“It may be the only way we’ll find out where the coffin is kept.”
Okay, here’s a rundown on this evening’s menu.
Dirk Wilkins has just risen as a vampire tonight, so obviously the first thing he has to do is set up his coffin. He stashes it in a room that everybody keeps saying is the basement of a farmhouse, and I don’t feel like arguing about it again, so fine. I will just point out that a) there is no farm, b) there is no farmhouse, and c) this looks nothing like a basement, but like I said, I don’t want to fight about it. Basement of a farmhouse. Roger that.
After Dirk gets his coffin set up, he goes out for a prowl. Returning to the farmhouse, he walks down into the basement, and there’s hapless fugitive Tim Shaw, just sitting there like a Christmas basket. So that’s meal number one.
Then Dirk strolls over to the Old House, which is an odd choice, since Barnabas is leading the vampire hunt. But nothing gets in Dirk’s way, not tonight. He rolls in, finds his old boss Judith Collins, and bam! He bites her too.
That’s a good first night out, so Dirk heads back to the farmhouse, and guess what he finds in the basement: girl governess Rachel Drummond, who’s looking for Tim. So Dirk bites her too, and now he’s got another blood slave. He’s building a whole staff; he must be getting a softball team together or something.
So, I’ve got to say — I have been watching Dark Shadows for what is it, more than two years now, and I have never seen this kind of performance out of a vampire before. Three takedowns in one night, and literally the only thing he did is walk from his coffin to the Old House, and then back. This is clearly a world-class vampire. Somebody needs to get J.D. Power and Associates on the phone.
Meanwhile, veteran bloodsucker Barnabas Collins has been making nothing but rookie mistakes lately.
You see, Barnabas doesn’t want anybody to know that he’s a vampire, so obviously he’s been telling everybody that vampires don’t exist. Except, no, he’s done exactly the opposite of that. He’s been telling everyone that Laura was a fire demon, that the crazed animal who turns up once a month is a werewolf, and that finding puncture wounds on a person’s neck proves that there’s a vampire around.
He’s basically been holding a graduate lecture series on fighting supernatural threats, and he thinks that everything will be fine as long as he can point at Dirk, and say, Look over there! This is not the absolute stupidest plan that Barnabas has ever come up with, but it’s got to be in the top ten.
So now Edward has a plan of his own. He’s got Judith — still dazed and blood-spattered — hidden in the drawing room, and he says to Barnabas, do you think a vampire’s victim would respond to the sight of the supernatural monster who attacked her? and Barnabas says, yes, I suppose so, and Edward says, I’m going to try it out as an experiment, and Barnabas says, when? and Edward says, RIGHT NOW!
And then he whisks open the drawing room doors, and Judith is face to face with Barnabas, and she says, Good evening, Barnabas, and then everybody stands there, trying to think of something to say.
So please keep this in mind, if you’re planning any upcoming social events: accusing your guests of being inhuman ghouls can make for an awkward evening.
Edward says that he’s terribly sorry, and Barnabas says, that’s quite all right, and Edward says, I was just thinking, well, you know, and Barnabas says, I understand completely, and Edward says, she’s my sister, you see, and I just thought, well, what if, you know, and Barnabas says, please, let’s say no more about it, and Edward says, I hope that you don’t think, and Barnabas says, don’t give it another thought, it’s forgotten, and Edward says, that’s terribly decent of you, and Barnabas says, not at all. And meanwhile everyone is mentally revising their Christmas list.
Then it’s back to the dungeon, where Dirk has Rachel all good and mesmerized. He’s running her through an onboarding process, which is mostly telling her not to worry about things. She doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, but he says, “Before this night is over, you will.” Which means that he has even more top-shelf vampistry up his sleeve. I hate to blow things out of proportion based on a couple of episodes, but we might want to take a good, hard look at Barnabas, and see if we’re possibly in the market for a new main character.
But maybe I’m being too harsh. Barnabas was just warming up before; let’s give him a minute to get things organized.
Back at Collinwood, they’ve put Judith to bed, and Barnabas tells Edward to make sure she’s safe.
“I want you to watch her carefully,” Barnabas says, “especially if she wakes up.”
“Why?”
“Well, because the vampire may try to communicate with her, or even try to lure her away from the house.”
“Don’t worry,” Edward says, “I won’t let her leave.”
“You won’t be able to prevent it,” says Barnabas, which is not entirely helpful. “She is completely under his power.”
Naturally, Edward is wondering what to do with this handful of mixed messages, and then Barnabas hands him one of those postcards from the infinite.
“Now there’s –” Barnabas says, “You should allow her to — leave, in case.”
Edward is baffled. “And have that maniac attack her again?”
“Edward,” Barnabas announces, “it may be the only way we’ll find out where the coffin is kept.”
