“You don’t know what it’s like, suddenly seeing yourself walk into a room.”
Everyone’s talking about it! Here’s what people are saying about Parallel Time, opening Friday:
“I can’t help but be fascinated by that room, and everything I’ve seen there!” — Barnabas Collins
“Somehow, we must discover the secret of this room!” — Roger Collins
“You must take me to that room immediately, I want to see this for myself!” — Professor T. Eliot Stokes
“There must be something very special in the east wing, because suddenly everyone’s so interested in it!” — Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
I will regret this, I’m sure. I will regret all of this. The upcoming Parallel Time storyline will fail in some spectacular way — like Adam did, like Nicholas Blair and Count Petofi, and all the other disappointing men in our lives — and I’ll end this period of the show trying to figure out how it all went wrong, as I always do.
But this feeling, right now, this tickle of heightened expectations? Give me this. Even if it’s only for a little while. Just give me this.
It’s a wardrobe.
Dark Shadows is a show about time travel. It started as a “gothic romance” show, and became a “spooky monsters” show, but if you look at the five years of the show as a whole, they spend more time exploring the use and abuse of time travel than anything else. Dark Shadows is a science-fiction show.
In fact, looking at the story structure as a whole, it’s one science-fiction show in particular. This is a story which is told in chunks, divided by transitions where the main characters move from one place and time to another. Barnabas and his companion — either Vicki or Julia — visit a new time and place every so often, and they get involved with whatever’s going on. They explore, they fight monsters, they solve problems, and then they move on to the next story. Dark Shadows is just like Doctor Who, if Doctor Who always took place in the same house.
But Doctor Who isn’t hard sci-fi — it has very little interest in explaining how the new worlds and inventions and creatures actually work. Doctor Who is fantasy, because it works on an emotional level, rather than a logical or rational one. The magic wand is called a sonic screwdriver, the evil goblins have machine parts, and everyone uses science words instead of magic spells, but they’re still witches and monsters and spells. And the most fantastical element of the show is the TARDIS, a magical wardrobe that you can step into and be transported to another world.
And here, on Dark Shadows, at the moment when they’re using a concept like parallel universes, they don’t use science — or even mad science — to travel across the gap. They just use an ordinary door, that you can walk through. It’s ridiculous and illogical, and that’s why it feels more real than a scientific explanation ever could.
It has a theme song.
Every time somebody opens the magic doors and sees into the other world, we hear a beautiful, haunting music box tune.
I don’t think the song has any lyrics, so I made up my own, which sound like all the other lyrics that I ever come up with.
Parallel and spooky, it’s parallel and spooky.
Why is it so spooky, so parallel and spooky?
Parallel and spooky, it’s parallel and spooky.
Don’t you think it’s spooky? And also parallel.
Julia is a villain.
Grayson Hall is the most interesting person on this show or any other, and her characters have the power to shape the nature and tone of the storyline, through her influence on the other major characters. In 1897, Magda was reckless, amoral and whimsical, and that influenced Barnabas, Quentin and Angelique to think in the same way. But Julia is more focused and driven, and when she showed up in 1897, all of a sudden the other three started problem-solving. Coming back to the present, Julia was cast in the role of detective, and everything in the show became a mystery for her to solve.
And now, for the first time, Julia is a cold, aggressive antagonist. In the first three glimpses that we get of Parallel Time, the scene is Julia walking into a room and telling somebody not to do something. I don’t know what that’s going to mean for the story, but it’s terribly exciting.
The colors are different.
These days, everybody on the show wears dark green, dark blue, tan, and occasionally burgundy. When they want a splash of bright color, it’s usually lime green, or a little purple.
But Parallel Time is pink and orange, colors that we’ve never really seen on the show before. The Parallel Time room is dominated by huge orange curtains, and Elizabeth is wearing pink. I know that sounds silly, but Liz appears in three of these Parallel Time scenes over a week and a half, and each time, she’s wearing the same thing. You don’t put on that cardigan three times in a row by accident. They’re making a point.
This new color scheme does actually carry through, once Barnabas enters Parallel Time. As we’ll see next week, there’s a big flower arrangement in the foyer of Parallel Collinwood, filled with pink and orange carnations. They’re using a parallel universe to experiment with some new styles.
The room switch is a great effect.
Just a couple years ago, it was incredibly difficult for them to pre-tape part of the show and edit the parts together, so they would go to incredible lengths to avoid it. Now they do it four times a week, and it’s believable and exciting. They’re getting a lot better at making a modern television show.
