“Doctor, may I see your neck, please?”
We closed our first week back in the 1960s with a tremendous car accident, which is either a metaphor for the chaotic process of change and renewal, or just another example of Victoria Winters destroying every single thing that she touches.
So we begin this week with a visit to Extremely Specific Hospital, where Dr. Eric Lang is trying his best to get a pulse rate off a dead guy.
“There was no sign of pulse when he was admitted,” the nurse says, and Dr. Lang grumbles, “I know,” as if this is just one more thing that he hates about Mondays.
The nurse sniffs, “His blood count was the lowest I’ve ever seen,” with an air of disappointed resignation, like Barnabas is completely irresponsible for letting it go this far.
The doctor says, “Get plasma, and prepare him for a massive blood transfusion.”
“Yes, doctor,” the nurse replies, and then the conversation kind of drifts on to other topics.
Lang: Were you in emergency when he was admitted?
Nurse: Yes, doctor.
Lang: Was he bleeding extensively?
Nurse: Not at all, I didn’t understand it.
Lang: Are his clothes here?
Now, I’ll admit that there’s a lot I don’t know about health care, but I’m pretty sure that you can tell at a glance if someone’s been bleeding extensively. There are usually some telltale signs that help to swing the diagnosis over in that direction.
But this is 1968, maybe blood worked differently back then. I’m not picking up a huge sense of urgency from these two. Maybe blood was optional.
Things are also pretty confusing over in the next room, where Vicki is recovering from the car accident.
She ran off the road because she caught sight of a guy who looks like Peter Bradford, her attorney/boyfriend from the 18th century. Now the guy feels responsible, because obviously people who look like somebody should never stand by the side of a road. That’s just basic traffic safety.
And thus begins one of those epic storylines that’s absolutely calculated to make viewers wish that they were watching something else. This guy looks like Peter, Vicki thinks he’s Peter, and there’s every reason for the audience to expect that he will actually turn out to be Peter.
But the guy doesn’t recognize Vicki, and he claims that his name is Jeff Clark. Vicki isn’t fooled.
Vicki: You don’t just look like him — your face, your hair, your hands — they’re just the same.
Now, technically, that’s what “you look like him” means, but I understand where she’s going with this. There’s an obvious Peter-shaped hole in the story right now, and here’s a remarkably Peter-shaped new character that just walked in the door.
And anyone in the audience with even the vaguest sense of televisual literacy can instantly tell that this must be Peter, because that’s the only reason why there would be a camera pointed in his direction. You don’t have a guy in 1795 say, “Whatever happens, I will find you,” and then have a completely unrelated lookalike show up a week later for no reason.
So starting right now, every single person in the audience knows that this guy is Peter, no matter what he says, and therefore every minute that we spend between now and him admitting that he’s Peter is just pointless stalling that wastes everybody’s time.
P.S. It takes eight months. P.P.S. I’m not kidding.
The nurse chases the mystery man out of the room, and unleashes Dr. Lang on the poor girl. This is what’s wrong with American health care.
Dr. Lang is played by Addison Powell, who we saw a few months ago playing Judge Matigan in a 1795 episode. He happens to be The Worst Actor Who Ever Appeared on Dark Shadows. We’re going to go into this in greater depth tomorrow, so for now, I’ll just remind you that as an actor, Powell only has two settings, which are Loud and More Loud, and we’ll move on.
But Lang must have something on the ball, because he zeroes in on the mysterious puncture wounds on Vicki’s neck, which are practically invisible to the naked eye. I think this is what happens when you’ve been doing a vampire show for almost a year and you start taking it for granted.
A vampire bite is supposed to look like a bloodthirsty ghoul tore a chunk out of the side of your head. This looks like a mild allergic reaction. You wouldn’t even put Neosporin on this.
But there’s more chaos to come in this haunted hospital. Dr. Lang heads back to Barnabas’ room, and finds Dr. Julia Hoffman there, arranging for an ambulance to take her patient back home.
Now, Lang just got his foot in the door of this storyline; he’s not going to let Julia snatch away his only chance for a part in tomorrow’s episode. This begins an exchange that marks another important milestone on the show’s long journey to becoming Dark Shadows.
