“I hope I disappoint you, and die before dawn.”
Barnabas Collins looks around, and tries to focus.
“Where have you brought me?” he moans. “What is this place?”
His wife, Angelique, drifts to his side.
“You’re near the sea,” she says. “Far away from anyone who may want to find you.”
Unimpressed, he surveys the room, clearly thinking: Near the sea? Dude, we live in Maine. Everything here is near the sea.
“Now I understand why I have the urge to kill Adam.”
So here’s the latest: Eve, the Bride of Frankenstein monster who used to be a French psychopath named Danielle Roget, is in love with Jeff Clark, the amnesiac who used to be an 18th-century lawyer named Peter Bradford, and she killed her lover to be with him, only to have him reject her and fall in love with a time traveling governess who’s on trial for witchcraft.
Now, I adore the absurdity of this plot point, but it’s only been around for three episodes so far, and already I’m checking the episode guide to see how often I’m going to have to explain it. The answer, fortunately, is not very often, so I’m not sure why I’m even bringing it up.
Because it’s not exactly one of the great romances of our time, is it? It’s soap opera mate-matching at its most cynical — just taking two random characters and saying, “This one is desperately in love with that one,” even though they have nothing in common and it doesn’t seem like it’s in character.
“We’ve both lived before, only you’ve came back looking the same, and I’ve come back looking different!”
Now, if I were to say to you that today’s episode of Dark Shadows involves a French Revolution-era psychopath named Danielle Roget, who’s recently been reincarnated as a Bride of Frankenstein monster so that a demonic magician can breed her to an inhuman creature that’s sharing a life force with an ex-vampire and create a new race of beings dedicated to serving Satan, and that she looks out the window and sees the guy who’s waiting for the Collins family’s governess to get ready for their date, and she realizes that he’s actually the unwitting reincarnation of a lawyer that the governess fell in love with when she traveled back in time and was on trial for witchcraft, then how would you react?
Yeah, I thought so. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what else I can say.
“Now, the background of the Collins shipping interests is, in many ways, even more fascinating than the family history.”
I’m going to be honest with you, because there are no secrets between us: I don’t have a damn thing to say about today’s episode. It’s all about a secret plot between Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes to invite Nicholas over for the most boring dinner party of all time. The first half is basically just describing what’s going to happen in the second half, and then the second half is doing what they said they were going to do in the first half. I can’t even discuss it.
If only there was something unusual happening in October 1968, which would provide some context for the period, shedding light on Dark Shadows’ pop cultural environment. That would give me something to write about. I just wish I could think of something.
“You were convinced that I was dead — and I was, for a while! I was actually dead!”
Hey, you know how Elizabeth has been telling everyone for weeks that she’s going to lose consciousness, and everyone’s going to think that she’s dead? Well, guess what: it happened! And she’s still upset about it. I guess there’s no pleasing some people.
“Knowing the man you love is also a part of love.”
Yesterday’s Dark Shadows episode ended in what is objectively the most exciting cliffhanger they’ve had in a long time. Barnabas Collins has been free of his vampire affliction for six months — a direct challenge to Angelique, the saucy sorceress who married him and cursed him. Now she’s become a vampire herself, and yesterday closed with the startling announcement that Barnabas will be her next victim.
It’s the kind of ending that basically dares you to miss the next episode. The whole reason that anyone would even bother to watch Dark Shadows is to see Barnabas the vampire, and we’ve been denied this simple pleasure for so long. The only thing we want to see is his lunatic ex-wife coming at him with fangs.
And that’s why, on October 16, 1968 at 3:55 in the afternoon, you see a thick crowd of children sprinting towards their homes, desperate to get to their television sets by four o’clock sharp. The housewives of America silence their vacuum cleaners, and leave the evening meatloaf to prepare itself for a while. This is the episode that you do not miss.
“It’s happening, Julia! The spirit of Philippe Cordier is killing Adam!”
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present — for one night, and one night only — the insubstantial spirit of Monsieur Philippe Cordier.
Now, for people who are just joining us, I’d like to give you a brief introduction to Philippe, so that you understand his role in the current storyline. Unfortunately, this is impossible. He only showed up at the end of Friday’s episode — and by “showed up”, I mean he possessed Barnabas at a seance and ranted in French for two minutes — and in today’s episode, he’s banished forever, immediately following the opening titles.
An explanation of who Philippe is, and why he’s on the show right now, would involve at least six character names, two Universal Monsters references, an anagram, the French Revolution, the phrase “life force”, and maybe a couple of Doors songs. You basically need a Ph.D. in Dark Shadows to approach this particular plot point.
“Let’s just hope that what we suspect isn’t true.”
Danielle Roget, the notorious 18th-century murderess — the most evil woman who ever lived! — has been resurrected by unholy means, and she now inhabits a freakishly strong body created in a mad scientist’s lab. So here she is, a one-woman weapon of mass destruction, posing a clear and present danger to everyone in glowering range.
Today, we find her sitting on the couch and staring off into space, bored out of her everlovin’ mind.
Continue reading Episode 600: The Mate That Fate Had Me Created For
“It is true that he tried to kill you, but he was only acting out of fear.”
Carolyn Stoddard is dead, killed by a freak mad science experiment. And that’s just the beginning; the evening gets worse from there.
Choked with rage and grief, Adam the enormous Frankenteen tells Barnabas that he’s heading straight to Collinwood, and he’s going to murder everyone he can find. Then Adam punches Barnabas in the gut, drops him like a bad habit, and makes for the wide open spaces.
Barnabas tries to stagger after the crazed killer, but he can’t even make it to the front door before collapsing into Julia’s arms. She leads him to a chair and tries to help him recover, but Barnabas is desperate. There are three people living at Collinwood — more than that, if you count the help — and they are moments away from being entirely massacred. There’s not a moment to lose.
And hey, you know what? This would be a great moment for somebody to own a fucking telephone.
“One day she’s perfectly rational, and the next day, she’s suddenly back to talking about death, and mausoleums, and being buried alive.”
As the Bride of Frankenstein storyline ends its seventh straight week of boring the hell out of me, I’ve decided that I’m going to sneak off and play a game today — specifically, the Dark Shadows board game, released by Whitman Publishing in fall 1968 to an eager audience of eight-year-old psychedelic soap opera fans.
Sometimes I do a little late-60s archaeology here, and try to imagine how watching the show might have felt at the time that it was airing, using books and old newspaper articles and TV schedules and guesswork. But there’s one thing that I’ve never really been able to get my head around, which is how old the audience was supposed to be.
My basic understanding of the Dark Shadows audience is that it was mostly housewives and teenagers, with side bets on hippies, mental patients and stoned college students. But then something like the board game comes along, and I have to wonder: were elementary school kids watching Dark Shadows? And, if so, why didn’t anyone stop them?
Dark Shadows Every Day 