Willie is smart and angry.
Willie was never the cringing Renfield that people sometimes say that he was; he was soulful and sad. But this week, he does cringe and whine about the things that Barnabas orders him to do, and it’s not a good look for him.
Happily, there’s a new Willie waiting for us in Parallel Time. He talks and walks and moves around the set with a confidence that our Willie doesn’t have anymore. This is always the most exciting part of a new repertory-theater time travel sequence, waiting to see what the new Roger will be like, or the new Professor Stokes. And this time it’s even more fun, because they have the same names, except for David, who’s called Daniel for no reason at all, except to mess with us.
There’s a mystery about “the original Barnabas”.
We know that in this new world, Barnabas married Josette and had children, which means that the choices that set Parallel Time on a separate time band may have happened in 1795. This is the first time in a long while when I’ve actually wanted to hear people talk about Josette.
Angelique is important again.
It’s been a while since Angelique was actually pivotal to a storyline. She was a lot of fun in 1897, but the story was never really about her. In fact, they kept forgetting about her for long stretches of time, and then they’d have to reintroduce her when they wanted her to do something. Her role in the Leviathan storyline was similar — she was interesting when they pointed the camera at her, but it wasn’t her story.
But in Parallel Time, Angelique is the star that everyone else orbits around. The entryway into this particular wardrobe is Angelique’s room, where she rules from on high, even when she’s not there in person.
They’re also talking a lot about Quentin in these PT scenes, which is another welcome change. Quentin was underused in the Leviathan story — he had some nice fight scenes with Jeb, but he was secondary at best, and he has nothing to do with the resolution of the story. A Quentin/Angelique story would suit me right down to the ground.
There’s fam dram.
I’ve been writing a lot lately about how boring the present-day Collins family has become, as I always end up doing when we spend any significant time with them. They’ve been nerfed for years — always friendly and supportive with each other, and trying to do the right thing. A few months ago, it looked like we were heading for some actual conflict between Elizabeth and Carolyn over Paul’s return, but that got swallowed up by Leviathan nonsense.
But the family in Parallel Time hates each other, hooray! They talk about money a lot in these PT trailers — Quentin is the rich one, Elizabeth and Roger are the poor relations living in Quentin’s house, and Carolyn and Will are flat broke. We’ve seen some intriguing squabbles so far; I want more.
It’s also nice to see, for once, that in our universe, Roger and Liz are allowed to know about the crazy supernatural thing happening in their house. There’s a scene in today’s episode with Julia, Roger and Liz standing around in the east wing and having a Parallel Time party, which is adorable.
They’re still pushing the boundaries on the effects.
There’s a shot in today’s episode when they mix pre-taping with Chromakey, for a fantastic effect that they couldn’t possibly have done, even six months ago. Roger watching himself walk towards the door is thrilling and memorable. It doesn’t quite work, of course — the camera was too close, and it looks like PT Roger is the wrong height — but that’s the point, really. If the effect wasn’t messed up somehow, the first time they tried it, it would mean that they’re not challenging themselves enough.
And that’s true for the whole storyline, really. Once more into uncharted territory, with new effects and colors and conflicts. It won’t work, of course; nothing ever does. But they keep on doing it anyway.
Tomorrow: What’s Cooking.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
There’s a camera fault during the opening narration; the screen goes green for a moment.
PT Roger tells Liz, “Angelique and I were — shared something very special together.”
Talking to Roger in the PT room, Barnabas gets a little lost in a complex bit of dialogue. Roger asks, “You’ve never seen yourself, have you?” Barnabas replies. “No. Nor has anyone else seen me, or mentioned me. But I know that Barnabas Collins, my ancestor, who lived and died well over a century ago, is somehow involved in all this. But not the Barnabas that you know — he’s not involved in this, and doesn’t exist in this room, and whatever lies beyond it.” If I didn’t already have an unbeatable quote for the top of the post, “He doesn’t exist in this room, and whatever lies beyond it” would have been the next best thing.
In the PT room, when Roger tells Liz that they’re “just looking around,” someone crosses in front of the camera, ducking to stay out of the shot.
After Barnabas bites Sabrina in the Old House, she returns to the cottage, wearing a colorful scarf that she didn’t have in the previous scene. The implication is that Barnabas has a collection of scarves that he keeps around so his guests can walk home without anyone seeing their bite marks.
