Tag Archives: secret origin

Episode 915: The Walkback

December 1969, Violet Welles, , , , , , , , ,

“You can’t let sentimentality make you careless!”

For the last six weeks, Barnabas Collins has been behaving oddly, even by eccentric millionaire standards. He’s been freezing out his friends, and striking them with cars. He’s revoked his Murder Club membership by warning his family that werewolves are dangerous. He’s appeared unbidden in other people’s dreams, and he’s arranged for the remote involuntary circling of dates on calendars.

But we finally have an explanation for everything. He was being sarcastic!

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Episode 877: The Killing Club

Gordon Russell, November 1969, , ,

“Do you usually kill people you disagree with?”

Why do they do it, the villains? Why do they turn on their own people?

Dracula pushes Renfield down the stairs, Gutman’s gunsel takes the fall, Blofeld shoots Mr. Osato, Tobias Vaughn decides the Cybermen have betrayed him, Barnabas declares that Willie Loomis must die…

I mean, I get it about the blundering. You work hard to come up with an evil plan, and then all the blundering happens. It’s discouraging. But killing your employees after they’ve made a mistake means that’s one less person standing between you and the hero. Yes, you’ve removed someone that you can’t trust from your social circle, but that doesn’t make the rest of them any more trustworthy. Everybody else just starts updating their LinkedIn profiles.

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Episode 676: Murder Club

Gordon Russell, January 1969, Violet Welles, , , , , , , ,

“Well, it’s obvious you’ve forgotten that you attacked me in this graveyard, the night before last.”

And then, one day, you find yourself walking with a mysterious older man to a secret place where he says he can keep you all night and nobody will ever know, and you ask yourself, how did my life end up this way?

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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 565: Weird Science

August 1968, Sam Hall, , , ,

“Now, I want you to try to keep making some sense out of this.”

Okay, so here’s a weird story:

A race against time at Collinwood, for night has come, and with it, a new threat — the rising of a new vampire. One man has risked his life, and his reputation, to end the vampire’s career before it can start.

Usually, I don’t pay much attention to the opening voiceover, but today’s is practically surreal. He risked his reputation? What does that mean? And since when do vampires have careers?

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Time Travel, part 2: Blood, Sweat and Tears

January 1991, Jon Boorstin, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Doc… please. Oh, God, doc. I’m beggin’ ya. I’m beggin’ ya. I’m beggin’ ya. Please, doc. Please. Oh, God. Oh, God. God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Doc. No. No. God. No.”

Merry Christmas! Today’s episode of Dark Shadows was pre-empted for Christmas Day 1967, because apparently people would rather watch football than 18th century vampires on Christmas, go figure. I want this blog to keep the Monday-to-Friday rhythm of the original broadcast, so we’re going to do some more time travel today, back to the year 1991, when NBC recklessly decided to give executive producer Dan Curtis another shot at making Dark Shadows all over again.

As we saw in the two-hour pilot episode, the Dark Shadows revival started with all the best intentions and all the worst ideas.

The main character is Victoria Winters, because after all these years we still think that’s a solid plan, but at least they did us the favor of not having her speak very much. I don’t think she has a single line in this entire episode.

We’ve also got a mentally challenged backwoods Willie Loomis, a sour-faced Julia with no sense of humor, a breathless Cinemax refugee who answers to the name of Carolyn, and don’t even get me started on Barnabas and the turtlenecks. On the plus side, we’ve got a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt as David, so at least there’s some star power on the set.

NBC aired the two-hour pilot on Sunday, January 13th, and then the second and third episodes together on the next night, and pretended it was some kind of exciting four-hour miniseries event. To be clear, we’re just watching episode 2 today. I’m only human, and besides, it’s Christmas.

Continue reading Time Travel, part 2: Blood, Sweat and Tears →

Episode 299: A Human Life

August 1967, Ron Sproat, , , , ,

“I’d do almost anything to continue… but I won’t sacrifice a human life.”

It’s evening at the great estate of Collinwood, and governess Victoria Winters is standing outside on the terrace, alone in the moonlight. Then the peace of the night is shattered by the vampire, Barnabas Collins, approaching silently behind her.

Except it’s not shattered at all, really. Vicki is standing there, and Barnabas walks up behind her. Instead of doing something semi-normal like saying, “Hello, Miss Winters, what a lovely night it is, don’t you sometimes think that we would all be better off if we never had to see the harsh rays of the sun” or whatever, he chooses to approach silently, and reach out to touch her somewhere in the shoulder/neck region.

This gives her the opportunity to spin around with an alarmed shriek, and then we crash into the titles.

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