Tag Archives: trickster

Episode 619: The Gunslinger

April 4, 2015Gordon Russell, November 1968blocking, camp, maltese falcon, showdown, stand next to barnabas, televisual literacy, trickster, unbotheredDanny Horn

“No matter how dangerous it is, I’ve got to have a showdown with Nicholas Blair.”

Really, the thing that everybody wants to know is: why can’t the Stormtroopers shoot straight in Star Wars? It turns out there are three simple answers.

#1. Stormtroopers shooting laser bolts are more interesting to look at than Stormtroopers who stand around complaining.

#2. Shooting Luke Skywalker in the head halfway through the first movie is going to leave a rather obvious gap in the trilogy.

#3. “Strong Guy Kills Weak Guy” is not headline news.

This ends the lit-crit theory portion of today’s post; we will now spend the rest of our time watching Dr. Julia Hoffman act like an unbelievable badass.

Continue reading Episode 619: The Gunslinger →

Episode 559: Everything You Deserve

January 3, 2015August 1968, Gordon Russelllunatic plot contrivances, manners, sherry, tricksterDanny Horn

“I specialize in human relations.”

Also, Nicholas is in love with Maggie.

Sorry to spring it on you like that, but it’s that kind of storyline. Nicholas Blair is some kind of evil wizard man, and so far we haven’t had any indication that he’s looking for a girlfriend. In fact, he’s been mocking Angelique relentlessly for having human emotions. And yet, here we are.

It’s not at all clear why Nicholas has chosen Maggie, either. He seems to have fallen in love at first sight, during a chance encounter at Collinwood. Maggie’s very pretty and very nice, but they don’t have anything in common. I’m not even sure that he’s human. He might as well fall in love with a puppy.

But there are four pretty girls on the show, and three of them already have a storyline, which leaves Maggie at a loose end. She’s got a dull job, she’s happily engaged to Joe, her alcoholic father has died, and it’s been a year since she was kidnapped by anybody. If Nicholas needs a human weakness, then it might as well be Maggie, I suppose.

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Episode 522: Brother From Another

November 14, 2014June 1968, Sam Hallavant-garde, dan, dracula, eccentric, impostor, never drink wine, portraits, theremin, tricksterDanny Horn

“Angelique has no blood brother. But a brother spirit, a brother devil…”

Here’s where we are: Cassandra, the lunatic sorceress from Martinique posing as Roger’s new wife, has been cast into darkness by the spirit of Reverend Trask, an 18th-century witch hunter raised from the dead — or from the Old House cellar, which is more or less the same thing. She hasn’t been seen for a couple days, and Barnabas and Julia have just discovered that her magic portrait has turned white and faded. Ding dong, presumably, the witch is dead.

But things are never that simple, especially on this show. There’s a knock at the door, and a dapper man in a hat introduces himself as Nicholas Blair — Cassandra’s brother.

So the question for today is: Who the Hell is this guy?

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Episode 510: Some Enchanted Evening

October 27, 2014June 1968, Sam Hallalready dead, books, kaiju, poison, tricksterDanny Horn

“Do you still believe we cannot gain help from the dead?”

Professor Stokes steps to the phone, and places a call. “Julia, thank goodness it’s you,” he says. “You must come here immediately.”

“What’s wrong?” says Julia.

“I’m afraid I’ve just killed a man,” Stokes says, and then the opening titles kick in.

See, I told you that Professor Stokes is amazing. Can you believe this guy? This is how he starts an episode.

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Episode 508: Dream Beater

October 23, 2014June 1968, Sam Hallbeckoning, boom goes the dynamite, chromakey, doors, dreams, like a boss, muppets, mythology, necrobabble, trickster, trolling, twin peaksDanny Horn

“Why am I not opening your doors?”

What, when you get right down to it, is magic?

In the context of a story, anyone can have magic powers, and there really aren’t any hard and fast rules about how they work. Take Angelique, for example — a ladies’ maid from Martinique with reality-warping abilities, apparently granted to her by Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.

