“I must insist, I think this is a great deal of nonsense.”
We’ve seen a remarkable change in Barnabas’ character this week — not necessarily a change in his core values and moral system, but certainly a change in the way that he’s being presented. But as striking as that change is — killer ghoul on Monday, perky party host by Friday — he actually isn’t the only villain-school dropout in the room.
In fact, all four of the male characters in today’s episode have played the heavy in past storylines. When Dark Shadows began, just a little over a year ago, Roger was an unsympathetic absent father and possible murderer, and Burke was a ruthless businessman intent on revenge against the Collins family. And it was only a few weeks ago that Vicki and Carolyn didn’t feel safe in the same house as Willie Loomis. And yet here they all are in today’s episode, chatting away, like a happy group of friends.
There’s actually a tendency over time for soap opera characters’ personalities to drift a bit, usually in the direction of becoming more like the actors who play them. This is partly a result of the hectic schedule of soap opera production, which requires a round-robin of writers and producers to keep the story going, sometimes over decades. After a while, the actor is the only person who’s consistently been paying attention to what their character is supposed to be like.
And in Barnabas’ case, nobody has any idea what his character is going to be. The original plan was that Dr. Woodard would rescue Maggie from the Old House weeks ago, banging a piece of wood through Barnabas’ undead heart along the way. But the vampire got a reprieve, thanks to the fan mail that’s been pouring in, so they’re just making it up as they go along.
This isn’t an arc. They don’t have a plan. There is literally not a single person on the Dark Shadows production staff who has any idea what’s going to happen next.
So we might as well throw a costume party, and see what happens. Barnabas is planning to seduce Vicki and turn her into his dead girlfriend Josette, so he’s invited everyone to a party where they’ll dress up as the Collins family circa 1790.
The idea seems to be that Vicki will enjoy wearing Josette’s dress so much that she’ll decide to never take it off, and then I guess she’ll volunteer to join the ranks of the undead and feast off the blood of the innocent. Or something. Barnabas hasn’t worked out all the details; he’s more of a big-picture guy.
Everybody looks fantastic in their 1790s costumes, by the way. The show can’t afford a lot in the way of editing, special effects or sane scriptwriters, but these are New York theater people, and they know how to lay their hands on a decent ascot.
The one exception is the S.S. Elizabeth, who looks like a battleship that’s been disguised as a wedding cake. She spends most of the episode pursing her lips and looking annoyed with everyone, and no wonder. She’s probably worrying about docking fees.
But the real star of this scene is the boom mic, which is apparently exactly where it shouldn’t be.
I don’t usually point out the boom mic shadows, even in the Bloopers list at the end of each post, because they happen so often that they’re not worth paying attention to. But the boom mic is so much a part of this scene that it’s practically a special guest star.
The shadow makes its first appearance directly on Roger’s face, and then lingers there for about twenty seconds. Then the camera cuts to a different shot, where there’s such a clear shadow on the wall that you can practically read the serial number.
Roger finally turns away from the shadow so it’s not on his face anymore, at which point the camera stays focused on the shadow across his back.
Roger moves again, so we end the scene with the director clearly deciding that she might as well forget about the actors completely, and just focus the shot on the boom mic shadow.
Over at the Old House, Barnabas is talking to Josette’s portrait, because he’s a crazy person and that is what they do.
Barnabas: Josette… This time, don’t disappoint me. Let me come to you. Accept me. I’ve waited so long for you, Josette.
And then he stares off into space, like he’s Heathcliff or Lord Byron or Mr. Darcy or whoever the hell he thinks he is at the moment.
Willie walks in, and finds Barnabas holding Josette’s music box. And I’m just going to go ahead and quote a bunch from this scene, because I’m in love with Willie and it’s my damn blog.
Willie: What are you doing with that? Are you plannin’ to give it to Miss Winters?
Barnabas: Possibly.
Willie: Well, I don’t think she’ll accept it.
Barnabas: Why not?
Willie: You said you wanted her to come to you willingly. That’s not gonna be as easy as you think.
