“It must be done as only another human being could do it.”
So here’s something I never thought I’d say: Ever since the Dream Curse storyline wrapped up last week, Dark Shadows has been a little dull.
That’s an extraordinary statement, because the Dream Curse storyline was a completely static piece of soapcraft that spent months walking in circles, and then fizzled away to nothing at all. You’d think that it would be impossible for a story to look sedate compared to that. And yet, here we are.
“Maimed and suffering spirits robbed after death in the name of false creation, I speak as your benefactor!”
Welcome back to another episode of Frankenstein in Love, the story that asks the question: Can this monster from a little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?
Here’s Adam, the jigsaw puzzle that walks like a man, currently hiding out in the abandoned west wing of Collinwood, reading poetry and developing a full-scale crush on the young mistress of the house.
From the audience’s perspective, the story’s a little tough to process, because everyone is supposed to act like Adam is a hideous God-defying abomination. In actual fact, he’s only Hollywood ugly, which means that he’s a very handsome man with some scars painted on his face. Also: he is a player.
“I know enough to send you back to prison, if I want to.”
Did you know that in July 1968, there were close to 8 million people living in New York City? It’s true; I just looked it up in my well-thumbed copy of What Month It Was When There Were Close to 8 Million People Living in New York City.
So how many of those people do you think were actors? I mean, the only real professions of any consequence in New York are actors, waiters and cab drivers; everybody else is scenery.
Doing a little demographic analysis on the back of this napkin, I would estimate that there were 7,000 young male actors who could have played the role of Harry Johnson on Dark Shadows. And yet they managed to pick the very worst one. How can you account for something like that?
“Woman loves man.”
The room is dark, and grim. The single window — if it even counts as a window — lets in stray slices of sunlight through a torn shade. The cobwebs are an inch thick, and there’s a large picture frame dangling at an odd angle from a beam, apparently supported mostly by dust and despair.
The room is more than just unused. It looks like a pack of timberwolves came through sometime around the Civil War, and it never really pulled itself together after that.
Also, there’s a monster in it.
Continue reading Episode 542: The Diary of Anne Frankenstein
“Julia — when you do the experiment again, if both Barnabas and my creation live — if they both live — Barnabas will be free and healthy, as long as Adam lives. Adam will drain Barnabas’ affliction from him, but will not suffer from the disease itself, because he lives. But if Adam dies, Barnabas Collins will be as he was before.”
As we open today’s reckless stumble into the unknown, sinister sorceress Angelique — currently masquerading as Roger’s innocent new wife, Cassandra — is listening to a recording of a man’s voice that young David has discovered on a tape recorder.
On the tape, the man addresses Julia, and tells her that when she does the experiment again, if both Barnabas and his creation live — if they both live — Barnabas will be free and healthy, as long as Adam lives. The man goes on to say that Adam will drain Barnabas’ affliction from him, but will not suffer from the disease itself, because he lives. But — the man warns — if Adam dies, Barnabas Collins will be as he was before.
This is a fortunate coincidence, because Cassandra is on a very tight deadline to find out why her Dream Curse didn’t turn Barnabas into a vampire again. The answer, it turns out, is that Julia did the experiment again, and both Barnabas and the man’s creation lived — they both lived — and Barnabas is free and healthy, as long as Adam lives. In other words, Adam is draining Barnabas’ affliction from him, but does not suffer from the disease itself, because he lives. But — and I honestly cannot stress this point emphatically enough — if Adam dies, Barnabas Collins will be as he was before.
“I don’t want to understand about those things; they scare me.”
Okay, here’s what’s going on: I have entirely no idea.
I know that Angelique, spurned lover and secret sorceress, is currently in residence at Collinwood, posing as Roger’s innocent new wife, Cassandra. She’s come to wreak a terrible slow-motion vengeance on reformed vampire Barnabas Collins, and she’s spent weeks and weeks lobbing a hex that never quite landed. And that is pretty much the beginning and the end of the list of things that I understand about what Cassandra’s doing right now.
It’s not just me, either. The writers have had the better part of three months to figure out what they were going to do with Angelique after the Dream Curse storyline. They have not used that time effectively.
“I’m not delirious. You know what she is.”
One of the things that you learn when you watch Dark Shadows is that there are several different kinds of weird. This is not a particularly helpful thing to learn, and learning it will not improve your life in any measurable way. It just happens, and there’s not much you can do about it.
There’s the everyday, domestic kind of weird, which involves eccentric people doing unusual things — say, a college professor taking an enormous feral Frankenstein home with him, and teaching it to read the word “clock” off a flash card.
There’s the fancy, bespoke kind of weird, which involves people acting in a completely illogical way just for the sake of an exciting cliffhanger — like burying their dead friend in the woods, and then realizing that he’s come back to life, and they only have half an hour to dig him up again.
And then there’s the kind of weird where you honestly have no idea why the scene that you’re watching even exists. That’s the kind we’re going to be talking about today, thanks to scriptwriter Ron Sproat, among other mistakes.
“I owe my life to a man I vowed to kill.”
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the craziest show on Earth, where they inter and disinter their major characters at regular intervals.
Barnabas was attacked by a bat last week, and he died, because bat attacks are invariably fatal, as everyone knows. Convinced that he would rise as a vampire, Julia and Willie buried him in the woods, because they’re bad role models and that’s all there is to it.
This was bad news for Adam, our enormous Frankenstein man, because he’s been borrowing some of Barnabas’ life force this whole time. When Barnabas went down, Adam’s system crashed too. This is why, if you’re shopping for life force, you should just go ahead and buy the protection plan. I know, it’s an extra fifty bucks, but can you really put a price tag on peace of mind?
“Not run out, Willie. Go. Because there’s no reason to stay.”
Barnabas Collins is dead and buried, planted in the Earth by the only two people who can stand the sight of him.
“So, it is over,” says the First Gravedigger. “The end… The end.”
“You’d feel better if you cried,” says the Second Gravedigger.
“No, I’m past crying, Willie,” says the First. “Far past that. If I could imagine living without him — I could cry. But I can’t. I can’t.”
“No,” says the Second, staring off into the middle distance. “Neither can I.” He turns to face the First. “What’s going to happen to us?” he asks. “What are we going to do?”
And then the opening titles begin, waves crashing on the bleak shore of a town where life has no meaning and God is dead.
In other words: Yeah, it’s going to be another one of those entries today. Sorry.
“If that curse had been placed on you, or me… how would we have behaved?”
Barnabas Collins is dead! I mean, he already was. But now he’s even more dead than usual.
On Friday, Barnabas opened his front door and walked outside, and a huge bat shadow swooped down and bit him hard on the neck. Now he’s on the ground, weltering in gore. This was the shock ending to a three-month storyline that I am no longer under any obligation to discuss.
Dark Shadows Every Day 