mellows, too. The behavioral changes are not immediate, but their conversation in the garden here is ripe with series-influencing implications. Both want answers from Vicki. Both have the means to get them. Rather than force them out, they both agree that they must work together for the good of someone toward whom neither means harm. Maybe out of fear. Maybe out of compassion. Maybe enough people have been hurt. Up to now, Julia (bringing Woodard along) and Barnabas are the sources of harm and peril within Collinwood. Enough of that. Vicki was dragged through time… for a reason? She could implicate Barnabas, and Barnabas could implicate Julia, and yet being tattled on is just the surface threat. The unspoken peril is that some force unknown to either now has the power over time and space. Indeed, it continues to meddle with affairs, sending horrific dreams of cautionary prophecy and eventual ambassadors from the past. Barnabas survives solely because he can deny and obscure the past. But the seeming-enemy who swapped Wick and Winters has another agenda and no identity to challenge, isolate, nor defeat. It’s an existential threat that intrigues Julia and quietly terrifies Barnabas. It’s the idea of everyone he’s hornswaggled potentially being toured through a past so unthinkable that he can only survive because he slept it off for nearly two-hundred years. Not only that, but, like Phyllis Wick, every aggrieved or talkative figure from the past can come this way, too. And they’re coming.

Victoria’s obsession with the past is no help, and as a storytelling move, it’s a masterstroke. If we compare Dark Shadows with the nighttime soaps of the golden era of Dallas, it’s a study in change. So many series hit reset buttons with abandon, but when Dark Shadows decides that a formative experience is formative, they mean it. She’ll never be as fun again, but we have the comfort that, on the fun scale, she was never exactly Carolyn, anyway. If I’d been ripped around time, almost hanged as a witch, and had Roger Davis macking on me, I wouldn’t understand, either.

On the other side of the aisle, a new Barnabas must work with a new Julia. The farmer and the cowman should be friends. We may need to bite Vicki, anyway, but that’s insurance. It’s also good TV, which Barnabas knows. As he progresses, it also keeps things moving at a steady rate. No change, and he runs out of Collinses to bite, and I don’t think Mrs. Johnson is his type. All change, and he’s no longer Barnabas. If viewers keep returning to Dark Shadows, it’s because, yes, there is growth, and it’s just about as gradual as in real life. Sometimes, though, you glimpse it. In this case, it’s between Barnabas and Julia in the garden. And that’s a welcome respite for all of us.

At this point, I’m clearly done. I might have been done several sentences ago, but there we are. This will forever be the “Julia’s Hair Episode” Essay, and notice that I avoided calling it “Julia’s Hair Piece”? You’re welcome. At this point, I still have to do the synopsis and the TV Guide. Go back up to the top. And thanks for reading!

This episode was broadcast April 2, 1968. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 21

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 458

Naomi faces the ultimate choice when she discovers her son is one of the living dead. Naomi: Joan Bennett. (Repeat; 30 min.)

After seeing Millicent with Barnabas, an increasingly agitated Naomi discovers that Joshua may have found a relief to the curse in Boston. She nonetheless responds with pessimism. After writing a note, she visits Vicki, who remains concerned about Peter’s freedom. Vicki feels as if her visit with Naomi is the last she shall have, at which point Nathan arrives to take her in a gunpoint, unmoved by her admission that she, not Peter, killed Noah. Naomi drinks a draught of poison and then visits Barnabas, who confesses all. Despite his pleas to the contrary, she persists in her love for him. Joshua enters and cradles her as her body grows cold.

And then, it got really dark.

