Tag Archives: wake the dead

Episode 639: Vampire Excites Wives, Young Set

December 1968, Gordon Russell, , , , , , , , , , ,

“I think the man I’m talking to is a ghost!”

Previously, on Dark Shadows: Dr. Woodard has discovered that Barnabas Collins is the kidnapper that everyone’s been looking for — and a member of the living dead. Armed with a journal which contains notes of Julia’s mad experiments, Woodard is planning to speak to the Sheriff, and expose the evil presence that threatens to destroy them all. But a bat appears at the window — and Dr. Woodard is horrified to see the vampire materialize in front of him.

And then… nothing, for three years. At least, that’s what it was like when I saw it.

Continue reading Episode 639: Vampire Excites Wives, Young Set →

Episode 594: Weak Shoddy Adversary

No Parrots, October 1968, , , , , ,

“The one that she will try to kill will be you. So, you see, your presence is vital.”

So I guess it’s fair to say at this point that the current Bride of Frankenstein storyline is not setting any land speed records for Dark Shadows. It’s been dragging on for weeks, and the Bride is still just a bandaged-up mannequin, lying on the lab table and not even bothering to decompose.

Still, it’s part of Dark Shadows’ nature that even in its darkest and most shadowy hours, they’ll find something to do that justifies our patience.

Today’s episode is weird and disappointing in several ways, but the cliffhanger sets up one of my favorite lunatic plot contrivances. When I am old and gray, and the world has taken everything from me but my basement murder lab and my hypnotic medallion, I will think of today’s cliffhanger, and a flicker of a smile will play across my careworn features.

Continue reading Episode 594: Weak Shoddy Adversary →

Episode 564: Dig Dug

August 1968, Sam Hall, , ,

“We’re not robbing a grave, Willie. We’re dealing with an enemy.”

I know, everybody’s got their own problems, and when there’s an immediate crisis in your life, you tend to put off the long-term thinking, and just focus on what’s in front of you.

Still, I think that if your planned evening of grave-robbing is interrupted by an urgent need to go on a completely unrelated grave-robbing excursion — that is the moment that you need to stop and re-evaluate.

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Episode 560: Messing Around with Dead People

August 1968, Ron Sproat

“I can’t stay around here while this thing is happening. It’s just too horrible.”

One of the rules of Dark Shadows is that there’s always something terrible happening in the Old House basement. The details change — it could be a vampire sleeping in a coffin, or a dead girl singing a nursery rhyme, or a patchwork corpse monster chained to the wall — but there’s always some kind of nightmare taking shape there, down among the dead men.

“Woe unto them,” as they say in the Book of Isaiah, “that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” It’s like Isaiah knew Barnabas and Julia personally; that is exactly what they do.

Today, it’s Willie’s turn to say “Whoa” unto them. Let’s see how far that gets him.

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Episode 530: Requiem for a Dream

July 1968, Ron Sproat, ,

“For a moment, when I first saw him, I felt a stirring in me.”

Looking back, I think the thing that really matters is that we did it together, you and I. It was hard, of course; anything that’s really worth doing is hard. But we stuck with it, day after day, and we were strong, and now we’re reaching the end of this journey together.

This is the last week of the Dream Curse, Angelique’s three-month battle with story progression. The witch’s spell created a chain-letter dream which passed from one person to another, until practically every character on the show had the same slow, pointless dream sequence. Then they had to describe the dream, in detail, and tell us all about how petrified they were of this entirely unscary experience.

But finally, after almost three months of this tedious nonsense, we’ve reached the final week, where we’ll see the last two iterations of the dream. And then the Dream Curse will be over, thank goodness, and there will never be another boring storyline on Dark Shadows ever again.

Continue reading Episode 530: Requiem for a Dream →

Episode 512: Everybody Rise

Gordon Russell, June 1968, , , , , , ,

“I am prepared to convene a jury of the dead in this room!”

He meant well, is the thing that you have to remember. There’s an evil witch who’s living at Collinwood these days, and she’s making life complicated for everybody, so Professor Stokes thought, hey, we’ve got a witch, why not raise the spirit of a bad-tempered 18th-century witch hunter?

Stokes learned that Reverend Trask was buried alive behind a brick wall in the basement of the Old House, so he figured, let’s wake Trask up, point him in the direction of Angelique, and then just let nature take its course. Stokes is something of a lateral thinker.

So, yeah. It’s not one of the top ten plans. But at least it doesn’t involve terrorizing a young child, so for Dark Shadows, it’s actually not that bad. You have to grade these things on a curve.

Continue reading Episode 512: Everybody Rise →

Episode 441: Weekend at Maudie’s

Gordon Russell, March 1968, , , ,

“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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Episode 430: Dark Conquest

Ron Sproat, , , , , ,

“I can feel neither love nor hate. I feel nothing now.”

Last week, Barnabas was planning to kill his fiancee, Josette, and turn her into a vampire. Instead, she fled from him, and jumped off the cliff at Widow’s Hill to a messy death on the rocks below. Not satisfied with that level of carnage, Barnabas came up with a whole new plan yesterday — he’s going to use his powers to call Josette back from the grave.

“I have made my own dark conquest of the grave,” he said. “Hers will be next.”

Now, I know the show is called Dark Shadows, but they’re really taking that super seriously at this point. The main character has been moping around in a graveyard for weeks, and I don’t see the situation getting a hell of a lot happier. I mean, at a certain point, either your show is going to do a two-part episode at Disney World or it’s not.

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Episode 410: Nightfall

January 1968, Sam Hall, , ,

“I want you to cut down a holly tree, and fashion a small stake from the trunk.”

The widow Collins draws her shawl close around her, regarding her late husband’s final resting place with a shudder. She has no friends now, and no place to go. All she’s got is a small suitcase carrying a few dresses, plus a bankbook worth a small fortune. Oh, and a big hammer, and a pointy stick. And a problem.

And she finally asks the question that the viewing public has been waiting to hear for more than nine months, namely:

“Do you know the word vampire, Ben?”

Vampire? Now that you mention it, that does ring a bell. Dude in a coffin, right?

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Time Travel, part 1: Mist Opportunities

Dan Curtis, January 1991, Steve Feke, , , , , , , , ,

“I’m just glad to be here.”

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Thursday’s episode of Dark Shadows was pre-empted this week, so ABC could air football on Thanksgiving afternoon. I want the blog to keep the Monday-to-Friday rhythm of the original broadcast, so today, the normal blog entry is pre-empted by our own Thanksgiving treat.

Today, we’re going to do some time travel, fast-forwarding to the mysterious far-off year of 1991. It’s a Sunday night in January, and NBC is airing the prime-time remake of Dark Shadows. This first episode is a two-hour journey into the unknown, so let’s get started…

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