“Will tomorrow tell us any more than today?”
Every once in a while, I have to take an unplanned break from writing this blog — usually for a conference, or a seance, or I have other things on my mind — and when I come back, it’s always the same. The blog is a shambles, all caved-in and overgrown with vines and creepers. Everything’s dusty, the commenters are ravenous and desperate, and you don’t even want to know what happens to the Twitter feed.
Suddenly, it’s the distant future — or at least, a lot more distant than I wanted it to be — and if I could figure out what happened, maybe I could go back in time to make it right. I mean, I probably can’t, but you never know.
And here’s eccentric millionaire Barnabas Collins and the mythopoetic Doctor Julia Hoffman, in exactly the same situation. They took a quick sabbatical to a parallel dimension, and now it’s 1995, and they’ve missed all the good seasons of Seinfeld.
It’s one of the great surprises of Dark Shadows — a flashforward to twenty-five years in the future, where Barnabas and Julia are confronted with the consequences of an epoch-ending event that they’ve never even heard of. They were so busy solving parallel problems that they forgot all about their own band of time, and now it’s ruined and they don’t know why.
The only suspect I can think of is the Y2K bug. I know it’s five years early, but maybe that’s how cunning the Y2K bug actually is.
Acting on a hot tip from the housekeeper, the Junior Detectives head to a cottage by the sea, and oh my god, will you look at what they’ve done to Carolyn.
She’s traveled through time as well, but she’s done it the slow way, at the customary pace of 1 second per second, collecting a history’s worth of worries and grief, and piling it all up on her face.
“You got away, didn’t you?” croaks the aged ingenue. “And now you’ve come back. Or — are you spirits?”
“Of course we aren’t, Carolyn,” Julia smiles, as if this is going to turn out even remotely okay. “Touch me!” And then she reaches out her hand, and Carolyn shudders, and pulls away.
“You look the same!” she observes. “You shouldn’t look the same.” Then she charges across the room, shouting, “Why have you come here? What are you doing in my house?”
She’s gone mad, of course, like a character from Lovecraft after a night on the town with the Elder Things. The catastrophe that trashed Collinwood has taken everything from her but an assortment of scavenged knickknacks, and a suite of bad memories too horrible to bear.
Her little cousin David is dead, and something terrible has happened to her mother, and Uncle Roger. Quentin’s missing, and Maggie’s gone, and here’s Barnabas and Julia, twenty-five years too late. They went off on some irrelevant side mission, saving the wrong family, and everything fell apart. And Carolyn has gone mad.
They ask her questions, and she adopts every possible position. Nothing happened, she insists, and the others will come back soon. Barnabas says that they’ve seen David’s grave, and she starts to giggle.
Horrified, Julia snaps, “Carolyn, stop it!”
Carolyn stops. “1970 was so long ago,” she moans, gazing into the middle distance, and you can hear all those desolate years she’s spent living in this shack by the beach, decorated with memorabilia from a life she doesn’t want to remember.
Every once in a while, the Dark Shadows writers ask themselves, who’s going to be the heart of this storyline? What character is going to grab the audience by the feelings, and make them care about what’s going on? And the answer is Carolyn. She was the heart of the Jason McGuire blackmail story, and the Adam story, and the werewolf story, and the Leviathan story, and — for a few precious episodes — the Parallel Time story. Carolyn is the correct answer to that question.
And here she is, the girl who danced at the Blue Whale, transformed into a lonely, bitter hag. She swings from one emotion to another, babbling out disconnected sentences with vague pronouns, like crazy people always do on TV.
“I love secrets, don’t you?” she witters, like an echo of late-stage Parallel Carolyn, drunk and reckless. “I have learned to love secrets. Yes.”
Julia tries again. “Carolyn,” she says, “tell us one of your secrets, just so we can understand what’s happened. We want so much to. We want to see your mother.”
Carolyn beams. “Yes!”
“And the others…” Julia prompts.
Carolyn yelps with pleasure. “Wouldn’t that be fun? We could have a picnic on the beach, and play games…” And then the clouds pass over her face. “But, what games would we play? We’re too old for games.”
“Yes, we are, Carolyn,” Barnabas says. “But you’re still playing a game.”
It’s a great scene, dropping little bombs with each line of dialogue. This is what Sam Hall was doing, while he wasn’t paying attention to the final weeks of Parallel Time. It was worth it, just for this.
And then we get a hint of an old secret, a mystery that takes us all the way from 1995 to 1967, and before.
“Now, why do you call yourself Fredericks?” Barnabas asks.
