Yearly Archives: 2015

Episode 641: Left Behind

December 1968, Sam Hall, , , ,

“I’m positive he’ll give you a sign — a sign for you to forget all of this insanity!”

It’s Monday, and the start of a theme week on Dark Shadows — five straight episodes of ghost stories, featuring three different ghosts. That means a whole lot of windows blowing open, and a whole lot of doors slamming shut.

People will sit around a table, and make sure that their fingers touch. A book will fall off of a piano. A grandfather clock will commit suicide, right in front of us. And there’s a better than average chance that somebody’s going to feel a chill. A CHILL!

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Episode 640: Bad Wolf

December 1968, Sam Hall, , , , , , ,

“There’s a way that you can call people from the dead. I’ve seen them do it downstairs a lot.”

Christopher Jennings, handsome and mysterious bad boy with a heart of gold and a secret sorrow, comes over to Collinwood to collect his little sister, who he’s struggling to care for. Their parents are gone, and the more reliable twin brother has recently died, and now it’s just Chris and Amy, trying to make their way in the world.

Also, Chris just murdered a guy last week for walking into his hotel room at the wrong moment. I guess everybody has a different way of coping with stress.

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Episode 639: Vampire Excites Wives, Young Set

December 1968, Gordon Russell, , , , , , , , , , ,

“I think the man I’m talking to is a ghost!”

Previously, on Dark Shadows: Dr. Woodard has discovered that Barnabas Collins is the kidnapper that everyone’s been looking for — and a member of the living dead. Armed with a journal which contains notes of Julia’s mad experiments, Woodard is planning to speak to the Sheriff, and expose the evil presence that threatens to destroy them all. But a bat appears at the window — and Dr. Woodard is horrified to see the vampire materialize in front of him.

And then… nothing, for three years. At least, that’s what it was like when I saw it.

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Episode 638: Win a Date with Jonathan Frid

December 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , ,

“In 25 words or less, complete this sentence: I WANT A DATE WITH JONATHAN FRID BECAUSE…”

Every now and then, I like to break out of the usual dull routine of actually watching and writing about a Dark Shadows episode, in order to check in with some of the developments going on outside the walls of ABC Studio 16.

To really understand what’s happening on the show, especially as it’s ramping up in popularity, you need to look at the other sources of Dark Shadows knowledge that the audience absorbed by just living in America in 1968. Magazine articles, TV appearances, the View-Master reels, the gum cards, how annoyed your mother looked when you mentioned the show — in pretentious lit-crit circles, we call this paratextual information. I don’t know what the rest of you call it.

The merchandise and promotion are becoming increasingly important as we stumble towards the new year. 1969 was the peak of Dark Shadows’ popularity, and there’s a lot of extra material that we’re going to have to keep track of.

For example, if the phrase “the Charles Randolph Grean Sounde” means exactly nothing in your life, then I will make it my business to correct that situation. Mr. Grean is pivotal, and so is his Sounde.

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Episode 637: Bury Me a Little

December 1968, Gordon Russell, , , , ,

“If you marry me, it’ll be like marrying a corpse.”

Ladies, I get it. The dating scene is hard. Sometimes, it feels like a guy is stringing you along, and maybe the relationship isn’t going anywhere, but it’s hard to know when it’s time to just cut your losses and move on.

However.

Jeff:  Oh, Vicki. I wish I had your faith. We’ve got so little time together.

Vicki:  Don’t say that!

Jeff:  But it’s true. Even though you can see me and touch me, and I can hold you in my arms — I don’t exist, here and now.

That, right there? That’s your cue to re-evaluate, before you wind up as another chapter in He’s Just Not That Into Time Traveling With You.

I mean, there has to be a guy out there who, at the very least, has a better excuse.

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Episode 636: The Missing Link

December 1968, Sam Hall, , , , , , ,

“You can be sure that death is no better than life, so don’t look forward to it.”

And then he was gone. He was ashes, he was memory, he was a dream that never came true. More specifically, he left show business and went into real estate.

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Episode 635: One Damned Thing After Another

November 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , , , , ,

“And then suddenly, he seemed to burst into flames!”

So then the whole show just goes to Hell. I mean, they did already. They went to Hell, and they talked to the devil. It happened last week.

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Time Travel, part 4: I Was Just Noticing Your Harpoon Collection

Dan Curtis, Sam Hall, Steve Feke, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“She’s not like other people. She never was.”

Happy Thanksgiving! It’s not actually Thanksgiving for me, and it’s probably not Thanksgiving for you, but it is for the housewives, teenagers, assorted mental cases and inadequately supervised middle schoolers who make up the 1968 Dark Shadows audience.

On pre-emption days, I take a look at the 1991 Dark Shadows revival series, because apparently I don’t know what’s good for me. Here’s the rundown so far:

Episode 1 : Mostly gimmick shots, indoor mist, no clear idea what the purpose or tone of the show should be.

Episode 2 : Mostly about sweat and sexy biting time, including several ideas borrowed from House of Dark Shadows which weren’t even good the first time.

Episode 3 : Hot tentacles stretch upwards.

Okay, is everybody oriented now? Happy Thanksgiving. Let’s begin.

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Episode 633/634: All Our Dead Have Turned Into Skeletons

November 1968, Sam Hall, , , , , ,

“Your powers, Mr. Blair. Where are they now?”

Okay, so that happened.

Nicholas Blair, who we might as well call the Big Bad until something Big Worse comes along, has realized that he’s going to be transferred back to the home office in the Netherworld pretty soon, and if he wants to hold on to his girlfriend Maggie, then he needs to put The Ring on it.

So he does what any young lover would do, namely: drug her champagne, carry her downstairs to the bloodstone circle, and recite a romantic selection or two from the Malleus Maleficarum.

Yesterday’s episode is the example that I cite whenever I’m trying to explain how unbelievably weird Dark Shadows can be, because it’s pretty much the furthest they ever go in this particular direction. Not because it doesn’t work (although it doesn’t, really) — just because at this point there is literally nowhere left to go.

You’ve just shown America’s children how to perform a Black Mass. The only thing you can do after that is run away, screaming You’ll never catch me alive! and laughing maniacally.

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Episode 632: The Owl, the Raven and the Bat

November 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , , , , , , , ,

“You will live, as I live — as one of the damned!”

Fall 1968 is a rough time for the Dark Shadows writers, because they’re stuck with a convoluted storyline that just won’t unconvolute. So they’ve embarked on the Great 1968 Wrap-Up, where they shed all of the characters, actors and plotlines that are surplus to requirements, which is practically all of them.

In this time of turbulent change, we turn to the old traditions for comfort. I mean the really old traditions, like dressing up in animal skins and making blood offerings to Asmodeus.

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