“Go back to Collinsport and bury someone!”
First there was the unconscious Roxanne from Parallel Time, who talked like a jungle girl and got mesmerized by random objects. Barnabas fell in love with her, and then the house burned down, while she was trapped inside.
Then there was the vampire Roxanne from 1970, who talked about astral twins and punctured Maggie on the neck. Barnabas fell in love with that one too, and then the house burned down again, while she was trapped in a box.
In fact, every time we run into Roxanne, there’s an omega-level apocalypse just around the corner; clearly, the universe wants nothing more than to destroy this girl, and murder everyone who comes into contact with her.
But every time we leave Roxanne behind, we get to the next place, and guess what we find? Roxanne! This girl is the unshakeable Droopy of Dark Shadows.
So, yeah, it’s another post about Roxanne that’s probably going to end badly, which isn’t entirely fair because this time they’re actually trying. This is the third Roxanne that we’ve been introduced to over the last four months, and each time they reboot her, she acquires additional worthwhile characteristics.
This is the 1840 Roxanne — the original, you might say — who we met as a vampire in 1970. This is the optimistic, romantic one, who thinks for herself and has clear motivations. This offer is available for a limited time.
Currently, time-tumbled black ops agent Julia Hoffman is deployed in the past, tasked with discovering and averting the events that will someday lead to Collinwood’s destruction. The mission is going okay so far. This is her fifth episode in the nineteenth century, and she’s successfully established herself in the house as a cousin from Pennsylvania. She’s also unboxed Barnabas, who it turns out is a dangerous vampire serial killer who doesn’t know her, and has no idea why she claims to be from 1970. It’s Julia’s first solo mission, and she’s still finding her feet.
Julia meets Roxanne at a slightly disadvantageous moment — she’s standing in the drawing room, looking at a silhouette of Barnabas and saying semi-incriminating things out loud. And sure enough, somebody overhears, and Julia’s startled when Roxanne walks in and asks, “Do you always speak to inanimate objects?”
It’s not that funny of a line, and Roxanne delivers it in a not that funny way, but I appreciate that they’re making the effort to give the viewers a reason to care.
As we’ve discussed many times, there are three steps to getting the audience to like a new character — make a friend, make a joke, and make a plot point happen — and surprisingly, 1840 Roxanne scores on all three, just in her first scene.
Making a friend gives the new character a place in the show, and a reason why the camera is pointing in their direction. On Dark Shadows, that usually means they need a tie to somebody at Collinwood. In Roxanne’s case, she’s the sister of Quentin’s wife Samantha; I don’t really care a lot about Samantha and we don’t actually see her in this episode, but the family connection establishes Roxanne as a credible contributor to the storyline.
The plot point certainly isn’t a problem; in this episode, she starts out with one and closes with another, so that’s handled.
It’s the “make a joke” part that often trips people up, even in Dark Shadows, where at least one of the writers has a lively sense of humor. This step isn’t about making everything into a comedy; it’s just an acknowledgement that the character recognizes that it’s their job to entertain you. That’s the step where the Parallel Time version of Roxanne failed; she was unconscious and/or mute for the first three weeks, and once she started speaking, the situation didn’t noticeably improve. So we didn’t like her or care about her, and then she got caught in a housefire, at which point she became another one of Barnabas’ tragically doomed girlfriends.
But this is the new and improved Roxanne, who’s allowed a limited set of human characteristics. Her father’s trying to marry her off to a handful of sharp objects called Lamar Trask, and this is the way she deals with the situation.
Roxanne: Lamar has his business in Collinsport! Can you guess what business he’s in?
Lamar: I’m sure Miss Collins isn’t interested.
Roxanne: I just wanted to see if she could guess!
Julia: I’m afraid I’m not very good at guessing.
Roxanne: Lamar is a very successful — undertaker! (He grimaces.) Or do you prefer mortician, Lamar?
Lamar: It really doesn’t matter!
Roxanne: Anyway, that’s why he never smiles.