Julia says that she’s been treating Barnabas for a rare blood disorder that only she fully understands.
Dr. Lang waves his eyeglasses around, and pretends to be thoughtful. Lord help us; I think he’s being coy.
Lang: Tell me, Doctor, what name have you given to this “rare blood disease”?
Julia: I’ve not found a name which accurately describes Mr. Collins’ condition.
Lang: Mm hmm. You know, I think I have, Doctor.
Julia: I doubt that. I was told that his injuries in the accident were limited to severe loss of blood.
Lang: I’m not talking about the accident. Doctor, may I see your neck, please?
And there we are, it’s a different show. In one episode — really, in one deliriously nutty question — Dr. Eric Lang changes the way that Dark Shadows works.
After all, it took Julia more than a month to figure out that Barnabas was a vampire, and she was miles ahead of everyone else in town. Dr. Lang has been on the case for a little over ten minutes.
But Lang’s got an important advantage over everyone else. When Julia and Dr. Woodard were first looking into the problem of Maggie’s strange condition, they were on a relatively normal soap opera that had recently introduced some supernatural elements. Dr. Lang is walking onto the set of a spook show.
So, clearly, he’s already been prepped. Look what tumbles out of his mouth next.
Lang: Doctor, I have a certain interest in bizarre medicine. It’s a hobby of mine, actually.
Julia: That’s very interesting. We must discuss it next time we meet.
Lang: We will discuss it now, Doctor. You know, your patient could be classified a member of the…
Then a pause, obviously, for dramatic effect, just a hair longer than is strictly necessary.
Lang: … living dead.
So, here’s the innovation. Since Barnabas first climbed out of the mystery box, all of the supernatural activity has been tied directly to him, and his origin story. Josette’s ghost was retconned as Barnabas’ long-dead lover, Sarah was introduced as the ghost of his little sister, and Angelique is the witch who cursed him. As far as the show is concerned, Barnabas is the nexus of all spookiness in this universe.
But Dr. Lang is something new. He’s a complete stranger to Barnabas, and he ends up involved in this storyline entirely by chance. Barnabas went to the hospital, and this is the doctor who happened to be on duty at the time.
And now we know that there’s another doctor at the Collinsport Hospital, who — completely independently of the Curse of Collinwood — has been studying “bizarre medicine” as a hobby. He’s not falling down the rabbit hole, the way that Dr. Woodard did. Lang is one of the rabbits.
They don’t have a name for this yet, because it’s 1968 and they won’t come up with the word for another three decades, but Collinsport is apparently on a Hellmouth.
Joss Whedon created the “Hellmouth” concept in 1997 for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The idea is basically a self-aware, postmodern meta-joke that explains why there’s a new monster to fight every week in and around Sunnyvale High School, the main setting for the series. According to the show, the school was built over a portal between Earth and Hell, which serves as a focal point that attracts vampires, demons, witches and other supernatural plot contrivances.
An idea like that is basically a safety valve for the suspension of disbelief. Whenever it becomes too much of a coincidence for the audience to accept that yet another person interacting with the main cast has fallen victim to dark forces, the characters make a wry joke about living on a Hellmouth, and that allows the narrative to keep functioning.
So, under Hellmouth rules, it makes perfect sense for the attending physician to be a member of the Mad Monster Party, and for the local antique shop to sell haunted portraits, and all of the other lunatic plot contrivances that will start arriving on our doorstep over the next year.
A soap opera is a non-stop narrative engine that burns through story — and if this crazy show is going to keep stumbling along, they’re going to need reinforcements.
The portal has opened. The summoning can begin.
Tomorrow: Physician, **** Thyself.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
At the start of act 2, when Jeff says “Be careful,” the camera swings too far to the left, revealing the edge of the set and the room beyond it.
When Vicki asks Jeff if he remembers her, he says, “What, have we m– known each other before? I’m sure I’d remember.”
Lang asks Vicki, “Miss Collins — um, Miss Winters, I’m sorry — do you know Barnabas Collins well?”
