DARK SHADOWS 557
DARK SHADOWS 557
“And that man when he dies,
he will be a vampire and that will be two of them and no one in this town will
be safe.”
“Adam has escaped from jail.
He’s also survived a gunshot wound and a leap off Widow’s Hill. He’s killed Sam
Evans and he’s nearly killed Joe Haskell.”
“Victoria Winters is loved by
Barnabas and he will give me a mate because he is afraid of what will happen to
her.”
Grayson. It is still 24 hours
after Vicki was abducted. Is Collinsport in a time warp? Nah, it’s just the
same night and day and now it’s over.
Jeff and the police are
searching…but fail to see either Adam or Blair (sometimes carrying Vicki or her
ring) in the woods. No reprise.
Barnabas calls Adam back and
Adam comes back.
One of them says, “Just
stink.” Adam makes the threat again,
“You will never see her alive again…” blah blah blah.
Julia comes back to Barnabas
and she notes that he’s been up all night. He thought once they got rid of
Cassandra, their troubles would end. It seems they are only just beginning.
Barnabas does seem to have
changed clothes. “OHHHH,” he moans like an old lady, “We have no choice.”
Julia does not want to save
Vicki it seems. She seems jealous of Barnabas’s love for Vicki. The thought of
a mate for him is frightening. “We’d be responsible for creating a race of
monsters.”
They wonder whose plan is
that? Blair? Or Stokes? She asks, “How much to we really know about
Stokes?”
Barnabas does not think it
could be Stokes but plans a visit to the man. He wants Julia to finish some
other problem that “we have here”. She will go the hospital to find out about
time.
They figure if there are two
vampires in this town if Tom dies, then no one in this town will be safe.
Jeff comes and asks about
Adam. Barnabas seems to have changed clothes again. Jeff was wondering when they would ask about
Vicki. Before dawn, a sheriff’s man saw Adam. Jeff gets and IDK.
Julia nervously plays with
her glove as Jeff pieces things together about Adam.
The clock seems to say
Stokes gets a knock on his
door as he is reading. “Go away, go away! There’s no one at home.
Damnation.” When he gets up, his eye
glass in his right eye falls out but is attached to a chain around his neck.
The grandfather clock reads 10:45.
Barnabas seems to force his
way in as soon as the door is open.
“We need your help,” Barnabas says, echoing something Vicki said
in an earlier ep. Just as in that ep, Stokes sort of reacts nasty to that
request.
The rest of the dialog
between the two men is quite funny.
Barnabas tells him it is time
they brought everything out in the open. They talk about Adam. MIKE
SHADOW. Stokes finds Barnabas and Julia miserly with
their information. Stokes tells the truth: he told Adam about his creation.
Stokes also adds that
considering Barnabas and Julia’s cooperation in the past, it seems ungracious
to expect answers from him now. He would let them stew in their own juices if
it were not for one thing: Vicki. He will do all he can to help her. He’s a
nasty man.
The photo of Collinwood seems
to have a scratch on it or…a hair? Ewl.
Stokes goes to the West Wing
which is most brave of him really. When Stokes mentions Victoria Winters, Adam
says, “IDK anyone by that name.”
Stokes asks where Vicki is.
Adam: “I don’t know.” Adam tells him he
does not want to hurt him.
Stokes tries to convince him
to let Vicki go and tells Adam to use his head: he himself cannot go to the
police. WHY NOT? He’d get in trouble.
Stokes says that perhaps what
Adam wants is right but Vicki Winters being harmed is not. Adam feels he is
nothing, “I am nothing. I want to be loved or Barnabas will be punished by
seeing Vicki die.”
More threats against Vicki.
The tension between Stokes and Barnabas is admirable but…questionable. I had
hoped that they would tell the fool fat man everything but they never seem to.
Stokes never pieces things together and they never fully trust him, if ever.
This is odd.
Why introduce a character
like Stokes only to have him not be an enemy AND not be a friend? I supposed it
is realistic but I kept hoping that Barnabas or Julia or both would trust him
and tell him. It would be interesting to have seen his reactions to the whole
story. Adam and Stokes’s scene here is interesting and tense…well acted, too.
