“You know, it might be the ghost of a room.”
Hallie is enchanted, in the sense that she’s delighted. She’s also enchanted, in the sense that someone has cast an enchantment on her.
“What does it matter?” she chirps. “We wanted to find the room, and we have!”
Hallie and David have opened the door to the playroom, a magical portal of the kind that you typically see in wardrobes and police boxes, leading to looking-glass worlds with silver-leafed trees and marmalade skies. Cue the enchantment.
“It’s the most marvelous place there is,” she smiles. Hallie isn’t Hallie right now, which is fine with me, and it’s even more fine with Hallie. Nobody is happier about Hallie not being Hallie than Hallie is.
“Look!” she coos, bending down to appreciate the twirling toy carousel. “There’s Dapple, and Charger, and Jewel, and all the others! Running a race that no one will ever win.”
“Who are Dapple and Charger?” David grouses.
“The horses, silly!”
And there they go, Dapple, and Charger, and Jewel, and all the others, revolving in an endless circle, just like this storyline is starting to. It’s only been a week, and already it feels like we’ve been listening to this tinkly music box tune for most of our lives. That’s always how it feels when Dark Shadows tries to stretch a three-week story into six to eight weeks, like they’re about to. Hallie is smiling, and soon she’ll be whining, and then she’ll start smiling again, twirling in a graceful circle as the audience drifts away.
Still, I bet Dapple is in the lead. I know, they’re all chasing each other, but Dapple be Dapple. You know what I mean? The rest of you need to step out of the way.
So here we are in the ghost of a room, partaking in some bygone days. It’s mostly been music and clothes so far, but stay tuned for the linguistic vicissitudes.
“I suppose you knew them when you were a kid,” David says.
Hallie straightens up, smiling. “Kid? What an odd term to use!”
David ignores her. “I wonder whose room this was?”
“For the moment,” Hallie twinkles, “it’s ours!”
David doesn’t notice that for once, Hallie isn’t moaning; he must have developed a defense mechanism that filters out any awareness of her mood and the tedious things that she says. I’ve been trying to develop one of those myself.
“All this junk must have belonged to somebody, at some time or another,” David says, lowering himself onto a rocking horse.
Hallie keeps twinkling. “Junk? I don’t understand!”
David rolls his eyes. “Would you stop acting like the world’s number one weirdo?”
“Weirdo?” she scowls. “What does it mean?”
“You know perfectly well what it means,” he says.
“The word weird is not unfamiliar,” she pronounces theatrically, “but the addition of the letter O makes it completely incomprehensible!”
“Come on, would you cut it out?” he says, leading to more confusion. “OMG, gag me with a spoon! Stop being such a jive turkey and let’s burn rubber before this crazy scene blows my mind, comprende? Bye, Felicia!”
I don’t really know why possessed-Hallie is so relaxed, anyway. This is the 1840s, shouldn’t these kids be at their factory jobs?
After the kids vamoose, Daphne appears and switches the carousel on, all pale and blank-eyed and just as incomprehensible as the addition of the letter O.
So you have to wonder, what is the plan here? We know that Daphne was the governess in 1840, and she died, along with Carrie and Tad, the two kids living in the house at the time. Now she’s apparently trying to build replacements, conjuring up a showroom that infuses the children with Carriosity and Tadness. That’s kind of a weird thing to do, obviously, and it makes you wonder if maybe Daphne was a little too involved in her students’ lives. I know that she’s dead, but maybe it’s time that she gets a life of her own.
But this storyline is a second-generation copy of the not-at-all-faithful adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw that Dark Shadows concocted two years ago. The one thing that’s consistent among all three versions — the real one, and the two DS iterations — is the core visual of a silent male and female ghost in period dress, looming ominously behind an innocent boy and girl. That image is basically the only thing these storylines have in common with the source material.
In the novel, the kids never even acknowledge the ghosts in any way; that’s the whole point of the story. The insane governess is dreaming them up anyway; she’s convinced that the children are being corrupted by the previous governess and her servant lover, who died together in some sinister, degraded way. The kids are perfectly fine. Nothing happens to them.
And there’s absolutely nothing about turning the children into other, deader children. That’s a Dark Shadows original. But when they first ran this story in late ’68, the lead ghost was Quentin Collins, an ancestor who they could suggest was trying to reclaim his beloved nephew, Jamison. That never made a hell of a lot of sense anyway — it’s not like Jamison was lost at sea, he stayed right here in Collinwood and grew up and had kids named Elizabeth and Roger. It’s not clear why Quentin needs to de-SORAS the guy and turn him into a twelve-year-old again. Jamison was fine.