Carolyn frowns. “I can call myself anything I want!”
Julia says, “Well, why don’t you call yourself Collins?”
And then we see just how haunted Carolyn is.
“That’s not a good name, Collins,” she breathes. “They… don’t like it.”
She says it just like that, with stress on that ancient, unheralded third person plural, as if she’s been reading Dark Shadows Every Day, and all of my metatextual conspiracy theories are true.
“Your love made you follow me!” the Second Vicki said to her vanishing husband. “Your love brought you here! Well, my love will keep you here!” She held fast to the man she met during her stay in the 18th century.
“Commit yourself to this life, to this time! Say you will, Jeff — and They will let you stay!”
That’s the first time we noticed They, the dark and shadowy organization that pulls the strings from behind the wobbly sets. They is all mixed up with time travel somehow, brought into being by Vicki’s unquenchable need to create paradoxes, and the organization appears to be either patching up the tattered space-time continuum, or destroying it once and for all. Or both.
They tugged Vicki back through time during that senseless seance, and pretended it was the ghost girl. They pulled Jeff back to the 18th century during his honeymoon. They swapped at least three and possibly four babies between the 20th century Stoddards, the 18th century Wicks and the 19th century Trasks, dropping kids off at impossible orphanages and spawning feedforward loops that knocked Burke all the way out of his plane as he flew over the Brazilian jungle.
They is powerful, and They is ruthless, and if you want to understand why Barnabas and Julia are here in 1995, then I’m pretty sure the answer is They.
This is a pivotal moment for They, because this week is the first time that Barnabas and Julia have explicitly been sent on an Adventure.
Dark Shadows doesn’t really do Adventures, where two lead characters travel to some faraway location in spacetime, wheezing and groaning, to diagnose a problem and improvise a solution. It’s not a thing that soap operas are designed to do.
But here they are, the doctor and her companion, exploring the deserted Nerva Beacon, piecing the clues together so they can figure out what’s going on, and how they can help. These two weeks are a ten-part fan-fiction crossover that Young Danny might have dreamed up, after watching my two favorite shows on New Jersey Network — Dark Shadows, and Doctor Who.
Someone has sent Barnabas and Julia on a mission to save Collinwood and restore the timeline, and I’m sorry, but I think it’s the Time Lords.
There, I’ve said it. They is the Time Lords.
Maybe. I mean, you never know with They. There’s another hundred and eighty-three episodes to go, and it’s possible that They has another surprise up the sleeve of its Prydonian robe. But I don’t know anyone else who timescoops doctors, and deposits them at historically disputed warzones.
“Get out!” Carolyn shrieks, finally fed up with this whole ordeal. “Get out of my house! You weren’t there! Go back to wherever you come from! GET OUT!”
She’s right, of course. This whole disaster happened because Barnabas and Julia were re-routed from one fictional universe to another, stranded by They in a show they don’t understand. They have to escape, to slip silently back through the New Jersey Network schedule, and return to their own show. But how?
Tomorrow: Wonderwall.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Joshua and Naomi’s nameplates are switched in the Collins mausoleum.
When Julia closes the mausoleum gate on her way out, the boom mic hovers behind her.
When Carolyn asks Julia if her mother would be buried here in the cemetery, someone walks in front of the camera.
There’s a tape edit when Julia is talking to the records clerk.
When Barnabas opens the mausoleum door to exit the secret room, you can see a studio light.
The first shot at Victor’s house is a closeup of a lamp; you can see studio lights reflected in the glass.
Behind the Scenes:
The Records Clerk is played by Ronald Dawson. He also appeared in December 1969 as Professor Henry Osmund, Stokes’ friend who restored the portrait of Amanda Harris. The credits call him “Records Clerk”, but The Dark Shadows Almanac lists him as “Ed, the Records Clerk”.
Victor Flagler is played by Cliff Cudney, who appeared in three episodes in March 1970 as the zombie John Hart, one of Jeb’s army of the walking dead. Dark Shadows is Cudney’s first screen role, and he goes on to have a long and successful career in stunts, beginning with The French Connection in 1971. He worked on a lot of horror movies, including Friday the 13th Part 2, Alone in the Dark and Scream for Help, as well as comedies, including Night Shift, Unfaithfully Yours and Boogie Nights. He was also a stunt driver for 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan, so obviously he is cool, and we like him.
