The Dark Shadows Daybook: December 27

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1967: Episode 397

It’s wedding bells for Barnabas and Angelique, but will Barnabas’ dead uncle catch the garter? Reverend Bland: Paul Giles. (Repeat; min.)

Barnabas is predictably mordant in accepting the fact that his bride is missing on the wedding day. He explains this to the reverend while rationalizing away the various haunted events from Jeremiah that interfere with the pre-nuptial wait. Meanwhile, Angelique is nearly buried alive by the ghost of Jeremiah, before the presence of Ben Stokes grants a reprieve. At the wedding, more cursed events take place, and despite the wine turning to blood, they marry. The wedding night is disrupted by Josette’s music box and the sight of a mocking Jeremiah.

Predictably, the social event of the year is also one of the most hilarious as the Dark Shadows writers have their wedding cake and smear it over the faces of proper expectations at the same time. They’ve always excelled at mixing horror with the ridiculous and the sublime, depicting situations that are monstrous for the characters, frightening for most audiences, and blackly satirical for the cast and savvier viewers. Best of all, the characters in 397 are vastly aware of this — especially Barnabas and Ben. And with Paul Giles’ doddering Reverend Bland, it’s infinitely clear that Sam Hall does, as well. Grayson Hall is clearly a woman of deep wit, and a script like this could only have come from the guy she chose to keep up with her. Considering that, it’s not so much admirable that the show allowed itself these sardonic side quests, it’s more amazing that it reserved them for, you know, weddings.

In the midst of it all is Angelique getting a taste of her own gris gris with the twisted genie of Jeremiah refusing to go back into the bottle. (With this monkey’s paw, I thee wed….) Of course, it leads her to pledge to do only good, which is what one often does after nearly being buried alive. And, of course, all it takes is Barnabas clutching Josette’s music box like Darren McGavin with the Leg Lamp to lead her away from the pledge and back into fiery jealousy.

This is all after Jonathan Frid’s bone dry Canadian wit gets a thorough workout alongside Reverend Bland, who struggles to find anything good to say, including wildly inaccurate statements about the admirable loyalty shown between the Collinses. Barnabas keeps his straightest face ever, explaining away breezes coming from closed windows, etc, like a Benny Hill character on a date with a flatulently deflating love doll hidden in the closet. Jeremiah does his best to ruin the wedding, and it’s proper vengeance for a ghost who’s been through what he has. If anyone shares the hero spot of the episode, it’s the villain, which is par for the Collinsport course.

This is a wedding I used to forget about when I would see the entire show over the course of years. However, it’s perhaps one of the three or four most pivotal moments of the mythos. Setting up a payoff that no one knew would come in the 1840 storyline, it’s a wedding of two people who love each other despite every reason not to, and Lara Parker and Jonathan Frid pull off the ambiguity with humanity that transcends common sense. In other words, a wedding. And it’s not so horrible that it nukes their relationship in the long run. If anything, it strengthens it. It’s one of those shared disasters which bonds people rather than atomize them. And it’s exactly the disaster that (and you knew this was coming) would be my focus if I were King of Big Finish. They’ve taken the stories in another direction, and I can’t complain. However, an episode of after dinner tales… imagine it. Because these are the stories the grandkids finally hear when they come back from college and can have that cognac after the meal, pulling it off like they’ve always done so. Maggie and Quentin get misty eyed talking about their nude wedding at Club Med, laughing at the fact that the only attendees were Roger Collins (who insisted) and Willie Loomis (who was inexplicably there at the time). Then, of course, the kids ask about Barnabas and Angelique’s wedding. And they laugh. Protest. Roll their eyes. And tell the story. And it ends sentimentally. Which it should. Because it was all worth it.

And there are moments of warmth in the episode that ring with inevitability. Naomi, never the snob, accessorizing Angelique’s wedding dress. Ben Stokes, the first and last man standing now the best man, as well. Because, as Barnabas says, he is. In every sense in 1795, he truly is.

I’m 48 and unmarried. Episode 397 is a checklist of the good and bad that will need to happen before I am. Well, maybe not all of it. But you get the idea.

This episode hit the airwaves Jan. 2, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 2

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1970: Episode 933

Quentin and Amana have crossed the decades to reunite, but can they cross Hell, itself? Amanda: Donna McKechnie. (Repeat; 30 min.)

Quentin and Amanda navigate through hell, never allowed to touch, as they prove their love through twisted ankles and giant spiders. Paul Stoddard sits in a faux fugue at Chez Stokes until he encounters his doom at the hands of the Prime Leviathan in the professor’s rumpus room. As he dies, Amanda seemingly pitches over a bridge in the underworld.