Tomorrow: What’s Cooking.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
»But this feeling, right now, this tickle of heightened expectations? Give me this. Even if it’s only for a little while. Just give me this.«
This really was a fabulous lead-up. The show has gotten really good at cleanup & leadup, but can’t sustain it. And I’m sure the actors loved it (especially the dumbed-down Old Collins players), even if it did eventually (help) kill the show.
Bramwell killed the show.
Yes, a time travel show. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Whenever I would mention Dark Shadows to someone who wasn’t a fan but who nonetheless was aware of its existence and had a general idea, they would always say, “The vampire soap opera?”
Then I want to explain how that was only part of it, that it also had ghosts and a fire demon, witches and warlocks, Frankenstein-type monster creations, werewolves and zombies, and so on. But ultimately it becomes a show about time travel, spending less and less time in the present day with each passing year, until, finally, in their last return to the present, they take up only a single scene in 1971, which lasts barely longer than the average commercial break. It’s perhaps the most mundane scene on the entire show, despite that you’ve got a vampire in the room with you.
Even the movie adaptation, House of Dark Shadows, is in a sense an example of time travel, as they travel back to the magical year of 1967 to retell the story line that made the show such a sensation.
With PT 1970, there are some notable gaps characterwise. How is Angelique alive, when she was after all from the 1700s? Surely this must be a descendant. And Willie. Well he must have educated himself early on, moved along a different path, rather than taking up a life of schemes with Jason McGuire — but how does his literary fame and fortune take him to 50 miles southeast of Bangor, Maine? And, Quentin. As we know, there is only one Quentin Collins. Surely this can’t be the same man from the 1800s?
To Jason’s comment, Louis Edmonds most certainly loved it. Here’s a quote from his biography Big Lou, in which he explains what he was looking for in these time travel story threads:
“I started out as a villain on the show, which was great fun, but they made me nicer as time went along,” Louis told a magazine reporter while the show was on the air. “When we go into the past, I always hope I can be a tyrant, or very selfish, or anything unattractive. Bad people are much more fun to play.”
— p. 76
Most of the questions you have will be addressed
The way I see how Quentin got to be the rich one and Roger and Elizabeth were the poor relations is this:
The Quentin of 1840 survived, but more importantly his son Tad lived. So he inherited. Edward, Quentin, Carl, and Judith were the grandchildren of Gabriel, so they got to be the poor relations. Edith, Gabriel’s wife was the original Quentin’s mistress, so that is how this Quentin ressembled his real grandfather. Quentin move away and married, and thus has his descendant, Chris Collins.
What choices Edward, Carl, and Judith made are not clear, but it is evident that Edward’s grandchildren are the poor relations given the family structure.
Since the 1840 story doesn’t exist yet, I’d say that since Barnabus never became a vampire, he didn’t interfere with Quentin’s plan to steal the inheritance via Edith’s forged will.
Louis does play mean people good. He is truly believable. In the Bramwell era he plays brutus, exceptionally well. I wished I could have met him, he seems like he was alot of fun and comedic.
I know, I’m with you – this really was so exciting! Julia a villain, family squabbles…just so much promise…
Carolyn charging around, looking for the ONLY COPY of her husband’s book, telling Roger to piss off if he doesn’t like it, in her shocking slacks (I don’t think Regular Carolyn ever, ever wore pants) and somehow looking entirely different is so great! I want to know everything about her and Willie and how they ended up with only one copy of his own novel that they have to pillage for a magazine to get a couple hundred dollars.
According to the Dark Shadows Wiki, tis episode marks the beginning of Day 366 in the show’s universe.
Happy New Year!
This episode also marks an end of sorts for me, as well. Due to an unexpected change of apartments in Chicago, I missed the rest of the series, so from here on is Terra Incognito. I will try to keep up, and watch the episodes I have missed when I can find them.
Hic Sunt Dracones…
It’s that damn movie House of Dark Shadows that ruins the flow of PT and screws up the potential much too early in the proceedings. Funny thing i I was so excited to see Dark Shadows in the movie theater. And when that theme music filled the theater I still remember the chill that went up my spine. Then it all went to shit before my eyes An unrepentant, selfish Barnabas. A self-destructive Julia So much blood and violence. And too many vampires.
Just how I felt, when I caught the movie on the late-late horror show in the 80s. Seemed like Dan Curtis went for gratuitous gore, because he COULD in a movie. But on the other hand, a more ‘soap opera’, cerebral plotline probably wouldn’t have worked, either.
