DARK SHADOWS 612

“Why do you want Joe Haskell dead?”

We’ve reached….no, I’ve reached the middle of the series!!!!! Can I make this sheeetat till the end? Clarice. 2:25 am, no reprise.

Joe, Julia, Barnabas. Julia asks who, Barnabas answers, “I don’t know.”

2:30 am.

Harry voice over. (VOICE OVER 1).Harry knows he has to do everything Nicholas tells him to do and in his internal monologue he says, “IDU why. I just know that I have to obey him.” He will leave for the Old House now to poison joe’s medication.

Mrs. Johnson stops him. The opening teaser is 3 min 42 seconds.

Mrs. Johnson thinks Harry has been extra peculiar this week and she can tell when he lies by his eyes. We hear the dogs.

Barnabas voice over. (VOICE OVER 2).

Joe tries to leave. He calls out Angelique’s name but Barnabas tells not to say that name. Joe knows it is Barnabas she wants and Barnabas admits it this time.

Barnabas voice over. (VOICE OVER 3). Barnabas is sorry for Joe. He can’t leave Joe but he resists the urge to kill him, an urge put there by Angelique. Joe has a different Afghan on him.

Barnabas leaves. Julia is in the drawing room asleep in a chair with her jacket over her. He sneaks past her to get out.

Harry voice over as he watches Barnabas leave. (VOICE OVER 4). Harry sneaks in. NOTE: Almost 99 percent of the time, no one locks any doors in DS.

Upstairs, Harry gets another voice over internal monologue when he finds what he thinks is the medicine. (VOICE OVER 5). He pours he medicine in and in his voice over which continues, he thinks, “Why does Nicholas want him to die. IDU.”

The doors are not locked. Julia goes up the staircase and it and the banister move. She calls meekly, thinking she heard a noise, “Barnabas.”

It is very quiet as Harry hesitates. No music. We hear someone whispering. Julia calls, music starts and Harry hides.

NOTE: what is that on the back of the neck of Harry actor Craig Slocum’s neck? It looks like a huge scar or a shadow? No, it’s definitely something solid. Bad hair cut? What the heck is that?

When Julia comes to the room, Josette’s room, Harry hides behind curtains. He manages to poison the medication but cannot give it to Joe. He leaves out the back door (unseen as usual, but for one episode with Willie).

While he’s making his escape, in the woods, Angelique comes upon Barnabas and is angry that he allowed Joe to live. “Never mind how I know. I know.”

She wants him to kill Joe and live with the guilt throughout all eternity. Angelique bites him. He yells, “No-oh.”

In the woods, Harry finds Mr. Collins on the ground and helps him to Collinwood’s foyer where Mrs. Johnson tells Harry, “For once in your life you did a sensible thing.”

Having her for a mother must have been a dream. Barnabas will not let her call a doctor. Despite her fussing, Barnabas leaves from under a mic shadow and/or the mic itself. “Thank you for all your concern, Mrs. Johnson but I’ll be fine.”

He goes to Julia. He was gone for one hour. He tells her he heard the dogs howling and had to go outside. She says IDU. Julia states something does not make sense but when he asks her what, Julia says, “I don’t know. I can’t think clearly, I’m too tired.”

Julia tells Barnabas about someone having been in the house. He asks who it could have been (what? It could be several people). Her answer: IDK. He offers that whatever she heard could have been her imagination. She thinks probably and adds IDK.

Barnabas voice over. (VOICE OVER 6).

He goes to give Joe his medication. The credits have only one name, Craig Slocum, and the crew names, then it says 1966! It is 26 seconds.

Review: Many voice overs, almost all the time. We know Joe wants to kill Barnabas, do we need to hear him say it over and over again in his mind, every episode?

Ditto Barnabas. Usually his voice overs are an insight into his dilemma but now they are just repetitious and sort of slowing things down.

And to have Joe go down slowly like this…I guess it makes him go out with a long slow bang? I mean he gets attacked by Adam, bitten and controlled by Angelique, victimized by Barnabas, left behind by a confused Maggie, and later haunted by both Blair and the werewolf, not to mention memories of Tom Jennings the vampire! No wonder he went insane.

I guess if you’re going to write out a long term character you go for bust but…to have Joe the eternal victim…thank goodness Sam Hall later wrote that Joe and Maggie re-meet each other in Windcliff and have a happy ending. Let’s hope they leave Collinwood for ever and have lots of kids.

This must be a record for voice overs---there are six. Also about four IDKs and three IDUs.

ALSO NOTE: Nicholas sent Harry to poison Joe’s medicine. Okay, fine. Did I miss something? Did they cut a scene out? Suddenly, Angelique seems to know that plan somehow. She commands Barnabas to give Joe his medicine and he hardly questions that will kill him…he knows it will, too. He sort of questions it later in a voice over, admitting he knows it will kill him but the whole thing is odd an awkward.

Bloopers and continuity errors

In the previous episode when Nicholas gives the poison to Harry, he tells him to go to the Old House and Barnabas will be asleep by the time he gets there. In this episode, when Harry arrives at the Old House, he sees Barnabas leaving and thinks to himself, "He is leaving the house just as Nicholas said he would. Good. It should be safe for me to go in there now."

Before Julia enters Josette's room at the beginning of Act II, there is shuffling noise and someone whispering off-stage.

Julia has told Barnabas numerous times that Joe is not to be left alone ever for fear he will be summoned by the vampire or that the vampire will come to him. Yet when she arrives in Josette's room and wonders where Barnabas has gone, she then turns around and leaves the room, knowingly leaving Joe all alone and disobeying her own instructions. In the next episode, Julia again tells Barnabas that Joe "must be watched every minute until morning."

In Act III as the scene shifts back to Barnabas and Angelique in the woods there is squeaking from off-stage (likely the camera moving.)

Clarice Blackburn flubs a line: "Let Harry help you so that you'll be sure to be...get there all right.

There is a fill light mounted overhead inside the canopy of Josette’s bed, at the foot end. Pointed in the direction of Joel Crothers’ face, the light is seen shining through the lace panels.

If I’m not mistaken, the large blue candelabra with the blue melting candles seems to either be out of shot or moved for most of this episode but is there for one scene.

Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:

Julia tells Barnabas, “He’s young, and he’s strong. His system is able to endure a great med — deal.”

Hiding in the woods, Harry sees Barnabas leave the Old House, and Harry reminds himself that that’s what Nicholas said he would do. Actually, in yesterday’s episode, Nicholas said that Barnabas would be asleep.

Barnabas seems to have some trouble with the doors when he leaves Collinwood. He’s blocked from the camera’s view, so it’s hard to say what the problem is, but it takes him a long time get the door open and then shut it again.

The end credits aren’t cued up properly — when they begin, the last cast member credit is on screen, and it instantly flashes to Dan Curtis’ producer credit. The copyright date says 1966.