Footnote:
If Dark Shadows really has become Doctor Who and it’s July 1995, then that puts us somewhere in the vicinity of Sky Pirates! It occurs to me that if I didn’t already have a theme for the 1995 blog post titles, I could have used ’95 New Adventures books and it would have fit perfectly. Think about it: Sanctuary, Infinite Requiem, Human Nature, Original Sin, Head Games, The Also People… it’s like they were writing Dark Shadows Every Day. On the other hand, what would I do with Zamper? So maybe it’s for the best.
Tomorrow: Wonderwall.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Of all the frightful make-up jobs on Dark Shadows (like the ghost of Jeremiah and post-Widow’s Hill Josette), the pasty, encrusted flakery for Timothy Eliot Stokes in 1995 is among the more disturbing – like a stale cheese Danish that exploded in the oven.
Better that that the plaster of paris makeup they put on Angelique in 1968 as he turned old or nearly 100 year old Charles Tate
They should have just left the face alone and added streaks for hair color, but instead they made him look like he was in his nineties. Thayer David is already considerably mature looking for a man of 45ish, and like Louis Edmonds playing Joshua he could have pulled it off convincingly enough without the grotesquely overdone face makeup.
With the limited TV definition of the time, I think they needed to accentuate the horrific……and gawd, the Josette and Jeremiah makeup was horrific.
But we, where we lived, we had perfect reception…..and said the same thing at the time.
“LOOK at that awful makeup!!!”
But…. A strange thing happened.
It made the audience LOOK.
But at least the Collinsport Rooster still crows.
It’s probably had a steady diet of Collinsport Flies over the decades… 😏
And the dogs still howl…
Glad to have you back! This time trip to 1995 was certainly one of the most efficient of the various storylines, leaving just enough questions and setting up the next mystery and plotline. Too bad they screwed that up. You are so right about Carolyn and Nancy Barrett. She transforms herself into this madwoman. I have to hand it to the make-up artist who convincingly helped give us this character hovering around 50, not quite able to put on her lipstick.
And thanks to their low budget DS didn’t try and give us predictions of a future world with flying cars, push button devices, shuttle rockets to moon colonies, etc. In fact looking back it’s easy to believe this small town that hadn’t progressed much once the family owned business shut down. No one asking Julia why she was wearing an old-fashioned outfit or outdated hairdo. And you can easily believe Carolyn wearing clothes that are over 20 years old because she doesn’t go shopping anymore for anything except food.
I realize that Barnabas and Julia are more concerned with the fate of the Collins family but it’s odd that they have no interested in finding out what happened to Maggie, Willie, Amy, Sabrina,or Chris. After all when they went on their “adventure” to PT all these people were still around.
“…DS didn’t try and give us predictions of a future world with flying cars, push button devices, shuttle rockets to moon colonies, etc. ”
True, Tony, but you would have thought that Barnabas and Julia would have at least taken a trip to Boston or New York just to find out about the world in 1995. They could have gotten some good ideas for investments when they got back to 1970.
Maybe even buy an Almanac of sports statistics from 1970-1995
That would have saved time and travel expenses. BTW, what did Barnabas and Julia get money to eat in 1995?
They just asked to borrow some dough from Mrs Johnson
Can you imagine their shock at 1990s prices?
Carolyn’s outfit isn’t that far off from what I was wearing in 1995. Print dress, long crochet vest, long straight hair. She’s messy and the colors aren’t quite the same, but it’s not completely anachronistic.
I really loved the makeup on Carolyn, particularly as the story advanced and they realized they could tone down the wrinkles and just keep the frown lines and over rouged cheeks. And the lippy is terrific–perfectly applied just over the natural line of her top lip.
Nancy really earns her MVP stripes here–wearing that hideous lace encrusted scaly dress (I put it neck and neck with Maggie’s oven glove skirt; seriously vile colors and that horrible lace trim) that makes her look like she skinned a spinster aunt mermaid and is wearing its hide, the braid of hair with the wisps fighting free constantly, the rocketing back and forth between little girl memories and hissing rage.
I do wonder, though, why on earth Mrs. Johnson hasn’t peaced out of this whole mess yet. She surely isn’t getting paid anymore–what is she living on? Doesn’t she have her own kids to go to? I get devotion to duty, but woman, even Ghost Bill Malloy didn’t demand this level of self-sacrifice.
I love the 4th doctor and It’s such a surprise to find it on a Dark Shadows blog…
Actually, I watched the episode that that photo/still is from a few days ago.
Carolyn looks and acts as if she’s in her 60s (though she’d be in her late 40s). And Stokes looks and acts as if he’s in his 80s but he shouldn’t be more than 70. Of course, convincing non-elderly makeup is tough.