But we’re getting ahead of things – in the DS world, film skedding has just started. Have to wait to see if it ‘Does Boffo Biz’ or ‘Lays An Egg’.
You won;t have long to wait
I’m totally in agreement tony1956 – House of Dark Shadows (skedding) killed Dark Shadows, in my opinion. That’s why I can’t answer the Dark Shadows Wiki poll, because it’s not an option. I don’t want to give anything away for dear John E. Comelately by going into the whys and wherefores though. Later.
Never fear!
I’ve got both HODS and NODS on the DVR – TCM had them on at Halloween, in 2015 I think. Ready to watch again, when the time comes…as to the upcoming unseen episodes, I’m trying to figure out when the Decades Channel runs the show, and how to record them (may have to dust off the VCR to do it, as I can’t find Decades on the cable). Then again, I could just buy the DVDS!
Check your public library. Ours owns the DVDs from the first appearance of Barnabas to the end.
OMG! There ARE still public libraries out there (or are they ‘media centres’ now)? I thought the internet had done them in, just as video killed the radio star. I must find one at once! (Erm, a library, not a radio star.)
My library owns multiple collections from the entire series.
You lucky devil…
if i was in the States I’d gladly lend you mine
And were I ‘down under’ I would let you. 🙂
Tony1956 – And a fake Collinwood!
Not to mention all the stuff that never happened on the show–Carolyn becoming a vampire and biting boyfriend Todd Blake (Brisco), Barnabas murdering Julia, the entire cast turning into vampires (save for Roger Davis), etc. Yet, until the end of time, reviewers will insist that the movie retells the Barnabas story from DS, when it doesn’t.
Even at the time (I was 13), I disliked the crappy photography, objected to the hand-held shots throughout, found the gore way over the top, and wondered why so the dialogue was so sparse. It’s sort of like a feature-length preview for a movie.
Curtis was the last person anyone would want in charge of DS, and it was his show! How often does that happen?
You’re absolutely correct about the purely evil, zero-dimensional Barnabas–he’s an affront to the complex character Frid and the writers created. To put it mildly.
The movie would have been ten times better had they done a straight adaptation of one of the Gold Key DS comics. It would have had more dialogue and more depth, at least.
Er, Briscoe.
I dwell on this a lot but I do think it’s bonkers how the 1991 revival took so much from HODS, which had a “set the place on fire by the credits” approach that could never work for an ongoing TV series.
Daphne dies horribly and mysteriously (as Carolyn does in the film), and the Collins family is later throwing a damn costume party a few weeks later. WTF? Also, having your series lead kill a family member while we’re supposed to somehow care about his budding romance with the governess is also just kind of odd.
I would, though, defend HODS’s “purely evil” Barnabas — it works for what is structured as a Shakespearean tragedy (but with vampires). Barnabas is your villain protagonist with a clear arc — he falls in love with Maggie and even comes close to being with her as a normal man before tragically losing everything and becoming a worse monster than before.
I agree though that there’s inconsistency in how Barnabas’s vampirism is treated — it’s clear that his affliction alone isn’t what makes him a bad person. While relatively “human,” he brutally beats Willie. Yet he is gentler toward Julia and more considerate of her unrequited feelings than he is during the cure storyline of the TV show — and yet it’s the movie Julia who deliberately sabotages his treatment.
Your comment about Dan Curtis being the last person you want in charge reminded me of this series of comics. The premise of the series is a little boy did what Bill Gates did so is now superrich. So he decides in this storyline to save “Star Wars” by buying it and giving it to someone other than George Lucas. ( A frequent sentiment before it actually happened.) These “episodes” are him interviewing big directors on what they’d do with property. Eventually he decides they’d all be even worse. They’re pretty funny. http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/070401.html
Just realized it’s only the color Sunday strips so you have to forward past the rest of the week in between. Here’s the 2nd in the series. http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/070408.html
Yes watching HODS 50 years later was not good and I am struggling through NODS. I said I would try to do NODS again on Halloween.
I agree.
Is this the last episode where we see nonparallel time Roger and Elizabeth in a scene? I know they will do many scenes together in parallel time, but when we return to regular time during August 1970, Roger is away on business in Europe.
