The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 25

Taped on this day in 1968: Episode 460

By PATRICK McCRAY

As Barnabas and Victoria face certain doom, will Joshua, Ben, and destiny unite to propel them into the future? Barnabas Collins: Jonathan Frid. (Repeat; 30 min.)

After the brisk execution of Nathan Forbes, Barnabas instructs Joshua to ensure that this is his son’s last night as a vampire. Joshua vows to do so, but with a curious uncertainty. When it comes time, he cannot pull the trigger, and instead has Ben Stokes chain him in suspended animation. Joshua later honors Barnabas’s request and grants Ben his long overdue freedom. Later, before Victoria is taken to the gallows, Peter Bradford vows that he will find her in time. 

We begin with the death of Nathan Forbes. Now, on the other end of one apocalypse, Barnabas is free to unleash the full extent of his wrath. He is no doubt saturated with self-recrimination; he did not allow the dead part of his heart to triumph over the living part, to a literally eternal regret.  Perhaps by unleashing his inner evil, he could’ve done more good in the world. It’s a lesson he will carry with him, whether he remembers its impetus or not. Barnabas has only one foe left to destroy: Himself.  He asks Joshua to do the honors, but Joshua tellingly procrastinates the attempt until the next day. His father says, enigmatically, that he doesn’t know what lies beyond the grave. He may be speaking existentially. Or he may be forming a plan to send Barnabas to another time. Perhaps to be free of the troubled son. Perhaps with the hope that Barnabas will find an enlightened future.  

In this moment, Joshua fixates on rewriting the present. You could argue that it’s for the posterity of the Collins family. And that may very well be somewhat true. But I think there is a more profound truth here. I think Joshua is developing the plan for Barnabas — to be discovered in a future where the burgeoning fidelity to science can conquer the curse of Angélique. Perhaps it’s foolishness. Perhaps it’s vainglorious. These are the sorts of decisions made in the world devoid of women and their anchoring influence. Yes, men are rash. Yes, they are cowardly. Yes they are drunk on a strange, fatalistic optimism. But these are risks that men, left to their own devices, are famous for. It is the blindness of “who dares wins,“ and in times of total desperation, daring is the only choice some have. By reshaping what will become history, Joshua is preparing a safe perch on which his son can land. Now, business concerns are secondary for the patriarch. His wife is gone. His brother is gone. His daughter is gone. All he has is his son. And all he can guarantee is passage to a tomorrow beyond the reach of the shattered present. Although he will later go through the pantomime of attempting to shoot Barnabas in his coffin, I wonder if he had any intention of ever really doing so.

Before they part, Barnabas has just two requests: free Ben Stokes and attempt to liberate Victoria Winters. Joshua responds that he will do both. 

Dark Shadows reveals its deepest value, commitment, when the characters can knowingly face death rather than have it sprung upon them. Their’s is world with little control. These are the few moments where control is possible. The characters savor them with gravitas and clarity. It is the same kind of commitment that Barnabas will show Quentin nearly 200 years in the future (and only 45 years in the future) as he assures the execution-bound scientist that he will fulfill all of his final requests. That’s not just Barnabas speaking. That’s Joshua speaking. 

Jonathan Frid and Louis Edmonds tackle their final scene with heartbreaking finesse. Crying is not the most powerful thing an actor can do on stage. Rather, it is the attempt not to cry that seizes audiences. In these moments, Frid and Edmonds seize. In a medium of love scenes, there is none more poignant.

The scene will repeat itself later in the episode as Victoria and Peter say farewell. When Peter vows to find her in time’s wilderness, it’s as if he has been subconsciously inspired by Joshua. Just as Barnabas will find some kind of peace in the future unknown, Peter will find Victoria. These are not just wishes or speculations. These are not predictions. These things happen with the tortured confidence of men who seem to have been to the eras they foresee and are reporting back. 

Joshua, yes, has a surface level of uncertainty. But he shows commitment nevertheless. And if the viewer should have any doubt that this optimism has feet of clay, Peter’s commitment promises the viewers that Dark Shadows is one universe in which they can have confidence. Yes, Joshua is indulging in history‘s greatest lie. But sometimes it takes a lie to preserve everything that would be lost on the altar of truth. In such cases, life is too precious to squander on the vanities of honor and honesty. They are luxuries reserved for the untested and the fortunate. Joshua is neither.

It’s an episode of haunted goodbyes, but like Ben Stokes contemplating the future, while it is the end of one world, it is the beginning of another. We know, at last, who Barnabas truly is. We know why. We know some of the threats he will face. And we know the heart with which he will face them.