That’s not funny, per se, but it’s a sign of life. At this point in the show, teasing a Trask is a sure-fire way to get the audience on your side; that’s basically what they’re for. Trasks are pompous, gloomy and self-satisfied — it’s surprising that this is the first time they’ve made one a mortician — and being forced to marry a Trask is intolerable.
So this passive-aggressive LinkedIn routine marks Roxanne as a woman of spirit, who stands up for herself and refuses to play along. This is an especially good move for a soap character; soap audiences like to see women taking an active role. I don’t think that women in 1840 would talk like that, and just walking around the grounds alone with a gentleman that she isn’t related or married to would probably be reckless and scandalous, but for a young woman in 1970, Roxanne is appropriately liberated and right on.
I mean, she’s weird, because it’s Roxanne, and the way that she smiles is entirely upsetting, but they’re giving her a semblance of a human personality for this brief period before something terrible happens to her, and sometimes people smile in upsetting ways. You can’t spend your whole life judging people for the way that they smile.
And she’s a full-blown romantic, which is also a soap audience attractor. She has the same weird fantasy that the audience does, the one that compels them to write naughty letters to Canadian character actors.
“Someday, I will meet a man,” she muses. “A stranger! His goodness and gentleness will overwhelm me. And I’ll be amazed by an air of mystery that surrounds him. And he will be courtly, and charming, and he will love me as I want to be loved. I’ve always dreamed of such a man, and I know that we’re destined to meet.”
And over her shoulder, out in the back pasture, there’s a necrotic ghoul staring at her jugular and preparing to feed off her life essence. This isn’t the feet-sweeping fantasy that she was hoping for, but sometimes you find yourself on the wrong end of the food chain. Besides, the other option is Lamar.
But I understand what they’re getting at, and I agree with the general approach: a young woman who’s a little smarter and more headstrong than she needs to be, whose naive wish for an exotic Prince Charming puts her in the path of a dangerous predator. She arrives on the scene with an unbearable prospective fiancee, and then throws him aside in full view of the audience, securing our esteem. Then a grand piano drops on her head. This is a perfectly acceptable unit of televised entertainment.
So why do I hate her as much as I currently hate her? She’s in almost every scene in the episode, minus a chunk of act 1 and a brief interlude in act 3 with Julia and Lamar, and by midway through act 4, I’m desperate to watch anything other than this.
I want to say that there’s something about her acting style that I don’t like — she feels stiff and stagey to me — but lots of people are stagey on Dark Shadows, and usually I call it “theatrical” and make a big deal about how great it is. She’s not doing awkward Jungle Girl dialogue like she did back in Parallel Time; she talks like you’d expect a character like this to talk.
The problem, as always, is Barnabas Collins. Of all the tragic characters on this tragic show, Barnabas is the one who’s absolutely forbidden to have a normal love life. His girlfriends, gal pals, ex-wives and mad crushes shape the world. They travel through time and pop out of portraits; they curse and bite and kill and dream. You’re not allowed to be in Barnabas’ love orbit unless you’re a reincarnation of somebody. Barnabas’ love stories have to be epic.
And this girl is just not epic; there’s nothing epic about her. The best she can manage after three incarnations is normal baseline human.
So here’s Barnabas — not the one that knew Roxanne in Parallel Time and 1970, but a fresh Barnabas, with no particular reason to focus on this particular girl — and he falls in love at first sight with the side of her head.
“You may not understand this,” he says, ten seconds after he first saw her, “but when I first saw you, I had the feeling that somehow we were always destined to be together, and meet.” This means about as much as it usually means.
The idea is that the connection between these two is so integral that any version of Barnabas meeting any version of Roxanne in any time or place throughout the multiverse will automatically grind the world to a screeching halt in order to get at her. This is the love that he was always destined for, this is the one who just had to wait for the supply of Josettes to dry up. This one. This girl.
And I don’t believe it, obviously, because they haven’t invested the time in building up their connection. They’ve had four months to come up with any storyline that would establish why Roxanne is important to Barnabas — what he likes about her, what she brings to the table. And this is Dark Shadows, where you can do basically anything you want. This girl could have been anything or anyone that would make a splash — a witch, a dream, an astral twin, a secret, a psychic, a reincarnation, a fairy princess, a sketch come to life, a vision of the future. She could touch Barnabas three times and cure his vampirism. She could even be Josette DuPres somehow, the real one, and it turns out the woman that we thought was Josette was actually a sneaky impostor who rewrote Barnabas’ life when he wasn’t looking, and it turns out this is Josette after all, reunited with him at last, for the first time and forever.