But okay, Quentin wanted a new nephew to hang out with. It’s weird, but it worked, and at the time I don’t think I questioned the emotional through-line. It’s only now that they’re pulling the same leg that I’m noticing how odd this is.
Speaking of Quentin, he’s hippity-hopping around the house this morning, because they got all the way through another night without the roof caving in. Last night was “the night of the sun and the moon,” the first clue in the six-day weather forecast that Barnabas and Julia brought back from the future.
They were worried that a big exciting plot twist might happen, but nothing happened at all, hooray, the night is over and everything’s fine, except that Hallie doesn’t recognize slang anymore.
Quentin says maybe the clues don’t mean anything — they were written by Carolyn in 1995, when she was old and mad and just about to be murdered by somebody’s governess — but Julia stands firm.
“There’s one important thing that we cannot let out of our sight,” she says. “This room was in ruins. The whole house was in ruins! Everybody was gone, except for you and Carolyn, and you were both insane! I saw it, it was horrible!”
It’s a nice moment, a callback to the excitement of the 1995 storyline — but it’s bizarre that I’m thinking of it like that, given that it’s only been a week since that ended, and I’m already nostalgic for it. This is Monday of week two, and already the urgency of that countdown to danger feels like it’s miles away. Look at what Dapple and Charger have done to me.
There’s another playful Quentin/Julia scene later on that’s so cute, you hardly notice that they’re acknowledging how empty the current storyline is. She enters the drawing room, and finds him swilling brandy.
Julia: Oh? Trying to combat the night’s fatigue?
Quentin: Ho, ho. Far from it. At least, last night’s excitement took my mind off its favorite subject.
Julia: Which is?
Quentin: Me. Or, at least, my life. It’s been pretty drab lately.
Julia: Well, I hope we don’t have too much more excitement.
Quentin: No, I don’t mean that, Julia. Right now, I’m very lonely. There’s no woman in my life. (He takes a gulp.)
Julia: I think you’re really looking for a drinking partner, rather than a woman.
(They both chuckle.)
Quentin: Well, if I’m giving that impression, I don’t mean to. And I’ll stop. Immediately!
And then he sets the brandy glass down on the drinks cabinet, walks over to the couch, sits down, and has absolutely nothing to do.
So that’s why Quentin is the skeptic right now, casting doubt on Carolyn’s fortune-telling bullet points; it gives the scene somewhere to go. Establishing a Mulder-Scully formation between Quentin and the Junior Spook Detectives means that everybody gets to recap all the high-stakes tension, which takes our minds off how much isn’t happening right now.
Oh, and then there’s the smell. We should probably delve into that, a little.
Quentin: Before you go, may I compliment you on the way you look?
Julia: Well, you certainly may.
Quentin: And I am particularly impressed by that lovely perfume you’ve got on.
Julia: (chuckles) Thank you, but I’m not wearing any perfume.
(The theremin kicks up.)
Quentin: Well, there sure is a lovely scent in this room.
Julia: Strange. I don’t smell anything.
Quentin: No, it’s beautiful.
This is a reference to the scent of lilacs, which we know from previous episodes is associated with Daphne the dead governess, and we also know that the crazy 1995-Quentin was dippy about Daphne. It looks like there’s going to be a lot of lilac-sniffing in our immediate future. This story has something for everyone, provided you’re obsessed with lilacs.
Meanwhile, the kids are upstairs, roaming in circles. Hallie realizes that she lost some time in the playroom, and she’s scared about that, but David says, “It may have been a little bit scary, but wasn’t it fun?” which it was, if you’re super strapped for entertainment. And then they go downstairs, and Hallie hears the carousel music, and she tells David that she wants to go back upstairs to the playroom. That’s how we’re going to spend a great deal of time this week, dragged through that cycle.
This happened with David and Amy in the previous T of the S storyline, too. The writers want to spend some time playing out the possessed-kid story beats before any of the grown-ups catch on, but if the ghosts don’t speak, then we have to fill up all these scenes with the kids talking to each other. They can’t just stand there and agree with each other all day, so you have to choose one kid to be the Mulder, and the other one gets to be the Scully. Once that runs out of juice, they switch parts and repeat the process.