Barnabas: Isn’t it?
Willie: And even if she does — there’ll be others who’ll stop her.
Barnabas: Others?
And hey, do you remember when Barnabas was in charge of Willie’s entire soul? Now he can’t even keep his grip on this conversation. Willie is talking rings around him.
Willie: Burke Devlin, for one. He won’t let her come to you.
Barnabas: I don’t think that Mr. Devlin will pose much of a problem.
Willie: What are you planning to do with him?
Barnabas: What makes you think I’m planning to do anything with him?
Willie: I know you. I know you’re planning something. What is it?
Barnabas: Willie, my plans are my own. Now, my guests are waiting.
Willie: What are you planning, Barnabas?
Barnabas: I said, my guests are waiting!
So I just want to take this moment to say that anybody who says that Willie is playing “Renfield” to Barnabas’ Dracula is an idiot. The only thing that Willie and Renfield have in common is their hair color.
This is Renfield, as seen in the 1931 Dracula film. He’s a patient in an insane asylum who eats insects and rats. He’s not Dracula’s servant — in fact, they hardly know each other. In the one scene where they interact, Dracula throws Renfield down a flight of stairs and kills him.
Renfield is an insane creep. Willie is amazing. End of discussion.
Okay, back to the show. We finally gather everybody in the Old House drawing room for the wild dress-up party that Barnabas has been planning all week.
As each person enters, Barnabas admires how much they look like their 1790s counterpart. Elizabeth has a striking resemblance to Naomi Collins, Carolyn is the very image of Millicent, and so on.
Then he pours everyone a claret cup out of a punchbowl, and makes a toast: “To the past! And all its remembered glories.”
And… that about wraps it up as far as Barnabas is concerned. After a week of promises and plans, it turns out that there’s no food, and no activities outside of admiring how much you look like somebody.
My husband and I were once invited to a dinner party by some people that we didn’t know very well, and they served us some fish soup. We ate the soup, which we figured was the appetizer. Our hosts kept asking, don’t you want more soup? And we said no, we’ve had enough, and then we waited for the main course, which never came. Since then, the phrase “fish soup” has been our family code phrase for any disappointing social event.
This party is extremely fish soup. They don’t even get soup.
And so naturally they decide to have a seance.
It’s not really as simple as that — first they feel a chill, and then Liz thinks that someone touched her on the shoulder, and then some candles flicker, and so on. I won’t burden you with all the setup. Suffice it to say that this is Dark Shadows and we’re all dressed up, so we might as well have a seance.
Roger acts as the medium, and he has a wonderful time looking around the room and calling to the spirits.
Roger: Who is here with us? Who is in this room? Is it you, Naomi? Millicent? Josette?
Meanwhile, Barnabas is extremely nervous, and rightly so. The whole point of this party was to create a new, more pliable version of Josette. The last thing he wants is for the actual Josette to show up and tell everyone exactly what she was running from when she threw herself off the cliff.
This goes on for longer than you might expect. Roger keeps calling to the spirits, Barnabas keeps tutting, and for a minute it looks like this is going to end up as another slow, disappointing scene where nothing happens.
But then the candles blow out, and the front doors swing open with a bang. Liz feels a piercing cold.
And at this point, you remember that ghosts actually do exist in this fictional world. Just a couple days ago, we saw Barnabas’ dead little sister hanging out in Josette’s room, playing with her ball.
This is an unpredictable moment. According to the new rules of the show, just about anything could happen.
Then Vicki closes her eyes, and starts to moan. Roger takes charge.
Roger: It’s too late to stop now, even if we wanted to. Vicki is going into a trance. We’re about to be contacted by someone… Someone from beyond the grave.
Which is a pretty kick-ass Friday cliffhanger. See you next week.
Monday: Ancestral Exercises.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
In the first scene, Barnabas tells Willie, “It will be like seeing my mother again. The resemblance between the true — two — is striking.”
Barnabas has his ring on his left hand for this episode. He usually wears it on the right hand, and just switches to the left if they need it for a specific dramatic shot. There doesn’t seem to be one of those in this episode; he’s just wearing it on the wrong hand.
