“Why? Is there a law against opening your own coffin?”
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Victoria Collins Stoddard Hanscomb Moltke Eltridge Winters, and Jeff “Peter Bradford” Clark.
Before we get started with the ceremony, there are just a couple questions that we need to ask.
Do you want me to follow you?
If I let you read it, will you go away, and leave me alone for the rest of my life?
Will you get out of here?
What’s wrong?
Aren’t you going to tell her how beautiful she looks?
Where is he?
But what if it’s nothing at all?
Has something happened that will hurt Vicki?
Do you recognize the handwriting?
Who did it come from?
What woman?
Did you love her in the past?
Why are you letting her ruin our lives?
If I lived then… what am I now?
Where are you going?
Why hasn’t she come back?
If I open this grave — what will I find?
Could you make some explanation?
The past does follow us, doesn’t it?
What are you doing?
Why? Is there a law against opening your own coffin?
You really think you’ve come from the past, don’t you?
Is Jeff Clark really Peter Bradford?
Monday: The Amazing New Phenomenon.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
In act 1, when the scene cuts from Jeff and Roger on the terrace to Vicki in her wedding dress, somebody in the studio says, “Please.” There’s a lot of studio noise as Vicki talks to Liz, with people shuffling around, and the sound of a door closing.
Liz is supposed to say “I cannot be as calm and unemotional about everything as you are.” But she says “calm and emotional,” realizes her mistake, and stumbles through the rest of the line.
When Liz approaches Vicki on the terrace, there’s another burst of studio noise — someone crinkling up paper, and then a cranking noise.
As Vicki steps away from the wrought-iron gate, you can see that the left side isn’t attached to anything; there’s just empty space there.
Jeff gets the coffin up out of the ground all by himself, and he doesn’t even get dirty.
This isn’t a blooper, just an odd quirk of the staging — Roger leaves Vicki and Liz on the terrace, so he can inform the guests that the wedding won’t happen. A minute and later, Roger shows up in the cemetery, with no explanation for when he left Collinwood or how he decided to come here. It feels Roger simply walked away from the terrace and straight to the graveyard, for no particular reason.
Behind the Scenes:
The credits in today’s episode are unique — they play over a shot of the terrace as lightning flashes, and thunder is heard as the theme plays.
Monday: The Amazing New Phenomenon.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Oh, the socially unacceptable horror of it all. This is so awkward. Jeff Clark is not properly attired for grave robbing.
Yes! Oh my god, this is so painful to watch! He might as well be a shambling rotting corpse in a black suit, its no excuse to waste everyone’s time like that!
Vicki has had her fill of Jeff/Peter and Collinwood – no one has helped her find out about her parentage and she knows Liz is stonewalling her by withholding the information – so she’s running away to Brazil to find Burke – she’s heard rumors that they found a dark mysterious American man living among the Guarani tribe in the Rain Forest – he was found by the Indians lying near the site of a plane crash and was supposedly hallucinating and raving like a crazy man – they said he kept repeating ‘BARNABAS BARNABAS’ over and over and told them amazing stories about a blood sucking man living in the Maine wilderness.
I’m on episode 825, exactly 200 eps ahead. Wish I’d known about this site sooner. I love critiquing each ep. Drat.
Nothing a little I-Ching time travelling can’t solve : )
very funny Mr. Cabezuelo. now, concentrate on the door.
I really enjoyed the atmospherics of this storm.
It’s too bad they were limited to four to six cast members on almost all episodes. It’s just bizarre not to have Carolyn, David, Mrs. Johnson and Maggie out of sight.
it appears they rescinded that. in an episode coming up (when Chris Jennings arrives) i counted nine people!
Jeff’s freak-out makes no sense at all in the context of the story. Okay, he might be Peter Bradford after all. So what? This is no reason for him to ditch out of his wedding. I know it’s been commented on before, but marrying a man with no past is ideal for Vicki, who has no past either. For once Vicki is correct when she asks “Why are you letting her ruin our lives?” These two have a unique opportunity to live in the present. And from a production point of view, if Moltke was about to leave the show anyway, couldn’t Curtis et al. have just married Vicki off happily to Jeff? Added bonus: No more Roger Davis!
I think there’s a half-baked reason, anyway, for Jeff/Peter to postpone the wedding. He tells Victoria he needs to find out “what he is.” He seems to think that if he’s not “real,” that he may be some sort of creature–ghost? something “undead” somehow?–that it isn’t fair to marry Vicky. Some of his lines somewhat imply this. Admittedly it’s thin, but it’s there. Also, is this the last time Vicky says, “I don’t understand”?
More blooping: Also in the scene when Elizabeth and Victoria are talking, there is the sound of a door closing (before Roger arrives), and in one shot, the figure of a person can be seen moving behind Vicki.
The sound effects when Jeff pounds on the coffin with his crowbar are not in sync with the visuals. Also, at one point, the coffin lid moves upward slightly when Jeff works on it with the crowbar, and he puts his hand on top of it to hold it down while he pretends to be trying to pry it open. At one point, Jeff also is pounding the crowbar onto the top of the coffin, not under the lid, which is what one would do to pry it open.
Honestly… the number of times I’ve had guys weasel out of marrying me by telling me they have to go dig up their grave. Oldest excuse in the world.
Considering how convinced Vicki was that Jeff was Peter Bradford, and the romance of the “I’ll find you again” story meme between them in 1795, I also thought it unconvincing that Jeff would ditch the bride based on the letter.
I suppose the line that got him was when Eve said something about his being a dead man or such; that seemed to rattle him; apparently he feels Vicki is entitled to a full vetting of his past lives before she says “I do”. The contents of the 1795 letter, about how much he loved Victoria, should actually have been encouraging for the union, not a cause for delaying it.
Yeah. I don’t understand what his issue is. He wanted to travel through time. And he did. So what’s the issue?
Where can I get a copy of Liz’s dress in my size?
Everyone looked beautiful and handsome today! Jeff’s hair usually looks like he just woke up but it was combed today! And Liz’s sparkly collar was awesome!
I would’ve hoped that Jeff receiving the letter and seeing that he wrote it would’ve made his memory restore to realize he is Peter and that just like they had discussed in the past, he and Vicki had traversed all time to find each other.
I’m glad they got the year 1795 correct for Peter Bradford’s death year.
Rather than marrying Jeff to Vicki, she stresses out now (instead of nuVictoria) and instead of running to jump from a cliff, she gets sent to Wyndcliff thus always holding open the possibility of her return. Jeff fades away..
Here’s another question: who does Eve’s nails? Her manicure was flawless.
Also, whoever taught Jeff how to use a lever sure doesn’t deserve tenure.
I think it was Jeff saying “pkease” as they change scenes. It seems as if they cut to Liz and Vicki too soon and didn’t let him finish his line.