Category Archives: Sam Hall

Episode 759: Kill Me Maybe

May 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , , , ,

“What you saw consumed in flames was an exact replica of me.”

“Get me a mirror,” Angelique says, out of the blue. “A full-length mirror.” This is her idea of a security system.

This week, the Dark Shadows A-Team has united against Laura Collins, a phoenix firestarter who’s returned to Collinwood to turn her children into fire demons. Barnabas, Quentin, Angelique and Magda are on the case, each of them distracting Laura from her mission just long enough for another one to plan a new attack.

This is a new team that’s just emerged this week, and Angelique has stepped into the role of tactical expert. It’s a surprisingly natural fit, considering her dismal track record — remember, this is the woman who cursed the man she loves with a spell that kills everyone who loves him.

But in this context, it makes sense for Angelique to step up. Barnabas is terrible at making plans, Quentin is impulsive and reckless, and Magda is the loosest possible cannon. So when the woman says “get me a mirror,” the appropriate response is: one mirror, coming right up.

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Episode 758: Give Me the Strength to Crush My Enemy

May 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“It’s the ceremony I don’t like. It comes too close to the angry ancient gods for comfort.”

Amun-Ra, Prince of Light and Radiance! Creator of things that came into being when the earth took form in the beginning! Master of the bounds of eternity! Shining one! Dweller in light! Accept this sacrifice to thee!

That’s not me saying that, by the way. That’s Quentin, from TV’s Dark Shadows. He seems to think it’s an acceptable way to begin a television show, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

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Episode 755: This Means War

May 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“I’m putting myself in charge!”

You know, it’s been a minute since we checked in with faux-Egyptian firestarter Laura Collins and her insane plan to burn to death with her children, and then take off for some strange desert otherworld where the sun is always shining and everyone gets their own pyramid. It’s lucky that we stopped by today, because she’s got a new made-up deadline that she just made up.

Her son Jamison has stopped by; he’s run away from his terrible school to spend time with his terrible mother. He’s worried that his father will send him back to school, and she busts out with, “If I go away, then you could come with me. I must go, Jamison, soon!” Unfortunately, it’s one of those soap opera soons where it could mean the end of the episode but is probably more like two weeks from now.

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Episode 754: The Hunger Games

May 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“I don’t share your confidence in that cane.”

Quentin Collins, former human being, has turned into a snarling werewolf that runs around in the woods, attacking people and causing unrest. Quentin’s nephew Jamison is out tonight, running away from Reverend Trask’s sleepaway punishment school, somewhere on the Collinwood grounds. Trask didn’t say “Release the hounds,” because you don’t have to at Collinwood. The hounds are provided free of charge by the management; it’s just one of the great estate’s many fatal perks.

So now Beth is out looking for Jamison, wielding a gun that she found in a drawer somewhere. She hears a growl, and turns to find the werewolf sitting on a boulder, waiting to pounce. As we all know, people are the most dangerous game, but werewolves have got to be a close second. It just stands to reason.

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Episode 747: Die Laughing

May 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , ,

“And Barnabas will grab her, and carry her off to a triumphant life behind a locked door!”

Rascal-in-chief Quentin Collins has spent the better part of a week hunting for his lunatic soon-to-be ex-wife Jenny, vowing to kill her before she kills him. But it hasn’t happened yet, and he’s starting to get bored, so he settles in for a quiet evening of drinking sherry, propositioning the domestics, and not giving a shit.

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Episode 746: The Love Lives of Unhappy People

May 1969, Sam Hall, , , ,

“Barnabas is dead. He locked me in a room, and then he died.”

Jenny’s mind skips like a stone on a lake, skimming across the years. She is paralyzed with joy, she is radiant in tears.

At each point, she experiences that moment more deeply than you’ve ever felt anything. Every memory is available to her, in its most devastating form. She is more alive than you could ever be. This offer is available for a limited time.