“When you see his neck, Julia, you will know at once whether or not I am right.”
Julia walks into a haunted house, and finds a vampire sitting in an armchair.
“Barnabas, you look exhausted,” she says, because this television show takes place in a world where people worry that the living dead don’t get enough sleep.
Barnabas sighs, and says, “Julia, I thought that when we were rid of Cassandra, our troubles were over, but apparently, they were just beginning.”
This is good news — not for them, obviously, but for us, because that’s how you kick off another meeting of the Junior Detectives. They’re going to spend the next four minutes doing a two-handed recap of all of the storylines that they’re worried about, brainstorming solutions as they go. They do a round-up like this every once in a while, and it’s one of my favorite things about the show.
Now, in general, I’m firmly against tedious recap scenes where ill-informed characters sit around and discuss mysteries that they just don’t have enough information to actually figure out. But Barnabas and Julia recap scenes are a notable exception, for several reasons.
For one thing, there’s the blocking.
Grayson Hall is one hundred percent determined to hit her mark for every shot, because she emits several unique facial expressions per minute, and she doesn’t want the audience to miss any of them. Her co-star, Mr. J. Frid, can’t bother to remember where he’s supposed to stand, because he’s too busy worrying about the dialogue that he can’t remember how to say. This dynamic creates a fascinating little dance that’s rarely seen on network television.
While Julia says, “Barnabas, tell me what’s happened,” she’s moving into position for the next shot. But he’s just looking down at his hands, summoning up the mental energy required to recall his next line. He stays fixed, an immovable object, which means that now he’s standing between Julia and the camera. This is intolerable.
So when he says, “Adam was here again last night,” Julia actually leans to the right to say her next line, to make sure that she stays on camera. This is a move that could fit smoothly into an I Love Lucy scene, where Lucy and Ethel are upstaging each other while performing a play to raise money for their women’s club.
Barnabas takes the hint, and he starts to move, traveling vaguely in the direction of his mark. He’s not entirely sure where that is, so the two of them have to shuffle awkwardly around each other, while Barnabas says his next line.
Unfortunately, he can only pay attention to one thing at a time, and thinking about where he’s supposed to stand means that now he can’t remember what he’s supposed to say.
And he’s not even facing the teleprompter anymore, which means there’s a critical systems failure, and we’re only thirty-five seconds into the scene.
Stuck in a dialogue-chicken stalemate, they both turn to look at the teleprompter at the same time.
Barnabas: He said —
Julia: — he knows where Vicki is.
Barnabas: Knows where she is, and is prepared to kill her if we don’t give him what he wants.
So they’ve finally got that settled, and now it’s time for a new shot. It never ends with these two.
Another reason to love these scenes is that Barnabas and Julia can say basically anything to each other.
Julia: Oh, Barnabas, I know how you feel, but it isn’t a matter of simply giving in to him. Another experiment is out of the question.
Barnabas: But IS IT?
And then they just glare at each other. It’s fantastic.
Julia’s on the move again.
Julia: Look at the damage we’ve already done! Look what Adam has become! The thought of a mate for him is frightening! Do you realize we’d be responsible for creating a — a race of monsters?
Barnabas says, “Then what are we going to do?” which means it’s time to start spitballing solutions.
Barnabas: Do you really think that Stokes could do something like this?
Julia: When you stop to think about it, Barnabas, how much do we really know about him?
She goes through a cycle of facial expressions.
Julia: We do know that he took Adam in… He protected him, and he taught him how to read and write.
Julia: What we don’t know is WHY he did that.
Julia: Now, I think it would be worth our while to pay a visit to Professor Stokes.
Barnabas agrees, but that’s not the only item on today’s agenda.
Barnabas: I went to the hospital last night. I went to see Tom Jennings.
Julia: Who is Tom Jennings?
Barnabas: He was the man who was attacked, the night before last.
So now we’re off on a completely different lunatic story thread.
Barnabas: Julia, I know what that man is suffering from, and so do you. We both heard the howling of the dogs the other night.
This is an example of the kind of dialogue that you simply don’t get on television shows that are written by sane people.
