DARK SHADOWS 636
DARK SHADOWS 636
“I know a clinic. Yes…yes. If you don’t like the old Adam, we’ll make a new one. I need a project.”
“You know I’m convinced this place is haunted but in all my reading I’ve never encountered a ghost who used the telephone.”
“I’m using the body of someone named Jeff Clark but I’m really Peter Bradford. And I know it now. But IDK everything. If I knew everything, I’d…I’d know how I came to this century…”
“You hate me.” “Do you really believe that?”
Thayer. Different reprise.
Rainless wind.
The moderately to very
different reprise has Adam directly talking to Vicki about what Barnabas and
“they” did to Eve and “NO!” to her asking him to leave her alone and “You will
die the way she died! And Barnabas will suffer!”
ALL of this was said directly
to Vicki in THIS episode but in the cliffhanger, he is NOT addressing Vicki at
all, just ranting like a lunatic to himself and out loud and possibly to Eve’s
skeleton.
It’s not like he liked Eve
anyway and HE did that to her by killing her and insisting they redo the
experiment along with the evil Nicholas.
When Barnabas and Julia
arrive, his inflection in certain words is different, too. “I will kill you” is
not as gravely or pronounced. Barnabas gets his “You don’t know what you’re
talking about.” Adam gets his “IDK what
you were…”
Also: the last few shots
before the opening credits makes it look like Adam is pushing the switch…to up
and down to off?!
Grayson says, “The part of
Victoria Winters is played by Miss Betsy Durkin.”
Barnabas vs Adam physically.
Adam’s been shot in the back
of his shoulder but the blood seems to be in the middle of his back (?). Adam
hits a machine and nearly knocks it over. Julia shuts the machinery down. She
tries to help Adam, who blames her for only wanting to save Barnabas but she
also yells, “So you will live, too.”
Julia tries to run after Adam
but her comments later seem to indicate that she cares only for Barnabas but
slightly for Adam and seems to ignore Vicki totally. Julia thinks she will be all right. Barnabas Teleprompter.
As Julia keeps arguing,
Barnabas finally silences her with a “DO AS I TELL YOU!”
He suggests that they use
Julia’s car to get Vicki back to Collinwood. Julia gets angry and asks him if
he wants her to get Willie (WHO?) and a coffin. He might revert. He tells her
he knew what he was doing and made that choice when he fired that shot at Adam.
Is that a mic over Barnabas’ head?
Julia’s tirade seems to
indicate that she cares only about Barnabas and not Adam at all.
Adam climbs and jumps through
Stokes’s open window. He is there and answers when Jeff calls Stokes and asks
if the number Brockport 8279 is right.
NOTE: Stokes seems to leave
on his fireplace when he’s out, the fire place in full aflame.
Adam does not answer. Jeff
hears someone. Adam gets a knife when someone starts to come into the
apartment/house. Stokes comes in and Adam puts the knife down at once and falls
onto the couch.
Stokes will not ask many
questions, telling Adam that curiosity is the most boring of obsessions. I’m
sure this goes against one of his other silly statements earlier in his
appearances. Adam tells him not to call Julia. She is not Stokes’ resident
physician. Stokes calls a friend Carl and can rely on his discretion. Carl
seems to be a doctor.
So the Professor makes a noticeably sketchy phone call.
“Hello, Carl,” he says. “I’m glad to find you there. Stokes here, in rather an emergency. Can you come over immediately? I’m afraid I can’t explain — a gunshot wound, I should think. Yes, I know I can rely on your discretion. Good. See you soon.”
And then he hangs up, which is marvelous and strange. What the hell goes on around here, when we’re not watching?
Adam says, “You hate
me.” “Do you really believe that?” Stokes asks. He will help Adam. A storm is
brewing.
Julia waits in Vicki’s room
and Barnabas comes in. Barnabas told Carolyn everything it would seem,
certainly that he shot Adam.
Vicki wakes up and tells them
she heard the machinery. She asks about Adam. Barnabas: “I don’t know. Adam
went insane.” Adam went insane, he tells
her. She asks if he can stay with her all night but Julia tells her he cannot
but she will.
Adam has a red checkered
shirt on and somewhat open with bandage around his body. Carl left pills. Adam
is to take one pill every two hours to stop infection. Stokes feels that he
failed Adam and failed to follow through on his teachings.
Honestly, he tried but Adam
did not make it easy. He also seems to take the blame for Blair. Why?
Now Stokes has a second
chance. Adam says, “No one will ever love me.”
Stokes is not sure but he can
get him to a clinic to remove the scars. Jeff Clark comes knocking. Adam hides.
Jeff was worried when Stokes
was not the one who picked up the telephone. Jeff is told by Stokes that the
place is haunted in order to cover up the phone call answer but does a ghost
use a phone?
Stokes tells him he must have
dialed the wrong number. He was out getting the herbs they discussed. Stokes
has herbs that can help Jeff know if he is Peter.
Mysterious things happen to
those that take the herbs. Stokes is trapped between his curiosity about it and
his knowledge. Didn’t he just say curiosity was the most boring?
Jeff / Peter thinks he is
just using the body of someone named Jeff Clark. “I’m using the body of someone
named Jeff Clark but I’m really Peter Bradford. And I know it now. But IDK
everything. If I knew everything, I’d…I’d know how I came to this century…”
He tells Jeff to just marry
the girl; it will be an unusual marriage but most are.
Jeff wants to know if he is
Peter just using the body of someone named Jeff Clark. UMMMMM, WAIT A SEC. Jeff
looks JUST LIKE PETER so no, you’re not, dope. YOU ARE PETER, not just using
the body of someone named Jeff.