Or something, I don’t know. It could be anything, as long as it had some kind of metaphorical mythological narrative kick behind it. But the show had four months to develop anything at all for her, and they have not used that time productively.
“Somehow we were always destined to be together” is what Barnabas Collins does. That is his mission statement. He says it in 1970, and 1840, and if the show kept going he would probably be saying it up until the mid-2000s. He has earned the right to make everything he touches an epic. But the other side has to earn it, too. It’s not a one-person game.
Still, it’s not like this is Roxanne’s only chance. We’ve had three of them in the last four months; at this rate, we can expect nine Roxannes per year. They’re bound to get it right sometime.
Tomorrow: The Gun Runner.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Barnabas tells Stokes, “I don’t know, and I don’t know anything, but all I know is that I must find a way, and I must do it within these next three days!”
The fountain turns off very suddenly at the beginning of Roxanne and Trask’s terrace scene, and it stays off for the rest of the episode.
Barnabas tells Roxanne, “When I first saw you, I had the feeling that somehow we were always destined to be together, and meet.” Then he asks, “May I call at you at home?”
Behind the Scenes:
Trask says that Barnabas went to England in 1797, a new date that the show has decided to use lately. Originally, back in 1967, Vicki traveled to the year 1795, and she stayed there until early 1796, which is the date of Barnabas and Josette’s death.
I believe they started using 1797 in episode 866 (Oct 1969), when Kitty was being slowly overtaken by Josette — she dates a letter 1797 instead of 1897, and then she goes to Josette’s room and sees that the portrait is signed 1797. I think they wanted a nice round century between the two time trips.
Oddly, they then used 1796 a month later, in the opening narrations for episodes 886 and 887 (Nov 1969), when Barnabas followed Kitty back into the past.
But they switched back to 1797 after that: In episode 938 (Jan 1970), Barnabas tells Julia that he travelled to 1797, in episode 967 (March 1970), Peter tells Jeb that he and Vicki were killed in 1797, and in episode 1063 (Aug 1970), Carolyn tells the Sheriff that Barnabas’ portrait was painted in 1797.
Also, a props note: Barnabas tells Stokes, “The family plot from the 19th century is over here” — where Julia’s grave is next to Minerva Trask’s, from 1897.
Tomorrow: The Gun Runner.
— Danny Horn
Dark Shadows Every Day 
But then they abandon Roxanne but good in not so many episodes. Not that I’m complaining, mind you; but wha hoppen?
She leapt to the future, got engaged to Willie, and died waiting for him in a hotel room.
That made me laugh!
Whatever happened to Willie’s Roxanne I wonder?
It’s odd how multiple characters get the same first name on this show. There’s David Collins and Dave Woodard; Sarah Johnson and Sarah Collins; Willie’s Roxanne and Roxanne Drew. You would think they could come up with different names. It’s not like there are that many characters!
A Roxanne isn’t a Roxanne; a Roxanne is a recipe. Ergo, Roxanne is the Impossible Girl.
Modern (1970) Barnabus has no recollection of meeting her? That’s not a good sign! 😃
Hence the paradox. Julia was originally in 1840 to let Barnabas out of the box.
Roxanne is being a mean little bitch to Lamar. She’s really gettin’ off on insulting him. Yeah, he’s a Trask but, I like him better than her already. At least he has good manners.
Trasks are always insufferable. I don’t care much for Roxanne, but Lamar ain’t no peach.
True, Lamar is solemn and reserved and a tad too proper but, that befits his position in the community. He and Roxanne aren’t a good match, for sure but, I don’t think he deserves the abuse she piles on him. It becomes obvious that he truly cares about her. It’s just too bad he had such a hard time expressing his feelings.