And there you have it. That is Barnabas’ plan.
So Barnabas goes outside to look for Dirk. He doesn’t say how he’s planning to do that; I suppose he’s going to consult with Ziggy or Huggy Bear or the Machine from Person of Interest or check the Space-Time Visualizer or just pound the pavement or whatever.
And Edward is left alone in his enormous haunted house, under specific instructions to both protect his sister and simultaneously allow her to be attacked by a vampire. He is not entirely successful.
The house starts acting even more haunted than usual — the doors fly open, the lights go out, there are bumps in the night. In the foyer, an unfamiliar looking vase of petunias smashes to the floor; Edward should probably look out for plummeting sperm whales, just in case Dirk’s got hold of an Infinite Improbability Drive.
Edward heads back upstairs, but when he gets to the landing, he hears the front doors open again. “Who’s there?” he cries, and then Dirk leaps out from the other direction and grabs him and wrestles him to the ground, because DIRK IS AMAZING AT THIS.
I swear, I have never seen such an unbelievably effective vampire. He is like the Bruce Lee of whatever he’s doing.
Once Edward’s out of commission, Dirk goes and conferences with Judith and the Ralston-Purina lamp.
“You will leave this house at dawn,” Dirk says, “and you will take this with you.” And then he hands Judith a loaded gun, which is so cool I can’t even stand it.
Meanwhile, Barnabas’ plan was apparently to go home and think things over for a while, and then suddenly he turns around and Dirk has appeared behind him. Dirk says that he wants Barnabas to bring his dead girlfriend Laura back to life, which Barnabas can’t do, because he can’t do anything these days.
I mean, let’s face it: Barnabas has sold out.
He used to be the rebel who turned this boring little hick town upside down. This is the guy who shot his uncle in the face, and married the wicked witch, and wiped out his entire branch of the family. He got locked up for a hundred and seventy years, and when he was finally sprung, he went right back to kidnapping people and endangering the ten-year-olds. Then he conquered the land of dreams, and enagaged in psychedelic mad science experiments to create a whole new kind of human being. He used to be cool.
But now he’s gone totally corporate — he’s hanging around with the landed gentry, and defending the institutional status quo. And look what he’s doing right now — he’s leading a vampire hunt. How much of a sellout could you possibly be?
So it might be time for the next generation to step up. This is Dirk’s world now.
Monday: Blood Sports.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
When Edward runs onto the foyer landing to shout, “Who’s down here?” there’s some kind of weird feedback from the mic.
Dirk approaches Judith’s bed and says, “Listen to every word I have to say.” At that moment, there’s a thump from the studio.
When Judith walks into the farm cellar, you hear a music cue almost start up, but then go backward and stop.
Monday: Blood Sports.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
After attacking him, Dirk should’ve donned Edward’s smoking jacket…because Dirk’s the Man!!!
Barnabas is certainly a Velvet Vampyr, but would that work for Dirk? He certainly knows how to rock the jodhpurs. They make him rather woodsy, and not at all tinny.
Yeah! Dirk the Vampire is such a kick ass character we don’t even miss Quentin.
I was also surprised to see Dirk as a very effective Vampire. Still the absence of characters in the Old House and Collinwood is acutely noticeable.
I guess vampires don’t have to worry about drinking tainted blood, being as vampirism is the ultimate highly infectious communicable blood disease. First you die, THEN the symptoms begin.
Barnaba’s blame to shift blame from himself by setting up Dirk as a vampire patsy has the major logic flaw that it’s hard to keep your vampire condition secret when people around you believe in vampires. Then they start asking you directly to appear in daylight or stand in front of mirrors.
Stephen, whenever that happens your only recourse is to make an empty threat and vanish before their eyes.
Oh my god, that is my favorite Crazy Barnabas Scene! “You have no proof that I’m an unholy supernatural creature just because I’m recoiling in horror from a cross! I’m just a militant atheist!”
You know this UU joke?
“What do Dracula and a Unitarian have in common?”
“They both come from Transylvania and both recoil in horror from a cross”
So, it is a typical Barnabas plan. Makes no sense, but he speaks with so much authority that it sounds plausible.
I love crazy vampyre Dirk. His obsession with Laura (his first unholy possessor) drives story for quite a while.
Moltke, looking in on this, as just an audience member, throws a shoe at her TV.
“WHY, WHY, couldn’t I, ????? Hmmmm?????”
“I could be great. Interesting. Intelligent. And bloody INSANE.
PRETTY, TOO.
And they give that to DAVIS??????
GRRRRRR!!!!!”
And she would have been all those things.
Imagine her playing like Original Vicki, so nice, til she gets hungry.
It would be just as good as vampire Angelique, and the ratings would spike.