Behind the Scenes:
Dr. Lang is wearing a pale blue lab coat instead of the traditional white. That’s because the show used to be taped in black-and-white, and a pale blue coat looks more white on black-and-white videotape than a white coat does. The show switched to color about eight months ago, but apparently they’ve still got some blue coats lying around.
The nurse is played by Katharine Balfour, in her only episode. In 1944, she was the first actress to play Alma in Summer and Smoke, a Tennessee Williams play that I’ve frankly never heard of. Her best-known role was the mother of Ryan O’Neal’s character, Oliver, in the 1970 film Love Story. I could tell you more facts about her, but frankly just saying those two has bored me entirely stiff. I’m sure she was a very nice person.
Tomorrow: Physician, **** Thyself.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Dr. Lang AND Peter Bradford( I’M NOT PETER) shoot me please#! ,,,P.S. I believe the scenes between these two thesps contributed to my hearing loss. I should sue!
That’s the Hellmouth for you. Addison Powell and Roger Davis together…
And Barnabas at the moment is the unluckiest man of all time.
Laura…lol…too funny! They are not my favorites either.
I have to say I quite like Addison Powell as Dr. Lang. At least his voice has a bit of melodramatic character, in the best 1950s sci-fi movie sense, unlike the whiny nasal abrasiveness of Roger Davis. And he’s a strong, assertive character. He gets Jeff Clark to do the craziest things, keeps Julia from taking control of the situation, and convinces Barnabas to cooperate fully and follow through on his treatment. He’s also a good buffer between Barnabas and Julia, because it’s through this experimental odyssey that Lang leads them on that they will eventually become good friends, which likely wouldn’t have happened without a go-between character like Dr. Lang. As of this moment he is the catalyst for where this show is going for the rest of 1968.
As for worst actor on Dark Shadows? Wait until we get to parallel time and meet Keith Prentice as Morgan Collins, who keeps his eyes on the teleprompter more often than on the actors he’s playing scenes with–and STILL messes up his lines. How bad is he? He flubs a key word in a scene one day, and then when the scene is replayed as the opening teaser for the next day he flubs the SAME word AGAIN!
Yeah, I don’t mind him either. Mostly because, as bad as he may be as an actor, he’s still interesting and fun to watch (partly because of the character, partly because he’s so over the top). Unlike say Roger Davis or Craig Slocum, who are bad actors and deadly dull.
Craig Slocum gets my vote. Addison has a lot of competition, actually.
AND talk about SHOUTING? You are correct Morgan Collins is up there with the worst..I am watching that arc now for the first time,WHY do they keep casting these loud wooden soldiers? Sky Rumson may be the worst, because he can’t even shout the lines he messed up.
I agree – I actually liked Addison Powell even though I thoroughly disliked the storyline associated with him. Another actor that really worked my nerves was Robert Rodan although it was probably his character that annoyed me rather than his acting ability.
I agree with you completely.
Not only Morgan Collins but Angelique’s husband during the Leftan story. He is fine but horrible as an actor or maybe this was his debut acting part.
Morgan Collins and the entire Bramwell episodes are horrible.
I, too, think he’s quite good as Dr. Lang. It’s only when he goes too over the top, as in the next episode, when he becomes hard to take.
Or Erika Fitz! IMO, she is THE worst actor on all of DS! Yikes! Keith Prentice and the guy who played Claude North aren’t nearly that bad! And Keith was very good in “Boys in the Band”. And, he gave back to his hometown of Dayton (Kettering) by founding a theater company that is still in operation years after his tragic and untimely death.
Addison Powell was just fine as the Gorton’s Fisherman, and he played Adm Chester Nimitz in “MacArthur” (the same role played by Woody Harrelson in the recent version of “Midway”). He isn’t awful at all, just badly directed. He’s definitely no Erika Fitz!
So glad to see a 2021 comment. I’ve been away for a long time and just got back to DS. I’m way at the beginning of the series right now , actually pre-Barnabus. I love Danny Horn’s humor so much that I have returned. 💕
So, years later I am reading this, and I agree that Powell isn’t nearly as terrible as Roger Davis, who is just plain obnoxious.