Whenever we hear of present day Roger Collins away on a business trip (Bangor, or Boston, or, are you kidding me, the cannery selling sardines in Europe?), it’s because Louis Edmonds is involved in outside projects, regional theater or Broadway productions. But, let’s face it, by this point Roger Collins is pointless. Since he had the Burke Devlin manslaughter story taken from him in 1967, his main function has been to be the cynical last man to be convinced of a supernatural occurrence around here character — but since he’s been the vampire victim/slave to Megan the vampire, even that function has been taken away.
Perhaps if the series had gone on, and Roger would have been killed as a result of having discovered Barnabas’ secret, then he would have had a more compelling role in haunting the halls of Collinwood as a ghost, and then there could have been more interesting Roger and Liz scenes.
About ghost hauntings, I still regret that we could not have Carl Collins haunting Collinwood, playing practical jokes on everyone – specially Barnabas, who now dreads opening the door, because a pail of water might fall on him.
Adriana…lol.
Ghosts in Dark Shadows were pretty inconsistent. They were either silent sentinels, fully conversant, or spoke as tortured souls with mournful clipped sentences
Like individuals, ghosts in the afterlife would vary, especially given the unique circumstances under which the individual died. Bill Malloy: “Get away before yer killed, Miss Winters. Get away…” Post-vampire Roxanne: “I have no rest!” And Josette, a protector of members of Collinwood, would silently gesture but speak when necessary, for instance to comfort Vicki as Matthew goes off to sharpen an ax blade: “Don’t be afraid, Don’t!” Pre-1897 Quentin and especially Gerard are just plain selfish and menacing, in accord with their personas in life.
As a ghost haunting Collinwood in 1971 or 1972, I would think Roger would revert to his pre-1967 self, eternal brandy glass in hand while mocking Liz, berating David, and ogling Carolyn, making doors fly open and shutters creak in the night just for laughs. And I would imagine it would have been a role that Louis Edmonds would really have sunk his teeth into, given how spine tingling his spectral cameos as Brutus Collins were in PT 1841.
And, of course, Edmonds needn’t have been only the spectre of Roger…Joshua or Edward would have made wonderful ‘visitors’, as well!
Or even the mysterious Oscar Collins might make a flying manifestation!
(He and Edward might have been twins.)
Which may finally explain what “intercede with Oscar” was about — they’d been interceding since before birth. 🙂
Yeah, but Oscar is tied up with Felix nowadays….
Even though the show will now regularly use videotape editing for certain special effects/sequences, I’ll bet it really did throw a monkey-wrench into the production schedule since there are pre-taped sequences. The show was so accustomed to being done live to tape, and only had access to the tape machines during a certain period. I’ll bet they had to wait until the ABC Evening News was done before completing the episode taping when it was done in segments.
Even though videotape editing had improved tremendously by this point, you can tell that the production team still didn’t quite know how to make it work well. When Roger and Barnabas are watching the pre-recorded stuff happening in the parallel time room, and PT Roger walks toward them and then everything disappears, Roger and Barnabas just stood there and then the edit was made to show the empty parallel time room. Both actors should have reacted when the PT room changes into the empty room. But hey, it still looks so much better than some of the other special effects they attempted.
That’s the aspect of Dark Shadows that Robert Costello lamented toward the end of his tenure with the show, that it would take forever to complete an episode and that the energy from the early days of live to tape was missing.
http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/bob-costello
So, the big question is, how did they set up the doorway shot? Was the Chromakey screen simply placed behind the door on the regular East Wing set, or did they reconstruct part of that set (mainly the door frame) and place it in front of the screen?
I think the lack of reaction is made worse by the long pause afterwards. A faster edit would have done wonders.
The door business makes no sense. Both B. and Roger are somehow able to push the doors open, sending them into PT, even as they’re stuck at the threshold. And wouldn’t the PT folks notice the doors suddenly swinging open?
And doesn’t Chris in fact enter the room through the PT doorway when he comes in to talk to Liz? Otherwise, where did he come from? He enters from the left.
So many questions….
Regarding the PT room door(s), there is obviously a second door somewhere to the left (unseen) of the double doors through which Barnabas and Co. see the room. We’ve seen characters come from and head toward that direction as they enter/leave the room (as well as the door by the fireplace). In the next episode, before Cyrus Longworth enters the room, we actually hear a door-opening sound effect before he enters the room from that unseen left door.
I fell behind for a while, but i’ve just caught back up, just in time to enter a new quantum state of Collinwood!