Naomi is one of Dark Shadows’ stronger, more willful characters. Every bit the equal to Joshua, which is saying something, she is admirably strong, honest, and loyal. These are all qualities that make her suicide either a show a defiant self-determination or a betrayal of her essence. Forgive the politics, and apologies to those whose loved ones have made that terminal choice (I rank among you), I see it as the former. Romantic literature might not… or might. These are Barnabas’ last moments before being sealed into semi-suspended animation, so this event and example -- this disposition toward death -- heavily influences the man we see rise in 1967. Death is both an option and simply one more choice. When he murders, perhaps he is consigning others to what he sees as an inevitability that exists without shame. These are very existential questions, and when you look at  in little bits, without considering the big picture, they are easy to ignore. Just as heroes in real life don’t go about spouting their ontologies like characters out of Chayefsky or Rand, nor do those on this show. Still, we can and -- as responsible fans of the show -- should discern what we can about the philosophies of the characters from their actions. With Barnabas, that’s a sticky wicket. Not only does he evolve, appearing in more episodes than anyone, but his perspective changes depending on whether or not he’s under the influence of what I refer to as the Beast. Critics of Barnabas are quite right. He can be the master of the double standard, easily rationalizing like a machine. In the balance, his life, abilities, options, threats, and nature of existence change violently and frequently. The choices he has to make and the range of shifting tools and consequences tied to those choices are rarely the same. The consequences demand categorical thinking. Seeing that his own mother held death as a choice galvanized Barnabas’ thinking, I believe. If it were not a shameful destination for her, it is not a shameful destination for anyone. Of course, she chose it and Barnabas’ victims do not, but if it becomes a questionable destination, then his actions to consign others there become equally questionable. Thus, Barnabas must maintain a casual attitude toward the undiscovered country.

Kids, don’t try this at home.

This episode was broadcast March 27, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 724

Zombie Quentin kidnaps Rachel Drummond, but a conscientious Szandor tussles with him enough in the graveyard that she escapes. Trapping the muttonchopped automaton in the Old House, Barnabas conducts a voodoo ceremony that should fuse Quentin’s body and spirit. When the body staggers away, our heroes have no idea that it has fallen in the graveyard and can’t get up.

The cork has been opened confidently on 1897, and the wine has just about breathed to perfection. This is the show’s new home, and there’s something about this world that feels like DARK SHADOWS, but even more so. If Roger is stiff, Edward is stiffer. If the streamlined contours of sixties fashions are severe, Victorian clothing makes them look dumpy. And if the sixties are fun, the great-grandparents defined cutting a supernatural rug. 724 is a tight adventure with no real subplot; it’s exactly what can fill an episode and is yet another mondo day in the life-slice for our long-suffering hero. We are still in the general spring break time of the year, and what a thrill for kids. Zombie Quentin Kidnaps Governess! No wonder the record and ViewMaster set were in the offing. If you make a show with these elements, the Geneva Convention requires you to make ViewMaster reels and a spoken word album. This was 1969, the show’s zenith and the time when DARK SHADOWS mania was unmatchable.

If there is a watchword for the overall feel of 1897, it’s “decadence.” The sets and costumes spring to mind, but so do the performances -- broad and freewheeling when not intentionally arch. The possibilities of the story are decadent -- we’re contending with a zombie in this one. Even the horror is decadent, with damsels being buried six inches under (in what appears to be the empty grave of Laura Stockbridge, so says the stone) in graveyards whose smoke wafts into the gypsified Old House, giving it an appropriately seraglio-like atmos.

Even the bloopers have appropriate lushness. Szandor and Magda begin the day by fighting over cold soup like a couple in an Odets play, and Szandor attempts to defend his dignity with said soup trickling from his outrageous mustache. In the words of William Blake, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,” and there is wisdom to be had in that mustache. Not only are these actors having the most fun they’d ever have on the show, the characters of Magda and Szandor are the most relatable, reminiscent of an Eastern European West and Fields. How close do you think Szandor and Magda are to Sam Hall and Grayson? This is one of the many, great 1897 episodes written by Sam Hall, and there is a sting of reality to the language -- and a twinkle in his wife, Grayson’s, eye -- that makes me think it’s an ethnicized transcript of whatever was happening the night before. It’s like the Roma touring production of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, except there’s a dead, reanimated Quentin rather than a dead, imaginary son. Albee damned!

They also provide an entirely different world to which we can compare and reveal Barnabas. He’s an entitled aristocrat at his funniest when forced to fence with words and endure those whom, under other circumstances, he’d just as soon strangle. If he thought that Loomis and Hoffman tried his class privilege, they were the Alan Napier Alfred compared to the Rakosis. As much as Barnabas just… barely… puts up with them in true, sitcom style, he still mixes the exotic with the mundane. We think of him as so bland if we recall his polished innocence when he first appears to Vicki in 1795. Hogwash. He’s a hard-lovin’ scoundrel who was bedhopping ‘twixt the classes in the Islands when not attending voodoo ceremonies, as we learn here. No wonder Angelique loved him.

Did I mention decadence?

On this day in 1969, we sent the Mariner 7 probe to Mars. It found no life.

Officially, anyway.