I like Dr. Lang so far, even if he is a little coy. If the show is now using Julia to keep Barnabas on the defensive, then it can now use Dr. Lang to keep Julia on the defensive. His character brings conflict to our favorite characters, and right now, as I’m new to DS, I’m not sure if I can trust him fully. So, I’m excited!
8 months before Jeff Clark admits that he’s Peter Bradford… one could conceive and almost be going into labor in that amount of time! That’s kinda a long time…
DS manages to repeat the Peter Bradford/Jeff Clark problem with Quentin Collins/Grant Douglas in 1970. It is one of the most infuriating plot choices possible. Do writers believe it creates ‘dramatic irony’ and narrative tension if we all know something everyone else doesn’t? I suppose it can when the “secret” is entertaining (when we are the only ones who know Barnabas is a vampire) but when the secret only stalls the plot, it’s disastrous.
I’d argue they handle it better with Bradford/Clark because Clark still functions as a character even aside from the “is he Peter Bradford mystery”: He’s Lang’s assistant and the romantic interest for Vicki. Grant Douglas did nothing but have amnesia and not be Quentin and there is no greater crime than not being Quentin.
Wow! I don’t even remember the Grant Douglas storyline and I watched the show in reruns a couple of times. It was that unmemorable. I remember the Leviathans. I remember both parallel times. I can’t even place Grant Douglas after reading the Supernatural Wiki on him. I also admit that I I have repressed Roger Smith’s characters after Jeff Clark, so it may be a defense mechanism.
I totally agree with you, Stephen, you on these points about “Hey, aren’t you . . .?” plots.
A couple of issues I was kicking back and forth: Dr Lang and Dr Woodard would have probably known each other (at least they would have passed by in the doctors lounge since they were both on staff at Collinsport General). The difference between these two characters is really a perfect example of the old school and the new school Dark Shadows. They really seem to be from different worlds. The appearance of Lang and his upcoming storyline (my absolute LEAST favorite) really the signal the beginning of the absolute ridiculousness of the direction the show takes. Also Vicki and Barnabas were running away and ‘eloping’ and none of the Collins family seemed to bat an eyelash. You would think that at least Liz and Roger would be shocked at this turn of events. If Vicki were actually Liz’s daughter NOW would have been the time to speak up.
I am guessing they didnt tell anybody. Barnabas didnt want Julia to know and Vicki didnt want anybody else know she was doing that ridiculous shit with Barnabas and she didnt even want too.
On side note, please note the hospital sheets on Vicki and Barnabas hospital bed, are the official Collinsport sheets. They time travel through the century’s wherever there is a bed scene there they are. I never saw the Grant Douglas Olivia Cory story arc until my third time through DS. Is it possible when I watched Ds reruns on tv, they would have slipped them?
Yeah, I’d be surprised if many post 1968 episodes were aired in syndication prior to Sci-Fi. It’s a tremendous commitment for a channel to screen them all: Even starting with episode 210, there’s a 1,000 episodes. Two episodes a day (another big programming commitment) still comes out to 2 years. And that’s 2 years of fresh content that over time becomes increasingly harder to just “jump” right in.
That is what’s so impressive about DS: No soap opera before or since has had its entire run reaired and released on video. Of course, it’s also off-putting to new audiences: Without Sci-Fi, a new viewer faces a $1,000 investment to watch the whole series. This is why I’m pleased to see Hulu starting to screen the episodes, though I hope it doesn’t stall after early Barnabas as Netflix did.
Thanks Stephen, great insight and info 🙂
$350 now–typical Amazon price (sometimes less) for the entire DVD Set.
The stations never had all the episodes at one time. They had to return the episodes soon after airing. Also the episodes weren’t released at the same time. Beginning with the Barnabas episodes, the first half-year was released in 1975 (130 episodes) followed by the second half-year in 1976. In 1982, 50 more episodes were released followed by the remaining 210 episodes of the second syndicated year in 1983. The third syndicated year was released in 1985. The pre-Barnabas episodes and the final year have never been seen in syndication and last I heard only Sci-Fi (now Syfy) have/had the rights to those.
I do remember both the pre-Barnabas episodes and the 1841 P T, Bramwell episodes on the Sci-Fi Channel.