Oh, PT Carolyn, with your sexy hair. It’s a strange thing to me: Nancy Barrett was always a very beautiful woman, probably, but the way that a simple change of hairstyle can so completely change my view of a character… Oh, momma. I can usually concentrate just fine on any scene that KLS isn’t in, but Carolyn Loomis is a distraction. I should pay more attention to the storyline and stop thinking with my… hormones.
I obviously have a different opinion on HoDS than others, but i’ll save that for when we get there.
Trying to think who else I’ve seen that hairstyle on…Carolyn Jones’ Morticia Addams (in black, of course)?
I suppose it is quite Morticia-esque, yeah: it’s the back-coming away from the forehead. The sexy Gothy hair is all about the back-combing . This is Carolyn’s Goth phase.:)
Reaction shots….should show reactions.
But the diligence wasn’t there.
When someone stands in that doorway watching chromakey PT characters, you’d think that they can hear the soundtrack of PT characters and react to it live. But it seems like they taped the doorway person first, and the chromakey PT characters were live.
The same thing was true in the first Star Trek movie, as all the crew were filmed separately, watching the first glimpses of the new Enterprise in their shuttles as they approached the ship. Appropriate reactions just didn’t happen.
And reaction shots are SO important to the visceral feel of a scene. And they’re EASY.
Don’t cost nuthin’. They get you involved more, emotionally. A great reaction is better than the spoken word…..even better when it’s unscripted, like when Maggie’s whole body jumps when a fist hits the table, or David jumps back from an explosion of real fire.
This Lara Parker rehearsal clip from PT 1970 shows what actors would be up against with pre-taping for a scene:
Spoiler alert!
Reaction shots for things that happened in Chromakey were absolutely not easy for this show at this time. What they do in this episode is at the very edge of their abilities, using the equipment and time that they have.
When Louis Edmonds and Jonathan Frid are looking at Roger walking towards them, they don’t see anything in particular; they’re looking at an empty space. The change happens because someone flips a switch in the studio. There’s no cue for them to suddenly react to.
Let’s say that you work on the crew. That you have a headset. Director in your ear.
And you throw a hand cue for the actors to react. And they do.
For me, PT skids off the tracks remarkably early.
(SPOILERS)
When they start the “Rebecca” storyline and then Maggie Collins disappears (as KLS high-tails it to the HODS set) the whole thing falls apart for me. The point of “Rebecca” is that the protagonist (never named, always referred to as “I” in the book — even in the film script!) is stuck there dealing with everything, making PT’s take on it feel misshapen. The “Rebecca”-inspired parts of PT are the uncanny valley of drama for me. I think I’m seeing something familiar but, no, parts of it are weird and distracting.
I don’t mind DS pulling apart any other borrowed stories and tinkering with them for its own purposes, but Daphne du Maurier’s plot is very specifically designed for maximum effect so its distortion really rubs me the wrong way. If they really wanted to riff on Poe’s “Ligeia,” or AIP/Roger Corman’s “The Tomb of Ligeia,” why did they bother setting it up as “Rebecca?”
I’d argued that HODS seems written for Vicki Winters rather than Maggie Evans: Barnabas seeks a cure in order to be with Maggie and her boyfriend is even named Jeff Clark (played by Roger Davis).
I do wish KLS had stayed on DS for the full effect of the REBECCA plotline.
Dunno if this would have worked, but…what if they had switched the roles for Lara Parker and Kathryn Leigh Scott? Have Angelique as the ‘good girl’, and Maggie (Margot?) as the vixen…and intro the actual ‘twins’ plot when KLS was finished with the movie? Would have been great fun having Maggie being evil, and Angie being the sweet innocent.
Maybe in another Parallel 1970…through the parlor door in the North Wing. 😀
Or another, parallel Dark Shadows, where different casting decisions were made. In 1966 Lara Parker was one of the actors to audition for the part of Victoria Winters. Kathryn Leigh Scott first auditioned for the part of Carolyn Stoddard. And, according to how the writers were planning it late in 1968, it was to be revealed that Carolyn and Vicki were actually half-sisters.
Oooooh! Nancy Barrett would have made a magnificent Angelique!
Alexandra Moltke as Maggie Evans? Maybe…
Lara is convincing as a “good girl,” as we’ll later see toward the end of the series, but she’s just, well, boring. It’s a waste of her talent. She does sort of play a “good girl” in PT for a while, which is interesting.