So this is how it’s going to go, for the next little while. Hallie was fascinated with the old-fashioned Carrie dress, and then she was scared of it, and she put it away in the attic, and now she hears the music, and she’s drawn to the playroom, where Daphne gives her the dress back.
People being drawn to things is one of my least favorite elements of Dark Shadows storytelling, and right now being drawn to things is pretty much the only thing anyone can think of to do.
And this is how we fill the time, while we’re waiting for the six clues to come true, en route to the show-stopping catastrophe. We take another turn around the carousel, doing plot-mandated loopdeloops, and if the characters’ collective IQ has to go down a couple percentiles, then that’s just what we’re going to have to do.
I mean, imagine being drawn to someone with the kind of mentality that would name a horse Dapple. Right? I’m just flagging that as an issue.
Tomorrow: The Scent of Lilacs.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
When David and Hallie enter the playroom at the beginning of act 1, somebody’s talking in the studio.
David says, “A few minutes ago, you didn’t even want to come in here. Now you’re acting like it’s the most normal place in the world.” Hallie replies, “Ordinary? No, it’s the most marvelous there is.”
You get a flash of Julia’s underwear when she gets up from the chair at the beginning of act 2.
In the cemetery, the top of the set is visible after Quentin reads Gerard’s tombstone.
Behind the Scenes:
On August 9th, 1970, the night before this episode aired, the CBS summer comedy program Comedy Tonight performed a satire on soap operas, including a vignette called Strangest Shadows. Jerry Lacy, who was a member of the Comedy Tonight ensemble, played Count Drago, biting Tonya the witch, who was played by Madeline Kahn. Lacy last appeared on Dark Shadows in July as Trask the butler; he’ll be back in October as Lamar Trask.
Playroom inventory:
There’s a couple new items in the playroom since I did the original inventory list two weeks ago: a set of blocks, and a captain’s hat.
Tomorrow: The Scent of Lilacs.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
And if you take a bite of Dapple, you get cast out of the playroom.
Carrie is a huge relief from Hallie. If only she could stay that way until 1840.
Because we finally get some chemistry between those two.
Henesy has awakened from a deserved funk.
Now, if the horses were chocolate, this would be a whole new show.
Shame when Barnabas and Julia actually get to 1840 Tad and Carrie get significantly less screen time. There are a few things from this storyline that aren’t used in 1840, including the Java Queen (probably no space for a ship set).
Are you certain about the Java Queen in 1840?
In this storyline it gets a Jolly Roger flag, which means pirates. The only nautical aspects to 1840 are that which keep Quentin, 1840 flavour (better than PT Quentin but not as interesting as 1897 Quentin), out of the picture until maximum drama can ensue by his return.
I think the actual ship was to have wrecked off the coast of Maine originally.
Then, in 1840, it was the South Atlantic?
And they hadn’t had a model built yet.
Things in 1970 didn’t exactly proceed as expected either. I recall in 1995 Mrs Johnson says she was with David at the end. No one mentions Hallie. We can explain these things away through the time paradox. Barnabas and Julia returning 1970 to be present for Collinwood’s destruction did change history, but minutely. But as you say many elements aren’t used in 1840. To say nothing of the Dark Shadows continuity being blown to smithereens
I wouldn’t have mentioned Hallie, either!
FYI: Amazon has all eps, and Prime members can watch collection 1-17 and 23 for free. 23 has eps 1102-1142, so only a few ahead of Danny. Which makes me wonder if someone at Amazon is a reader of this blog 🙂
I really can’t blame Quentin for going daffy for Daphne: she’s pretty hot, rocking that early Victorian goth look. Shame she stinks of lilacs. Still, it’s better than lavender – she’d be less alluring smelling like a granny.
Good thing it’s not jasmine or Barnabas would be going gaga for Daphne, and Julia has only just got him off Parallel Roxanne.
Why can’t we have a Gardenia Ghost for once? They smell way better than those old stinkin’ lilacs. If my house suddenly started smelling lilacky, I’d call in the carpet cleaners.
“On August 9th, 1970, the night before this episode aired, the CBS summer comedy program Comedy Tonight performed a satire on soap operas, including a vignette called Strangest Shadows. Jerry Lacy, who was a member of the Comedy Tonight ensemble, played Count Drago, biting Tonya the witch, who was played by Madeline Kahn. ”
I loved “Comedy Tonight.” Robert Klein was the host and Judy Graubart (“The Electric Company”) was also in the cast.
