The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 19

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1969: Episode761

When Edward gains proof of the evil of the supernatural, will he become Collinsport’s last, best hope for victory? Edward Collins: Louis Edmonds. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas rescues the children by teleporting in, which causes the flames to die out. Edward, now having realized that Laura was a creature of the supernatural, vows to protect Collinwood from the occult. He’d better hurry, because Quentin and Evan have a Satan to summon!

With Laura dead, and that part of the series’ auto-remake out of the way, Mission: 1897 really flies off into new territory. Quentin’s transformation has begun. (So has Magda’s.) It’s a sobering transformation, so at least they keep him good and sauced, which is always entertaining. But equally entertaining and surprisingly mature is the evolution that goes largely unnoticed: Edward, played with comic exaggeration and human texture by the reliably underestimated Louis Edmonds. And he evolves in more ways than one. He’s one of my favorite characters in the series, the very picture of a Victorian straight-man. But let’s not limit him to that. In just this episode alone, he heals and matures in surprising ways and galvanizes into something beautifully ludicrous and completely understandable...

Edward Collins -- Monster Hunter.

It’s the evolution of Joshua, who lived for denial, and a rebuke toward Roger, who lived for willful ignorance. In between, with all of the insanity endured for a hundred years, you’d think that one Collins would grow a little backbone, believe what’s clearly going on, and grab the stake & hammer. In Edward, they do. And for a post-Dickensian cartoon, Edward is a surprisingly modern man. He’s a single father, now for reals, and his warmth toward his children is wholly authentic and heartwarming. Quentin, it seems, never robbed him of a wife because he never really had one. With that new perspective, of course, he must mend the family. Now that Judith has the wealth and Trask is amassing the power, all of the external sources of Edward’s anticipated identity vanished in months. What’s left but to be a genuine mensh? His relationships are all he has, and he’s no longer the forbidding iceberg. He’s Roger and Liz’s grandpa-in-waiting.

More than that, all of the forces he once saw as corrupting to that sense of John Harvey Kellogg propriety are, well, not that important. He’s now the Lovecraft hero who decides to strike back. That journey will take him to Barnabas. I think he has it in for Barnabas because Barnabas shames him by implication. He’s the guy who didn’t settle down. But he’s disciplined, unlike Quentin, concerned for others, unlike Carl, and warm, unlike Edward. He even macks on the KLS character with appropriately hygienic restraint. Barnabas is living the Edwardian bachelor dream, then proceeds to go full-on superhero. Did Edward save his kids? No, Barnabas did. Edward will have to kill Barnabas to become him. The fact that he’s a vampire is the berries in the sloe gin. This is secretly the story of Edward Collins becoming the best of the 20th century as Quentin retreats from being the worst of it.

And there’s the mustache, too.

This episode hit the airwaves on May 26, 1969

Hear Dark Shadows as it originally aired 50 years ago today

By NICK MOONEYHAN

Dark Shadows for me has always been a curious study of television. I have always been curious about more than the story, but the show as a whole experience. I could really say that about any television show, past or present. By that I mean that not only is the show interesting but the commercials and promos as well. I have been a tape collector for over 20 years now and like finding an old television show with all of the breaks included.

In January 2007, the Dark Shadows Fan Club offered an interesting item for a limited time -- kinescope negatives. Kinescopes are a black-and-white film made from a monitor as a show is broadcast. By 1969, they were only being used to distribute shows to stations that had not purchased videotape machines. As a matter of fact, there were very few stations still needing shows this way at all. I'll come back to that. I jumped on the chance to purchase some of these rare items at $25 each. I bought four of them. A broke college student such as myself at that time probably had no business spending so much money, but alas, I did. I couldn't pass it up.

When I got these negatives in the mail I was surprised to find that the picture and sound were on different prints entirely! I didn't expect to be able to do anything with the picture knowing it would be a negative, but at least I figured I could do something with the sound. So I laced it into my 16mm projector and gave it a whirl. Fortunately, it worked and I captured the sound of all four of these film recordings. These recordings give a great window back in time to TV of a different era.



Fifty years ago today, on May 26, 1969, the first of my kinescope negative film prints was made, recording Episode 761 (labeled here with the ABC production number of #106, shorthand for #106-DRK-69, or the 106th episode of 1969.) The audio of this film is below.

This episode deals with the aftermatch of Laura Stockbridge Collins being destroyed and failing to bring her children Nora and Jamison with her. Quentin Collins, having just recently being cursed as a werewolf, turns to Evan Hanley to use the black arts to try and undo his curse by summoning the devil himself. A mysterious shadow appears and Quentin passes out... leaving the audience hanging until tomorrow to find out who it is.



Beyond the show, the commercials themselves are a great time capsule of the typical life of the hip young person of 1969... which is definitely the demographic ABC was aiming for. Commercials for hair care products, weight loss fad Metrecal, Fruit of the Loom - trying to make men's underwear sexy (for 69 cents no less!) etc. etc. Even more fascinating are the ABC network promos at the very end for repeats of The Mod Squad and It Takes a Thief.

I hope you find this as interesting as I do. I'll be back with another one on March 5, 2020 during the Leviathan story.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 17

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 240

David mistakes Maggie for Josette in the Old House. Barnabas questions him in her room before depositing him at Collinwood. Later, David sneaks back over, where he finds her playing with her music box.

The two generations of supernatural storytelling on DARK SHADOWS finally collide. Or least get confronted. Maybe just acknowledged. Respectfully nodded at? And the storytelling experience for people who have been watching the show from the beginning is starkly different from what's experienced by people who begin with the return of Barnabas. If you followed the series from the very beginning, you're used to the ghost of Josette as an actual character. This is a very literal quest that David has. If you just started the show, David may very well be a little boy with an overactive imagination and an unusual connection to this painting… but nothing more. The latter approach may actually tell a more intriguing story because of the irony; David both gets exactly what he's looking for and yet is dealing with something unbelievably literal. Little does he know that the kidnapped and brainwashed Maggie Evans is, in many ways, a more astounding event than a ghost.

Sy Tomashoff again establishes himself as the scene-stealing costar of the series, in this case with his "renovated" Old House set. The water-stained wallpaper and other decrepit details ensure we remember that, no matter how much Willie has done to clean up the house, it's still a corpse. All the more disturbing because it now has home improvement “makeup” on 60% of itself, begging the question of,"What's going to happen the other 40%?" I get the feeling that they don't care. The house has become like an exotic, carnivorous plant. Everyone except the victims see beyond the seductively colorful flowers, but we are unable to stop the credulous from going in anyway. The house remains a perfect backdrop for some of the show's most haunting imagery, specifically Maggie floating through the house enveloped in shadow and wedding attire. It's imagery that thrives in the realm of black-and-white. Although the production team will later have a blast with color, they will forever lose the textured simplicity of the chestnut haired woman in the white gown appearing to the brave boy from nowhere.

Jonathan Frid and David Henesy share some fantastic moments early in the episode, with Frid taking the opportunity to show Barnabas as alternately threatening and genuinely curious about the boy’s claims. No one else has such a significant and authentic relationship, if only in the imagination, with the love of his life. Barnabas is surrounded by one bizarre coincidence after another. He's awakened at the exact moment that his fiancé's doppelgänger is at precisely the right age. Then, his descendent has an eerily dedicated relationship with her painting, and one that seems to slip just beyond the edge of youthful imagination, into something with greater reality. Rather than leer menacingly at David, Barnabas has a more nuanced sense of curiosity, and it's that degree of complexity that elevates him over other vampires of the era.

This episode hit the airwaves May 26, 1967.