And they just couldn’t see that?
The shame.
And they don’t really do exactly that until Roxanne Drew.
Now, I loved Marie Wallace’s vampire.
But Donna Wandrey ties Angelique.
I guess that connection between Marie and Donna might be a blood bond.
“Imagine her playing like Original Vicki, so nice, til she gets hungry”
Based on a few hundred episodes of experience, I can’t imagine Moltke playing anything other than driftwood with a vacant expression.
Moltke couldn’t act. She was bland and boring and unemotional and incapable of excellence. She was also plain-looking. I will never get why people like to act like she was beautiful. She was a wet blanked on DS, and her leaving was the best thing for the show. Heck, her departure even made Roger Davis a great asset! Without Vicki around, we got vampire Dirk, which is so freaking cool.
I was watching Barnabas give Edward the Vampires 1.01 lecture and facepalming. You just know that one is going to come around and bite him sometime in the near future!
(Barnabas. Has he ever made a decision that wasn’t disastrously wrong?)
Yes, not biting Julia when she offered, confiding in Julia about Angelique, and becoming friends with Julia.
Barnabas “sold out?” Hardly. In fact, he’s “taking one for the team.” No one likes Roger Davis – he’s loud, can’t act, and annoys the rest of the cast. Everyone wants him gone. So,what does Barnabas do? He turns Dirk into a vampire and tuh-dah…his days are numbered. It’s brilliant! The show is only big enough for one vampire and Roger Davis isn’t the one on the cover of “Famous Monsters of Filmland.”
Risky? Yes. But, it was effective and downright heroic!
If so, his tactic backfired big time because once he became a vampire, Davis became one of the best things about the show.
OK, I just don’t get this recent rise of Dirk to super-undead action hero. Don’t vampires control those they “turn”? I mean, what about all those “Dracula” movies where the victims are bound to serve their master, and – get this – this power relationship continues after the victim “dies” and becomes a fully fledged vampire. It’s not just while they’re still human. Dirk goes around bragging about the fact that anyone he bites will become his slave.
So why can’t Barnabas control Dirk? Instead, Dirk as renegade vampire is threatening Barnabas. And Barnabas has zero clue where Dirk sleeps during the day? To the extent that Barnabas is tricking people like Edward into trying to find the hidden coffin, because he himself has no idea how to proceed.
On a more philosophical level, Dirk is the vampire many of us would become, addressing old insults, still nursing old crushes, and thoroughly enjoying his newfound powers. For a blue collar groundskeeper, this is a huge payday. Dirk is having the time of his life, which ironically had to end for him to be this darned happy.
On the other hand, Barnabas represents a more Stoic approach, in fact B. has an uncomfortable relationship with his own power, as he constantly tries to ameliorate his own evil with acts of concern for his extended family. Though it’s unclear how much he really thought about those whores down at the dock…
The excitement Dirk provided once he became a vampire was totally unexpected! However, I’m puzzled by his successes. When I drink a lot, I have to go to the bathroom. In Dirk’s case, he victimized three people all in one night. Surely he must have needed to go like a race horse. Instead, he attacks Edward for what looks like his fourth indulgence. As it turned out, his thirst must have been satiated by then since he only knocked him out. This episode was the first time I actually found Roger Davis’ character interesting. Before this, I’d been hoping his characters would have ended up flying to Belém, Brazil to join Burke Devlin.
The basement of the old Peabody place strikes me as the most plausible of all the supposedly long-abandoned settings in the series. The stone walls remain from the original structure, of which it may have been the ground floor before they banked it in and built something on top of it that has long since worn away. The beams and other elements are left over from a desultory series of attempts to rehabilitate the structure. Those attempts were few and far between, and none of them got far enough to create a habitable building, but there was enough to them to explain why it’s still standing. That’s something that can’t be explained about the Old House in 1967, or about the West Wing at any period.
Dirk becoming a vampire was one of the best things that could’ve happened. I know I complained about Crazy Dirk before but Roger Davis’s excitement in getting to play such a meaty role shines through in his performance, and best of all he’s graduated from stark raving mad to a relatively calm and cunning sort of mad that makes for a more interesting (not to mention far less annoying) villain.
I agree with Vampire Dirk being awesome! Makes me actually not hate Roger Davis as much as I used to.
The candle in Dirk’s farm lair whatever it is seems to be able to burn down and restore itself.
Not sure what it was about Vampire Dirk grabbing Edward that made him faint. Also not sure what it was about VD grabbing Edward around his chest that made him rub the back of his head when he came to, but no matter, coz Vampire Dirk is such an improvement over non-Vampire Dirk.
I’ve never been much of a Roger Davis fan, but his turn as Vampire Dirk is downright sexy and compelling. It must be the guy-liner. Well played, sir !