When Burke arrives at the party, he leaves the door open behind him. The door is magically closed when we come back from the commercial break.
During the big “the candles are blowing out” ghost moment, the camera focuses on a standing candleabra with six lit candles. Only four of them actually get blown out.
Monday: Ancestral Exercises.
Dark Shadows episode guide – 1967
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
I’m still way behind in commenting on these (I owe House Jameson some love, for example). So don’t be surprised to see my remarking on earlier installments.
Re Renfield and Willie, agreed as far as the movie, but regarding the Maggie Evans plot, when there was more “Barnabas controls my soul” as you said, see my treatise on https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2013/11/11/episode-261/
Also, just to be nitpicky, there’s more than one scene in the movie between Renfield and Dracula (I can’t upload screengrabs here, but you missed a couple). Renfield has that long scene with Dracula *before* becoming his thrall and going all bug-crazy (the whole “I never drink… wine” etc.), which went to Harker in the book, then he collapses and the camera fades to black right as Lugosi’s about to put the bite on. That, apart from the death, is the most significant scene. Then there’s brief interaction on the ship (Dracula is just standing silently while Renfield asks “Master” to keep his promise about small lives, i.e. bugs and rats, when they get to London; he also talks to the coffin/crate). Finally, although the two actors aren’t actually *with* each other, Browning shoots a scene with Dracula communicating psychically with Renfield by staaaaaaaring at him from outside the asylum, while Renfield clutches at the iron window bars. Then Renfield says “No, Master, don’t ask me to do that! Not her!” and more overwrought acting (so he’s not exactly the handyman but there’s still servitude and a slight similarity to Willie’s concern over Maggie, but less so than in the book/stage dialogue).
Renfield even goes to Our Heroes and tells them “Be guided by what [Van Helsing] says, it’s her only hope” and tells them to take Mina away and talks about how God should understand the power such evil has over weak minds etc. I mentioned it in the other thread, and there is a huge difference (since unlike the book, it comes off as “Dwight Frye scenery chewing like mad,” which is fun, but not the same as Karlen’s actually struggling between Barnabas’ control at the time and actual *human* concerns, and more active attempts to help Maggie). As you say, that was harder in the daily Loomis abuse days, and now that Barnabas is distracted by high fashion, he’s slowly gaining headway.
Then a bat (Drac squeaking about) basically threatens Renfield, and he clams up and goes all nuts again; *then* the death scene, after he’s answer Drac’s psychic summons and this time has lost all compunction and is eager to do whatever “Master” wants, but then Van Helsing and Co. arrive, Drac assumes there’s been an internal leak and instantly downsizes.
Anyway, I mention all that again to show there are similarities, but really only during the kidnapped Maggie storyline, and between Willie and the *book* (and sometimes stage) Renfield. Basically they’re not the similarities everyone else *thinks* are there, but since you’ve been looking at the novel Dracula as well when making comparisons, I thought it only fair. That doesn’t do anything to affect the “Willie is amazing” conclusion (with which I concur).
Also, cheating again, but I love how (Josette aside), the costume ball selections for everyone end up dictating the double casting once they start the time travel storylines. As you say, it wasn’t planned that way, but once the production staff gets there, they realize “Wait, we already matched everybody up and found out what size corset or frilled shirt they wear!”
Yeah, this turns out to be a dry run for the 1795 story, which is still about four months away. There’s a lot of dialogue this week about Vicki wishing that she could live in the 18th century. That sounds like foreshadowing, but it’s actually the other way around — after a while, she and Barnabas talk so much about “the past” that it starts to ring some bells for the writers.
Amusing realization: Dark Shadows pretty much operates on the reverse principal of Criswell’s “We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives” spiel in “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” On DS, it’s the past (and since that *is* how Vicki ultimately spends the rest of her life, well…)
Oh, and also: You’re right about Renfield having more interaction with Dracula in the movie, although there’s still not a lot, and it doesn’t really resemble Willie’s role at all. I was thinking about rewriting that section of the post to be more accurate, but I think I’m going to leave it so that your rebuttal looks like the knowledgeable correction that it is. So I’ll just say, for anyone who’s read this far: Andrew is right. Also, Willie is awesome.
