Tag Archives: reckless

Episode 891: Curious People

November 1969, Sam Hall, , , , ,

“I feel like if we open it, our lives are going to change.”

The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.

So there they are, Pandora and her husband Phil, staring at a puzzle box that will wipe the earth clean, just licking their lips and desperate to get their hands on it. She’s wearing a necklace decorated with the sign of the Naga — a four-headed serpent, a creature without a soul, and the very latest Thing in fashion.

Now they’re at the Old House, these reckless antiquers, and they’re delighted to find a Naga-branded mystery box that would complete their stockpile of hazardous material.

“Is there anything inside?” she asks, and the owner admits, “To tell you the truth, I’ve never looked inside. Is that strange to you?”

“Well,” she grins, “we’re very curious people.” Yeah, you can say that again.

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Episode 886: The Sacrifice

November 1969, Sam Hall, , , , , ,

“What can that portrait have to do with time?”

She doesn’t jump, not this time. Barnabas knows that if he approaches a cornered Josette on Widow’s Hill, then she’ll jump to her death, because that’s what she did last time. So he sends her aunt Natalie as a neutral party, to get Josette to back away from the precipice.

Once everyone’s on dry land, Barnabas says that if Josette stops trying to kill herself, then he promises not to murder her. This is actually not an unusual arrangement, for gothic romances. She agrees, but only if he comes back when he says that he will. Then he gets delayed, so she gets fed up, and she takes poison and dies.

I don’t really know why Josette’s spirit drew Barnabas and Kitty back a hundred years into the past, just so that she could kill herself all over again; it seems unprofessional, and self-defeating. But I think after two successful suicide attempts, Josette DuPres has made it clear that she would prefer not to be alive. We really need to start respecting that point of view.

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Episode 567: The Show Goes On

August 1968, Gordon Russell, , ,

“Why, you –“

I was going to talk about free will today. I had it all planned out.

I’ve been reading up on determinism lately, and I’ve got a theory — you would’ve loved this theory, if I had the time to tell you about it — using the concept of a mad scientist as a metaphor to talk about whether moral choices are even possible, if mental phenomena are reducible to neurological materialism. Seriously, it would have blown your mind, literally and figuratively.

But that’s going to have to wait, because there’s a breaking news story that I need to cover: this is the episode where Roger Davis bumps his head.

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Episode 474: You Only Live Twice

April 1968, Sam Hall, , , , ,

“We cannot be inundated with people you have met in the past!”

Angelique Collins — soap vixen, she-devil, champion of evil and destroyer of worlds — has torn the veil asunder and returned to this mortal plane, to bring ferocious plutonium-studded revenge to the family that wronged her. She accomplishes this by dropping a not-very-convincing black wig on her head, changing her name, and showing up at the house to see if anyone recognizes her.

This is not exactly the silliest thing that she’s ever done — she turned a dude into a cat last year, which is hard to beat — but it’s in the top three. It’s kind of like robbing a convenience store, shooting the cashier, and then showing up the next day to apply for the vacancy. I’m pretty sure they remember what you look like.

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Episode 454: Mission: Impossible

Gordon Russell, March 1968, , , ,

“I haven’t got time to think of reasons!”

Here’s Victoria Winters, girl governess — lost in time, on the run, and fast asleep. In her dream, young Daniel Collins is strangled by his new brother-in-law, Nathan, and she wakes up in a panic, absolutely convinced that means Nathan is planning to kill Daniel.

As it happens, Nathan actually is planning to kill Daniel, so that’s just cheating. Maybe Vicki really is a witch after all.

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Episode 428: Duel It Yourself

February 1968, Gordon Russell, , , , ,

“They’re going to keep Barnabas away from me, and avoid the duel. That means that all of your lies and deception will go unpunished.”

In yesterday’s episode, we saw the beginning of Vicki’s witchcraft trial, the first example of any kind of sustained legal procedure on Dark Shadows. And this is an odd moment for them to be apprehending suspects, because the 1795 storyline is basically the moment when we say goodbye to law enforcement in Collinsport.

When they get back to the present day, we’ll see a few scattered appearances of the useless Sheriff Patterson and his even more useless successors, but they don’t amount to much, unless you count rising from the dead as a zombie and then being torn apart by a werewolf.

But in 1795 — even with a whole subplot involving a trial and a prison term — we don’t see a single police officer. There’s a couple jailers, a few judges and an executioner hanging around in the back somewhere, but there’s nobody representing the police force. In fact, the main characters don’t even consider calling in the police, despite the sudden rash of suspicious deaths in and around the grounds of the Collins estate.

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Episode 371: Damn the Torpedoes

Gordon Russell, November 1967, , ,

“I do not understand any more than you do.”

Okay, here’s a health tip: If you ever have an overnight layover in Martinique, don’t make out with the crazy girl.

Seriously. The girl is out of her mind. At the moment, she’s got a handkerchief wrapped around the neck of Barnabas’ wooden toy soldier, and she’s choking the life out of it. This is apparently going to teach Barnabas a lesson about treating people with respect. It might also partly be about leaving a tip for the maid when you check out of a hotel. It’s kind of an abstract lesson.

Now, this was an unusual Friday cliffhanger, because we know that Barnabas became a vampire, so he couldn’t have died from action-figure-based asphyxiation. Or maybe he could have. There’s a serious question raised today, which is: How does time travel work?

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