2021 – I’ve been watching the series for the first time. on Amazon Prime beginning with episode #1
Loving it!!
I was about to mention the same thing about those glaring hospital sheets. I just started this episode and it was the first thing I noticed. It wasn’t very good at giving the impression of a hospital room, and yellow/gold (of all colors!) surely doesn’t look very sanitary. It doesn’t seem like a set of white sheets would have been a budget breaker. And colored sheets only just started getting popular for home use back then anyway. Hospitals still use mostly white or light blue. Aside from this, I’ve been impressed with the set designs.
BTW (for anyone who wasn’t around back then): The new trifecta of large appliance colors in the ‘60s & ‘70s were harvest gold, avocado green, and copper (which was more like “old penny” brown). The only other option was white. Because appliances lasted longer back then and throw-away consumerism hadn’t yet taken hold, it seemed to remain popular for well over a decade. We got a harvest gold fridge in the late ‘60s that lasted a good 30 years and a matching dishwasher 5-10 years later. I was a kid and didn’t really pay attention to appliance fads, but I remembered because we moved a lot so I recalled which appliances were in each house.
I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to see the Collinwood fridge.
Blood was different in 1968. Watch an episode of a cop show from that time and you’ll see: the police find victims of gunshot wounds, but no pool of blood where they lay. Blood stayed where it was put in 1968.
My name is William Brown. The year is 1978, and a TV show is about to cast a long shadow of grief and confusion and longing over my life. …
Can you just imagine how horrified I was that I had watched reruns of this completely engaging show from the opening of the coffin by Willie to this moment — the curtains fly open at 4 in the afternoon! — and that’s it? I tuned in the next week, and it was “Brady Bunch” reruns.
You could have put a stake through my heart. It was a LONG time before I ever learned anymore about this show and what happened after this point. Everything between now and 1897 will be new to me. Though I’m dreading the Dream Curse and Adam, I’m still looking forward to it, too.
A couple of other thoughts:
How could Barnabas so easily get over being shot with bullets or an arrow that narrowly misses his heart but be rendered helpless by a car accident? That’s just weird. But also typical DS. Barnabas and Angelique having powers that wildly wax and wane depending on one episode’s plot needs.
Addison Powell / Dr. Lang. Maybe it’s subsequent episodes where he overdoes it on the acting, but I’m sold for this one episode. Seems like the perfect actor for a doctor, and he only gets melodramatic at the very last moment when he flings open those curtains — AT 4 IN THE AFTERNOON! And that’s a pretty melodramatic moment! Sure stayed with me for decades.
William: The same thought about Barnabas’ suddenly being struck unconscious occurred to me as well. Vampires are, according to legend, invulnerable to such mishaps.
Yes Addison Powell seems an extremely limited actor. But part of the challenge in moving back to 1967(8) is the need to amplify the gothic within the quotidian framework of the present. In 1795, costumes and sets could carry a lot more atmospheric weight. But this hospital is straight up Dullsville. You need AP’s histrionic line readings to give things a certain surreal edge. Well you don’t need it, but it helps.
But I still want to talk about Grayson Hall’s beautiful hair. Not just here, but to anyone who will listen.
Dr. Lang tried to punk Julia. If he was smart he would have played the whole situation differently which would have enhanced his hateful acting skills. Julia is very beautiful and not about the bullshit here either. Also if you notice, when she got to the hospital, she wasnt trying to wake Barnabas up and asking why he felt he needed to run away Vicki. She didnt go there at all. Julia my hero.
ok, that was adorable, Neil Meyer; i hope you’ll excue my saying so, but all these years later on a second time through, it seems you are quite growing on me.
A word on the use of ‘B&W’ props on a color show;
sure, they had color TV in 1969, but many people did not have color sets in their homes until the ’70s or (in my case) the ’80s. DS would not have run out and spent budget money on detail stuff like candles and lab coats.
(Believe it or not, my parents waited until they found a Zenith console TV in “Colonial decor” style! Eat your heart out!)
