DARK SHADOWS 585

Vicki. There is one hour of daylight left. Different reprise. Dialog is different and Julia’s hair seems different. No mic shadow. Faster dialog. Clunk after credits.

Julia vs Barnabas over whether or not to kill Adam. Barnabas tells her he has to or otherwise Vicki will be killed, does she know another way? Julia: “I don’t know.”

It might cost him his life or he might revert. Julia reminds him of the tape recorder, Eric’s message, and the near death of Adam and himself. HANG ON A MOMENT: how does Julia know about the connection between Adam and Barnabas? Was I just not paying attention and missed something?

I thought they knew various clues but not the exact nature of all of it. Here, it seems Julia knows the entire thing. Did she even hear the tape? They discuss that Nicholas Blair must be the one advising Adam and Barnabas wants proof but Julia thinks they don’t really need proof. Barnabas instructs Julia to take Vicki away while he stalls Adam. He flubs, and says, “Let her…” instead of get her or something.

Julia moves to the door and opens it and Adam is already standing there in a chilling scene. “Where are you going, Dr. Hoffman?” Mike shadow. Actual mic.

They lie that she is going to Maggie Evan’s. Adam blocks Julia from leaving and does not believe them. He suggests he go with her to Maggie’s. Julia urges Barnabas that they should just tell him the truth. They do.

Adam doesn’t believe or accept what they say. He gets more and more agitated, “No one can stop me.” Barnabas tells Julia, “You know what to do.” Barnabas flubs, and calls Julia Vicki and recovers…badly.

He gets the gun and Julia leaves. Adam threatens Vicki again and punches the rifle in half, grabs Barnabas, and punches him down. Adam leaves and leaves the door open, Barnabas unconscious.

Adam finds Julia in the woods (she manages to say, “You don’t understand!”) and she screams over and over as he attempts to grab her throat. Her screams are actually very funny.

Vicki reads a book that has a cover on it that looks suspiciously like Collinwood standing over a huge cliff with water below. Is she reading the novelization of NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS or HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS?

There is a sort of Afghan on her bed but…it’s not multi colored and looks like a new one or very old one but not the usual multi colored one we usually see at the Cottage (and elsewhere).

Roger comes in and tells her that Carolyn told him that Vicki intends to take a leave of absence. Of Jeff, she says, “I really don’t understand what happened to us.” Then she talks about it being only a few days. That’s hardly a leave of absence.

Roger thinks David can look after himself for a few days but it is Liz and her recovery that concerns him. Liz seems okay sometimes but then is back to talking about death, mausoleums, and being buried alive.

Vicki can’t believe this is happening to “us” since Liz was always so strong. Even though Roger gives her a few days to think about it, she doesn’t have to think about it, she tells him. She will not leave.

Doctors claim that everyone around Liz can make her better. Vicki was so worried about her own problems, she wasn’t thinking of Liz’s or the others. Roger goes. Adam is standing on the outside ledge of the window looking in at Vicki.

Barnabas finds Julia in the woods on the ground. She urges him to go, go to Collinwood, showing us how much she’s changed. In the past, she might have wanted Adam to kill Vicki since Vicki is loved by Barnabas, Julia’s main crush.

Adam is in Vicki’s room and has a voice over. “I don’t hate you.” Barnabas arrives and knocks on Vicki’s door, waking her up, just as, from behind so he cannot be seen, Adam attacks Vicki pulling her hair at the same time as choking her from behind. She can’t seem to utter a word but her mouth is not restricted.

The credits have the music slightly end and restart and there is something else odd about them. The words seem…odd somehow.

Review: Again, stepping things up. Adam’s been threatening Vicki for episodes and episodes and finally he does something about it. It’s absolutely wonderful how they do this and build this up without boring us, at least, not boring me. I actually felt that Vicki could be written out by being killed. It was pretty creepy to have Adam in her room. There is almost no filler here and that’s also a plus. There’s a sense of urgency that is not always present in DS. Adam’s storyline may sag at times and at times become very obvious but in this episode there is no sagging and no obviousness about it: I really felt the threat and thought that just maybe Vicki had had it. And again, the acting is strong. Adam attacking Barnabas AND Julia is quite funny in execution though. It doesn’t ruin the ep at all.

Story

Victoria, in her room, is reading a book that has a dust cover that looks suspiciously like Collinwood on a huge cliff overlooking water.
INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Adam: Barnabas must know what it's like to be alone.
TIMELINE: This is the first episode of the long night sequence that begins in this episode and continues until 598, when dawn finally comes.

Bloopers and continuity errors

In Act I, as Julia and Barnabas are talking about the possibility that Barnabas may die if he kills Adam, there is squeaking and shuffling from off-stage, and someone off-stage coughs.
Jonathan Frid flubs, "You know what to do, Mag... Vicki... [falters] um, uh... You know what to do now, Julia!" He also flubs this line: “Don’t argue with me now, Julia. You must simply go over there and be convincing to her, and let her, and make sure you get her out of here by tonight.”
When Barnabas looks out of the living room window of the Old House and says, "The sun has gone down," instead of the woods that surround the Old House, we see a picture of a huge panoramic window with a view of mountains, tops of trees, and a lake!!! [Perhaps the whole Collinwood estate is on a peninsula, and the Old House overlooks an inlet on the west side of the peninsula. So you're looking to the west out over the inlet to hills on the opposite shore.]
A boom microphone shadow can be seen above Barnabas's head as Adam blocks Julia from leaving the Old House.
When Victoria and Roger are talking in Victoria's room, off-staging shuffling and someone coughing can be heard.
When Barnabas struggles with Adam, the rifle falls apart.
How does Julia know Adam and Barnabas are connected? She only knew what David repeated to her. Before he could play it for her, Cassandra and Nicholas switched the tapes. [David told her enough for her to know there's some connection. She's just speculating on the possibilities of what that connection means. She does know that Barnabas provided the life force for Adam because she was there.] [Also, the dialogue here clearly indicates that don't know all the details even though they know there's a connection between Barnabas and Adam. As Barnabas says after Julia reminds him there is "some unusual connection between you and Adam," "We never quite knew what it [Lang's tape] meant."]
After Roger leaves Victoria's room and she gets into bed, Adam can be seen standing outside the window with his hands at his side. Since Victoria's room is on the second floor, this cannot be possible unless there is a big enough ledge outside her room for Adam to stand on.
When Barnabas finds Julia in the woods and he is waking her up, the loud, three-note theme usually used at the end of a dramatic scene is heard, and it is out of place in context with the scene. [It does sound somewhat like an error, but it does coincide with Barnabas's discovery of an unconscious Julia, which is pretty dramatic.]

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

In the teaser, Julia says, “Barnabas, we still have about an hour of daylight left. Why don’t we keep still looking?”

In act 1, when Julia says, “Yes, Barnabas, it’s entirely possible,” we can hear a door squeaking open, and then someone in the studio coughs.

Barnabas gives Julia instructions: “Don’t argue with me now, Julia. You must simply go over there and be convincing to her, and let her, and make sure you get her out of here by tonight.”

When Barnabas holds the gun on Adam, he tells Julia, “You know what to do, Mag — uh, Vicki — uh, uh — you know what to do, now — Julia.”

The camera bounces a bit as Roger enters Vicki’s room.

Behind the Scenes:

A little random fact that I learned while I was writing this entry — Dark Shadows is not the only daytime soap opera to get a board game. There were two others, both also based on ABC soaps — a General Hospital board game in 1982, and an All My Children game in 1984. The AMC game looks especially arcane and complex.