He spends most of his time with dead people, as in properly stone cold not coming back dead. Social awkwardness is to be expected.
I don’t see this at all in Lamar. He is not solemn and reserved so much as surly and abusive. I don’t believe for a minute that he truly cares about Roxanne. It seems clear to me he merely feels entitled to her.
here, here TD, i completely agree.
Yep. He acts as butthurt as if a cow or piano he rightfully purchased was sassing him.
I know, right? He’s got good, steady employment – money coming in – reasonably good looking – but NOOO, she wants her Prince Charming instead. Good luck with that, Roxie; you’re not the prize pig at the fair, either.(Are the writers kind of ‘borrowing’ from Jane Austen? I’ve only seen some bits of BBC miniseries, but Samantha and Roxanne seem to be 19th Century romance novel gals.)
I mean, when you think of how he and her dad basically arranged to sell and buy her, I don’t blame her a bit. And you could argue that her astonishing for the time level of back talk and rudeness is an attempt to be so blatantly disrespectful that he’d lose face if he went through with the marriage.
But yeah; what got me is her giving this performance in front of Julia, a total stranger and older woman whom she met literally ten seconds before. I think most people are really uncomfortable, to say the least, either being roped into somebody else’s drama rodeo or watching it happen.
She is a bitch isn’t she? She was unnecessarily cruel to Lamar and thinking pretty highly of herself. She describes this wonderful man she thinks she deserves without a hint of irony.
She hasn’t earned the right to be Barnabas’s love. What made him a romantic figure was that he had one, only ONE, true love and that was Josette and all her clones played brilliantly by KLS. There is nothing between Barnabas and Roxanne except admiration of each other’s looks?
“In fact, every time we run into Roxanne, there’s an omega-level apocalypse just around the corner; clearly, the universe wants nothing more than to destroy this girl, and murder everyone who comes into contact with her.”
I hadn’t thought of that before – Roxanne is the overarching curse in this whole series! Barnabas’ curse is personal, but Roxy’s presence does seem to generate these catastrophes. Maybe in pre-1795 a Collins tic’d her off?
Well, I’m kind of on the universe’s side on this one…
especially the part about “destroy this girl”. 😉
“Besides, the other option is Lamar.”
I think most of us women have been there at some point in our lives. There are a lot of Lamars out there.
Keep in mind, also, that Lamar’s option is Roxanne…
Which is why some of us women find the Barnabas’ out there so appealing!
“Yeah, with him I’ve gotta be an undead ghoul forever, but…” points to Lamar
Romantic fantasy is fine until it bites you in the…neck.
Barnabas doesn’t work as a traditional romantic lead. There’s a reason that his relationships with the best chemistry are twists on marital ones: Julia and Barnabas frankly a realistic longtime married couple. Although Lara Parker is a decade younger than Frid, she has a way about her that I buy them as a feuding on-again/off-again married couple (a classic trope in soaps).
Roxanne is really describing Quentin (or the Quentin we used to love in 1897). Yet they make Selby play a married responsible head of the family (again!). They can’t switch Frid and Selby because Barnabas is always the time traveler but the wacky Collins DNA could’ve produced an 1840 son who looks like Frid.
I sort of contend that Frid playing a non-Barnabas role later fails because it’s so out of type for Frid. He’s not Selby. And it’s strange that the series didn’t understand that.
I agree Stephen. I never really looked at Frid in that manner. Selby, yes. Frid, no.
Frid knew the type was cast, and it was time to change.
So, even if he fell, he would benefit professionally.
What did he do after DS?
Barnabas works as the mysterious stranger who really knows how to court a lady but turns out to be a bad idea in the end. Quentin works as the bad boy who runs off with other men’s wives and just hasn’t gotten around to putting his hand up your skirt, yet.
Those two types may both be alluring, but you are correct; they are NOT interchangeable.
I think there was a lot of unrealized potential with Roxanne and Samantha. Neither of the Drew sisters were shrinking violets. They were on the cusp of giving the Collins family another family to play off of, but didn’t quite make it.
Roxanne No. 3 is by far the best Roxanne. And I like Samantha myself. I think the Drew gals were a nice change of pace after Victoria and Maggie.
