The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 6

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1970: Episode 1013

When a transporter accident finds Barnabas in Angelique’s bedroom, will it cause Daniel’s voice to drop two octaves? Daniel Collins: David Henesy. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas and Quentin chat about Parallel Time, and while loitering in the room alone, Barnabas is discovered by Daniel. Meanwhile, an ugly and inaccurate portrait of Maggie arrives from Italy, initiating Quentin’s knife-wielding psychotic break.

Solve a mystery. Get out of town. Become a flaming sword of art criticism. So many choices for a tourist. Barnabas Collins is a busy man in Parallel Time. As is the show, having near-slumbered in a pleasant irrelevance for weeks now with David Selby charged with making Quentin as evil as possible, Lara Parker exploring why playing anyone other than Angelique is boring, and Chris Pennock eviscerating a philosophically Byzantine meditation on good and evil from under profoundly bad hair.

Dark Shadows continues a comeback so powerful that it shakes up the view of the show as it’s recently been and accidentally sets a bar for imaginative entertainment that the upcoming movie will be hard-pressed to match. You can almost hear Joe Caldwell telling Sam Hall and Gordon Russell to hold his martini and stand back. He wrote half of the PT storyline, and now that he has the casting keys to the car, I hope it’s insured. It strikes me as a show he tended as well as he could while everyone was away, because he’s been planning exactly where he wants to go.

It’s a rich, teasingly absurd, and breakneck episode that begins with Quentin and Barnabas wasting no time talking about what they saw in Primary Time. Quentin suspects that Barnabas has crossed over, and his reason for concern is hilariously valid. Primary Time referred to him as ‘cursed,’ and that’s enough to count Quentin out. I’m glad that modern-day Parallel Time takes curses seriously. Maybe they watch Dark Shadows over there. Maybe that’s how Quentin knows that curses are bad luck. Hey, what a minute. If they make Dark Shadows in Primary Time and watch it in Parallel Time, does that make us… Parallel Time, too? I wonder who I am over there. Whatever he is, his hair is bigger.

It leads into a lovely scene where detente has been called and the two men, Jonathan Frid and David Selby, get to do something they’ve done very little of in a long time: act together. They more-or-less sit and chat. We see two generations of acting styles in a peculiar dance across the drawing room, and it might as well be across the Atlantic as well. Selby’s more relaxed, yet Frid seems like he’s working less and maybe having a tad more fun. He finally gets to openly admit that he finds Angelique attractive without it becoming the talk of the Collinsport High cafeteria.

Of course, all Barnabas wants to do is leave. So much so that he uses his rare power of teleportation to skip the front door and beam directly into the room. If he can do that, I wish he would just hide out in a closet there and wait for the changeover. But he would have to find an excuse. The only logical one would be transvestism, which would mean long hours trying on Angelique’s outfits. If he liked it, what then? And is he only a transvestite for her PT wardrobe? And then what’s he do when Daniel comes in? Am I the only one who notices that David Henesy’s voice has changed? The whole subject should make us all uncomfortable. Not because transvestism is wrong. But because they are not his clothes, and in no universe does Brewsters carry a merry widow in a 44 long. Daniel is going to inherit those clothes one day, and they don’t need to be all stretched out by Barnabas.

Back to teleportation, please. I mean, if you don’t mind. Stop accusing Barnabas of these things. He’s a Canadian for god’s sake.

So, he teleports very rarely. Is it when he’s just fed? Or is it because he’s in a mirror universe, and he’s a little showier because that’s what you do on vacation? Or did his powers sort of bottle up when he was in the coffin all those weeks? (And let me ask you this, in a mirror universe, should people only see his reflection? That’s creepy, and god forbid a vampire be that.) He has to let them out. Because, in the Barnabas superpower department, he’s really a showboat in this one, using all sorts of abilities that would have come in handy if only he hadn’t borrowed Sam Hall’s Neil Sedaka records and refused to give them back. That’s the real reason the writers were so stingy with the guy.

Players of RPG’s should especially sympathize with Barnabas since he’s like a character who has to roll dice to see if he can use an ability. But he rolls a natural 20 with hypnotizing Daniel, and you have almost see Barnabas snap his fingers of his left hand into the flattened palm of his right and muse, “Still got it, baby. Still got it.”

The real villain of this episode is the props department. Who doesn’t get a great portrait on the show? Barnabas gets two. Quentin gets two. Angelique gets two or three (if you count the movie). So, yes, it’s Maggie’s turn. The portrait that Quentin had commissioned in Italy is, um… it’s to portraiture what the Tower of Pisa is to perpendicularity. KLS deserves better, and I don’t think it’s out of order to send letters to MPI demanding a digital fix. On a show with very good props, this is embarrassingly bad. It’s not even symbolic of a prop. No wonder Quentin takes a knife to it.

It’s both the low and high point in an episode of high points, and it is one of the rare points that the forgivable theatricality of the show begins to buckle.

When Kramer gets a better portrait than Maggie Evans Collins, it’s time to sit down with the art department, tell them that you’re sorry for being away so long shooting the movie, and that you promise to take them with you next time.

Do the right thing.

This episode hit the airwaves on May 13, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 13

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 495

When Roger hears that a new giant of a man is on the grounds, his pistol is fully loaded. Can Barnabas make the proper introductions or will Roger shoot on sight? Adam: Robert Rodan. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Adam speaks his first word: Barnabas. After a rousing soup-eating seminar, Adam becomes distraught when Barnabas leaves, so he escapes. He and David play, but when they rumble over David’s new knife, Roger shoots Adam and probably goes home and laughs about it. Adam is wounded, but not down.

