“He isn’t dead all of the time. Just some of the time!”
We open the new week with a reprise of David’s dream from Friday’s episode. I’m not usually a big fan of repeating a dream sequence, but in this case it’s entirely justified.
For one thing, this dream delivers some long-overdue plot development — David finally realizes that his friend Sarah is a ghost, and his cousin Barnabas is a vampire. Plus, Friday’s episode was a black-and-white kinescope copy, and today we get to see the dream in full color. Well, in two colors anyway, namely: yellow and purple.
Isn’t it fantastic? I had no idea. When we saw this in black-and-white yesterday, it looked like a moody, German Expressionist art-house auteur piece. In color, it looks like exactly nothing that has ever existed on film. I’m groping for a reference point.
It actually looks a bit like the planet from “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the first season Star Trek episode about a bitchy, sentient doorway through space and time that tells people that they have to kill Joan Collins, or else the Nazis will win World War 2. The rerun of “City on the Edge” actually aired in August 1967, just a couple weeks before they taped this episode, so for all I know the Dark Shadows lighting director was an early Trekkie.
I know, that’s a bit of a stretch. I’m just saying that it doesn’t look a lot like General Hospital anymore.
David wakes up screaming, and Vicki rushes to his side. She’s wearing a lavender dress and he’s got butter-colored pillowcases, so maybe everything looked like this in late summer 1967.
David looks Vicki straight in the eyes, and like the doomed prophet crying in the wilderness, he tells her every true thing that she’ll never believe.
David: Vicki, he’s in a room somewhere with a coffin in it. He’s dead!
Vicki: Who’s dead?
David: Cousin Barnabas.
Vicki: David! You know as well as I do that Barnabas isn’t dead.
David: But he isn’t dead all of the time. Just some of the time.
It’s a heartbreaking scene, actually. He’s the one person on the show who can see things clearly.
Vicki: David, I think maybe you’re coming down with a fever.
David: Why don’t you listen to me!
Vicki: I will, as soon as I get you some milk.
David: Where are you going? Don’t leave me alone in here!
And, bless him, David Henesy is nailing this moment. If there’s one thing that a kid can connect to, it’s the feeling that the grown-ups aren’t paying attention.
David: Haven’t you been listening to anything that I told you? Sarah’s dead.
It’s hard with these goldfish people to get a new idea to stick in their heads. I had this exact conversation so many times when I was a kid.
Over at the Old House, Barnabas comes home to find Julia chilling in the drawing room. He’s not thrilled.
Barnabas: You have nothing better to do than to sit around reading books at a time like this?
It’s a bit brusque, but he’s got a point. These two don’t have a particularly relaxing lifestyle these days. Willie was shot in the back the other day outside Maggie Evans’ bedroom window, and now everybody thinks that Willie’s the kidnapper they’ve been looking for. This is a convenient turn of events for Barnabas, but only if Willie stays quiet.
Barnabas and Julia settle into one of the most cold-blooded conversations of all time.
Barnabas: I had an eventful and thoroughly depressing evening. First a revealing talk with David, and then a trip to the hospital.
Julia: Hospital? Why did you go there?
Barnabas: Hopefully to get the news that friend Willie has passed away.
Julia: Well, has he?
Barnabas: No, he clings to life with a leech-like persistence.
It’s unreal. These are the main characters of a television show. Who talks like this?
Barnabas is just flustered and unhappy.
Barnabas: Why isn’t he dead?
Julia: I don’t know.
Barnabas: Well, you’re a doctor, aren’t you?
Julia: Barnabas, he is going to die.
Barnabas: Yes, yes! I keep hearing that. But when? He’s certainly taking his time about it.
I love it. This is a Gordon Russell script today, and I think it’s the best he’s done so far. Russell joined the writing staff a month and a half ago, and he was thrown in the deep end; he and Ron Sproat are each writing a week at a time right now. Imagine that — writing a complete half-hour television script every day for five days, taking a few days off, and then doing it again. That’s not a thing that humans do.
