The Dark Shadows Daybook: NOVEMBER 20

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 633/634

When Nicholas presents Maggie as his Satanic spouse and life force candidate, can Barnabas defeat him before his master race becomes a reality? Barnabas: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Nicholas conducts a black rite that bonds Maggie to him. He takes her to become the life force for Eve. Barnabas, who is already horrified, is made even more so by Maggie’s lovestruck loyalty to Nicholas. As the experiment begins, Maggie’s pain becomes unbearable to watch. Knowing that this is his only chance to end Nicholas once and for all, Barnabas smashes the electrical equipment, killing Eve at last and sending a terrified and powerless Nicholas running. Barnabas gives pursuit with every intent to kill him, but Diabolos claims Nicholas first, as Barnabas laughs at the spectacle. Meanwhile, Maggie revives with Julia, but seems to be in a haze that is connected to her time as a prisoner in the Old House. Will she remember at last? Adam escapes and charges into Collinwood, furious that his mate is no more.

This is the One Where Barnabas Smiles. I mean, really, really smiles. I won’t say he goes all Whoopi Goldberg (in this episode), but he looks robustly happy when Nicholas explodes. I think it happens again in 1897 when he snookers Laura into a trap with the help of Angelique. Normally, Barnabas just looks deeply moved with sincere gratitude at those points when happiness might afflict others.

This is one of my all-time favorite Dark Shadows episodes because of how much progress it shows. Not only does the plot leap with true irreversibility, but the characters change irreversibly as well. Barnabas has two great moments of moral awakening on the show. One is at the beginning of the Adam storyline, while this one is at the end, in this episode. The arc begins when Barnabas is left alone with Jeff Clark, who is about to be mutilated to soften Adam’s appearance. He frees him, although he knows it will probably squash his chances with Vicki. His moral compass is recognized for the first time since Angelique began her campaign. Yes, he continues to help evil enterprises, but a bit like Julia at that point, it is under duress or to serve a larger end. It is in this episode that this stops. He has already selected to choose good over evil, personally. But here, he goes beyond selecting good actions for himself to preventing evil being visited upon others. All told, this is a helluva journey to go on in what, for Barnabas, is about a year (not counting suspended animation) or less from when Angelique cursed him.

The cast is having a disciplined blast in this one, and the writers give them plenty of TNT. Humbert Allen Astredo must have been well loved. His last episode begins with a satanic wedding ceremony and ends with him being consumed by hellfire. In between, he induces coronaries, gloats, wins, loses, and finds that his powers have been sapped. He does almost everything an actor can do in a four hour play yet pulls it off in 23 minutes. Meanwhile, Kathryn Leigh Scott plays both an icy, occult loyalist and a spell-struck Josette as the whammy leaves her. She looks like she’s having a ball as well, and she works in two kinds of menace. Her Kool-Aid drunken loyalty to Nicholas motivates Barnabas by making him equally jealous and mortified.

The man of the hour, however, is Jonathan Frid. Barnabas has spent months in hesitant apprehension. He wrung his hands so much, I’m amazed he graduated from the show with any fingerprints left. However, here he gets to indulge in inner conflict that turns into passionate action. Months of a story finally explodes into seconds of resolution, and Frid seems more refreshed and energetic than he has in months.

The production is wrapping up sweeps and approaching final exams and Christmas break, making it a perfect time to introduce a more family-oriented story (with Amy and Chris) and lay the grounds for the next big thing… Quentin Collins.

This episode was broadcast Nov. 27, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: November 11

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 1149

Barnabas is none too pleased when he discovers that Roxanne has put Trask under her vampiric spell, but will she get the point before daybreak? Randall Drew: Gene Lindsey. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Roxanne attacks Lamar Trask, putting him in her thrall, but Barnabas and Randall rescue him before contemplating Roxanne’s destruction.

As Tom Jennings learned, there’s nothing like being a vampire who is hunted by another vampire to really ruin your day, even if your day is at night. That Barnabas is on the hunt to undo Roxanne is both therapeutic and painful, like a holodeck psychodrama. Symbiotically so. Roxanne is the result of his actions of the past and the present. The act of discovering and hunting her is an exorcism as much as anything. She actually is the Josette who rose as a vampire and is yet another failed love interest, doomed more by bad luck and being in the wrong place at the wrong time than by conscious action. Of course, the fact that she gets to give Trask a little taste of life on the other side of the cemetery wall is a bonus that saves Barnabas the trouble of doing so himself. And of course, the situation is made further therapeutic by the fact that he simply gets to set up her death and leave it to Randall so his hands stay relatively clean. She stands as a sad reminder of his toxicity more than as a foe, tying the inexplicable loss of Parallel Time’s happiness to the mess in which he’s again found himself. Still, as Barnabas engineers her death, we know that 1840 is headed into its final act.

