The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 22

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 764

What’s in the cards? Can Barnabas stop Quentin or will an ultimate assassin bring a new shadow of death to Collinsport? Tim: Don Briscoe. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Barnabas attempts to learn the identity of the werewolf as he tracks down the silversmith who made the amulet of protection that will one day be found in the 1960s. Evan tests Tim’s programming as an assassin and Beth, reluctant to out Quentin to Barnabas, has the choice removed when he bites her.

As the episode ends, Barnabas again bites someone to place them under his control, reminding viewers that he uses his abilities to strategic ends as much as to feed. Would he have been this cavalier in the 1960? He’s used this advantage twice in the space of a week or so. As much as I feel sorry for Beth, who ends up being a pawn of Quentin, Barnabas, AND Petofi, it’s nice to see her current, new master so confidently on a mission. It’s an increasing level of chutzpah. Would he have had it a year before, meaning seventy-one years ahead? Perhaps. Back then in the future, he recalls how he will be chasing Adam around with a gun. But certainly not in 1967, as he slyly swaps blood slides and works to revive the mind of Josette. Prior still? In 1795, his reactions are almost entirely reactive and based on following or defiling the codes of the day. Like the two-blooded, red fisted heroes before and after him, this time, Barnabas Collins makes his own rules. This time, it’s personal. This time, he’s bringing his Vigoda.

He also tells a young Abe Vigoda that he’ll have a bright future. Kind of. I mean, I wish. In a beautiful nod to continuity, young Ezra Braithwaite (played by Edward Marshall, who also popped up as Harry Johnson in episode 669) reappears for the very first time to make the pentagram that he’ll die for in episode 685. If that makes sense. By the late 1960’s, the fully developed Ezra was played by future nighttime TV hunk, Abe Vigoda. Even though Vigoda is not in this episode, he’s a well-crafted minor character in the DSU and Vigoda gives a touching performance. But he’s not in this one. (So Soo me.) However, Edward Marshall is, and he’s good, too.

The rest of the episode (that’s not about Barnabas trying to beat the fleas off of Quentin) is devoted to Humbert Allen Astredo and Don Briscoe starring in the first remake of The Manchurian Candidate. This is where 1897’s hellzapoppin approach to storytelling starts to consume itself with too many ideas thrown around too frenetically. You can feel the generous creativity oozing from every corner of the show, but perhaps there is so much going on that you increase the opportunity for a bad idea to slip through. Dark Shadows is known for, um, borrowing? Is that the right word? It seeks inspiration from many sources, reprocessing them for a different era and audience, and with the depth and dynamism of a soap, it arguably does some of them a service. But most of these are pretty old, or, in the Case of the Leviathanly Lifted Lovecraft, at least FELT pretty old. But the very liberal borrowing from the recent film and novel of The Manchurian Candidate is the strangest “quoting” ever executed by the writing staff. A guy gets a whammy to play cards until a specific card triggers the urge to kill. Same thing. It even feels stranger because it’s that rare case of the show taking a modern story that verges on science fiction and plunging it into the past. Dark Shadows defined itself by going in the opposite direction and confronting contemporary characters with the dangers of costume dramas. In the case of the Tim Shaw storyline, it accomplishes the plot objective, but with too much winking. When a quoted idea, whether for the sake of satire or not, exists to be recognized more than to be revised and reconsidered, it’s not a shining moment.

I mention it here not to bury Dark Shadows, but to praise it. Out of 450 hours of storylines, it may be the one fumbled misstep regarding the issue of storytelling-by-pastiche, constituting the smallest fraction of the show’s screentime. Exceptions do prove rules.

This episode hit the airwaves May 29, 1969.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: May 29

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 250

The hypnosis on Maggie begins to wear off, and she plans her escape as Barnabas plans the wedding. Seeing the coffin he has had made for her, Maggie decides to kill Barnabas, but she is thwarted.

Jonathan Frid knew exactly what he was doing. I’m convinced of that. Maybe… just maybe… the appeal he saw in the character was a surprise. In the first four or five episodes. But by now, the character has been around for nearly a month and a half. Huge superstar. And despite his nervousness about lines and his reticence about being a sex symbol, it's kind of nice to have a modicum of success at what you have been trying to do for 20 years. Frid, himself, would say that he was not exactly living the life of a renowned Shakespearean actor.  So, when you look at an episode like this, it's very clear to see where he could have simply twirled his mustache and leered at Maggie maniacally. There are faint glimmers of that. Enough to please the more shallow members of the audience. But, if you exclude just a few line readings toward the end of scenes and focus on how he interacts with Maggie?  Barnabas shows a real optimism regarding his goals, finally achieving some kind of happiness. You're looking at a romantic lead in a romantic program. If there's anything that makes him unusual, it's the fact that this is a man who is pining away so sentimentally on the smallest details of a wedding. And yet, he doesn't lose his masculinity while doing so. This is endearing to watch and I think is a key, if not the key, to why Barnabas is such an attractive character for (not just) female viewers. I think that the actor knew that these choices were innately human. And they create reasons to be kept around. Certainly, in an episode that ends with your fiance attacking you while you sleep, brandishing a spike, you have an indication that the writers may very well be willing to “go there,” in terms of character reduction.

The elephant in the mausoleum comes down to whether or not Barnabas sees this as a kidnapping or a rescue mission. I think it's written as a kidnapping. I certainly know that Maggie feels that way about it. However, I believe that Barnabas casts himself as a deprogrammer. Somehow, this really is Josette. She really has been ripped into the 20th century, as has he. Unlike Barnabas, however, she's been stuffed into a new body and mentally conditioned to think of herself as someone else.  When looked upon this way, the episode changes tenor. I may not be the first to admit that a coffin is a vaguely morbid wedding present, but I will concede the fact eventually. However, I believe that Josette was open to becoming a vampire before; it was just Angelique's morbid sneak preview that dissuaded her. With that distraction gone, this seems to be an ideal time to try it again. And it just follows. If you're going to marry Barnabas, you're probably going to have to become a vampire, and if you're going to become a vampire, you're going to need a place to sleep. We were in that uncomfortable age between the Petries and the Bradys when it came to sitcom couples sleeping. It's not like she can climb into his coffin. So, yes, his and her eternal rest. It's a proper way to kick off a marriage.

250 is easily one of the most painful and beautiful episodes in the series if you tweak your expectations only about two degrees. It's about a lonely man, abused relentlessly over the one thing that so many other people take for granted: love. And he has one chance -- one, impossible chance -- after an endless journey that began with the death of his fiance and the suicide of his mother and ended in an age completely foreign to his own. To experience all of that, to keep an amazing monster of self in check, and then to find the love of your past life waiting for you at journey’s end? Given that, I think Barnabas shows the reserve of a saint. When people talk about his courtliness and restraint, this is what they mean. We don’t understand bloodlust, but we can understand the ultimate fantasy of winning back our Josettes, wherever they are.

Would you be as patient?

This episode hit the airwaves June 9, 1967.