In the “Strangest Shadows” sketch, Jerry told the witch, we are all doomed…we only have six months to live.” “Why?” asked the witch. “Because we’ve been cancelled.” The writing was definitely on the wall.
I know they couldn’t have got her, but Madeline Kahn would have enlivened the last stretch of DARK SHADOWS.
Ooh, now that you say that: imagine a world in which Madeline Kahn was cast as Julia instead of Grayson Hall. I’ve been saying all this time that no other actress could do what Grayson did with the part, but Madeline Kahn playing it as drama is an interesting thing to imagine.
It wouldn;t stay drama for long. Madeline Kahn’s Julia would fall for Adam after he gave her his “enormous schwanzstucker”
Yeah, and just imagine Sheriff Patterson’s reaction when Madeline’s Julia said to him, “Hewo, Shewiff.”
Collinsport needed Sheriff Bart!
It’s twue! It’s TWUE!!
I do remember–back in the day–getting a charge out of the fact that Barnabas, Julia, and Co. thought that nothing had happened on the night of the eclipse, but that, unbeknownst, Hallie and David had crossed some line in entering the ghost room and Hallie’s transforming into Carrie–we were watching a step in the progression toward doom that the big guns couldn’t see, reaffirming the disaster scenario, validating Carolyn’s cryptic list, and making the teenagers on the screen more important and in the audience more knowledgeable than the adults. I mean, yes, the dialogue is wandering a bit and we’ve got the People Acting Mysteriously Drawn to Something We Don’t Understand trope, which is, yes, feeling wearisome by now; but this tactic of letting the audience see what the action-hero protagonists don’t was workin’ for me.
I mean, Barnabas once took David seriously enough to try to drive him mad with bat puppets–it’s interesting that hardly anybody notices Amy’s gone and Jan Brady 2.0 moved in. It’s nice to see exactly how the destruction of Collinwood sneaked in under the radar.
But I do wonder: where were Gerard and Daphne until now? Did they activate because Hallie showed up, or the whole “overshot our target and landed in the future” thing with B and J, or what? Are there so many Collinwood ghosts that they have to take turns haunting the estate?
Possession seems to have cleared up Hallie’s COPD, but Carrie seems to have some issues with arrested development. Dapple, indeed!
I just have to get all scientific – that was an eclipse of the moon (despite what was shown of a solar eclipse), which means Earth was between the sun and moon. The two bodies do not coincide in the sky, they are at opposite points. A solar eclipse would have made more sense. But, of course, the clue WAS cryptic, and Carolyn was -er, will be – insane.
The excitement of astronomical phenomena aside, it is now THE NEXT DAY; could the cast please change into different clothing? Quentin’s still wearing the same suit (while mentioning how nice Julia looks in her new outfit), and David has that dorky yellow cardigan! Didn’t guys used to wear turtlenecks around here? Where did David put that Nehru jacket?
Dark Shadows takes another glimpse into the future when 1840 Quentin describes Daphne as an “angel among gargoyles,” as though he could foresee one of her future hit TV series.
“Comedy Tonight” further acknowledged Jerry Lacy’s Dark Shadows connection. On one show, Robert Klein invited Jerry out on stage and told him that some viewers had written in asking about Jerry, saying they recognized him from daytime TV. Jerry confirmed that he played “the evil Reverend Trask on Dark Shadows.” I’m thinking they must’ve gotten a lot of mail about Jerry to deem it worth mentioning on the show.
“Cryptic” messages…the sort that are misinterpreted or unseen by most of the characters…is good (if not standard) writing for drama. I’m wondering if the DS writers actually intended that David and Hallie enter the playroom during an eclipse, in a burst of creativity, or if it was random.
“the night before this episode aired, the CBS summer comedy program Comedy Tonight performed a satire on soap operas, including a vignette called Strangest Shadows.”
I think about this time there was a comic book satiring several shows of the time…one was described as “Darn Shadows.” At the end of the story line the show was cancelled and “Barnaby” was moaning over the loss of his porcelain fangs.
Yes, Darn Shadows was in an edition of Mad Magazine.
It might have been, but what i saw was in a stand-alone comic book. I think one of the other satires was “Blob Squad” and another show that i didn’t watch even back then. Unfortunately the copy is currently about 130 miles away from me. I hope to dig it out this weekend.
It sounds like you’re describing Issue #1 of Marvel’s “Spoof” comic book. Dark Shadows and The Mod Squad got spoofed along with “Marooned.”
