Episode 732: Rules of Engagement

April 1969, Violet Welles, , , , , , , , ,

“Don’t you ever do that to me, or you’ll find yourself beyond the borderline of death!”

This is how Barnabas’ life is going these days — he walks into the cottage, and finds his ex-wife Angelique standing over Quentin, who’s out cold on the carpet. And Barnabas just sighs, and says, “Is he dead?” in the resigned tone that you use when the puppy’s peed on the rug again.

After all, this is the second time that Quentin’s died, just in the last two weeks. It’s like the Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow, except the aliens are sarcastic women and it all takes place in the same house.

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Episode 731: Mrs. Burns

April 1969, Gordon Russell, ,

“You saw me die? What a bizarre thing to say!”

Okay, get this: There’s an urn.

Inside the urn is an endlessly burning flame, obviously, because that’s what you do with fire, you put it inside an enclosed space and then it just keeps on going forever, without oxygen or any material to burn. But listen to me, trying to explain how fire works.

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Episode 730: How I Met Your Mother

April 1969, Gordon Russell, ,

“I’m their mother; they’re as much a part of me and everything I feel as they are of you.”

Nora is absolutely thrilled to see her mother, which makes one of us.

“I knew I would find you here!” she says, hugging Laura.

“You had a dream,” Laura nods, and when Nora asks how she knew, her mother chirps, “I had the very same dream!”

Nora says,”That’s so strange!” And Laura just smiles, and says, “I know,” and that’s the end of that particular topic of conversation.

As you know, there are no secrets between us, so I’m just going to put this right out on Front Street: in my life, Laura Murdoch Stockbridge Radcliffe Collins means precisely nothing. I don’t like her, I don’t care about her, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s the Cybermen.

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Episode 728: The Pacer

April 1969, Gordon Russell, ,

“I understand a great many things, including her desire to kill you!”

Quentin says, “A lot has happened while you were away, dear brother,” and isn’t that the truth. Dark Shadows has been sprinting through plot points for weeks now, and if you need to catch up on current events, this is all the help you’re going to get.

“One night, my dear wife escaped from wherever you had her locked up. She found me in the cottage. Well, you can imagine how surprised I was at seeing her. But that was nothing, compared to how I felt when she put the knife in my chest.”

Edward cries, “Good heavens!” and Quentin just smiles, because Quentin is magical and lives entirely on surprise. “Rather shocking, isn’t it?” he says. “You know, at one point I was actually declared dead?”

“Dead?” gasps Edward, horrified. “Yes,” Quentin says, “but let’s spare the grisly details,” and then he just starts talking about something else.

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Episode 727: Nick and Jane

April 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“Does something evil change to good for no reason?”

Okay, time to hit the books again. The new Dark Shadows writing team has decided that it would be cool to introduce a new subplot every week, just to see what happens, and they’ve gone back to the library for material.

They’re not content to just do a simple Turn of the Screw time travel sequel starring Count Dracula, like normal people would. Over the last six weeks, they’ve also introduced characters and plot points from Jane Eyre, The Crucible, The Telltale Heart and Nancy Drew.

And just when you think you’ve got a handle on what’s going on, there’s a knock at the door, and who walks in but a deluxe combo of Mr. Brocklehurst from Jane Eyre, and Mr. Squeers from Nicholas Nickelby. It’s like freshman English all over again; we should get course credit for this.

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Episode 726: The Comeback

April 1969, Sam Hall, ,

“I would’ve thought it idiocy to assume that a praying bigot could turn a zombie into a man.”

Rounding the turn at the 1897 Dark Shadows Character Invitational, we find track favorite Quentin Collins showing signs of weariness. He got off to an astonishing start in the early weeks of the race, even against seasoned thoroughbreds like Barnabas Is a Vampire Again, and Julia Wearing a Wig.

But Quentin called in dead last week, spending Monday and Tuesday flat on his back, and the rest of the week stomping around as a mindless zombie. That’s been interesting and fun, and his bulging, sightless eyes have made for some chilling-slash-amusing moments. But you can’t rely on a gimmick like that for long, and by the end of the week, he’d taken it about as far as it could go. Quentin needs to get back up to speed if he’s going to qualify for the championship.