To your point though, it might have been interesting if Maggie were “evil” in PT and Angelique “good” because Barnabas reacts to Angelique as though she is “evil” without fully knowing her.
“why did they bother setting it up as ‘Rebecca’?”
The writers always use the story as a jumping-off point. They never follow it slavishly. Or hardly at all. (Wait until you see what they do to “Wuthering Heights” in 1841PT!)
The other influence I see is the Gene Tierney movie, “Laura”.
I haven’t seen HODS in a while. My recollection of Carolyn, vampire, is that she played it vicious, when she could have been written to play sexy like Angelique, vampire.
Who wouldn’t want to see that?
Angelique’s vampire phase with Nicholas was some of the best of DS.
And Nancy would have been great at it.
Here I am, watching b&w 1966. Carolyn and Burke in a hotel room with brandy aflow.
A who’s-going-to-seduce-who scene. Her eyes paralyze him. And she bites.
And she has hair like Carolyn Loomis.
If only they could have gone with that…..
Then, imagine Carolyn, witch. Maybe channeling Pansy Faye over a cauldron.
Oh, the toil and trouble….please don’t burst my bubble.
I am all Nancy today. She of the Loomis Hair.
Why didn’t she become a big movie star, anyway?
But we said that about Lara, too.
I see what you mean, but i’m glad we got something different with vampire Carolyn in HoDS. We’d already had the sultry Hammer-style vampiress with Angelique (and briefly Megan, and later Roxanne), so i like that they went for the more Count Yorga, Vampire style feral undead. Carolyn hissing like a hungry animal always freaks me out (in a good way).
Both Nancy and Lara should have gone on to big things – i’m in full agreement there. We’re very lucky that – with one or two exceptions over the years of the show – we get such a talented group of people in the DS cast.
That was some great stuff. Such an undercurrent of “who’s zooming who?”
Possibly the Parallel Time idea came about because of the movie planning (after all, the movie is a sort of Parallel Time retread of Dark Shadows).
NODS is the one that retreads 1970PT.
The cast are largely the same, with Kate Jackson playing the KLS part,
And minor variations in characters and plot.
But the theme song, “Joanna”, is from 1840. I think it was written for the movie, not for TV,
And was thrown into 1840 because it’s good, but in 1840, no music with that style or chord structure existed yet.
It brought a total mood change for a DS production.
Too bad that the movie was cut down for running time.
I wonder if there’s a Director’s Cut. Love to see that.
I don’t think the song has any lyrics, so I made up my own, which sound like all the other lyrics that I ever come up with.
I think they’re brilliant, and what’s more, they get the job done.
I was inspired to try my hand at some new lyrics for Josette’s music box.
My dead girlfriend, my dead girlfriend;
You remind me of my de-ead girlfriend.
My dead girlfriend, my de-ead girlfriend;
Don’t you think you’d like to be my dead girlfriend?
Nice.
That’s GREAT.
There is some kind of common thread, musically, to all these theme songs – Quentin’s, I Wanna Dance, PT…even the title music has something in common with them. I haven’t been bothered to analyse it formally to figure out what it is.
All the happier ones are in a major key. Spooky and sad ones in a minor key.
At this point, I’m most excited about the upcoming Parallel Time version of Carolyn. Nancy Barrett…and the audience..are going to have fun with this snarky, no-flies-on me Carolyn.
But what’s with the prolonging of present time goings on? Now the writers have had Sabrina be bitten? Why? Who cares? Just please wrap this Levaithan boredom-fest up and whisk us off to PT!
Back when Chris was first a werewolf, he’d just change shirts; right onscreen. Now he’s got Sabrina there, he goes off to another room to disrobe.
This will NOT STAND.
Sabrina has to go.
Just now seeing your comment, John E. I agree: this will not stand. Heave ho time for Sabrina!
Speaking of Sabrina, though: I really feel bad for her. It’s clear she wants some Chris, right now, and she is doomed to be endlessly frustrated because even in 1970 characters couldn’t get down unless they were married.
Also speaking of Sabrina, Johnathan Frid does some of his very best acting in the scene when she comes to his house, and he’s racked with the lust for blood. She’s going on about how she has no one else to talk to and Barnabas has to help her, and he’s gazing at her throat, helpless in the knowledge that he’s going to attack her, that he doesn’t want to but he can’t help himself. The self-loathing mingled with overwhelming need is brilliant.
John E, how entertaining you are! and, Prisoner of the Night, thank you ever so much for that fabulous filmstrip.