This is true. We had B & W sets in our house until the 80s when my dad finally brought home a humongous color set. RCA I think. The 12″ B & W tv set went into my room where I watched The Brady Bunch, Buck Rogers, CHiPs, and Charlie’s Angels all in B&W.
I really prefer B&W, and that must be why.
The nurse’s phone call to Collinwood at the top of the episode is amazing. She’s clearly already decided which of her patients is the one worth treating.
Nurse: a Mr Barnabas Collins has just been admitted.
Julia: Barnabas!
Nurse: an automobile accident.
MASSIVE PAUSE
Nurse: (casual) a Miss Victoria Winters has also been admitted.
The set behind the closing credits of this episode includes a large wall clock. It reads 4:00. I thought that was a nice touch.
“You’ll disappear and I won’t never know.” Yeah, this is someone I’d hire to teach my kid. So many comments about Roger Davis, but to me, AM is the most irritating actor on the show.
To me, Powell’s covering his blooper about Vicki’s last name with the casual correction and apology–“I’m sorry, Miss Winters”–seemed perfectly natural and believable, and not nearly as annoying or risible than similar bloopers committed by other performers on the show.
Also, even given the way the character was written, as well as the higher level of disbelief we are expected to now hold by this point in the series, I think Dr. Lang come to the conclusion that Barnabas is a vampire so quickly that it still strains credibility.
Dr. L was one smart cookie, mind you, after all he had whipped up his own headless monster in his basement!
It’s rather late to add my input to Dave’s, and especially late to William’s comments, but I wholeheartedly agree with their assessment of Barnabas’s being rendered unconscious and thus hospitalized. A vampire with superhuman strengths and abilities could not have been felled by a relatively minor car accident. A being who can withstand bullets and crossbows to the chest without anything more than a momentary flinching would’ve simply shaken off the car accident, leaving him only to see to Vicki with her minor injuries and get her to the hospital.
Even when I was then a recent, new viewer in the last couple of weeks of the 1795 story line back when I was 11 years old in 1968 this bothered me, and I wasn’t even fully aware of all the powers customary to vampires in pop culture. It’s another example of how the writing, as imaginative as it increasingly was, failed to respect the logic and laws of their characters’ universe, often painting themselves into corners that they never convincingly rectified.
Danny has wittily and almost convincingly examined explanations to almost justify the continuity errors so often made by the writers, but as a loving fan of this show, I was only disappointed when these inconsistencies happened, making me feel like I cared more about the show’s believability than they did, making me feel more used and manipulated than entertained. Still, I’d recover enough to keep hoping that the next such contradiction would never happen. Silly me.
So, let me offer one possible explanation for Barney’s sudden car-crash vulnerability that the writers never bothered to have Julia and Barnabas speculate about aloud. for our, the viewers’, and thus the show’s, benefit. Perhaps, since Barnabas’s rapid aging after his ill-advised insistence that Julia speed up her treatments, and his subsequent recovery after partaking of Carolyn’s fresh, sweet serum, his convalescence was not yet as complete as thought. Yes, he was young again, and he could do all his vampiry stunts once more, like change into a bat, de- and re-materialize through walls and windows, and have the voices of the dead (i.e., Dr. Woodard) make corpse-to-person phone calls to Julia, etc., but maybe there were subtler long term effects that he hadn’t fully recovered from yet. After all, wasn’t Carolyn already showing more free will than she had at first bite, and even Vicki didn’t seem all that much in his thrall after Barnabas bit her. So, maybe he was still only at about 7 on the 1-10 scale of vampire potency, making the temporarily deleterious effects of the car mishap almost plausible.
A little attempt at addressing this in a theorizing session between Barnabas and Julia would have been just satisfying enough to explain to the audience why this was possible.
I’d be curious if anyone else has any theories about why Barnabas would suddenly be vulnerable to traffic accidents.
P.S. I was referring to William’s and Dale’s posts above, NOT Dave’s.
Collinsport being on a Hellmouth sounds exactly right. And Collinwood has a wormhole to other universes.
And also ones that allow people to cross vast distances almost instantaneously within the same universe(s)!
Yes, sometimes Dark Shadows seems as unanchored in Space as it is in Time.