Stamina is everything on this course, because it’s a race that never actually ends. The horses just keep running around and around the track without stopping, only taking breaks for Thanksgiving, Christmas and the occasional assassination.

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Episode 725: The Unrest

April 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“Where is this uncle he thinks he is?”

Okay, let’s see if we can summarize.

Eccentric millionaire Barnabas Collins has traveled back in time to 1897, in order to stop Quentin from dying alone, sealed up in his bedroom, and then sitting around and stewing about it. If Quentin dies under those circumstances, then he’ll return as a ghost in 1969, to haunt the family and kill David.

We’re currently a month into this loosely-defined rescue mission, and Quentin has already been stabbed to death. Barnabas decides that this is a mission-critical failure for some reason, and he asks Angelique to use her magic and bring Quentin back to life. As an act of spite, Angelique brings Quentin back as a mindless zombie who attacks the governess and tries to bury her in his own grave. To make matters worse, Quentin’s spirit possesses the body of his nephew Jamison.

Once the governess is rescued, Zombie Quentin leaves the cemetery and goes to the Old House, bashing the door in and fighting his way past several gypsies to make it to the basement, where he sits down quietly in a chair and just kind of chills out. Barnabas and the gypsies try a seance to reunite his body and his spirit, but it doesn’t work, and the zombie leaves the basement, with Barnabas in pursuit. We finished yesterday with a shot of Zombie Quentin on his belly, dragging himself desperately toward his open grave.

Nope, it looks like we can’t summarize this after all. That’s a negative.

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Episode 724: Exquisite Corpse

April 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , ,

“You live in another body now, but your own body waits for you!”

Incipient teen idol Quentin Collins died earlier this week after he was stabbed by his insane ex-wife, which for the Collins family is practically natural causes. But like almost everyone who dies on Dark Shadows, he’s returned for another lap around the track.

Zombie Quentin is being remote-controlled by Barnabas’ insane ex-wife, who’s using him to play pranks on the family. At the moment, he’s scooped up the governess and is carrying her out to the graveyard.

Now, he’s not trying to eat her brain or anything; he’s not that kind of zombie. The flesh-eating cannibal zombie was invented by George Romero in Night of the Living Dead, which was released six months before this episode was made. And they’re not called zombies in that movie anyway; the Night of the Living Dead characters just call them ghouls. It wasn’t until the 1978 sequel Dawn of the Dead that Romero started describing the creatures as zombies, changing the pop culture definition of that word.

So compared to the slavering fiends of The Walking Dead, Zombie Quentin is actually very polite, and exceptionally well-groomed. He doesn’t bite anybody, and his hair and his outfit are in flawless condition, even after busting his way out of a grave covered in cement.

In fact, the only way you can really tell that there’s anything the matter with him is that he doesn’t speak, and he’s always bulging out his eyes and staring straight ahead. The nice thing about Zombie Quentin is that you always know he’s paying attention.

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Episode 723: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Vampires

April 1969, Violet Welles, , , , , , ,

“Now, I want you to stay here, and look after the ladies, take them upstairs, and lock yourself in a room.”

Well, it’s true what they say, you can’t keep a good man down. Handsome rascal Quentin Collins has been stabbed in the chest, in the cottage, and in the prime of life, and that’s three strikes. We watched him bleed out on the carpet, and he’s currently the featured attraction at a swinging wake in the drawing room.

But dark sorcery has brought him back to life, sort of, by which I mean he’s lurching around with a glazed expression on his face. It’s not much of a life, more mannequin than man. Let’s say “life” with air quotes.

Barnabas is in this episode too, and he’s a vampire, so that makes two dead characters out of five today. Although I suppose from the point of view of the 1969 audience, everyone in the 1897 storyline is dead.

Actually, when you really sit down and think about it, we’re all dead — just a pack of not-yet-rotting corpses, advancing inexorably to the grave. That’s why I try not to really sit down and think about it.

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