“The screaming was unbelievable.”
There is another world.
There is a better world.
Monthly Archives: September 2020
Episode 1184: The Graham Crack-Up
“Being a mental patient seems to make anything possible.”
So we might as well gently check ourselves into an asylum, is what I’m saying. It’s about time, and it doesn’t appear like anyone’s going to do it for us. I think at this point we could all do with a little rest cure at a home for the mentally unwell, if only to hang out with the rest of the Dark Shadows fanbase.
Episode 1183: Damn Daniel
“There comes a moment when one loses control of one’s own life.”
Prince of Fire, I call upon the flame to summon you. I call up all the dark creatures of nature to summon you here to me.
I summon you in the name of the charred and blackened stars that reigned at my beginnings, to rise out of the darkness of the earth.
In the name of every evil spirit, I invoke you! Appear to me now!
Damn, Daniel!
Damn, Daniel!
Damn, Daniel!
Back at it again with the white Vans!
Episode 1182: I Feel Ya
“Won’t anyone listen to me? That woman is dead, I tell you, she’s dead!”
“How now, Samantha,” says Gerard Stiles, on the battlements of Collinwood. “Stand and unfold yourself.” It takes a minute, but she manages it; a person like Samantha Collins can get herself pretty comprehensively folded.
You see, at the end of yesternight’s episode, the deceased Joanna Mills, Quentin Collins’ former mistress, showed up at the front door of Collinwood, and told Samantha, Quentin’s wife, that she wanted to talk to her sister Daphne, Quentin’s current mistress.
“What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,” Samantha said, addressing the spirit. “By heaven I charge thee, speak!”
“You and I know of each other, although we’ve never met,” spake Joanna, harrowing Samantha with fear and wonder. “I don’t mean to disturb you; I only want to see my sister.”
So Samantha allowed this dreaded sight into her house, because you don’t want to be rude, even to an apparition. In the gross and scope of my opinion, this bodes some strange eruption to our state, although now that I think about it, Samantha is responsible for strange eruptions pretty regularly, all by herself.
Episode 1181: You, Again
“Is counsel willing to admit that this woman is alive?”
You know, I’ve never had much regard for 1840 Quentin as a tastemaker in romantic entanglements, having married Samantha Drew, a woman whose range of emotions extends from passive-aggressive bitterness to murderous rage. And then along comes the deceased Joanna Mills, Quentin’s second choice, who was clearly a lateral move.
Quentin is currently in lockup, on trial for witchcraft, of which he is only partially guilty. True, he traffics in dangerous occult artifacts and he built a time-traveling staircase, and it’s still an open question whether he murdered all those cows — I mean, if he didn’t, then why isn’t he out there searching for the real killer — but lots of people have occult interests at Collinwood, and Quentin’s hardly done anything, if you grade on a curve. I don’t think he even used the staircase, which works perfectly, so honestly he should be in 1969 right now, appearing on trading cards and making himself acquainted with a wider variety of females.
And now, here’s this dreadful boat-anchor walking into his cellblock, and he thought he shook her loose months ago.
“You’re not going to be here much longer, darling,” she assures him, in the clear, dulcet tones of a woman who will call you “darling” even if you ask her to stop. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help clear you! You’re in serious trouble, and you need me. I was always there when you needed me. Do you remember, Quentin?” He remembers.
She wants to go to Collinwood and talk to her sister Daphne, who happens to be third on Quentin’s hit parade, and the only one fit for human society. “I want to see Daphne as soon as possible,” she announces.
“Well, before you do,” says Quentin, “I think we ought to have a long talk.”
“I know, darling,” she smiles. “We have so much talking to do.” And Quentin thinks, ummmm yeah, it’s not that kind of talk.
Time Travel, part 14: It Is What It Is
“People I love haven’t always loved me back.”
Six months ago, in July 1970, the Firesign Theatre released a record called Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers, an avant-garde slice of psychedelic, time-traveling radio comedy that was mostly about a ’50s teen movie spoof called High School Madness. In the spoof, young Peorgie and his pal Mudhead investigate the theft of their school, Morse Science High, by their rivals, Communist Martyrs High School. Infiltrating Commie Martyrs, the two buddies find the mural from their school in a storage room, labeled “Mural: Auditorium, right rear. Heroic Struggle of the Little Guys to Finish the Mural.”
Meanwhile, six months later, as we cross the chasm between 1970 and 1971, that is exactly what lies ahead for Dark Shadows: a 13-week heroic struggle to wrap up this wild, untamed soap opera that has broken free of all ties to civilization as we know it. Dark Shadows has never really been about a girl on a train, a mad family and a lovestruck vampire. It’s about some writers, a mad producer, a cast of eccentric New York stage actors, and a lonely boom mic trying to break into show business, working feverishly on a shoestring budget to produce the strangest possible television show, for as long as they can get away with it. In the three months left between January 1st and April 2nd, they are going to finish this mural or die trying, or both.
Dark Shadows Every Day 