This episode hit the airwaves April 3, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 990

Sabrina Stuart, dazed from time with Cyrus, arrives at Collinwood insisting on a seance. As Quentin tries to make Alexis feel at home, they get drawn into recreating the spectral ceremony where Angelique allegedly died of a stroke. Sabrina, seemingly stuck at that point in time, eagerly participates in the ritual and screams “Murderer!” as it goes on.

If DARK SHADOWS had begun with this sequence, it may have been a more powerful, if less atmospheric, way to begin the show than what aired four years earlier. It’s a new beginning in so many ways, but still steeped in its own past. This episode is dominated by recreating a seance that happened before we joined the storyline -- one that took Angelique’s life. They spend a lot of time justifying recreating something so insane, but they ultimately go forward because, from what I can tell, they don’t have cable. Exposition runs heavier than normal, and the appearance of Angelique’s “twin” gives them plenty of reason to fill us and her in on what’s happened so far. She is a blonde Vicki Winters at this point: a stranger to Collinwood who is both foreign yet intrinsic to the home. By all means, bring her up to speed.

Parallel Time. Very rarely has DARK SHADOWS chased its own tail with such passion, but at least it’s for a reason. They were only a few months past one of their most memorable storylines and were shooting a movie. The franchise was riding high, but not so high that they were invulnerable. How do you protect your brand while keeping it moving?

The previous Leviathan sequence had been an experiment in formula-tampering by restoring Barnabas to his earlier villainy. Romance-driven skullduggery has a thrill to it. Barnabas grimly taking orders from Philip Todd just kind of... doesn’t. Following that, Parallel Time was a perfectly harmless place to drop off viewers with the Next Generation crew while the Original Ghouls went to shoot the film. It’s modern enough to be less expensive than a time travel sequence. But because everyone is a short timer, very little actually matters.

But PT does more than just serve as free parking for Dan’s top hat. It’s part of an annual ritual with the show, which is the oft-mentioned soft reboot, resetting the series in a way that allows new viewers to easily jump in. It also gives the writers a fresh slate. Appropriate for springtime, it happens around this time each year. In 1967, Barnabas is about to appear. In 1968, Vicki is back from 1795 and Angelique is arriving in the present -- with Adam, Stokes, Lang, and Nicholas along for the ride. At this time in 1969, the 1897 story is establishing itself. And in 1970, we begin an entire mirror universe.

As an introduction to a show called DARK SHADOWS, it’s a passionate, moody, evocative success. For a continuation of the DARK SHADOWS story? It’ll be good to get home.

This episode hit the airwaves April 10, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 206

Liz continues to deny her fears over Jason and Willie, while the latter shows intense interest in ancestor Barnabas Collins and his possible connection to a lost cache of jewels. When Burke finds out how predatory Willie is being toward Carolyn, he goes to Collinwood to defend her, but is sent away with mixed feelings by Liz. Burke chides her on her Collins pride as he suspects that she is being dishonest with her reasons for defending Willie.

Is it politically incorrect to say that Liz is asking for it? It is? Okay, then Liz is asking for it. It’s class warfare-a-go-go when Liz prevents Burke from twisting Willie like a telephone cord. (Odd that Burke’s not a Collins, thus not good enough to solve a problem that’s not also a Collins.) If she had? Would the rest of the series even have happened? There’s a weird symmetry to the Collins Woes. The message? You just can’t find good help these days. What’s the trouble? Lower class greed invades Collinwood, wanting the best of the house, like, now, pops. And make it snappy. When they go through extraordinary means to get it? Pow! Willie, looking for wealth that’s not his, cracks open Barnabas’ coffin. Who’s Barnabas? Both the family curse and salvation … a vampire made such by someone from the working class who wanted what she couldn’t have. In that case, love. I mention this only in passing.

Episode 206 marks the first appearance by John Karlen. Street tough, yes, but also adept at playing fancy lads of all varieties. He was replacing James Hall, who played the part for five episodes with a darker and less playful edge. Karlen, I suspect, had a streak of vulnerability in his portrayal that Hall lacked. It’s fun to side with Willie’s schemes, and Karlen, hardly a wallflower, establishes himself immediately. Welcome to Collinwood, Mr. K!

In 2006, twenty days after his wife died, series creator Dan Curtis died on this day of a brain tumor. In happier news, it’s Jerry Lacy’s birthday.