And yet here’s Barnabas and Julia, doing witty, sarcastic daytime television Nick-and-Nora dialogue about how much they want their only friend to die.
Julia: He is in a coma. He hasn’t exactly got control over the situation.
Barnabas: Perhaps it’s time that I should take control of the situation.
Julia: What are you talking about?
Barnabas: I’m talking about getting rid of him before someone brings us the news that he has miraculously recovered and is writing his memoirs.
Oh, it’s lovely. This is actually the same conversation that Barnabas has been having with both Julia and Willie for weeks — he thinks that killing people will solve all of his problems, and they have to patiently explain that unsolved murders tend to put the authorities on edge.
But everything feels light and fresh today. You’d never guess that this is Russell’s fourth consecutive script. He’s good.
Anyway, Julia has a plan, and once again it involves her hypnotic memory-erasing medallion. She goes back to Collinwood and finds Elizabeth and Vicki talking about David’s latest slice of crazy, and she offers to have a talk with the boy.
Now, they don’t know that Julia is a doctor, and she runs a sanitarium. They think that Julia is a weird historian who came to do some research about the Collins family and won’t go home. But they’re desperate, so they might as well try anything.
The conversation is surprisingly upbeat, considering David’s recent mental upheavals. Most of it is Julia urging David to relax. He’s actually pretty calm for a kid who’s saying that his cousin came out of a coffin.
She makes sure he’s sitting comfortably, and says, “Now I’m going to show you something that will make you feel even more comfortable.” She pulls the medallion out of her purse, and gets to work.
Spinning the medallion in front of his face, Julia says, “Concentrate on it. It’s very pretty, isn’t it? Now, just keeping looking at it. That’s right.”
Suddenly, David remembers the faceless woman that he saw in his dream last night — she was holding the same medallion!
David says, “You were in my dream! I couldn’t see your face, but… you were holding in your hand that same piece of jewelry!”
Delightfully, Julia’s response is “This is just an ordinary medallion,” which is not a sentence you hear people say very often.
But David’s not having it; he runs for the door, screaming for Vicki. And then the Nazis win World War 2. It’s chaos around here.
Tomorrow: David vs the Goldfish People.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Julia pauses to remember her next line, and Barnabas tries to fill the gap:
Julia: If an attempt is made on his life, they’ll realize that he’s not the one. (She sighs.)
Barnabas: Well —
Julia (simultaneously): The investigation will continue.
Barnabas: Doctor, what do you suppose that we should do?
Also: When Liz comes into David’s room, he pushes his chair back with a noisy scratch on the floor.
Tomorrow: David vs the Goldfish People.
Dark Shadows episode guide – 1967
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Did anybody notice the change in Julia’s medallion? It’s now twice a thick, so it should have twice the hypnotic strength.
One side helps you fall asleep more quickly, the other side helps KEEP you asleep.
Funny!
Yeah, David ROCKS in this ep! One of my all time faves.
Ha! I wrote my comment on the prior episode before reading your synopsis for 326. You’re spot on. It went from silent German expressionism to colorful 60’s pop-art. Just missing a black light and lava lamp.
These last two episodes are so spooky! Exactly why I loved this show as a kid. And, the dream is way scarier in b&w, but the bizzaro color version also has its own sort of charm…
This is the closest we see Julia getting called out in public since she arrived on the scene. Little David brings the heat on her and even Elizabeth is like, “WTF?”
I think that David Henesy should have gotten more attention for his work on the show at this time. He really carries enough scene work and dialogue to merit consideration for a Supporting Daytime Emmy, Was he ever nominated?
Unfortunately, Barry, the Daytime Emmys didn’t exist until around 1974, I believe.
Totally agree on David’s performances here….the little nuances of grabbing Vicki’s arm in desperation had a genuine air about it (as opposed to a contrived, over the top reaction) that rare for DS. On the other hand, there’s Julia’s “I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it (hypnosis) before”….well, because it would have avoided several episodes of “David must die” dialogue and moved the plot forward too quickly.
