“Don’t start imagining a lot of things just because someone we barely know is acting peculiar.”
All week, I’ve been talking about Sam Hall, the new writer who just joined the show. He wrote the last three episodes, and now he passes the baton back to Ron Sproat, who tends to be lackluster and frustrating. And today, just to prove the point, Sproat turns in a script that appears to be made mostly of reconstituted episode parts. Damn it, Sproat! Get it together.
“In order to be his bride, you must die.”
Julia looks up from her book. “Carolyn?”
“Yes?” Carolyn says, sorting the mail.
“Is it really necessary to follow me around?”
Carolyn shrugs. “Is that what I was doing?”
Julia gets up from her chair with a sigh. “Well,” she says, “You came into the dining room while I was having my breakfast. I went for a walk, and saw you in the distance. Then I went into the study for a moment, and you wandered in. And now, here you are.”
In other words: We’re not going to get a lot accomplished on the show today. So we might as well relax, and have some fun.
“You and Vicki take a walk together, and Vicki dreams about taking a walk.”
“You know, I had the strangest dream about you last night,” says Victoria Winters, and because this is Dark Shadows, we have to hear all about it.
She’s in the foyer of Collinwood talking to Carolyn and Julia, and apparently none of them have a job, or anything that might occupy their time. Vicki tells Julia, “I dreamt we were going someplace together. We walked for a long, long time, until we came to a very old house. You wanted me to come inside with you, but I didn’t want to. I was frightened.”
“How curious,” Julia says, because you have to say something.
Vicki says, “If dreams are supposed to mean something, I wonder what that one meant?”
The others don’t respond, because the obvious answer is: It means you’re boring in your sleep, too.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me by that name.”
Not very much previously, on Dark Shadows: Two days ago, David gave Carolyn the antique toy soldier, which he said would protect her. Then she was visited by the spirit of Sarah Collins, and she realized that the wild stories David’s been telling might actually be true. There, that’s your background on Carolyn’s character arc for the week — steadily building an awareness that David’s “fantasies” might be real.
So it’s a bit disappointing when David walks into the drawing room at the top of today’s episode, and hands Carolyn the toy soldier again.
David: I came to bring you this.
Carolyn: A toy soldier?
David: Yes. You should have it with you all the time.
Carolyn: Why?
Yeah, good question. I have several “why” questions of my own, starting with: Why doesn’t David climb up on a chair and smack her upside the head?
“Strange… It never occurred to me that being human would make me become the man I was.”
Man, talk about a senior moment. For the last three months, Julia’s been working on a revolutionary new medical treatment to cure Barnabas, and make him human again. It turns out he should have asked her to be more specific.
“He will beg for death. Death will be a mercy.”
It always starts with a box.
Someone is always too greedy, or too curious, or too clever. They go looking for trouble, and they find it. They open the mystery box, and evil is loosed upon the world. And they don’t even clean up after themselves, which is just typical, isn’t it?
Barnabas and Julia go to her room to find the notes that she’s been keeping on her experiments, and they find that Dr. Woodard’s already been there. He’s pried open the lock, and stolen Julia’s notebook, and now somebody is going to have to do something terrible.
“We’ve wasted enough time.”
Barnabas and Julia are bickering again. Dr. Woodard’s getting closer to discovering Barnabas’ secret — he’s met the ghost of Sarah Collins, and in yesterday’s episode, he eavesdropped on Barnabas and Julia talking about the notes that she’s been keeping on her experiments. Julia reports that she’s spoken to Woodard, and she didn’t get very far.
Barnabas sneers, “The next thing you’ll be telling me is that Woodard poses no threat.”
“No,” Julia says. “This time, I’m frightened, Barnabas. Dave behaves as if he’s on to something… and if he is, this could mean the end of everything, for both of us!”
“What would I be doing with a coffin in my basement?”
At the end of yesterday’s episode, young David broke into the Old House and went down to the basement, to find Barnabas’ coffin. But he was caught, and now the question is: Will Barnabas kill the boy?
The answer is no, obviously, for a couple reasons. For one thing, David’s been going around telling everybody that Cousin Barnabas Wants Me to Die — so if he suddenly disappeared, last seen heading towards the Old House, it would be tough to make a clean getaway. Even the thoroughly incompetent Collinsport police force could manage to connect those dots, given a good breakfast and a head start.
The other reason is that you can’t murder a child in cold blood on camera in a soap opera, even in the late 60s and even in this soap opera. I mean, we’re not animals.
“The point is that I am in danger!”
It’s another relaxing evening at the Old House, and Julia tells Barnabas that she has another treatment ready for him. She’s trying to discover a cure for his vampirism, which would be hard enough even if she had a fully compliant patient. But Barnabas is feeling cranky, and when he’s cranky, he tends to get a little strangly.
Here’s his problem: young David is convinced that there’s something spooky hidden in the Old House, and a couple episodes ago, Julia caught the boy tugging on the locked basement door. She didn’t tell Barnabas about the encounter, because she knew he would freak out about it.
Yesterday, Roger mentioned the incident to Barnabas, and guess what? He’s freaking out about it.
“Cousin Barnabas hates me. He sent the bat because he wants me to die.”
So here’s a quick rundown of Barnabas Collins’ known vampire abilities. To start with, we know that he’s very strong, because he smashed through the window of Dr. Woodard’s office and trashed the place, and he can appear in upper story bedrooms without using the stairs. There’s the ever-present threatening dognoise, and he’s also got extra-strength dognoise, which he uses when he really wants to make an impression. He can make people hear a pounding heartbeat, he can make his portrait’s eyes flash, and he may also have some scattered weather-related effects.
And then Friday’s episode added a couple more tricks to his resume. Barnabas needs to discredit young David, who’s telling everyone that his cousin has a coffin in his basement. So now there’s a huge bat flying into David’s room, and acting like it owns the place.
Now, to be precise about this, it’s not clear whether Barnabas turned himself into a bat, or if he has access to some freelance bats who are available to terrorize children on a contract basis.
Dark Shadows Every Day 