Monthly Archives: October 2013

Episode 234: Adventures in Babysitting

May 1967, Ron Sproat, , , ,

“I don’t like people asking questions. And I like even less the people who inspire those questions.”

You know, it’s amazing the kind of thing that you can get used to when you’re watching a TV show every day. The show is clearly stalling while the writers figure out how to spin the Barnabas story out, and I’ve been grumbling all week about the recap and repetition.

But consider this: It’s May 1967. Thirty seconds ago, Nurse Sharon was emptying bedpans on General Hospital. And now we’re watching a walking corpse from the 18th century savagely beating a destitute con man with a cane.

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Episode 233: All Wet

Malcolm Marmorstein, May 1967, , , ,

“Vicki… could it have been one of those things you think you saw?”

It’s been exactly a month since Willie opened the coffin, and it’s started to sink in for the producers and writers that they might want to keep the vampire around for a while.

Originally, the plan was for Barnabas to be on the show for six weeks. Dr. Woodard, the Van Helsing substitute that they’ve recently introduced, would find something nasty in Maggie’s blood samples, lead the townspeople to Barnabas’ door with torches and stakes, and put an end to the whole silly mess.

But now the first trickle of fan mail has started to arrive. This is a new experience for the Dark Shadows team. Nobody’s writing in to say how much they love the Jason/Liz blackmail story, but the dead guy is getting some response. They should keep this storyline going.

The writers have figured out a really good plot point for Friday’s cliffhanger. Now they only have two problems. They’re called Wednesday and Thursday.

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Episode 232: Just Add Water

May 1967, Ron Sproat, , ,

“They just kept asking me questions, nothing but questions!”

So here’s the thing about soap operas: just because it’s on every day doesn’t mean you’re actually supposed to watch it every day. I mean, you’re allowed to have a life of your own. It’s 1967, you’re probably tie-dyeing something.

You can tell how often you’re supposed to watch a soap by seeing how far back they’ll recap the story for you. If the characters are still standing around talking about something that happened two weeks ago, then you can probably just show up on Fridays and you won’t miss much. In the early 2000s, NBC had a soap opera called Passions, which was so glacially slow that the optimal viewing schedule was one episode every three weeks. Or, preferably, not at all.

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