Tag Archives: teenagers

Episode 503: Lock Her Up

May 1968, Ron Sproat, ,

“I promise, no harm will come to you.”

Sproat: Threat, or menace? That is the question on the table.

Ron Sproat is part of the Dark Shadows writing team, and unfortunately, he’s not the good part. He’s the guy who thinks it’s okay to not do anything interesting on Wednesday, so you can save up the plot movement for Friday — and if not this Friday, then maybe next Friday.

Sproat’s other noticeable failing is his obsession with locking women and children up in a room and then just leaving them there. Just in the last year, he’s confined Maggie and Vicki for several months each, plus Josette for a few days and David for a week.

At the moment, we’ve got Adam, our new Frankenstein monster, who’s closed his first official rampage by kidnapping Carolyn and bringing her to an abandoned root cellar somewhere in the woods.

Yesterday, Sam Hall wrote the episode that brought Carolyn to the root cellar, and then who leaves her there for two days? Mr. Ron “I Never Met a Lock I Didn’t Like” Sproat.

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Episode 497: Frid’s Big Week

Gordon Russell, May 1968, , , , , , , , ,

“Here they were, with these thousands of kids, and this idiot on top of this hearse with fangs, and what was going on, you know? What’s happened to America?”

A year ago, Jonathan Frid stepped out of the mystery box for a limited 13-week run as a villain on a struggling soap opera. Now it’s May 1968, and by some strange magic, Barnabas Collins is the most popular character on the hottest show on daytime TV. The ratings have jumped from 9 million viewers to 16 million, and they haven’t peaked yet. As “America’s cool ghoul”, Jonathan Frid is suddenly at the center of a pop culture sensation.

That’s good news for ABC, obviously, and the most exciting part is that Dark Shadows has caught on with teenagers, whose daily lives are the original social media.

Traditionally, soaps were watched by housewives, recluses and the unemployed. These are people with a fairly limited amount of social interaction, and word-of-mouth doesn’t spread that far. But high school and college students talk to and influence a huge number of friends and acquaintances, and they have lots of free social time when they can evangelize about their new favorite show. Plus, they’ll buy spin-off merchandise, which brings in revenue and continues to spread awareness of the show to potential new viewers. In a couple months, ABC is going to move Dark Shadows from 3:30 to 4:00, to make sure that kids can get home after school to watch the show.

And this week, they’re sending Jonathan Frid on a week-long whistle-stop national tour, traveling to 10 cities in a private Lear jet. Frid’s job for this week is to show up at airports and supermarkets dressed as Barnabas — complete with cape, cane and fangs — and tell children what it’s like to be a vampire. P.S. Jonathan Frid is a grown man.

Continue reading Episode 497: Frid’s Big Week →

Episode 495: The Talking Dead

May 1968, Sam Hall, , ,

“Food. That is food. Can you say it? Food.”

Okay, let me run this one past you: a teetotaling Dracula and his mad-scientist gal pal have brought a handsome Frankenstein man to life, and they’re teaching him how to speak by leaving him chained up alone in a filthy basement. Yeah, I don’t really get it either.

I mean, let’s do a quick inventory of things that Adam doesn’t have: A toy. A window. Someone to talk to. Any kind of toilet facilities. And then they try to teach him table manners. How do they possibly think this is going to go?

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Episode 445: Generation Gap

March 1968, Ron Sproat, ,

“You don’t understand the world, or anything around you. Today, more than anything, has convinced me of that.”

It’s the old story, one of the oldest there is: The young couple wants to dance, and hold hands in the rain, and run away, and fall in love. They don’t care about money or tradition or whatever uptight hang-ups their uptight parents are hung up on. They just want to be free.

And this is early spring 1968, back when being young and free really meant something. I’m not totally sure if that spirit also applies to 1796, but Millicent is going to give it a whirl, and see how far she can get.

Continue reading Episode 445: Generation Gap →

Episode 431: The Catcher in the Rye

February 1968, Sam Hall, , ,

“What have I to look forward to, if the sight of me fills anyone that I love with terror?”

Okay, it’s Monday, and time for another Dark Shadows course-correction.

Three months ago, the DS writers were faced with a huge story problem: The new vampire character was an enormous hit, but that storyline was clearly heading towards a conclusion, with nothing left to do but expose and destroy the vampire. Then, in an unbelievable example of inspiration fueled by desperation, they sent Vicki back in time to 1795, letting the audience witness the vampire’s secret-origin backstory.

And now we’ve completed that three-month mission. We know the whole story of Barnabas’ curse, and how little Sarah died, and why Josette threw herself off a cliff. On Friday, Barnabas tried to call Josette back from the grave, until he found out that she doesn’t really look super appealing post-cliff-dive, which pretty much puts a period at the end of that sentence.

Unfortunately, that means that the writers are back where they started, as far as a Barnabas storyline is concerned. He’s a lonely vampire again, and Josette — his only reason for existing — is lost to him forever. So then what?

Continue reading Episode 431: The Catcher in the Rye →

Episode 254: The Summer of Love

Joe Caldwell, June 1967, ,

“That guy looks like about as much fun as a bag full of spiders.”

Carolyn’s been acting out this week, punishing her mother for getting engaged to Jason.

But Carolyn’s rebellion is PG-rated at best, especially for 1967. The sum total of her transgressions are that she’s dating a guy who wears a black leather jacket, and they go for motorcycle rides. Buzz only drinks beer, and he doesn’t even like it very much. There’s no sex, no drugs, and only the loosest association to rock ‘n roll.

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