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Episode 745: Rendezvous at the OK Corral

May 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , , ,

“What I was is not what I am. What I am is what I will be.”

So let’s say you have an entirely crazy person on your hands, and you need to keep her in your home for an unspecified amount of time. This is a common concern for modern homeowners. According to the experts, you should keep her in a warm room with indirect light, check the top of the soil before watering, and fertilize once a month in the spring and summer. No, wait, that’s ficus trees.

Well, here’s what vampire-about-town Barnabas Collins does, once he’s taken it upon himself to immure Quentin’s crazy wife for the foreseeable. He stashes her in an upstairs bedroom, locks the door from the outside, and then goes down to the basement to sleep in a coffin, leaving a note for the comedy gypsies who serve as his unwilling housekeepers.

I’m not saying that’s the appropriate way to handle it, I’m just telling you what Barnabas does.

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Episode 741: Lunch Date with Destiny

April 1969, Sam Hall, , , , ,

“What if he found out what I believe to be the truth?”

Barnabas and Sandor are on the trail of Laura Collins, a renewable resource who has spent the last several centuries marrying into the Collins family, having a kid or two, bursting into flames, and then coming back a hundred years later and doing it all over again. It seems like a fairly pointless lifestyle, but maybe there’s a tax break or something.

In the last episode, Barnabas and Sandor broke into the crypt of Laura Stockbridge Collins, a previous incarnation, and discovered that her coffin was empty. This was kind of a wet slap of a Friday cliffhanger, because it tells us nothing and goes nowhere.

Now Barnabas and Sandor are standing around, trying to figure out why there’s no body in the casket. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that there’s nothing there because she died in a fire. You know, I think it’s time they try branching out from grave-robbing as an investigation tool. Honestly, every time with these people.

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Episode 740: Local Parlor Tricks

April 1969, Sam Hall, , , , ,

“The evil here always follows you, doesn’t it? The evil here never stops.”

As today’s episode begins, eccentric millionaire Barnabas Collins emerges from the basement, and wouldn’t you know it, the gypsy’s on the fritz again.

“You should leave tonight,” she mutters. “Tch, I am not permitted to tell you what to do, am I? What do I care what you do?”

She sighs, and throws her hands in the air. “I should not have said that, I should go and talk to Sandor, and say, let us hitch up the wagon and go! But you have taken Sandor from me. When they find you in your coffin down in the cellar…”

See? This is what happens when you leave your gypsy running all day. He needs to get an EnergySaver or something.

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Episode 735: The Punishment Book

April 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , , , , , ,

“I’ve always thought the telephone an instrument of the Devil. Haven’t you?”

Two months ago, in the early days of the 1897 storyline, eccentric millionaire Barnabas Collins went down to the Collinsport docks and attacked a young woman named Sophie Baker. Or was it Sophie Barnes? She said Baker, but the credits said Barnes, and it’s too late to ask her now. It’s just one of those gaps in the chronicles, another unsolved mystery.

Anyway, he was hungry and frustrated, and she was a day player, and you know how that story goes. He stuck his fangs in her, fed on her precious life essence, and then — what? Killed her? Spared her? Told her he would call? It doesn’t matter either way. He bared his fangs, they cut to commercial, and when we came back, Sophie Baker Barnes was no longer a factor.

And as far as I can recall, nobody’s mentioned that women are being attacked on the streets of Collinsport. There are no consequences to murder anymore, not on this show.

When Jenny stabbed Quentin a few weeks ago, the police showed up, but they didn’t do a very thorough job. Judith told them the murder was probably committed by a sailor that Quentin met in the village, and if they were quick, they still might be able to catch him. They scurried off obligingly, and Judith went back to scolding the survivors.

Not that we actually saw the police; that all happened off-screen, and we heard about it later. They don’t have police officers on Dark Shadows anymore, because they’ve figured out that investigations are tedious and take up valuable time that could be spent on further mayhem.

Law and order mean nothing on Dark Shadows now. There is no justice. This is what we have instead.

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