Angelique started out with some rather modest household voodoo, choking a toy soldier to make Barnabas gasp for breath. But pretty soon, she was raising zombies from their graves, and turning people into cats, and generally wiping the floor with the Collins family.

By this point, she has a baffling assortment of abilities, including the power of getting really super old when somebody paints over her portrait. She doesn’t use that one very much, because it’s hard to weaponize.

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Episode 507: The Spirit of St. George

October 22, 2014June 1968, Sam Hallbeckoning, doctor who, doors, dreams, eccentric, hypnosis, necrobabble, ritual, the problem with the dream curse, tricksterDanny Horn

“According to my calculations, only one more person must have the dream.”

I knew this was going to be hard. When I started this uncertain and frightening journey through Dark Shadows, I knew that the Dream Curse storyline was waiting for me, and it was going to test my endurance more than anything else on the show. But here I am, six weeks into the story, and I just looked at my episode guide, and I’m only halfway through. We’re currently at the beginning of June 1968, and the Dream Curse ends in mid-July.

I know I keep saying “Here’s the problem with the Dream Curse,” but here’s the problem with the Dream Curse: characters just saunter in and out of the storyline, and it doesn’t seem to matter. The allegedly terrifying chain-letter dream sequence moves from one character to another, and once they’ve passed the baton on to the next person, they drop out of the storyline.

Remember when it was a big deal that Mrs. Johnson needed to go to Boston, so she wouldn’t pass the dream on to Jeff? Or was that David? Or Julia. I’m pretty sure it was either Julia or River Song. No, wait, that’s Doctor Who. I’ve got this written down somewhere.

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Episode 475: Witch Doctor

September 6, 2014April 1968, Sam Hallcamp, eccentric, hellmouth, kaiju, make a friend, talisman, tricksterDanny Horn

“The witch will look at your body, and think that you have escaped by death — when, in reality, you will have escaped — by living!”

It’s another stormy night on the Hellmouth, where vampires and witches battle over the fate of mad scientists and their secret experiments.

Tonight, Barnabas has invited a guest over — it’s Professor Stokes, who first appeared two weeks ago, looking to buy the haunted portrait of Angelique. He’s an academic — apparently an expert in a diverse and uncertain discipline — and I’m not entirely sure that he realizes he’s on television. He’s loud, and disruptive, and he plays to the balcony. Not this balcony, naturally; I mean the balcony in the theater next door.

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Episode 474: You Only Live Twice

September 4, 2014April 1968, Sam Hallhypnosis, lookalike, potion, reckless, the past, tricksterDanny Horn

“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 448: Fight the Tower

July 30, 2014March 1968, Ron Sproatarchitecture, gaslight, narrative collision, tower room, tricksterDanny Horn

“Poor child. If I had any feelings left, I might pity you.”

It’s been a big week on Dark Shadows. On Monday, crotchety patriarch Joshua Collins found his dead son, Barnabas, sleeping in a coffin in the basement of the Old House.

Learning that Barnabas is the vampire maniac who’s been killing people all over town, Joshua vowed to find a way to remove Angelique’s curse. Now he’s keeping Barnabas locked in the tower room at Collinwood, while he tries to track down an occult customer support line.

So, obviously, this is a super exciting development. Collinwood has a tower room!

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Episode 441: Weekend at Maudie’s

July 21, 2014Gordon Russell, March 1968dreams, farce, prank, trickster, wake the deadDanny Horn

“You made them take my dead body away! They threw me in the water!”

So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before: sanctimonious witch hunter Reverend Trask comes back to his room, and finds the corpse of streetwalker Maude Browning lying on his bed.

Now, just to be clear — violence against women is not funny. Murdering somebody to cover up for your crimes is not funny. And yet — Reverend Trask walking into his room and finding a dead prostitute in his bed is extremely funny. Let’s see if we can break this down a little.

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Dark Shadows Every Day

The 1960s vampire soap opera, one episode a day.