Too bad the Daytime Emmys hadn’t been invented yet in 1967. David Henesy could’ve been a contender.
David Collins in his dreams knows about a lot of things awake David hasn’t seen: Barnabas having fangs; Barnabas sleeping in a coffin; Julia’s hypnosis medallion. Is Sarah planting these images in his brain? Or is David’s own precognitive ability pulling in these images?
Yes, the medallion used to have just flat blue cardboard on one side. I don’t know when that side evolved into a second elaborate decorated side.
i think the props department picked it up at the Christmas store and got a deal on it. It’s one of those “back of the tree” decorations that you only still hang because your dotty old aunt gave it to you before she died and it has sentimental — but not aesthetic — value.
I would have bet money that the title for this episode’s synopsis would have been “A Woman of Many Talents” or some such.
Julia got busted! Her machinations didn’t machinate for once. As much as I admire Julia it was delicious to see her thwarted for a change, and by a kid no less.
I don’t really want to be that person but here goes… Julia’s wig in this episode made me want to stab my eyes out with ice picks. I never liked the wig with a small section of her natural bangs combed over at the forehead, but now it appears to have developed into what might be considered future inspiration for Princess Leia’s donut ‘do. The day Grayson Hall walks on set with her natural magnificent short curly hairstyle was one of the happiest days of my life.
Not Princess Leia. Zira, from the first three original Planet of the Apes movies!
That the Daytime Emmys weren’t invented until 1974, and therefore there weren’t any Daytime Emmys in 1968 is only 95% true. There was a category for “Outstanding Achievement in Daytime Programming” in 1968, with nominees in “Individual” and “Programs” categories. From what I can tell, despite the two categories, only one award was made. Joan Bennett for her role in DS was nominated in 1968 for this “Individual” category. (The Today Show, nominated in the “Programs” category, won.)
Love how the name “Barnabas Collins” etched on the tombstone David drew is classic comic book lettering. In an alternate universe (perhaps our own) David Collins will grow up to be a writer, artist, and letterer for Gold Key Comics, drawing upon his real life childhood experiences to help create the Dark Shadows comic book series.
Love it: at this point in the series, Barnabas and Julia argue like an old, married couple and it is fabulous, it never gets old.
Barnabas referring to Wille as “half dead-half alive.” That’s rich. 😅
“Friend Willie”? Is Barnabas a Quaker?
The dialogue in this episode really does crackle, and I could tell as soon as the rollback material ended that it was penned by Russell. Just as I knew a couple eps later that Sprout was back with his pointless back and forth staccato hamfisted circular expository crap.
i just can’t relate to two writers scripting an entire soap on their own (especially when one of them sucks it so hard). When I was writing for Days in the late ’80s, the production factory format — still in use today — was well established. The head writer (or writers), often in conjunction with the Executive Producer(s) or showrunner, would plot out the story months in advance and break down each episode by beats. These were turned over to the breakdown writers who would draft the outline of their day’s episode in broad strokes, broken into acts and scenes, often with suggested dialogue chunks. E.g., Act 2, Scene B. Old House Parlor. Barnabas frets over about his concerns that Willie will wake up from his coma and expose him. Julia assures him that it isn’t medically possible. Barnabas says he can’t take that chance and that Willie must be stopped. He orders Julia to go to the hospital and intervene.
Then that outline goes to the dialoguist (me) who turns the outline into the shooting script, filling in the gaps with dialogue that, on a good day (I e. Not a Sproat day) is witty and inventive and tends to move the plot forward, rather than just rehashing the same shit we’ve all heard already sixteen times to Sunday, spoken by characters who sound like people rather than characters. So, yeah, not like a Sproat day.
For shows with a budget, the dialogue script would then go to the story editor to be revised for continuity blunders and a final tweaking.
It’s a smooth, well oiled factory assembly line system that works. And I loved doing it. How these two did what they did the way they were doing it both boggles my mind and explains why sometimes it was great, and sometimes it was… Sproat.
And that’s what soap operas are all about, Charlie Brown.