The Drew family could survive into the 20th century (the natural way, not the vampire way). Add in a later Rakosi, played by Marie Wallace, and that’s another cursed family along with the Collins and the Jennings. Magda just vanishes from the storyline at the end of 1897, her story after that is a blank slate.
Magda’s other, unseen, sister is Julia Hoffman’s grandmother.
I totally agree, William. Both were assertive ladies, and that’s what the show needed. They could have been utilized in 1970 and beyond. Two young non-supernatural female forces to be reckoned with would have added to the drama.
That’s what happened with Millay and Parker.
Fire. So to speak.
Good lookin ladies with fire, that’s soap.
But put it on DS, and I’ll watch it.
They couldn’t write to sustain it.
Because Violet Welles was the only one who could.
How is it that Curtis couldn’t see that he needed a female writer to save the show?
Hmmmm?
Shouldn’t this “1840” Barnabas still be yearning for Josette big time still, just like when he was released in 1967?
I realize that by 1970 with no Kathryn Leigh Scott, they decided to table that story line, and when Barnabas does make the trip back he takes down her portrait and says it’s time to move on.
But this Barnabas should be all about Josette until his future self takes over.
You’re absolutely right, Mike. I guess one could argue that the reason Barnabas kept hanging on to his Josette fantasy was because Maggie, Rachel, and Kitty reminded him so much of her.
Thinking back to post-210…..
Wondering what KLS thought when she realized that she would have to leave Joe, and be a Barnabas girl, in the following years, instead.
Yuck, I’d say.
For me, it would be like…..
Having Angelique.
And then, it’s Mrs. Johnson.
Was Barnabas hot? No, he was gallant, polite, and graceful.
He had a way of looking into your eyes and making you feel “special”.
He’s truly the Elvis of vampires. You buy that he sells himself on whatever Great Love is in front of him.
Perhaps being confined to the coffin for over 150 years drove Barnabas mad.
Danny,
One thing I’ve been curious about Julia time traveling back to 1840 – how did the opening voiceover describe it / characterize it? Was it a frightening and uncertain journey into the past, sort of like Vicki’s? Did it describe Julia’s mission? I know you might have to back up a few eps to answer it, but I’m just curious. Is there anything special or significant about the voiceovers? Are any of them done by Julia, describing her journey? Or are they done by whatever actor might be in the cast on that particular day? Or are they just pretty much ho-hum, nothing special?
From the DS Wiki, the opening to 1111 –
Collinwood in the year 1840, a refuge for Julia Hoffman, who has fled the destruction of the Great House in her own time. But a refuge without safety, for Barnabas has not followed as he promised he would. And so, not knowing whether he is dead or alive, she hides, aided by Barnabas’ old friend Ben Stokes. She is very puzzled about what she has discovered about the Collins family. For Quentin and Tad are dead, lost at sea, and Daphne is unknown to them all. And while she ponders all the puzzles, there is a new threat she does not know. The mysterious Daniel Collins has escaped from his prison in the Tower room.
And today’s (1114) episode is the first that Grayson Hall has narrated.
Grayson Hall’s first narration is episode 291, and she did 159 narrations.
I should have known that wasn’t accurate; she’s been around far too long not to have done an intro or two by now.
Many of the narrations in this time period contain the phrase (or something similar)… “Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman have travelled to 1840 in an attempt to avert the destruction of Collinwood that will occur in the year 1970….” Unlike earlier periods on the show, where the opening narration set a mood, the narrations in this time period are very plot descriptive. They may as well have started, “Collinwood in 1840. On yesterday’s episode….”
I guess this show was ahead of its time.
It was both ahead and behind of its time, including parallel to it.
…and being forced to marry a Trask is intolerable.
Oh, come now. There must have been something – – inspirational – – about the Trask men, otherwise how would there have been any little Trasklings? (I bet the Reverend was a DEMON in the sack.)
Do we ever get to hear about who Lamar DID marry to beget Gregory?