I stand corrected. It wasn’t Mad Magazine, but indeed Spoof comic book.
I’ve been meaning to ask about Mad magazine and DS.
Robert Sharp mentioned the spoof cartoon Darn Shadows.
Click on each of the six (6) cartoon panels to open a magnified (i.e. readable) cartoon panel. Quite amusing. Cartoon Amy Jennings calls the boy “Daybed” instead of David. Thanks Robert! Link below to Darn Shadows cartoon:
http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2010/10/countown-to-halloween-2010-sunday.html
Ooh, this is super cool, thank you for the link! I should do a post about this.
Danny said, “… I should do a post about this.”
Danny: Like Leticia Faye, you may have the gifts of a mentalist … because you just read my mind! 🙂 I do agree it would make a very fun post!
Thanks for linking; that was a great laugh! And that last panel! I’ve often wondered how much that sort of thing contributed to people’s taste for horror in the late 1960’s.
A ‘dapple’ horse is a spotted horse if that makes the name any easier to deal with.
It’s time for Julia to play the cougar and shag Quentin and if she’s showing her undies let her do it Sharon Stone style for Barnabas and the Collinsport PD.
Yeah! Score one for the cougars. I bet if Quentin ever went Julia, he’d never go back.
I’m afraid I’ll have to take a pass on Julia Hoffman fan fiction. But by all means carry-on.
Slocum wrote, “… It’s time for Julia to play the cougar …”
I find it hard to envision anyone but Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, just as it’s difficult to imagine anyone but Grayson Hall playing Dr. Hoffman. But what if Grayson been chosen to play Mrs. Robinson?
Might she have played the part differently than Anne Bancroft?
I think she would have done a very good job at it. Although Anne B had a better physical look for the role.
I thought her blood slave scenes with Tom Jennings were pretty steamy.
Seriously! Get it, Julia! He’s even technically older than you–a lot older!
Julientin is the weirdest ship this side of the Java Queen.
I approve.
Yeah, I would thinkbeing 100 ought to cure you of any prejudice against women who look 40.
That David is the ginchiest! I mean, a real cool Jonah!
“I gotta kill that boy some day. I just gotta.”
Ooh, this episode aired on my fourth birthday. I don’t have many memories of “Dark Shadows” at the time except my grandmother threatening me that Barnabas was going to get me and an episode ending with a teen boy and girl hiding out in a room that they weren’t supposed to be in. At four, my ability to follow along wasn’t that great, but I’m beginning to think that what I remember probably occurred sometime during this story arc.
I think the most aggravating part of this story so far is why these tweens are so interested in a playroom for an eight year old.
THANK YOU!!! My thoughts exactly!
No one’s mentioned Kathy Cody’s injury. When she is taking the orange dress in and out of her dresser, she is using only her left hand, and her right arm is stationary at her side, as it is throughout the episode. She has a bandage wrap around her right hand. Did she injure her hand while trying to punch through stale dialogue in rehearsal?
This whole 1970 thing is tedious. It’s such a rerun of the earlier haunting of Collinwood that when I saw the 1897 story again after almost 50 years I was confused at first that it was Beth with Quentin and not Daphne!
I can totally see Grayson Hall as Mrs. Robinson. I can imagine her crocodile smile as Dustin asks if she’s trying to seduce him.
Than she messes up his hair and gives him a sedative.
I agreed with Danny’s assessment of Kathy Cody’s acting in her first substantive appearance in #1071- she was painful to watch. But she seem to have got into the groove of the Dark Shadows acting style. She’s no Denise Nickerson, and the fact that she is physically larger than Nancy Barrett makes the scenes where Carolyn is treating Hallie like a little girl jarring, but I think she fits in well enough.
I remember pestering my mother to buy that Spoof comic book just because it had Barnabas on the cover. She did buy it but was a little surprised as I was a strict DC only guy in those days. Anyway, it seemed much funnier to my seven year old self than it does now.
For just a second poor Julia thinks she’s going to get lucky and then poof the whole thing falls apart like a bouquet of dead lilacs. Always a (celibate) bridesmaid…
I could totally picture Grayson Hall as Mrs. Robinson. I’ve also heard that Mike Nichols considered offering the part to Doris Day, which would’ve been really interesting, but I’m not sure if he ever did so.
i got the impression the “underwear flash” was a garter or maybe a slip. Julia’s makeup is looking great these days too.
I’m pretty sure the dress that Daphne is holding up has an Ohrbach’s label.