Category Archives: Gordon Russell

Episode 584: The Fugitives

Gordon Russell, September 1968, , ,

“I don’t care if this danger that you’re so afraid of really exists, or if it’s just in your mind.”

Here, if you’ll pardon the expression, is the current storyline:

At the end of yesterday’s episode, Barnabas snuck into Maggie Evans’ bedroom, with the intention of luring her to the basement of the Old House, where she would be hypnotized and have her life force sucked out of her body in a Bride of Frankenstein experiment.

Today, Barnabas returns to Julia’s mad-science laboratory, and he’s got startling news. “Well, I got into the house,” he says, “went to her bedroom. The bed had obviously been occupied, but she wasn’t there.”

And then, with a shocked expression, he says, “Julia — she’s been kidnapped!”

Continue reading Episode 584: The Fugitives →

Episode 581: Light My Fire

Gordon Russell, September 1968, , , , ,

“It has possessed me more than once, so that I’m no longer afraid of it. Death and I are old friends.”

Angelique just wants to be free.

She needs to expand her consciousness, liberating her life force energy and extending it beyond the limitations of the earthly plane. She needs to get outside her own head, transcending the guilt and hang-ups of the past, to be at peace with the harmony of the universe.

I mean, yeah, she’s a vampire. But apart from that, she’s just like every other young woman in 1968.

Continue reading Episode 581: Light My Fire →

Episode 580: Temporary Sanity

Gordon Russell, September 1968, ,

“Do you think a woman’s just going to volunteer to risk her life for something as insane as this?”

Jeff Clark — an 18th century lawyer who’s been transported through time to 1968 — rubs his neck, and tries to concentrate on the journal he’s studying. He’s in the basement of a spooky old haunted house, where he’s helping a mad scientist assemble a female Frankenstein monster, because the local male Frankenstein monster has threatened to kill Jeff’s fiancee if he doesn’t.

So he’s leafing through the journal of his former employer, who was murdered by a witch in the middle of the last experiment, and Julia is next to him, painstakingly pouring some suspicious-looking red fluid from one test tube into another.

Jeff stands up, and says that he’s going to Collinwood — but then he stops, and sighs. Julia walks over to him, concerned.

“Jeff,” she says, “there’s something bothering you.”

Continue reading Episode 580: Temporary Sanity →

Episode 575: Crazy Talk

Gordon Russell, September 1968,

“I think it’s time you knew how revolting and disgusting you really are.”

And now we have come to another installment where I honestly do not have the power to adequately describe how thoroughly certifiable this television show has become. It has broken free from its keepers, and is, at press time, rampaging through the streets, barking and snapping and uncoiling reality as it goes.

My only recourse as a commentator is to use William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique, because I don’t have access to the acres of marijuana that the 1968 teenage audience was smoking at the time.

Continue reading Episode 575: Crazy Talk →

Episode 574: Trade Secrets

Gordon Russell, September 1968, , , ,

“Life force? What does that mean?”

So it’s late 1968, and you’re, let’s say, fourteen. You started watching Dark Shadows on and off in the spring, and during the summer you became completely obsessed with it. You love the characters, you love the crazy stories, and you love that weird, intense connection you have with your friends when you talk about it.

You even know some kids who swear that they actually saw the episode when Barnabas shot Angelique through the heart — and with her dying breath, she turned herself into a bat and bit him on the neck.

But that’s the thing about afternoon TV in 1968 — it only happens once. They’ll run episodes of Bewitched or Gomer Pyle or The Carol Burnett Show a couple of times, but Dark Shadows is a paper-thin phantom that shimmers seductively for half an hour, and then disappears into the void, leaving a stunned audience of teenage thrill-seekers to rub their eyes and grope their way back into the daylight, talking about the wonders they’ve seen, and lording it over the unfortunate few who couldn’t get home in time to witness it for themselves.

You can’t catch Dark Shadows in your hands. It’s like the wind, or like a dream that you try to hold onto when you wake up. It’s like a ghost.

And then one day you get the chance to hold some precious fragments of the Dark Shadows life force, plus a stick of bubble gum.

Continue reading Episode 574: Trade Secrets →

Episode 567: The Show Goes On

August 1968, Gordon Russell, , ,

“Why, you –“

I was going to talk about free will today. I had it all planned out.

I’ve been reading up on determinism lately, and I’ve got a theory — you would’ve loved this theory, if I had the time to tell you about it — using the concept of a mad scientist as a metaphor to talk about whether moral choices are even possible, if mental phenomena are reducible to neurological materialism. Seriously, it would have blown your mind, literally and figuratively.

But that’s going to have to wait, because there’s a breaking news story that I need to cover: this is the episode where Roger Davis bumps his head.

Continue reading Episode 567: The Show Goes On →

Episode 566: The Hangover

August 1968, Gordon Russell, , ,

“The howling of these dogs, that’s what’s wrong.”

So the score, at press time, is Vampires 5, Humans 1.

This month has seen an astonishing comeback for the Vampires, a team that suffered a devastating setback in May when their star player, Barnabas Collins, was benched after being cured by a mad scientist.

But two weeks ago, another rising star came out of nowhere. Angelique, who’d formerly played for the Salem Witches, was traded to the vampires by her manager, and she’s been biting people at a rate that we’ve never seen before in the history of the sport. She’s got Joe as a blood slave, and she’s turned Tom into a vampire, and just in the last week we’ve seen five on-screen vampire bites — seven, if you count reprises. The only human who got away unscathed was the Deputy from a couple weeks ago, and that was with an assist from Nicholas.

Continue reading Episode 566: The Hangover →

Episode 559: Everything You Deserve

August 1968, Gordon Russell, , ,

“I specialize in human relations.”

Also, Nicholas is in love with Maggie.

Sorry to spring it on you like that, but it’s that kind of storyline. Nicholas Blair is some kind of evil wizard man, and so far we haven’t had any indication that he’s looking for a girlfriend. In fact, he’s been mocking Angelique relentlessly for having human emotions. And yet, here we are.

It’s not at all clear why Nicholas has chosen Maggie, either. He seems to have fallen in love at first sight, during a chance encounter at Collinwood. Maggie’s very pretty and very nice, but they don’t have anything in common. I’m not even sure that he’s human. He might as well fall in love with a puppy.

But there are four pretty girls on the show, and three of them already have a storyline, which leaves Maggie at a loose end. She’s got a dull job, she’s happily engaged to Joe, her alcoholic father has died, and it’s been a year since she was kidnapped by anybody. If Nicholas needs a human weakness, then it might as well be Maggie, I suppose.

Continue reading Episode 559: Everything You Deserve →

Episode 558: The Long, Hot Summer

August 1968, Gordon Russell, ,

“He may be eccentric or mysterious at times, but I don’t think he’s evil.”

They taught him how to speak. They taught him how to read. They taught him table manners. They taught him to fear the police. They even taught him what “kissing” means.

But they totally forgot to teach him about right and wrong, which turns out to be kind of important. Oops!

Continue reading Episode 558: The Long, Hot Summer →

Episode 557: A Race of Monsters

August 1968, Gordon Russell, ,

“When you see his neck, Julia, you will know at once whether or not I am right.”

Julia walks into a haunted house, and finds a vampire sitting in an armchair.

“Barnabas, you look exhausted,” she says, because this television show takes place in a world where people worry that the living dead don’t get enough sleep.

Continue reading Episode 557: A Race of Monsters →