DARK SHADOWS 569
DARK SHADOWS 569
“Too many things have
happened in this house, too many things that you can’t explain. It’s as if
there was (or were) some force, some evil force hovering over this house, some
force that’s trying to destroy this family. Some nights I wake up trembling things
around here frighten me so.”
“I believe Mrs. Stoddard was
under some kind of a spell.”
Grayson. Fear pervades the
great house of Collinwood. Mrs. Johnson is by the window. No reprise. It is a
night of unknown terrors. This narration, so typical of DS, is one of the best.
Johnson lets in Nicholas
Blair who seems to call her Mistress Johnson. Roger went to Windcliff. Johnson
tells Blair that Mrs. Stoddard is missing for 24 hours. She explains about
Liz’s obsession with her own death and that Liz believes herself to be Naomi Collins.
Johnson tells him that he
didn’t know Liz, it is not a mental breakdown. “Mrs. Stoddard was under some
kind of a spell.” The theme sounds
slightly different.
Blair asks who would put a
spell on Mrs. Stoddard. Johnson’s answer, “I don’t know.”
She tells him to call her
superstitious if he will but she says:
“Too many things have
happened in this house, too many things that you can’t explain. It’s as if
there was (or were) some force, some evil force hovering over this house, some
force that’s trying to destroy this family. Some nights I wake up trembling things
around here frighten me so.”
Ahh, she deserves it. Roger
comes in and the door re-opens so that Johnson has to shut it again. Mike
shadow. Roger needs a drink. Julia stumbles in and says she couldn’t find him
(meaning Tom) and she passes out. Nicholas carries her into the drawing room
with the other two nearby.
Roger claims a brandy will
bring her around. Blair sees Julia’s fang marks, which she tries to keep
hidden. Tom was attacked on the property.
Julia lies. Mike shadow.
A doctor is on the way here
but she doesn’t want to see him. Liz’s nurse told them that Liz wanted to die
at Collinwood. Roger gets an IDK.
Blair will go out and search
with Roger for Liz, both of them thinking she is on her way here. Say, did she
walk the whole way? Or did someone pick her up in a car? We hear chimes.
Liz is in the graveyard. It’s
a very surreal few shots as she is superimposed over it. Liz voice over. She
now believes she will be buried alive.
Tom comes to Liz and bears
his fangs. She screams, bringing Roger and Nicholas Blair to her. Tom vanishes.
She tells them he was smiling at her. Huh? Guess she didn’t see his fangs?
She meets Blair and when she
finds out he is Cassandra’s brother, she shrinks away from him.
Later she knows Mrs. Johnson,
“I know you,” she says. She knows that Roger is her brother and she is his
sister. She tells Roger she will not die but everyone will thinks she is dead
and then she will die, buried alive.
Roger is going to get the car
to drive her back to Windcliff. Liz overhears his plans as he tells Mrs.
Johnson. Liz voice over.
Roger flubs when he says,
“Tell her, tell them…” as he instructs
Johnson to call Windcliff. Johnson
cannot call from the drawing room as Liz has cut the wire.
She has to go to the study to
call. Julia comes to Liz. Liz wants to prove she is sane. Julia seems ready to
accept something when the dogs’ or dog’s howling starts and she goes and opens
the ceiling to floor window door…and in a mirror outside the drawing room
and/or in front of the mirror we see someone moving. The zoom out is so great
we see a studio light.
What a pair Liz and Julia
make at the moment. The two strongest human females on the show and they are
messes. The dogs. Liz follows Julia outside. Camera appearance on the left.
Mrs. Johnson sees Liz leave
and the doors are left open. She calls to Liz. The outside area looks…odd. As
if there is some new design to it or some overhang or something.
Julia goes to the tomb,
looking for Tom. Liz comes in and sees the coffin, “Is it mine?” Julia, unsympathetic, yells at her to ‘GET
OUT GET OUT GET OUT!”
It seems as if Julia does not
care about Liz at all, only that she’s interfering with her meeting with Tom,
who’s seen before he should be –standing in a dark corner, not dark enough.
Julia smiles. Tom bites her—this time on the left side of her neck. The credits
seem to need to last longer than the credits do?!
Review: As good as it is to
have Joan Bennett back…Liz is back on her death kick and this storyline will go
on for some time. It’s thoroughly depressing and I could have done without it. That
was then, now it’s sort of intriguing and this IS horror.
The show gets a lot of
mileage out of it though but to me from my review in the past, it’s just
dragged out. Now, not so much. I see why they needed material to drag out.
The sooner Liz is back to
herself, the better. Clarice is particularly good in this ep. I like Blair
better when he SEEMS to care and SEEMS to be helping out. Here, he just seems
to be nice! But he’s far from it. He’s secretly plotting the end of the human
race while trying to calm Johnson (or just put her off the supernatural track)
and helping Liz! He and Liz meet for the first time.
Roger gives Mrs. Johnson instructions: “Stay with her while I get the car, and then call Windcliff. Tell her that — tell them that I’ve found her, and that I’m bringing her back.”
When Julia runs to the drawing room mirror, you can see a camera turning around in the foyer. Thirty seconds later, when Liz follows Julia out the front door, you can see the same camera in shot. Whoever was running that camera must have been having a bad day.
As Liz enters the crypt, she brushes her hand against one of the stone pillars, which wobbles alarmingly.
When Tom “appears” in the crypt, they make the same mistake with the lighting that they made last Friday — he’s supposed to step out of the shadows, but you can see him pretty clearly, just standing there and waiting for his cue.
Behind the Scenes:
The crypt set is a redress of the back half of the set they used last October, for the weird library/tomb where the recast Caretaker and the recast Dr. Woodard did some research on Sarah Collins.
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