Yeah but afterwards he makes you pray for forgiveness for inciting sinful thoughts. For HOURS.
very funny, Tessie Collins! little Trasklings! i declare, John E., sometimes you’re almost as cute as our Danny.
I noticed something strange about Roxanne in this episode. Her voice and cadence is similar to Marilyn Monroe! “I will meet a strange man. And he will be ever so elegant.” If you close your eyes and listen to this episode you can almost imagine Marilyn Monroe doing a soap opera.
Barnabas’ reaction to 1840 Roxanne makes perfect sense to me. He’s already sucked the blood out of several people, so he’s taken the edge off his cravings. Now he’s feeling lonesome. He sees a pretty girl talking about her longing for a mysterious, enigmatic man, just the sort of man he can pretend to be. Best of all, he sees her rejecting someone who strongly resembles someone he hated enough to murder with more than his usual degree of sadism. No wonder he thinks he’s found his soullessness-mate.
I love how, when he’s behind the fence listening to Roxanne prattle off the back cover of a romance novel, the shadow of the fence falls to give him a perfect Snidely Whiplash mustache!
A curiosity is that, when Viki went to 1795, there was a sense that someone’s spirit (Sarah? Josette?) had sent her there. Barnabas “willed” himself to 1897 via the I-Ching purposefully to save the children from Quentin. Julia, fleeing impending death, stepped on a stairway and somehow found herself in the pivotal year 1840 when the source of the current troubles began. Rather a coincidence, no? Imagine if she had landed in 1835 and had to wait five year to fix history.
It would’ve made more sense for Lamar to be the nephew rather than the son of the original Trask. Remember the line “I’m afraid physical love is beyond my comprehension?” Hard to picture a guy with that attitude fathering children.
Roxanne is beautiful, willful, charming (if you’re not named Trask), and utterly irresistible. I find Barnabas’s reaction perfectly understandable. Though she’s not quite in a class with fiery Angelique (who is?), she’s a helluva lot more interesting than drippy Josette.
I never understood why anyone would be interested in Barnabas, even before the curse.
I can only assume that Trask Senior had an arranged marriage in the 1780s, did the duty-bound conjugals just enough to sire Lemar, and then lost his wife in witchcraft-related shenanigans in the early 1790s.
Julia is showing some Vicky-level denseness here. Really, Julia, you have no idea how Roxanne will become a vampire?!
It’s an interesting point. Barnabas did say back in 1970 that he could only sense the presence of another vampire if he had been the one to bite her.
So Julia is operating under the illusion that despite all the circumstances of serial-killer Barnabas on the loose, he was not the one who sired vamp-Roxy.
This is a much better Roxanne. And I was so excited to have a Trask show up! Jerry Lacey is also another great actor on par with David Thayer and Nancy Barrett. I liked her standing up to him.
I love the bright color scheme in 1840. I wonder, though, if it’s really historically correct.
This same evening ABC aired Bewitched Episode #202: “Salem, Here We Come” where the visiting High Priestess Hepzibah demands to be taken to Darrin’s work to observe him as she makes a determination whether or not the mortal marriage to Samantha will remain in tact. While there she falls in love with the charming Mr. Hitchcock (Cesar Romero) who happens to be traveling to Salem, MA at the same time the Witches Convention is going on. Hepzibah then decides that mortals do have some charm and calls off the dissolution of Samantha’s marriage and grants Darrin permission to come to Salem with Samantha.
I love this Roxanne, and I love her creepy smile, too. And I love, love, love that Barnabas was the one who made her a vampire! I can’t believe I didn’t remember this. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is why she doesn’t remember him when she meets him again in 1970, but I can think of an explanation for that and hopefully the show will explain. I’m excited… this is the DS we know and love. It’s back, for one last hurrah!
I was incredulous when Barnabas actually took down Josette’s portrait, and in such a perfunctory fashion! Just like that – after a gander at the new chickie.
Okay…so to make room for Roxanne, we are not only supposed to forget his history of love for Josette across the centuries that they have emphasized for the past 3 years, but also remove all visual traces of her from the show. This was just too incongruous to me and not consistent with his character. I will always regret that DS didn’t resolve Josette and Barnabas as each other’s true love.