The Dark Shadows Daybook: NOVEMBER 29

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 640

Amy and David continue trying to communicate with a temperamental Quentin, now via seance. Chris visits, and leaves Amy heartbroken with his reluctance to move her into his home. That night, after a date with Carolyn, Chris chains himself up and transforms into a werewolf, whereupon he returns to the Blue Whale and attacks the waitress upon whose forehead he saw a pentagram some time earlier. 

The Quentin and werewolf arc begins in earnest now that the Adam/Nicholas/Jeff material is out of the way. What follows is a set of storylines so tight and disciplined that they underline how lost-at-sea the show has felt since Dr. Lang’s death. Enjoyable? Of course. Well-characterized? Naturally. Confidently structured? Not so much. In this case, everything is geared toward highlighting the threat of the werewolf, tying him into Quentin, introducing that new character, and crafting a crisis so vast that it triggers a flashback which will last nearly a year. You can tell this early on, just by the way in which Amy and David’s experience with the ghost unfold. This is going someplace. Each visit to and from Quentin builds on the last. After just one episode, Quentin’s spectral wrath is mentioned, upping the stakes. On his introduction and origin, Barnabas was a victim, making the best out of a chain of catastrophes and coincidences. Quentin has had nearly a century to plan and wait. It reflects the writers, as well. With the Barnabas storyline, they were trying to capture the wild horse they’d accidentally loosed, keeping up with something that never should have worked. By this arc, they’ve built a colosseum. It is with a supreme confidence and command of the medium that this cocksure team of writers truly brings the show into its own.

So much of the sprawling tale to come will center back on a bachelor’s responsibility for children he can’t save. How appropriate that it begins in the smallest, warmest, most intimate way possible, with a bachelor unable to comfort the child in his life. Strange, poignant personal bookends on a rollicking story. Don Briscoe is a perfect choice to humanize this beginning. He and Denise Nickerson have a marvelous chemistry, and he adds a sincerity and heart to the show that no male lead on the show matches between the departure of Mitch Ryan and the arrival of David Selby. For a child performer, Nickerson plays existential pain like a Bergman regular, and her indecision and loneliness propel the other characters brilliantly.

The real star of 640 is the werewolf, making his DARK SHADOWS debut. A Byronic-looking take on Jack Pierce’s original makeup for Universal, this design combines the anthropomorphic relatability of Lawrence Talbot with a newer athleticism. Thank stunt coordinator, Alex Stevens, for that. It’s an impressive debut, complete with floating pentagrams and on-screen transformations, rounded out by a smashing entrance through the window of the Blue Whale. Stevens, who was Frank Sinatra’s body double, had to arrive at work at 4 a.m. to begin the transformation in Vincent Loscalzo’s chair. It was a lasting partnership throughout 1968, ‘69, and (18)97.

On this day in 1968, U.N.C.L.E. agent Mark Slate was unable to stop THRUSH from releasing John and Yoko’s album, TWO VIRGINS. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: NOVEMBER 29

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 640

Amy speaks on the antique phone to the ghost of Quentin Collins, but he refuses to talk to David, leading the boy to start a seance. Vicki interrupts it, and Chris soon enters. Amy implores him to stay with her in Collinsport. Bolstered by Carolyn’s flirtatiousness and eagerness to host Amy, he is sorely tempted. That night, Carolyn and Chris share a drink at the Blue Whale, but the evening is cut short when Chris realizes that the sun is setting, the full moon is rising, and the waitress has the shadow of the pentagram on her forehead. Despite chaining himself to a radiator, Chris is quickly free after he transforms into a walking wolf. He sprints to the Blue Whale where he bursts in and savages the waitress.

With Adam, Nicholas, and Cassandra finally out of the way, DARK SHADOWS inaugurates its first major post-Barnabas storyline with a confidence that would read like a swagger were it not executed with such dignity. Why break with your protagonist? Whether they knew it or not, the writers were playing the long game. Yes, Barnabas attempts to help Chris and solve the Quentin issue, but his actions are fungible until happenstance channels him from the I Ching trance into his awaiting body in 1897. He’s quite literally the only man for the mission, but he’s more than up for it. Barnabas even commands his vampiric powers with an insouciantly stalwart sense of control. Yes, he realigns his moral compass thanks to his experiences with Adam and Blair, acquitting himself admirably. But he has no choice. Adam shares his soul and Nicholas is his demonic brother-in-law. In 1897, everything is a choice, and though those choices, we see the ultimate mettle of his character.

Back in late November of 1968, Barnabas is nowhere to be seen, however. Instead, there are new faces mixed with the old. Don Briscoe brings an entirely different energy to DARK SHADOWS as its temporary, resident protagonist. Few actors can vacillate as believably between desperate compassion and an electric sense of anger. Again and again, he suckers us in with kindness, turns with ferocity, and then reassures us that the anger is directed situationally, not personally. That layered nuance makes him an idea choice for a tortured lycan. Denise Nickerson’s energy and assuredness are an ideal compliment, making the brother/sister pair one of the shows most convincing, if unsung, duos. In this episode, Betsy Durkin continues to redefine and arguably elevate the character of Victoria Winters. I really hate that them’s fightin’ words. It’s a shame that she should only be aboard for the (first part of the) character’s Viking funeral. Or un-Viking, considering that she doesn’t burn.

A special triumph in this episode is the debut of their first, genuine monster, the actual, no-we’re-not-kidding werewolf. It’s an update of the Jack Pierce design, with a strangely mellowing emphasis on the nose and eyes. It’s one of the most human werewolves, despite its shock of wild hair, but it never lacks for athletic savagery. Alex Stevens, the stuntman behind the makeup, was a consummate daredevil, executing leaps and dives around the sets that are genuinely breathtaking. The very fact that there is, you know, a werewolf on the show really delivers on the promise of DARK SHADOWS’ conceit. But to see him so nimbly take potentially leg-breaking chances off railings and through windows is something truly unexpected.

November 28, 1968 saw the release of the controversially (un)covered album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, TWO VIRGINS. It, um, was, um. You know, um. Have you ever heard Yoko?