Of course, it’s easy to speculate that, had Roxanne remained necrotically alive and victimizing Trask, she might have taken the eventual blame for all of the bizarre activity at Collinwood, thus saving everyone the trouble of the trial and perhaps even preventing Trask from assassinating Angelique. But no. She may be therapeutic, but she’s no Dr. Sidney, just a bitter reminder both of what Barnabas is trying to escape and what he’ll never have. We once again learn the lesson Dark Shadows frequently extols, namely that taking responsibility for your actions is a good idea only in the abstract. Sometimes, it magnifies the consequences even as it vaguely delays them. In the 60’s, life was easy; when in doubt, blame Willie Loomis. To revert to the class structure so dear to the Weltanschauung of Barnabas? That is Willie’s proper role in life and the proud station into which he was born. But it’s 1840. In his absence, I guess he could blame Laszlo, but that fez brands him as even more ineffectual than Aristide. 

Gene Lindsay is headed towards his final performance, and his appearance as Randall Drew is one of the shows most curious anomalies on a strange checklist. An important character with vital ties to other characters, leading man appeal, and the stalwart, Dan Curtis look. Giving him copious screen time and opportunities to take story changing action only to dump him after five episodes? Rather than seem like a waste, this seems almost like a luxurious creative indulgence. The show is so awash in ideas that they can afford to use an actor and pivotal character like that in even a small part. He feels like someone destined for bigger things, and his quick departure is a marvelous portent of how lethal this storyline can get.

1840 returns several times to Dark Shadows’ most familiar theme -- “Strangers at Collinwood,” but unlike other storylines, I think the strangers outnumber the residents. They all create a sense that Collinwood exists in a context of a larger world, and the benevolent, bland Randall Drew is the storyline’s best attempt to suggest that not every visitor to Collinwood is a vampire, alluring witch, or severed head in a box. There are normal people out there, too, and they serve as a pleasant reminder of the peaceful life for which our characters strive. It may be boring, but as fans of Star Trek: The Motion Picture will tell you, sometimes boring can be nice.

This episode was broadcast Nov. 20, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: November 14

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1967: Episode 366

When a seance thrusts Vicki back in time to the year 1795, will she alter history or be its cause? Sarah Collins: Sharon Smyth. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Mid-seance, Vicki finds herself in front of the Old House in the year 1795, where she meets a youthful Barnabas and Sarah, all quite human. They mistake her for Sarah’s governess and bring her in despite her protests. She later meets a skirtchasing officer, Nathan Forbes, and Joshua Collins, who elects to hire her. 

1795. If you’re a real fan, you may not remember where you were when you heard that the show was headed there, but you might recall how you felt. 

For me, it was a unique kind of excitement, and it was when I knew that Dark Shadows offered something beyond a one-off, fluke experiment… that strangeness that was Barnabas Collins. Shows sometimes stumble onto something like that. This was a promise by Dan Curtis that for once, there was a program on which anything could happen. Legitimately. When learning about the strange series through Fangoria and oral tradition, the 1795 flashback was the first thing I discovered. In a world of endless franchise milking, this may be nothing special. But in 1967, just seven months after the appearance of Barnabas Collins, this was an insane thing to do. TV was largely devoid of costume dramas -- unless they involved chaps, leather vests, and masks. Oh, and they also did a lot of westerns. But Masterpiece Theater was still four years from TV. It’s one thing to do a costume party episode. It’s another to ask writers and audiences to abandon the narrative creature comforts of cars, phones, cigarettes, and hospital scenes. Fortunately, Dark Shadows kept these at a minimum, anyway. In planning this, I have a feeling that Dan’s main concern was if he’d have to hire a string quartet to play “#1 at the Blue Whale” at the Eagle. 

A study of the history of show business is a study in the word “no,” especially toward good ideas. The more familiar you are with this, the more extraordinary Dark Shadows becomes. It’s a net-free highwire act that defines itself by disregarding conventional wisdom. Every place that they could have played it safe, they didn’t. Even down to 1841 PT, where they threw out every known character, an act that mirrored the thinking behind Night of Dark Shadows. Did it kill the show? Maybe. But there would have been no show to kill without the very same thinking. A vampire on TV is incredibly bold. Taking that show to depict his origin, with an entirely new slate of characters in another time period? For months? That investment is programming suicide. Unless it isn’t. And it wasn’t.

The move makes the program crackle with novel possibility. Sy Tomashoff, as always, is to be congratulated. Sets designed to look ancient feel new… so new that the idea of Collinwood seems vaguely premature. They even sound new. It may be my imagination, but when Vicki enters Collinwood, it actually sounds like the door of an empty under-construction house nearing completion. If that’s just the power of suggestion, he deserves even more credit. The Old House seems spanking new, and heretofore unseen areas, such as Vicki’s bedroom, give the place a sense of new possibility and grandeur. At every turn, novelty. 366 gives us what we wanted for months, whether we knew it or not. Joel Crothers confirms our suspicions as he and the show take off the gloves and portray a (so-far) lovable cad with an aptitude for eyebrow-arching normally seen only by graduates from Starfleet Academy. At this point, he seems like a prime ally, if a little grabby, and that’s a solid set-up for a fall. Seeing Sarah alive and well is as unavoidably heartwarming as you’d imagine, and her vaguely psychic prognostication of Vicki is an eerie detail they vaguely avoid later on. I enjoy seeing a progressive take on Naomi and Joshua, in which she’s always encouraged to speak her mind, and Abigail is always present to accuse others of booziness and other shortcomings. 

