“We will relive a moment out of the past.”
Willie finds Barnabas pacing around Josette’s room.
“I knew you’d be up here,” Willie says. “You’ve been spending a lot of time up here.”
“I’ve been thinking about many things,” says Barnabas, but he’s got a guilty look on his face, like a teenager when Mom asks why he’s been spending so much time in the bathroom lately.
“Wherever I am, I’ll be laughing at you, Vicki Winters, and don’t you forget it.”
In the Old House drawing room, Willie is lighting some candles as Barnabas comes downstairs.
“You’ve been up there a long time,” Willie says.
Barnabas replies, “I wasn’t aware of time.”
Then the guy who wasn’t aware of time looks out of the window, and says, “The sun sets, and the sun rises. If only night could become eternal, the blackness with us always.”
In other words: Ladies and gentlemen, will you please put your hands together and welcome back our returning champion, Barnabas Collins!
“You’re doing a wrong thing!”
Comforting thoughts, courtesy of Dark Shadows: Any time you think you’re having a run of bad luck, think of Elizabeth at this moment. She’s being blackmailed into marrying a man that she despises, and the only way out is to throw herself off the cliff at the top of Widows’ Hill. And who shows up to talk her down off the ledge? Her screeching, judgemental, charm-free governess, Victoria Winters.
But I’m sure it’ll work out, because there’s no sense of real threat here. I don’t care how many times Liz walks up to the edge; there’s not a single person in the audience who honestly believes that she’s going to jump. Even if you don’t watch a lot of soap operas, anybody can spot this as a narrative dead end. It’s just not going to happen.
So, for me, the real question is: Why do I love this show so much, when I can’t stand the main character?
“Death is fascinating, when one considers the wide possibilities that it offers.”
It’s a new day, bringing another opportunity for Liz to wander over to the cliff on Widows’ Hill. She looks down and sees the waves crashing against the shore, just like in the opening titles. It kind of looks like she’s come outside to watch an episode of Dark Shadows.
“This has the terrible sound of a family disintegrating.”
Happy birthday, Dark Shadows! Today’s episode aired on June 29, 1967, which is just a couple days past the show’s first anniversary. It’s an exciting milestone, because until very recently, it looked like the show was going to get cancelled at the end of the first year. The ratings were declining, and they’d never been that great in the first place. The end seemed inevitable.
And then they introduced a vicious, psychotic madman to the show, and America fell in love. Dark Shadows was renewed, and now they have the interesting problem of coming up with a new storyline for the undead creature that they never intended to keep around for this long.
This episode takes the first steps toward a new direction for Barnabas. When we saw him last, he was the vicious monster relentlessly pursuing Maggie through underground tunnels, determined to end her life.
But that was three days ago. Today, he’s… something else.
“I’m the sole judge of who deserves what!”
Time is running out for Maggie Evans, who’s still being held prisoner in the Old House basement. Her only hope is that the mysterious little girl who she saw on Monday will come back, bringing parents, the police and a crossbow.
Maggie’s just on the verge of giving up when Sarah suddenly appears in the cell, still playing with a ball and singing “London Bridge”. This is a new milestone for the show. On Monday, it was possible that this was just a really weird kid who’s been hiding in the basement since the late 18th century. But today, the girl straight-up apparates through a brick wall, leaving no room for doubt.
“If you feel it… sit it.”
Here’s how you know you’re not making a hit with your fiancee’s parents: When her mother opens the door, she immediately shrinks back and murmurs, “Oh,” as if she’s just stepped in something. And this is Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, a woman who literally has not left the house in 18 years; you’d think she’d be happy with any new faces who come along.
But Buzz Hackett is an acquired taste, I guess. Liz says that she’ll tell Carolyn that he’s here. Buzz says, “Hey, can’t I come inside?” Liz says “No,” and shuts the door in his face.
“You always choose the worst things to want.”
Maggie is in her basement cell looking bored, and no wonder; she’s gotten used to a pretty hectic lifestyle. She spent a couple weeks walking up and down the Old House stairs wearing a wedding dress, which sounds boring but at least it’s aerobic exercise. Now she has nothing to do but stare off into space and wait for spectral visitations.
So things perk up a bit when she hears a little girl outside the cell, singing. You remember last week when London Bridge was falling down, falling down, falling down? Well, it still is.
“I don’t have to think about you. I know we swing, and that’s all I have to know.”
This week, we’re going to alternate back and forth between vampire episodes and blackmail episodes. That means that the cliffhangers can’t really be that compelling — if I can wait two days before I see the resolution, then I’m probably not that worried.
On the positive side, this schedule accentuates the contrast between the interesting ghoulish-madman story and the dull 18-years-ago-murder story, and challenges the writers to up their game on the Collinwood side. And today, they deliver. Let’s meet the new man in Carolyn’s life.
“This is what you wanted, and you’re having it.”
Okay, you remember when Carolyn decided that she was going to get the key to the locked room in the basement? Well, that was exactly four weeks ago, and since then the story has not progressed a single step.
We’re going to learn a lot about suspense today. Specifically, we’re going to learn how to not generate it.
Dark Shadows Every Day 