So vampires are vulnerable to: wood & silver thru the heart, sunlight, and BUMPS ON THE HEAD? Barnabas should have done a ‘buckle up for safety’ PSA back in the day!
“I could tell you more facts about her, but frankly just saying those two has bored me entirely stiff. I’m sure she was a very nice person.”
If you’re trying to come across like an idiot, you’ve succeeded.
So astute to reference the Buffy formula. In 1998 I was obsessed with that wonderful show, still am over 20 years later and while reading a book referencing the connection between both shows in one of its chapter, I realize rewatching Dark Shadows I have come full circle in 2021!
Why can Barnabas take a pistol shot or a cross bow arrow to the chest, but a car accident knocks him unconscious.
I was a DJ on a college station in the 80s & we had a show called “4 O’Clock Rock”. I put the ending of this episode on a cartridge as an intro, complete with Barnabas’s screams.
And here we are, at the beginning of three of my least favorite parts of DS, all at the same time! The introduction of Eric Lang, the neverending search for the true identity of Jeff/Peter, and the appearance of Cassandra and her nauseating lime green wardrobe and dreadful black wig. I can happily mute the sound for the next month…
I agree. I like the Leviathons, 1840 and 1840PT more than this. But I’m going to watch it again. Maybe.
By lying in a hospital bed, this episode must have been the most comfortable appearance for Frid thus far.
Hospital sets are just dull, unless of course it’s 1900 and you’re on the set of The Knick, with its experimental procedures and of course everything goes wrong and people die in the surgical theatre in the most gruesome ways. But modern hospital sets are boring.
Hopefully, Lang has a subterranean laboratory where he’s building a monster from dead body parts with his little helper Igor.
Bring back the gothic! The gothic elements: dark and moody old house, storms and lightning and wind, creepy moanings and cryings from spirits and ghosts, graveyards and spider infested basements.
What happened in the East wing, and why is it closed off? Why does David hear ghosts in the East wing, and is he not interested in the East wing anymore?
What happened to Matthew Morgan’s cute little cottage, where Laura Collins lived while she was visiting pre-Barnabas days. And what about that great house, Seaview, where Vicki wanted to live….
I guess we have explored all of that, and who cares about cottages and sea houses anymore…
But there was something haunting and chilling that has been lost. Maybe it’s the color… maybe I should watch it in B&W,
The show doesn’t seem suspenseful in a haunted way like it did before. It seems to be going into a very different direction, so we will see how it turns out. Still….I’m not going to stop watching, so they must be doing something right….
You missed a blooper!
I had to re-watch it to make sure I was seeing it correctly!!!
When Victoria is lying in bed, the nurse comes in & Dr Lang follows her very shortly. The nurse is on Victoria’s right side, holding a metal clipboard (her chart) in her left hand as she takes Victoria’s pulse with her right
But she doesn’t look at her watch!
The whole point of taking a manual pulse is to count how many beats there are in a minute. You can’t do that if you’re not looking at the second hand on your watch!
Addison Powell’s legacy may have been as a shouter, but you wouldn’t know it by this episode. In fact, I found myself being a little annoyed at the way he underplayed his scenes, the “coyness”, as you call it, and how he would let his lines kind of trail off into unintelligibility. I had to turn the volume up; he’s a bit of a mumbler. He also reminds me of a contemporary silver fox actor, who I think played a doctor on a show, but I can’t quite recall who. Jamey Sheridan, maybe…?
Possible bloopsies: 7:35, Jeff says, “I’ll come back later,” Vicki responds “No, wait!” and then…an awkward silence of several seconds. Jeff looks at the door, looks back at Vicki, and says, “The nurse says you’re not supposed to have any visitors.” Could be wrong, but it sure seems like somebody forgot their line.
8:28 Jeff starts to leave and Vicki says, “No…you, you’ll disappear and I won’t never know…” And she’s an educator of childrens!
I know we’re supposed to think that Clark stepped out into the middle of the road and Vicki was just swerving to avoid hitting him but that’s not what actually happened. Watching the scene again, clearly he was merely hailing them from the shoulder. Vicki just saw what she thought was Peter Bradford and her brain immediately fell into her lap.