DARK SHADOWS 591

Barnabas: “I care for everyone at Collinwood. You have threatened them all.”

Nancy Barrett. The narration mentions a quiet over Collinwood. The Different Reprise: the tables are in different positions. No new material before the theme though the dialog is somewhat different and the music sounds a bit different, too. The theme has that clunk back.

Adam is smiling like a loon. He goes to Carolyn. He wants two Carolyn Stoddards. He seems upset that she will not look like Carolyn.

Adam says, “I don’t know.” He is really annoying to Julia and Barnabas, now blaming them for trying to talk Carolyn out of this AND grabbing Julia AND demanding his mate look like and act like Carolyn. Adam continues to harass Julia and frankly I want to smack him. Julia says the word avonvital? Or allonsie talon? She also gets an IDK. And a “We don’t know, Adam.”

Barnabas asks if they are never to be free of his threats.

Adam asks, “Barnabas, I don’t understand, why am I not like you?” Barnabas thinks it is because they are both alive. Adam wants them to make sure Carolyn is alive at the end of this.

Carolyn is Barnabas’ blood relation and his friend and he cares for her as much as if not more than Adam. “Adam, Carolyn is my blood relative and my friend.”

Adam thinks he cares for Vicki more.

Barnabas: “I care for everyone at Collinwood. You have threatened them all.”

Barnabas gets Carolyn. Julia understands how Adam feels, she knows his kind of love.

Adam thinks she knows more about love than Barnabas but she does not agree but thinks she understands Adam’s kind of love. “Barnabas is capable of great love, I’ve seen it.”

She also tells Adam perhaps it is he that is afraid. Adam wonders what will happen if his mate does not like what she sees when she sees him.

Barnabas tries to talk Carolyn out of doing this. He will get someone else, anyone else by tomorrow.

Carolyn talks of Adam’s love without reason, as if when she was very young, love without knowing who she really is. The kind of love she knew when she was very young. She can do anything and he would still love and worship her. He realizes she has been hiding him. She tells him he hasn’t heard one word she has been saying. Barnabas says, “Carolyn, you are in love with him.”

Adam comes in and Barnabas leaves after Adam asks him to go on ahead of them and asks several times. Adam and Carolyn hug. It is the first time she let him hold her. He wonders what if she lived her own life, not her family’s wishes or her friends’ (what friends?) or living the way it was expected of her.

“Professor Stokes told me that people often live a life that is expected of them. I don’t understand.”

He tells her her problem is she does not think and she thinks he is very likely right.

Carolyn doesn’t even see his scars anymore. As she talks, Adam tells her she sounds like Professor Stokes. She says that at the moment he sounds like anyone of “us” who ever taught him anything.

She calls him dear and attractive. She admits to him when he asks that she partly thinks of him as a child. He wants to leave with her and will work for her. He wants to marry her and there will be no need to go through with the experiment. He will make her happy but she says no one person can do that. They hug. He kisses her head. HUH?

Is she still under the spell by Blair? It seems as if she wants to leave but can’t. She tells him that no one person can ever do that? Did she mean Adam would need help to get work? Or is this Blair talking?

Julia tells Barnabas about the danger to them and feels guilty. She wishes it were not Carolyn. Barnabas says, “Julia, please!” He tells her the experiment before worked and adds, “Thank God.”

She thinks he’s handling her, manipulating her. The tension has turned allies against each other. Adam comes down and makes Julia more nervous. Adam tells Carolyn his mate will be as she is. Carolyn wants him to judge her fairly. Barnabas and Julia vs Adam. Julia gives her pills for pain. There will be a slight shock and tingling.

One of the pieces of equipment is marked Mark 7 respirator. As the experiment goes on and Carolyn is in pain, Barnabas holds Adam back. Barnabas asks why it is taking so long. Me, too. Julia’s answer, “I don’t know.”

As it ends, Julia tells them if the mate is not alive in 60 seconds, Carolyn will die. It seems to be 11:30 pm. Everyone watches the clock.

This is the last of September 1968.

Review: Gosh, it seems to be stretched for a love story between Adam and Carolyn but that can never be. As it is, it is schizo. Adam loves her but he uses her in the experiment? To get a new mate? At the same time his constant taunts to Julia and sometimes to Barnabas REALLY are getting annoying and I want to kill him myself.

From DARK SHADOWS EVERY DAY:

o far, we’ve seen stories and characters from Dracula, The Crucible, Tom Jones, The Maltese Falcon, The Tell-Tale Heart and Gaslight popping up in strange combinations, and that’s becoming the dominant way that the writers think about how the show is made. (Post-cancellation, writer Sam Hall always said that they had to end the show because they’d already ripped off all the spooky stories they knew, and they were starting to repeat themselves. The possibility of introducing an original storyline seems to have just dropped off the table without anyone really noticing.)

Some of these narrative collisions are incredibly productive — just the combination of Dracula and The Crucible pretty much powers the A-story for four years. But there needs to be a strong character arc in the borrowed story, or there isn’t enough to do. Edgar Allen Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado made for one show-stopping incident in the Barnabas/Reverend Trask story, but Poe’s story is only one scene long. Dark Shadows needs five half-hours a week.

The blogger of DARK SHADOWS EVERY DAY seems to HATE the show, almost all the time.

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

I’m not sure exactly where the problem is at the end of Carolyn and Barnabas’ conversation in act 2, but they’re definitely not reading from the same page in the script:

Carolyn: Yes — love, Barnabas, not friendship. Love. The kind of love that — I can’t quite explain it — the kind of love I felt when I was very, very young. Love without reason, without much knowledge. Adam loves me without knowing who I really am. He gives me the feeling that I could do anything, and he would still worship me.

Barnabas: Carolyn, you have been hiding him.

Carolyn: You haven’t heard one word I’ve been saying, or you wouldn’t ask that.

Barnabas: Carolyn? You are in love with him.

In act 3, Barnabas tells Adam, “We know more or less what to accept.” He means “what to expect”.

After Barnabas announces that the sine waves have collapsed, Julia walks over to Carolyn’s table. A boom mic follows overhead.

Also someone seems to cough toward the end of Carolyn and Adam's "touching" talk.

From DARK SHADOWS BEFORE i DIE:

Our thoughts

John: Sometimes I wonder about Adam. He waffles between smart and sophisticated, and childlike and naive. He doesn't look anything like Barnabas, and yet he thought his mate might end up looking like Carolyn?

Christine: He suddenly seemed very confused about how the experiment was supposed to work.

John: This is an interesting development. Carolyn seems to be acting independently, and not just because she's under Blair's control. I find it hard to believe, though, considering how superficial she's always been, that she would be able to look past Adam's scars...

Christine: Yes, in keeping with the theme of having characters act in ways we wouldn't expect today, Carolyn now realizes that she loves Adam. But it was really taking things way too far when Julia said, "Barnabas, please don't try to handle me."