While 933 wouldn’t air for three weeks or so into January, it was still the first episode shot as a new decade began. Violet Welles, who often refereed during plot arc exploration with Russell and Hall, shows the wit and gravitas of the best of those two writers, and this installment is a grand example. The show was standing atop the magical year of 1969. This was, in many ways, one of the last hurrahs of that intense madhouse of creativity and fun that began with Barnabas’ mercy mission to 1796 and ended with the rise of the Leviathans -- with the 1897 spinoff in between. Was 933 seen as a beginning or an end? It was both and neither. A film was in the works and I suspect that Parallel Time was being talked about. They had freedom to jettison two, great characters because so much was possible, but to see them both (well, almost both) go in one installment is a brash choice nonetheless. Paul Stoddard, the most important non-character of the series, barely establishes himself before serving as one of the cruelest sacrifices to the Leviathans. Wasteful? Perhaps, but I see it as a gusty statement of where the show was willing to take audiences. If they can kill the entire reason the house was a crypt in the first place, nothing was too precious to be above becoming cannon and canon fodder. There is a lot of “new” upon our return from 1897, and killing Paul Stoddard both re-centers the story on essential characters (and a reemergingly heroic Barnabas) and opens up room for the character of Jeb. The Dark Shadows canvas may be broad, but it still benefits from a tad of elegance.

The reappearance of Amanda Harris can be seen as a non sequitur, given how little impact it ultimately has on the story. They may have had bigger plans for the character; it feels that way. Donna McKechnie certainly has a breathtaking beauty and integrity, like a Brundlefly fusion of Kathryn Leigh Scott and Alexandra Moltke. Never let it be said that Dan Curtis didn’t have a type. I can see the reluctance to jettison her as an actress, however, Stephen Sondheim’s landmark musical, Company, would open in late April, and McKechnie was a key player. Doing both could not be an option, and so Amanda had to go.

I’m not sure anyone on the show ever received as mythical a sendoff. Sy Tomashoff must be congratulated. Building all of Collinsport in something the size and width of a small bowling alley was tough enough. Putting in what at least appear to be multiple levels of Hell, a chasm into an abyss, and the pit of a giant spider, also? It’s a creative masterstroke by the entire production team. Is it “Hollywood”? No. But if you focus on that kind of realism, it’s like getting a box of doughnuts and only seeing holes. They took a world of handwringing over the kitchen table and put the pits of Hades in its place. Both David Selby and Donna McKechnie are key to selling dramatic truth of the show’s wildest setting, and their trip through the underworld is an example of the program’s creative ambition and generosity toward the audience. I can only imagine being a kid and connecting the dots.

The program’s been dabbling with a hellish subdimension for some time. How close were they to Diablos’ office? Could they have wandered in? Was the interior of the Leviathan altar overhead? Was it hollow inside? Were there batpoles? How closely connected could these things have been? And did they stand a chance of bumping into the Transformed Jeb, shambling toward Professor Stokes’ place through the servants’ corridors? How did Nicholas keep that tan down there? Because it was a good one.

Not too long to think about it. The show typically moves sequentially in the episodes, but in what feels like a warmup for cinematic storytelling, 933 employs crosscutting between two concurrent narratives, and does a sophisticated job at letting each build the tension of the other. The mini-climaxes and (often literal) cliffhangers have a precision that Hollywood often lacks. The Last Jedi comes to mind as a film that mangled the same attempt.

But let’s face it -- the Walt Disney company is no Dan Curtis Productions.

I mean it.

This episode was broadcast Jan. 21, 1970.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 2

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 664

Crystal’s body is delivered to Barnabas by Angelique, a woman fresh from Hell, and ready to settle down in the era to which she’s been sentenced by Diabolos. She’s there to save Vicki’s life, wanting only Barnabas’ allegiance in the bargain. With no time to fret, he agrees. However, at the execution, Victoria dies. Later, over her body, Angelique savors her plans to come.

This may be the most shocking episode in the arc. It changes both the tone and stakes of the DARK SHADOWS universe, and it does so with unusual atmosphere and economy. If DS were made for HBO in twelve-episode seasons, this is what it would feel like. Angelique retreads her blackmail toward Barnabas, and he has no more time to play Hamlet. Now, he’s Henry V. Her seemingly cruel twist at the end gives the show one of its truly shocking and most unexpected moments -- the hanging. Roger Davis really rises to the occasion with this one, balancing pathos and dignity with leading man aplomb. Lara Parker also seems to be having a ball, returning Angelique to her former powers. This story also demonstrates how fluid the rules of time would be for her, getting us ready for 1897. Interesting also is the chance to see the 1790’s sans Josette, with Vicki as the focus. I never really bought it until now, and Jonathan Frid completely sells the shift in affections that genuinely makes Victoria central to the action of this era.

Dan Curtis emerges in this episode as the most artistically daring of the DARK SHADOWS directors. Of course, it’s good to be the king. Never before (in color) have I seen an episode use candles and the suggested source lighting to create such mood and sense of the era. More than the costumes, Curtis’ lighting conveys the 1790’s with a rare verisimilitude. The make-up crew was ill-prepared for the shift. Frid’s shadow-and-highlighted Ben Nye cheekbones are really on parade, but it doesn’t matter. The atmosphere conquers all. Taking charge of his complete toolbox, his love of close-ups combined with a camera that often moves as it it were a prowling animal betrays the Alpha swagger and restlessness for which Curtis was famous.

On this day in 1969, Allan Sherman’s musical romp concerning his recent divorce opened on Broadway for a whopping four performances, despite starring the screen’s first James Bond, Barry Nelson. Sherman is best known for his album, “My Son, the Nut.”

Regards from Camp Grenada.