I like how Roger in this episode is the one starting the séance, rather than the one poo-pooing it. I also love the episodes with 5+ cast.
” these are New York theater people, and they know how to lay their hands on a decent ascot” you’re killing me!!! ROFL
I’m loving this show, but it’s amazing and amusing how little effort they make to maintain certain kinds of believable consistency. I don’t have a problem with the vampire and the ghosts; it’s things like the fact that Barnabas invited everyone over to see the restoration — so they only get to see one room. I guess the only nicely done sets they have for the Old House are Josette’s room and the basement/dungeon/coffin storage area, so there isn’t that much to show. But they could’ve written dialogue with people exclaiming over the things they’d just seen in other parts of the house. And it’s funny that there’s no food. Perhaps another example of Barnabas’s self-absorption — forgetting people need to eat. And finally — people have just shown up, and the clock strikes 11? What kind of cockamamie hours are these people keeping? Oh well. It’s fun anyway. 🙂
How insightful of you to be see that the probable reason for no food is that Barnabas might have forgotten that people need lto eat unlike him. Liquid refreshments is all Barnabas needs. How thoughtless of Barnabas.
So much to love in this episode. I like the mood it strikes. And yes, this is definitely a dry run for 1795.
Danny, if I can summon you from 1897 for a moment: Do you know when exactly the writers/Curtis decide to do the Time Warp and send your favorite character — Victoria Winters — to the past?
My general assumption is that the writers only had things planned out two or three weeks in advance. On this one, I think Sam Hall was involved in the idea;G3 he started on the show two weeks before the 1795 trip. His first script was 357, and the seance is a little over a week later, in 365. They were only filming a week ahead of airtime, and the show is clearly improvisational by the time you get to ep 361, the all-Julia episode.
Thank you for the intel on that. Along with your witty recaps, I’m enjoying all your behind-the-scenes material and genre observations.
Fish Soup!
I may have to steal that. Pretty funny!
When I was a child we had friends who lived in Jersey City and came to our house in the Bronx for dinner every week. One day they invited us all to their house (we had never been) and served us strawberry shortcake. That was it. An entire Sunday afternoon spent eating one slice of strawberry shortcake. We had to stop for pizza on the way home.
I thought we were the only ones who had friends like that. It’s a toss up as to what is worse, strawberry shortcake or fish soup. But both are bad. This episode was definitely fish soup/strawberry shortcake.
Okay, posting this comment like, four years after the entry, but my fridge logic just hit while watching the Decades channel binge for Halloween 2017.
Where the heck is David? Is Mrs. Johnson riding herd back at the ranch, giving him a boiled dinner and some secondhand smoke? And why wasn’t she invited along to the party as Abigail Collins?
We (hubs and I) thought the same thing? Where is David? Only you went one better with Mrs. Johnson. Indeed. He could have come as Sarah.
U wonder if they had already planned the 1795 arc or if this episode inspired the time travel.
The 1795 storyline, like everything else after Jonathan Frid’s very unexpected popularity on the show which led to him becoming the main character, simply came out of the blue.
Great observations by all and an outstanding recap by Danny.
I, too, also wondered at the 11pm time frame. Pretty late to go to a party where you have to dress up in big, flowing, period costumes. They should have just gone ahead and had it at midnight and embraced the witching hour for all it was worth.
David’s absence is pronounced and i also felt originally that this would have been a PERFECT PLACE for the Sarah Collins reveal and have her join them in the room (in the flesh, as it were).
What the hell is a claret cup, anyway? I am pretty familiar with all things alcoholic and I had never heard that particular phrase before. Is it just shorthand for, “Would you care for a cup of claret?”
The lights going off on the candelabra is token seance behavior 101. I am sure it probably was a tad more difficult to get them all to to oo out at once than they originally thought but it’s still a great effect.