Dark Shadows, as we know it, is finally ready to begin.

It’s the sixth anniversary of the Dark Shadows Daybook. Sharing these moments and insights with you has been the highlight of my life of over a half decade. I want you to know how grateful I am if you are still reading these words and if they have done anything to help deepen your love for this story. 

I’ll see you all at Collinwood. Someday. 

This episode hit the airwaves March 29, 1968.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 25

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 460

1795 concludes as a dead man becomes a reluctant time traveler, and a reluctant time traveler confronts what may be her final moments. Victoria Winters: Alexandra Moltke. (Repeat; 30 min.)

After surviving Forbes’ crossbow bolt, Barnabas kills the sailor, then implores Joshua to destroy him, free Miss Winters, and liberate Ben Stokes. Joshua only succeeds in the latter. Instead, he has Barnabas sealed in his coffin under a silver cross and chains. Victoria’s case is too far gone. She hangs as a witch, but Peter’s vow to find her in time echoes in her ears. 

As we turn our eye to the past with 1795, the camera cannot focus any more tightly than on its last moments. Instead of pulling back out to give us a widescreen view of the world of Dark Shadows, it pushes in on four sets of faces. Four relationships. Four models of our best choices. The order of them flows with an organic necessity in an almost Maslowian ascension.  Barnabas and Forbes; Joshua and Barnabas; Ben and Joshua, and; Peter and Victoria. 

Justice. Compassion. Respect. Optimism.

They are relationships which end on defining choices. Forbes chooses murder and Barnabas chooses to protect himself and others. Then, Barnabas chooses to end his own life while liberating the deserving, and Joshua chooses the cowardly unknown rather than a bravely bleak certainty. Ben chooses fealty to social order and Joshua disrupts that order by meddling with the class structure he so thoroughly represents. Finally, instead of ending on regret, which is hard not to do when the last image is a dropped noose, the episode concludes with a sense of optimistic mission. After the future is protected from bullies like Forbes, we see that it is finally safe for family, friendship, and love. Those choices may have dark trappings, but underneath the darkness is a fierce optimism and resistance to corruption. 

That resistance to decay will drive Collinwood, creating the yin-yang that drives the series. If Gothic literature is “about” the inevitability of decomposition, Dark Shadows is wrongly pidgeonholed in that genre. It is, rather, anti-Gothic. Liz should have committed suicide. Joshua should have staked Barnabas and shot himself. Quentin should be the one dead in the sealed room, consigned by a silver bullet. The Widows should be at rest, for an empty Collinwood is devoid of those to taunt or haunt. None of this is the case. Even if Liz remains a prisoner to punish herself. If she’s punishing herself, it must mean that she matters. It’s one thing to be unworthy of existence. Forbes is unworthy of existence. Liz, however, is worthy of both punishment and recovery. Barnabas is worthy of a similar chance. The love he inspires elicits the salvation of cowardice from Joshua, perhaps the most decisive Collins that the program will present. In a world of justice and consequence, some people simply screw up. Or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or are victims of passion. But they are not volitionally evil. They are haunted because a haunting is a message, and messages are meant to inspire change among the living. Perhaps that change is to move them into a house free of specters. What is a ghost but a restless memory that baffles with sorrow rather than comforting with joy? 

If any force moves the characters on Dark Shadows, it is the past. The show ends in a haunted room, but what room at Collinwood isn’t? If the past is a puzzle to be solved, it requires embracing the present. Quentin may have been a father so negligent that his children were kept secret from him, but he can guard Jamison, Nora, and even Edward once he discovers this. Just as Barnabas can change, he can credit Angelique with the same capacity, loving who she is rather than hating who she was. Joshua may be too sentimental to end Barnabas’ life, but his refusal comes with the hope and confidence in a future replete with knowledge lacked by his present. Their last moments are a simple gaze that says more than all of the dialogue on the show. Brutus may be tormented by James and Amanda, but he can be freed by the example of those with a love stronger than he, himself, experienced. It is a strange optimism. The show begins and ends with forms of hauntings, and the final and arguably most explored one exists to be solved, and by a solution to heal… not just the tortured soul who cast it, but the descendants who share his vices of envy, greed, and wrath. They, however, have the one thing he lacks -- the capacity to overcome them. His curse exists not to torture the worst, but to reveal the best; that is the definition of confidence. 

