Tag Archives: mystery box

Episode 684: Barnabas Collins and the Mysterious Ghost

February 1969, Sam Hall, , ,

“Lots of things happen in this house that no one can understand.”

It always starts with a box.

You take your fears and your crimes and your regrets, and you bury them deep in the earth, and you tell yourself that no one will ever know. Nobody has a key, and nobody knows where you buried it, and nobody knows that it even exists. The mystery box is hidden forever.

But you know that it’s only a matter of time. Boxes open. That’s pretty much the whole point of boxes.

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Episode 666: The Second Coming

January 1969, Ron Sproat, , , , , , ,

“I know what I’m saying, Julia, he’s out there, Barnabas is out in the mausoleum, and he’s alive! He’s alive!”

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned…
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

Or, to put it another way:

“If you believe,” he shouted, “clap your hands! Don’t let Tink die.”

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Episode 644: Phoning It In

December 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , , , , ,

“It doesn’t necessarily mean something.”

David and Amy, two young kids prowling the halls of the enormous haunted house where they live, are currently the subjects of an escalating struggle between two ghosts — Quentin, who wants to lure the children into a sinister scheme, and Magda, who’s trying to protect them. So far, we haven’t actually seen or heard either of these spirits, and there’s still a chance that this might all turn out to be one big misunderstanding.

The kids make their way through a secret passage to the west wing, where Quentin is silently urging them to go. Suddenly, a busted old grandfather clock tips over, and faceplants right in front of them with an unholy clatter.

This could be a symbol of today’s generation trying to avoid being trapped by the fears and prejudices of the past, but it’s probably not. Sometimes a child-endangering poltergeist clock attack is just a child-endangering poltergeist clock attack.

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Episode 643: Interceding with Oscar

December 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , ,

“You must intercede with Oscar. Only you can save me.”

So here’s the lost secret of Lost: They had no idea.

ABC made Lost for six dazzling, frustrating, mind-boggling years, weaving a web of mystery and misdirection and nonsense, one baffling hour at a time. I don’t know if it did anything for you, but I loved it. I was one of the sad cases who rewatched the episodes in slow motion, looked up all the references on Lostpedia, and listened to the weekly cry for help that they called The Official Lost Podcast.

Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the show’s producers and head writers, used the podcasts, Comic-Con appearances and magazine interviews to present an intricate paratextual metafiction about two make-believe people named “Damon Lindelof” and “Carlton Cuse” who totally, totally knew all the answers to every single question that a viewer might have about the show’s rich mythology.

According to this ongoing behind-the-scenes fairy tale, Damon and Carlton could totally explain everything to you right now, but they won’t, because a) it’s very complicated, b) it would spoil the surprise, and c) It’s Not Really About the Mythology, It’s About the Characters.

In reality, after a while, it wasn’t even about the characters. It was about whether Damon and Carlton actually knew what they were doing, or were they just lying this whole time, because they needed to keep the plates spinning for another day.

That’s the question that Lost fans were dying to learn. We didn’t watch season six because we wanted to know if Jack, Kate and Sawyer would survive. We watched because we wanted to know if Damon and Carlton would survive.

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Episode 626: The Amazing New Phenomenon

November 1968, Sam Hall, , ,

“You want to keep track of me? The amazing new phenomenon? The ghost who breathes?”

As the black-robed executioner opened the door to Vicki’s cell, her lover looked into her eyes, and promised her every last thing he could think of.

I love you, Vicki, he said. That’s all that matters.

The hangman grabbed her shoulder, and pushed.

Somehow you managed to travel through time, and find me. Somehow, I’ll find you. No matter what happens, I will find you.

She was led from her cell, down a dark corridor, to the gallows.

Our love will transcend time, her lover cried, shouting desperately over the squeal of the waiting crowd. We are stronger than time! We are stronger than death!

The hood was placed over her head.

Remember me!

It was a promise, and a prayer.

I will find you!

It was the only thing she could hear, as the rope tightened around her throat.

I will find you, through the centuries, and we will be together again! Our love will never die!

And as it turns out, that is exactly what happened, so I don’t know what the hell he’s complaining about now. That’s a three-pointer if I ever saw one. That was nothing but net.

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Episode 622: Heated Arguments on Somebody Else’s Lawn

Gordon Russell, November 1968, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“The powers you have, they give you a certain amount of control over time and space.”

Once upon a time, there was a little lost princess…

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Episode 616: The Great 1968 Wrap-Up

November 1968, Ron Sproat, , , , , , , ,

“I said you were my friend, and how I wish that were the truth. But I am past the point when friends are possible.”

Signs that your life may not be going the way that you hoped: You walk into your best friend’s house, and you find him moaning in an armchair. You reach out to touch his collar, and you see bite marks on his neck, and the only thing that you can say is, Oh, man. Not this again.

Barnabas Collins has been chewed on by his ex-wife, vampire soap vixen Angelique, and now his friends Julia and Willie have to figure out what to do about it. They stand around the scene of the crime and spitball ideas for a minute — they want to hide Barnabas someplace, but the next time the vampire summons him, he’ll go. They need to store him someplace safe, where she can’t get at him. But where?

Then Julia says, “Downstairs, Willie — the cell!” like that’s suddenly the greatest idea ever. So they hoist Barnabas to his feet, wrangle him downstairs to the basement, and lock him up in the dungeon cell, because today’s episode was written by Ron Sproat, and he never does anything else. God damn it, Sproat!

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Episode 446: The Son Also Rises

March 1968, Sam Hall, , , ,

“You must have always had so much hatred in you. No one could be filled with it so quickly.”

Friday’s episode ended with stern patriarch Joshua Collins descending into the basement of the abandoned Old House, poking into the buried secrets that should never be poked into. As usual in these kinds of situations, he arrives at the bottom step just exactly in time to see the mystery box open, unleashing a dark and primal terror that destroys everything in its line of sight.

Judging by past performance, this means that Joshua’s about to be killed. Dark secrets are a powerful story engine, because there’s lots of associated activity — mostly inventing, refuting and refining alibis and cover stories. That fills up time, and fools the audience into thinking that they’re getting somewhere. If you let characters actually discover the truth, then after a while you need to hire a writer who can come up with something else for them to talk about, and that runs into money.

So Dark Shadows has settled into a gentle rut over the last six weeks, essentially funnelling a single-file line of cast members down these stairs, to their immediate and lasting disadvantage. Joshua is just the latest patsy in the popular game of Let’s Kill the Collins Family.

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Episode 411: Other People’s Blood

Gordon Russell, January 1968, , , , , , , ,

“That’s what happened to me, isn’t it? I was in that coffin because I was dead.”

It always starts with a box.

The local nobility are up to their usual tricks — keeping secrets, shooting each other, sleeping with the help, generally making a nuisance of themselves — and it comes back to haunt them, as it always does.

So here we are, opening another mystery box, and something terrible is loosed upon the world again, for the first time.

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Episode 340: Dave Woodard Must Die

October 1967, Ron Sproat, , , , , , , ,

“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.

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