We also get a WAY clearer picture than the viewers in 1970, who were watching it on blurry rabbit-ears broadcast TV.
I guess we could explain it away that whatever trauma happened in 1970 aged them beyond their actual years.
And I guess Dick Smith was either unavailable or Dan Curtis couldn’t afford him at this point.
Carolyn would indeed be in her late 40s but very often when people lose their mind and/or become alcoholic or heavy smokers they age badly. Nancy Barrett lowered the timber of her voice accordingly to a woman of that age who would have ben a drinker or simply out of her mind
I’ve worked with hard-living and/or impoverished 50 year olds who are mistaken for 70s. That’s how I think they intended Carolyn, due to whatever she saw. Just my take though.
I had never considered how this would have appeared on TV originally in the colour episodes. That will make my next run-through more interesting!
The main problem is trying to guesstimate how aged looking any one person is going to be, especially if you’re not “future-ing” up the rest of the town’s look. They can’t look too young, but the artists really tend to go way too far in the other direction.
I find it very amusing that future hearing aid technology hasn’t advanced past 1940.
YES, that’s what I thought too, wasn’t she in her early 20s so she’d be in her late 40s at the most here? And Stokes, looking and moving like he’s nearly 80? But the makeup clearly ends round his jawline, so the way his neck and ears are unaffected is a bit obvious.
I just told myself that their horrible experiences aged them prematurely…that works.
Nice to have you back, and I think the wardrobe people did a great job here on Carolyn. Looking forward to your musings on 1995. I had never seen it and was quite pleased.
Most likely the former. After HODS, Dick Smith was working on two movies: Little Big Man, released in December 1970, and Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?, which was filming on location in NYC that year.
I still contend that they could still have relied mainly on Thayer David’s performance for the 1995 episodes, although the makeup job for Nancy Barrett was rather good — in fact, it’s almost uncannily accurate to the way she would actually look in the 1990s.
This was probably my favorite part of the series. It was about as creative at this point as it was going to get. Destroying Collinwood was more “scary” to me than a vampire bite because i had fallen in love with the house.
Whoever “They” are, they’re not powerful enough to make any woman forget to moisturize. Carolyn’s not that crazy.
“Grey Gardens” is a Dan Curtis production… 😏
Nancy Barrett is “Dark Shadow’s” secret weapon. That is my coda for DS even though I have not reached the end. Nothing that can happen in the remaining episodes can change that. Nancy Barrett at first seemed to be an ingenue like any other, but she is immensely talented. She proves it in this episode.
I agree that the production was wise not to try to predict the future. They wound up predicting it more accurately than anyone has in any jump to the future. There is always the temptation to go all “Back to the Future” on a story like this. But people’s clothing, for example, does not change as much as you think. Although, Mrs. Johnson was practically wearing a hoodie, so maybe somebody had a fashion-predictor they sent away for with a cereal box coupon.
Technology is always the hardest to predict; yet in 1995, there were still people doing without the internet (most of them living in Collinsport, Maine, I expect), and about the only person on TV who had a cell phone in those days was Fox Mulder (not counting the characters on the various Star Trek franchises). DS avoided showing any cars. Nobody turned on the TV or the radio to so much as find out who the president was. (Then, nobody on DS ever turned on the TV. Only Chris ever claimed to have watched TV, and that was only for an alibi to beat a murder charge. And it didn’t work because he had to lie; he didn’t even know what was on TV. Buffie had a TV in her apartment, but we don’t know for sure that she ever watched it.
The only thing that was glaringly wrong was Eliot Stokes’ hearing aid. Hearing aids would be less obtrusive by the 1990s. Wires would be less obvious. Stokes could be behind the times, but what he was wearing was two decades behind.
Mulder and Scully’s phones were hella advanced for 1995 though: we rewatched that series a while ago and the most unbelievable thing on it was the range and clarity of those things. Mulder calling Scully from an underground bunker in the middle of the Arizona desert with no problems was way more unbelievable than aliens.
It’s a pity it wasn’t THEY who caused the destruction of Collinwood. It would have been a better story. I remember how excited I was when 1995 started and how disappointed I was by the 1970 follow-up.
I came across a book cover on Pinterest for Dr. Hoffman and the Cybermen. If only!
“When Carolyn asks Julia if her mother would be buried here in the cemetery, someone walks in front of the camera.” That’s probably Thayer David (still just “Stokes” in the credits) getting into position.
Goes anyone else thin the photo of “Jean” looks like a very young Grayson Hall? Could it be?
Carolyn Stoddard Hawkes Fredericks: Crazy Cat Lady before the term really became familiar.