The point of these scenes is to see how long two adults can stand around in a room saying preposterous things to each other.
Barnabas: That man, when he dies, he will be a vampire, and that will be two of them. And then no one living in this town will be safe.
Julia: But, Barnabas, I can’t accomplish any more at the hospital than you can.
Barnabas: You’re a doctor. Surely they’ll let you see the man. When you see his neck, Julia, you will know at once whether or not I am right.
So now they both have little tasks to accomplish, and they’ll meet back here at the start of tomorrow’s episode for another Junior Detectives meeting. This is basically the format of the show now.
Tomorrow: The Long, Hot Summer.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
In addition to the weird blocking and dialogue flubs mentioned above, there’s also a moment when Barnabas tells Julia, “I want you to finish some other problems that we have here.”
When Barnabas walks Julia to the door at the end of act 1, the camera is pointed too high, and you can see the studio lights above the set.
In act 2, Jeff completely loses track of his lines, sighs, and looks directly at the teleprompter for about six seconds before he can go on with the scene.
When Adam lets Professor Stokes into his room, he slams the door behind Stokes, and it bounces back open.
Christine: Back in Episode 527, he did recognize Adam while he was under hypnosis by Prof. Stokes, so he may recognize him when he sees the arm he dug up at the cemetery on him again.
John: How is it that Stokes can sneak into Collinwood without anyone noticing? Did Carolyn have keys made for everyone in Collinsport? Liz is going to flip when she finds out.
Christine: It seems to me that the front door is kept unlocked. It's only within the house that doors are locked. That is the key to Collinwood.
John: Stokes is constantly whining about how Julia and Barnabas never share information with him, and yet whenever he has enough leverage to demand it, he gives to their requests while getting nothing in return. I wonder if they'll pull him into the process of creating Adam's mate. That would probably make him very happy.
Christine: Stokes is a morally upstanding character, so he wouldn't force their hand with Vicki's life at stake. I don't think they'll invite him to participate in the experiment. Julia and Barnabas seem to hold him at arm's length to prevent him from discovering Barnabas' affliction. I think they realize he'd be a lot more interested in Barnabas if he knew he was once a vampire, and that Adam is the reason he is currently walking around in the daytime.
Stokes doesn’t like the personality change in Adam; Adam vows to kill Victoria because Barnabas loves her if Barnabas doesn’t make someone for him to love.
Memorable quotes
- Professor Stokes: (to himself, after hearing several knocks at door) Go away! Go away! There is no one at home. (pause) Damnation! (opens door)
- Barnabas: Good day, Professor Stokes.
- Professor Stokes: Mr. Collins!
- Barnabas: May I come in?
- Professor Stokes: I expect you will even if I say No. (pause) Hereafter, Mr. Collins, I suggest you avail yourself of the nearest telephone. I detest unannounced visitors.
- Adam: Victoria Winters is loved by Barnabas, and he will give me a mate because he is afraid of what will happen to her. Yes! If it is wrong to hurt innocent people, then why did Barnabas hurt me? Once I didn't exist. But he gave me life, and I do exist, and I am nothing. Nothing! And I want to be something! I want to be loved! And I will have a mate, and she will love me, or Barnabas will be punished by seeing Vicki die!
Dramatis personae
- Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
- Grayson Hall as Julia Hoffman
- Thayer David as Timothy Eliot Stokes
- Roger Davis as Jeff Clark
- Robert Rodan as Adam
Background information and notes
Production
Story
- TIMELINE: Adam gives Barnabas until tomorrow night to decide. Day 225 begins, and will end in 559. The narration states that it's been 24 hours since Victoria was abducted by Adam. Adam was at the Old House last night. Tom was attacked the night before last.
Bloopers and continuity errors
- As Julia and Barnabas go to the front door, the studio lights can be seen.
- Roger Davis goes completely up on his lines in Act 2. He stops and looks at the teleprompter for several seconds before resuming.
- When Barnabas is talking with Professor Stokes at Stokes's apartment, a boom mic shadow can be seen on the wall as Stokes sits down on the couch.
- After Adam slams the door to his room after Professor Stokes comes in, the door drifts back open.
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