The inevitable question is, “What about Barnabas?” 

Jonathan Frid goes into Buster Brown overdrive to sell his wide-eyed, naive, innocence. There are subtle notes of Eddie Haskell to his first exchange with Vicki… notes drowned out by his overall sincerity. Seeing Barnabas warmly lit and made-up, sans the empty and bitter loss that will define his future debut, is exciting and heartbreaking. Barnabas often has paranoid fears or prideful aspirations that seems out of touch with reality. And that’s after the change. Here, we see him with the same sense of baseless optimism. Like the audience of a Shakespeare tragedy, we know that this quality will lead to his downfall. Dark Shadows is rarely more bittersweet.

This episode was broadcast Nov. 20, 1967. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: November 13

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this day in 1968: Episode 628

With Nicholas falling head over heels and Angelique getting a little too cozy, Diabolos finds that the water may be too hot even for him! Diabolos: Duane Morris. (Repeat; 30 min.)

In a shadowy underworld, Angelique rats on Nicholas to a cloaked figure named Diabolos. He puts her in charge of Nicholas’ punishment. Meanwhile, Julia reveals  Eve’s death to Nicholas. He relates this to Adam, and it seems as if they might need to leave town. Suddenly, a hypnotized Maggie appears and from her mouth, Diabolos tells him that his trial is imminent. 

And now, Diabolos. And by “Diabolos,” I mean Satan.

In an era when horror is chic, it can be hard to remember exactly how taboo the genre once was. Even in parts of the American south of 1997, it was far easier to find secular school teachers afraid to put up witch/ghost/skeleton Halloween decorations than it was to buy a devil costume. So, crank the WayBack Machine thirty years, and the rural reactions to Dark Shadows are sadly predictable. Parts of the country bullied TV stations into censoring the program and Jack Chick’s minions festooned windshields with tracts against the show. 

It’s an occasionally free country, so good for them. And good for Dan Curtis and ABC for doubling down. No one’s going to cite the appearance of “Diabolos” as a profound blow for civil liberties on the level of Captain Kirk kind of kissing Uhura, except....

You know, any time someone tells you not to do something, and they tell you not to do it because of reasons you can’t see, smell, or poke with a stick? It can be considered a cosmic obligation to do it. Even if they called him “Diabolos,” his appearance was a political statement. It was a rejection of the reasons that many people objected to the show. Normally, storytellers avoid pulling out their biggest guns. Doing so leaves them no other place to go. But not only was it a bold gesture of narrative, “going there” was about as eeevil as you could get. Once that went on the air and no one was fired, Curtis was pretty much safe to do anything else.

It doesn’t hurt that Diabolos is a ludicrous figure, dressed in a monk’s robe and seated behind a desk on a little dais, like the host of a Vatican game show. I know what they were going for -- a kind of ancient-yet-neutral officiousness. To either side of the desk in the smoky, wrought iron hellcave, little gargoyles adorn his workspace, making me wonder if he picked them out himself or if he had a decorator find them in the Infernal equivalent of Hobby Lobby. He’s a tall guy, and he doesn’t have much leg room under his desk. Does this bother him? Is it for his posture, because if so, it’s working.

Diabolos is also irritable at being disturbed, but takes appointments, anyway. He doesn’t get the latest news. He begins sentences with things like, “From what I know….” What? “From what I know?” What kind of underworld overlord is he? He can’t keep tabs on things better than that? He has no real idea what Nicholas is up to, staying ignorant of his ace agent having an affair behind his back. Then, he fumblingly trusts Angelique, despite her being on secret double probation, to punish him? For a guy who wants a master race to rule humanity, Diabolos seems like he’s just going through the motions nowadays. He even sounds bored.

Which is great. For all of the snarling, ranting, cursing, howling, and blood spurting that we could see the devil doing, instead, he’s just a guy at a desk, like any other network executive. If he had a putting set or a Newton’s cradle, with those four balls that rocked back and forth, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Later, when he contacts Nicholas, he has to go through Maggie’s mouth to do so, which is another piece of bureaucracy that must frustrate him. It turns the show into a supernatural Get Smart episode, which works, since Humbert Astredo sounds like Don Adams. At least he gets his own lighting, which is, predictably, red. Of course, why he gives Nicholas a day to prepare for judgment is beyond me. Not much to do in hell, I suppose, so he has to stretch it out.  I know I would.

This episode was broadcast Nov. 20, 1968.