DARK SHADOWS 578

Louis Edmonds. New Carolyn! There is a new Carolyn! Are we in an alternate dimension/universe/world?

A shadow moves in the window, then a person behind the curtains in the newly filmed reprise. This New Carolyn gets an IDK. Even when it is established that Adam is outside, we see someone moving inside the drawing room behind the curtains.

During the credits, we hear Louis Edmonds say, “Today the part of Carolyn Stoddard will be played by Miss Diana Walker.” I would ….imagine that he would know how to pronounce Carolyn but it sure sounds like he says Caroline.

Carolyn yells for Uncle Roger or Mrs. Johnson to come. Roger comes. Carolyn sees Tony is alive, “Thank God.”

The ground under everyone’s feet looks like what it is: a rug of some kind or carpet.

Adam voice over. He doesn’t care if Carolyn is angry with him for this.

Tony explains he was on his way out toward his car (which we did not see). Carolyn gets another IDK. It seems as if one of them, possibly Tony, forgot lines.

Tony explains Liz’s will changes to Roger and Carolyn but not in detail. “Boy, it seems like I run into some kind of trouble every time I come to this house.”

Adam watches Tony leave (we hear the car but do not see it, those days of seeing a car are OVER!).

NOTE: Carolyn and Tony leave via the front door and go out to his car. Adam watches the car pull away and we hear it. This makes it look as if the fountain and the terrace and the windows to the drawing room are in the front of the house which THEY ARE NOT. Unless Carolyn and Tony walked very quickly around the house. Is there no other exit to the back and why would Tony’s car be in the back anyway? I always thought that fountain was out back? There’s even a gate we saw this episode. Wikipedia says it is just outside the foyer!

Adam voice over. He wishes he had killed Tony.

Carolyn vs. Adam. Carolyn wants to turn him over to the police.

Carolyn, “I don’t know what to say to you.”

He has her scarf he took because it reminds him of her and he gives it back to her. He loves her. He does not want to be her friend. She says she doesn’t know Tony well enough to love him but admits she is attracted to him. “I don’t know him well enough…”

Roger drinks.

Roger tells Carolyn that Liz will cut them all off without a cent if her will is not changed and they prepare the things she wants. One of the bizarre conditions is to build a mausoleum. “Uncle Roger IDU any of this.”

He asks what she thinks about sending Liz back to Windcliff and she says IDK.

Roger vs Carolyn over this. Harry shows up and tells her that his mother (Mrs. Johnson) told him that Carolyn wanted to see him. Carolyn talks to Harry alone and asks him to stay with Adam; she’ll tell Johnson that she sent her son to Bangor on business. Harry demands to be paid one hundred dollars a day. Carolyn agrees to 100 dollars for tonight only.

Adam is writing a note and hides it when Harry comes.

Carolyn seems to be waiting for a cue to move into the drawing room to talk to Uncle Roger.

Carolyn tells Roger she is sorry. She thinks they should let Julia make the final decision about sending Liz back.

When Harry reappears, she seems to call him, “Jerry!” But possibly not and she says, “Harry!”

Adam threatened Harry and when Harry and Carolyn return to the West Wing room, they find that Adam tore the door off its hinges (who fixes it?). Adam is gone and they find the note. “You don’t want me. Goodbye.” Also we see a camera or mic rigging on the left.

Where did he go? Carolyn’s answer, “I don’t know, I don’t know what’s going to happen to him now?”

We hear a pop in the music as it ends, something we haven’t heard in a long time.

Review: strange. A new Carolyn is almost as bad as trying to recast Barnabas, Julia, Angelique or Roger and Liz. It just doesn’t work but it’s not that bad.

To be very fair, the new actress does an incredible job of almost distracting us from the recasting and while her acting is okay, it’s not Barrett, who I appreciate MORE after seeing this.

Diana Walker, though, is not bad and is watch-able. It’s hard to feel that sorry for Adam now that he’s attacking Vicki, Tony, and threatening to kill everyone at Collinwood (mind you, that might even mean Carolyn, too).

At the same time, Carolyn knows how he feels about her and yet she still lets him stay there. She knows he’s caused problems (does she know he caused Sam’s death?) and yet…she’s kind of dumb about him.

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

At the beginning of the episode, as the camera approaches Carolyn and Tony, a figure walks past the lighted window behind them.

Over the opening titles, Louis Edmonds announces, “Today, the part of Caroline Stoddard will be played by Miss Diana Walker.”

This is the last episode plagued by the faulty camera that puts a thin green stripe down the left side of the frame. It broke a couple weeks ago, and they’ve had no choice but to go ahead and use it anyway. This episode was taped on a Friday, so they must have fixed it or replaced it over the weekend. They shot these episodes out of order, so episodes 575-577 used the repaired camera.

At the start of Carolyn and Roger’s scene in act 4, you can see her standing in the foyer, waiting for her cue to enter the drawing room.

Behind the Scenes:

Carolyn’s understudy is played by Diana Walker, who I’m sure is very nice and not a nightmare creature at all — or, at least, not any more than actresses usually are. Diana played Gloria Upson in the original 1966 Broadway production of Mame, with Angela Lansbury. She also played Dr. Susan Burke on the CBS soap As the World Turns in 1967, and she played Mary Hathaway, a lead role on another CBS soap, Where the Heart Is, from 1969 to 1973.

As I mentioned, this is the last appearance of Tony Peterson, and we won’t see actor Jerry Lacy again until April 1969, when he’ll show up as another member of the Trask family in the 1897 storyline.

During his time off from Dark Shadows, Lacy appeared on Broadway doing his killer Humphrey Bogart impression, in Woody Allen’s comedy Play It Again, Sam, which opened in February 1969. As an odd coincidence, Diana Walker was also in the Play It Again, Sam cast.

Lacy also appeared in the 1972 movie version of Play It Again, Sam, and if you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. It’s funny and sweet, and he’s great in it.

We never find out what happened to Tony — just another cast-off soap character who walks off into the void — but Big Finish has produced a charming series of audio plays with Jerry Lacy and Lara Parker playing Tony and “Cassandra”, solving supernatural mysteries together. The Death Mask was released in 2011, and was followed by The Voodoo Amulet and The Last Stop in 2012, The Phantom Bride in 2013, and The Devil Cat in 2014.