And, finally, kudos to Willie/John Karlen and totally agree with all Danny has said. He really is the glue that keeps Barnabas together through this whole introductory season. It would be a much lesser show without him and he drives his scenes with a cadence, tempo and rhythm that is sadly missing elsewhere in the show. He positively crackles when on screen and it is a testament to actually knowing your lines that allows him to take flight so. I tell actors all the time (as a director) that you are always going to be static and uninteresting until you are fully off-book and memorized. Karlen proves himself to be the actor’s actor and then some.
Ahhh by so good to be back here in the DS Universe with y’all. I believe I am now five years into my tradition of rewatching DS (especially all the Julia episodes) as soon as I discern the faintest whisper of autumn in the air.
I wish our awesome Danny would sort of annotate his already delicious annotations of this show every day all over again so we could keep this watch party going live and nonstop!!
Anyway, this is exactly what I was thinking about as I watched this episode. I recall also (re)reading a Gaskell or Austen on Dickens novel and contemplating the wild night lives of the Victorians with the midnight suppers amidst their country or city balls and many of the guests not leaving until about 4:00am. And even a movie from the 1950’s, The Thin Man Goes Home, had me jealously wondering what has happened over the past seven decades in that the suburbs are so dull now. In the past, apparently it was quite normal for most of a town’s residents to stroll around the sidewalks after midnight, visit (still open) shops and restaurants, pop in to chat with friends/neighbirs, etc.
Maybe that’s all just fiction, and a way to keep plots moving. Or maybe it is just the difference between those who have to work for a living (and maintain a diurnal lifestyle while doing so) and those who have enough money to do what they want whenever they want.
….
I forget, too: how long is the walk to the Old House? Were they strolling along the wooded estate in those costumes?
Btw, do they ever explain how Barnabas supports his lavish lifestyle? I think we discussed things s before but cannot remember what we concluded.
Is Liz supporting him? I recall he was allowed to live in the Old House rent free but how did he afford the renovations and how does he continue to have enough money to pay for food/alcohol (for Willy and for his guests if he can’t consume anything but blood)? Well and not just food but also modern clothing … and all those candles?
Yes. It’s Barnabas’ Costume Party from Hell.
Another blooper …..one of the pages Barnabas is looking at in the photo book is obviously not attached and has to hold it down with his fingers
That’s an old book. Pages are bound to become unattached over the years.
More like a party from the crypt.
Barnabas should forget about selling the family jewels and instead patent this miraculous process he has for preserving 175 year old garments in pristine condition. And all you need is an old trunk!
Seriously! Not a moth hole anywhere. And those wool coats would have been gourmet meals for them.
Just have to comment on Liz’s AWFUL dress. They got the high waisted, empire style of 1795 just perfect for Vicki and Carolyn. That style would have been considered very fashionable in 1967. But poor Liz is stuck in some sort of mid-Victorian atrocity. I haven’t watched the 1795 story recently (I’m working way through DS for the pandemic) but I seem to remember Liz was stuck in an ugly mish-mash of Victorian tat that bore no resemblance at all to what a stylish, older woman would have worn in 1795. I can’t understand it either because Joan was quite petit and would have looked great in anything (except maybe what they gave her!)
I’m assuming that they were trying for an older Revolutionary War style for her. For some reason costume designers have decided that older women, no matter how wealthy, must not update their wardrobe. Think about Downton Abbey’s Dowager Duchess in her Edwardian outfits well into the 1920s. They continue having Naomi dress differently than the other women into the 1795 flashback.
I know, it’s nuts. Fabric was very expensive, so most women had their dresses altered to match the fashionable profile. Wealthy women with social standing in particular were keen to keep up.
Liz is wearing Naomi’s old dress Barnabas chose for her. Liz had nothing to do with the style at all!