For an installment where the heroine is hanged until dead by a corrupt and superstitious society, and where the hero, longing for death, is sentenced to an unlivable life with a torturous curse, under the symbol of a god whose image is excruciating, sealed in the smallest space possible, under chains, within a hidden room, behind a door no one knows is a door, protected by a lock that no one knows is a lock… well, on Dark Shadows, those are good things. 

In Collinsport, those aren’t perils. They’re possibilities.

This episode was broadcast March 29, 1968. 

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 29

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 464

After Angelique’s painting causes Roger to refer to Julia as a frenchwoman named “Countess Natalie,” a knock at the door signals the arrival of the man who was supposed to buy the portrait: a fastidious occult expert named T. Eliot Stokes. Smelling salts are passed out for the women, all of whom must be gently informed by Julia that this is what a Real Man looks like. He has deep knowledge of the life of his ancestor, Ben, and Barnabas is shocked by his suspicion that Vicki has paranormal insight into the 1790’s. Barnabas later bites Victoria, and when Julia discovers this, she threatens him with exposure.

Upon returning from 1795, the show moves at a rare, brisk pace, piling on new choices, twists, and vital characters with zesty abandon. Nothing stimulates the imagination for writing like writing, itself. It’s as if the mythic level of 1795 gave them permission to think big, and the form-free liberty of 1968 gives them room to explore the results. In just four episodes, we have Carolyn rebelling against Barnabas, Victoria finally under the control of the vampire, portents of the return of Angelique, and now, the arrival of one of the show’s most memorable characters, the fabulous T. Eliot Stokes.

The domination of Victoria is the most profoundly symbolic shift for the show since the arrival of Barnabas. Maybe more than that. It’s one thing to quietly swap protagonists. It’s another to have the new one enslave the former protagonist and use her as walking juice box. Victoria started out as a raven haired Nancy Drew, and it’s sad to see her devolve into little more than a bewildered victim. In the face of characters who are built to be more interesting, the focal shift is inevitable. The fact that she is being consumed as literal fuel by and for the new lead is a beautiful, poignant irony. Barnabas, you truly do drink her milkshake.

Barnabas needs all of the blood Wheaties he can eat for this one. The shock of seeing Professor Stokes is either the best thing or the worst thing he’s encountered in this week from hell. The fun of the (re)union scene is watching him try to figure out which end of that spectrum it will be. Just as he needed a physical strongman in the 1790’s, now he needs a paranormal heavy lifter. But with that brilliance comes autonomy, and that’s the last thing he needs in his associates with Angelique in the offing. 

From his entrance, Thayer David establishes a clear, confident, and charming character in Professor Stokes. The existence of Stokes also creates profound change in the fabric of the DSU. Up to this point, you either had civilians, who had no idea what was going on or antagonists, who usually only had slightly more of an idea of what was going on. Stokes changes that, and does so with great wit and seasoned cockiness. No one other than T. Eliot Stokes delivers exposition with greater gravitas, and no one has better judgement about when to look evil in the eye and tell it to catch that one and paint it green.

On this day in 1968, Lucy Lawless was born. The connection? She played Xena: Warrior Princess. Maybe… just maybe… this is a character who could have landed Stokes and kept up with him.

Maybe.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: March 29

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1968: Episode 464

Roger is smitten over the portrait of Angelique, so much so that he mis-remembers the poem, “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, which properly goes:

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Although Roger scoffs at Vicki's time jaunt, he absentmindedly calls Julia "Countess Dupres." Professor Stokes introduces himself, charming the house as he examines the painting. He wanted the painting, himself, knowing that the painting is significant to his family's history, having collected items from Ben Stokes' past. Gazing upon the painting, Vicki slowly remembers that Angelique married Barnabas in 1795 and almost destroyed the family. She identifies her as the witch, bolstering Stokes' own findings regarding the secret history of Collinsport. He believes that Vicki has ESP, a fact concerning Barnabas to no end.

Later, Barnabas commands Vicki to rise from her sleep and come to him when the music box plays in her room. He believes that she will identify more and more with the spirit of Josette. She comes as
summoned, and he implants a command for her to return to him when she hears the music again so that they may be together for all time, sealing it with a bite to her neck. Later that night, Julia sees the
bite marks on her neck and speeds to the Old House to confront him.

Barnabas claims that he is only trying to protect himself from her returning memory. Julia orders him to leave her alone or be exposed, giving him only a day to cease his attentions.

Roger recites poetry, Barnabas attacks Victoria, and Timothy Stokes appears for the first time. On a sobering note, this episode aired on the same day that the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King was announced.