Everyone comes to Dark Shadows for the vampire. Everyone then finds their own reasons to stay. Episodes like 495 are replete with mine, and if you watch it without tearing up, we can turn this Daybook around right now and go home. I have plenty of GIRLS NEXT DOOR episodes I can write about, thank you. Agreed?

Isolation, misunderstandings, alienation and all of the other pillars of my self-esteem grab the baton and share duties as grand marshall of the parade here. In fact, 495 might be the most emotionally arresting installment in the show’s five year run. Other episodes have more arresting moments, but I can think of few others that establish and sustain such poignance. Robert Rodan’s sensitive and liberated performance is key, and it’s no wonder that children rushing home from school now had a character with whom they could identify, and a character capable of unlocking the parental side of Barnabas they always knew was there. Not that Rodan was an ideal child and not that Barnabas was an ideal parent, as the great man admits in the soup scene. (And it has a Soup Scene. Even the hippest cities can’t boast of a thriving soup scene, yet here ya go.) The fact that they fall short makes it all the more touching because the intention is there. Adam may be a wayward student of the spoon, but the pain we see when he attempts to make Barnabas stay is authentic and affectionate. Jonathan Frid similarly finds lovely and ambiguous texture in that scene, playing off of Rodan for dynamics we’d rarely see again. Barnabas shows a mournful pride; he hears his name as Adam’s first word and then chides himself for having unrealistic expectations based on that. Just as pointed is the pain and desperation Adam freely shows when Barnabas leaves. For many young viewers, the tv was their primary companion when adults left… if they were ever really there. The truth of that moment, shared by Sam Hall and Robert Rodan, cuts through plot, character, atmosphere, and everything else to speak directly to viewers, confronting as well as comforting. It’s a biting reminder of the job Dark Shadows was fulfilling.



Hall then does something uncommon for Dark Shadows. He doubles down on it all with the other mismatched father/son pair, Roger and David. David is trying to show off a new knife, and Roger is pulling a muscle to feign interest. It’s clear they’re both trying, and they both know it’s probably pointless. But what alternative have they? David later confides to Adam that he wishes that speaking were unnecessary, since it’s usually a vehicle for prying information more than connecting. Is anyone connecting in the episode? Roger even asks Barnabas to try a little harder to get along with Cassandra, as if his cousin were the petulant son of a newly married dad. David and Adam are the closest to each other, and even they suffer potentially fatal misunderstandings. In classic, Frankenstein tradition, Adam’s heartfelt attempts to assist are misinterpreted in a way with which only well-meaning children (and recovering ones) can relate.

One person at least tries: Barnabas. When Roger and Barnabas face down Adam (with David), the two sets of fathers and sons are matched up perfectly. We see the future play out in the present. We get how Roger got to be Roger and what David will become. Barnabas, a mild-mannered outsider (now) uses rational speech with Adam. Roger? A gun. Which he fires at Adam, anyway, even after Barnabas’ technique works. The episode ends with a hint of Dumas, as do so many others (usually involving Burke Devlin). Adam ends as prone, afraid, and powerless as he begins, he rubs his gun-shot shoulder. Given his connection to Barnabas, will they share the same pain, ala The Corsican Brothers? Neither Cheech nor Chong weigh in.

This episode hit the airwaves May 17, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 7

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 491

Barnabas and Julia think the experiment is a failure, but just as she leaves to consult Lang’s notes, Adam comes to life. He and Barnabas bond as the creature indicates speaking and shows basic motor skills. As a reward, Julia stabs him with a tranquilizer. As they speak with Liz, Adam awakens and wrecks the lab after slicing his hand on a scalpel. Barnabas nervously encounters the sunrise and survives, but must help Julia contain the hysterical lug.

After weeks of waiting, he’s alive. Alive! It isn’t often that soap writers get to introduce a character from the basement floor-up, but Adam provided that chance. I’m not sure how much was planned, how much was an accident, or both, but Adam’s interactions in this episode with Barnabas and Julia will inform those relationships for months to come. The dynamic with Julia is wholly understandable; her voice is as sharp as the needle she brandishes. Adam’s reaction is predictably negative. His relationship with Barnabas is more complicated. It’s a wariness that always floats toward total mistrust -- guilt by association with the woman who stabbed him, no doubt. However, there’s that pause before he commits, indicating that he may be misreading the situation. That little glimmer of human ambiguity is where the actor lives, and Rodan handles it with great sensitivity.

The addition of a Frankenstein’s monster was inevitable. “Dracula and Frankenstein” go together so frequently, they might as well be one word. The inclusion of Adam was so much a part of the ritual that they even gave him the Frankensuit costume. The problem is that the character isn’t really that scary. He’s a passive villain for much of his tenure, dangerous in how he might react more than plan. Once he starts planning, he’s still a dupe to Nicholas. Audiences expecting another Barnabas or Angelique will be confused; I’m still uncertain how you make a big, childlike thug actually frightening. Intriguing? We’ll see.

491 is also Exhibit A on the sadism of the soap format. The idea that “nothing really happens on soaps” misses the obvious; proponents of that are blinded by the fact that things are ALWAYS happening on soaps. So much so that characters never get a show or two to rest their feet. That it ends with Barnabas and Julia desperately trying to contain a superpowered madman? No surprise. It’s hard to remember, amidst the action, that just seconds before, Barnabas was taking in the sun for the first time as a fully cured human. However, he’s a fully cured human in a relentless universe determined to make him earn his keep.

This episode hit the airwaves May 13, 1968.