I’m glad the ridiculously late hour to host a “party” was mentioned and that only a drink was served. What! Only a drink!!! This would have been a perfect opportunity to showcase some of the delicious dishes from the Dark Shadows Cookbook! Although, I do realize the cookbook wasn’t printed until 1970. It does have some fun recipes – Maggie’s Witches Brew Fondue, Barnabas’ Bloody Mary, Carolyn’s Fiendish Fish…
This party was Fish Soup indeed!
I wondered what Claret Cup was. The internet provided a tasty recipe for it.
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/claret-cup
Although the DS cookbook does provide a recipe for Dark Shadows Champagne Punch.
I bought the Dark Shadows Cookbook as soon as it came out and had a Dark Shadows themed Slumber Birthday Party using recipes from it. Unlike Barnabas’ dismal gathering, my party was, in my humble opinion, AMAZING!
It was held in our unfinished ranch house basement. I made tombstones from cardboard with each of my friend’s names on one, with a short description of how they died. They were painted with fluorescent paint and a black light strategically placed set them aglow. The “graveyard” was decorated with twigs and debris and since we didn’t have access to a smoke machine that could blow like crazy, my dad found dry ice which works pretty well in pans of water.
I cut several spools of black thread into long spider webs and hung them from the ceiling at the entrance to the basement from the garage. A neighbor gave me the box their refrigerator came in and I painted a coffin for my dad’s friend to lay in. Of course, I made a cape for him and a cane and loaned him my Barnabas ring. When the guest arrived the coffin opened and out came “Barnabas” displaying fangs. He lunged at them and said, “I’m off to Collinwood.”
We had a camper mounted on the back of a pickup truck and my dad went around and picked up each of my friends so they could all ride together. We had a reel to reel tape recorder and I wrote a description of what their evening would be like. I played the Dark Shadows theme on our record player as background music and my dad narrated the story. I remember being quite a task master. I made him record it several times giving him explicit instructions on where to put emphasis and where to laugh demonically. The recording was played for my guests when they were all in the back of the camper on their way back to the house.
Our ping pong table covered in a white sheet decorated with the DS logo served as the buffet table where all sorts of delectables from the DS Cookbook were served: Angelique’s Omni-potent Hors D’oeuvres, Quentin’s Ghoulish Goulash and my invention, Collinwood Chocolate Fondue. Eggs Barnabas or David’s Demoniacal Pancakes were on the menu for breakfast the next day.
The evenings activities included, pin the teeth on the vampire, telling ghost stories, playing the DS board game, playing with the Ouija Board, trying to have a seance, arguing about who we loved more Quentin or Barnabas and who knows what else. Maybe staring at and listening to my Josette’s music box!
Whew! My dad was a saint!
I’ve been married three times and I don’t think I put that much thought and effort into any of those celebrations. Whoops…
Thanks for letting me reminisce
I wonder why Barnabas was upset remembering Jeremiah Collins after Vicky asked to bring Burke to the party. I thought Barnabas already understood that it was Angelique love potion that was responsible for breaking up his plans with Joseth and not Jeremiah own will as we know happened in the 1795 time line when he discovered Angelique was the witch.
I think that is one of the clues that the writers are winging it a line at a time, with no grandmaster plan. Barnabas also waxes poetic about how he wished he could have destroyed Jeremiah, well he pretty much did, Spoiler Alert, unless becoming a popeye’d zombie doesn’t quite qualify as destruction. And Barnabas says Roger doesn’t look quite as much like Joshua. So, yeah, lots of inconsistencies.
The episode where Barnabas finds out about Angelique’s role hadn’t been written yet, so Barnabas’ version at this point was Jeremiah was a very old guy with a young Josette trapped in a marriage that kept Barnabas from her. The character of Angelique hadn’t been introduced on-screen yet, and probably hadn’t even been thought of yet either.
Nowadays I keep seeing boom mikes in all sorts of old shows, not just Dark Shadows! I’m seeing it quite a bit in the first seasons of Doctor Who.
I’m also just about to start Lara Parker’s book which supposedly puts Vicki with Barnabas. Since this is what I most wanted to see back when I first watched the show, I can’t wait to see what she does with it.