Uh, I think. Jeff eats one
herb when Stokes has his back to him, forcing Stokes to start a ritual, not
unlike a séance.
Stokes seems to call upon
something (“You powers…”) but…what? God? Powers that be? He uses Jeff’s inner
eye to see the first land that he knew and Jeff takes the second leaf and eats
it. He seems to eat it twice? Or is there a third leaf? Stokes calls out, “Know
that he honors you.”
Stokes asks to Peter to write
his real name: Peter Bradford. His mother was Nora and his father was Caleb. He
was born in 1770. Born in
He loves her and has to see
her again. Does he mean in the past or the present? He loved her. He tells
Stokes he is going back, they are pulling at him. Vicki hears Jeff’s calls. She leaves
Collinwood and goes to Stokes, awfully fast.
Julia had fallen asleep in
Vicki’s room. Jeff sees Vicki in jail and the noose ready for him or her. We do not see what he sees, just the noose. Vicki
holds Jeff and we seem to have a new take interfere with the old one. "They" are taking him back to the past. She uses
her love to draw him out of it. He refers to they who are trying to take him and seems to talk directly to them. Vicki refers to them letting him stay if he says he will commit to this life, this time. His love followed her and her love will make him stay. He comes out of it with her pleading. The two of them, Vicki and Jeff, decide, they will be married tonight.
And gosh, I’m so sorry but
Roger Davis’s hugs and kisses are just…uncomfortable. I can’t imagine how they
were for the actresses who had to be the target of them.
The credits are crew only.
Review: Wanting this
lumbering, and frankly at times, boring storyline, year to get over…I didn’t
realize what that would mean….what we’d be left with is the Jeff Clark
storyline…which went on too long and was never really all that great anyway.
We no longer get Adam out of
the scene AND WOULDN’T IT BE NICE TO SEE ADAM WITHOUT THE SCARS…it would have
been great to see the RETURN OF ADAM
that way and in the storyline that Sam Hall had written and told to TV GUIDE.
That is one regret that DS
going off the air before any of those storylines…anyway…we get Adam out of the
scene and then boom we’re right into Jeff Clark is Peter again.
I thought that storyline was
finished. Or at least told.
Betsy had a good to fair
start but paired with
And here is a premise that is so false, it made me consider giving up DARK SHADOWS forever:
“You can be sure that death is no better than life, so don’t look forward to it.”
It's not true. First, there is no real death. We just transition. Second, it's far superior to anything we've ever encountered in the flesh. Third, we've come from there to be born here, probably more than once. Fourth, we just don't remember it because of our desire to expand universal and experienced contrast. Stokes should know better. Shame on the show for saying this morbid awful thing but it always says morbid awful things, just like MODERN DOCTOR WHO full of Moffatisms and RTD2 false premises. Whether people believe in it or not, there is a God and there is an afterlife. And both are superior to the portrayals given to them in religion, in movies, in TV and in comics. AND in a positive light.
So whatever happened to Adam?
Well, first somebody’s got to go upstairs and polish those skis, that’s prio number one. Nobody can concentrate properly with dirty skis lying around; we’re not animals.
Once that’s squared away, Stokes will introduce Adam to one of his many shady medico acquaintances — could be Carl, it’s too early to tell — and they’ll scrape the Hollywood ugly off. Then Stokes probably gets Adam a postdoc at Amherst.
That’s not to say Adam’s new life will be easy. He’s still connected to Barnabas, through some kind of make-believe homeopathic midi-cholorian kung fu, and Barnabas is a loose cannon.
Six weeks from now, Barnabas is going to time travel back to the 18th century, and that means Adam’s coming along for the ride. He’ll get involved in some time travel shenanigans of his own, and then, just as they’re about to hang him — you know the 18th century, and hanging people — Barnabas jumps back to 1968, and Adam does too.
In fact, the next couple years are going to be a bit confusing for Adam, as Barnabas hops between the centuries, and off into parallel dimensions.
What would that do to a guy — getting tugged back and forth from one year to another, with no warning and no explanation, just an accidental tourist in the space-time vortex? Would it drive him insane? (Before you answer, keep in mind that he’s kind of insane already.)
And that’s nothing compared to 1991, when Adam turns into Ben Cross. And after that, he’ll become Alec Newman, and Johnny Depp, and Andrew Collins, and a whole bunch of comic books.
That’s the thing about dark twins, they don’t shake easy. For as long as Barnabas Collins exists, Adam will be there — sulking in the background, polishing his skis, and plotting his revenge.
Tomorrow: Bury Me a Little.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
At the beginning of act 1, the music cue fades as Julia pulls the switch, which makes it seem like the switch controls the soundtrack, too.
How did Professor Stokes magically procure a new outfit that fits Adam? And why didn’t anybody give it to him seven months ago? He looks amazing.
Behind the Scenes:
Robert Rodan didn’t have much of an acting career after he left Dark Shadows. As attractive and personable as he is, nobody had any use for a 6’6″ romantic lead. He did get a leading part in one movie — 1969’s The Minx — but the director couldn’t find a distributor, so he sold it to a porn producer who wanted to add some more sex and turn it into an X-rated movie. There’s a whole story about this in Barnabas & Company, which I’m not going to spoil, because it’s funny and you should already own Barnabas & Company.
Rodan moved to LA, where he landed a couple of commercials for Cheer detergent, and not very much else. He married, had three kids, and became a real estate broker in Southern California. In 2006 and 2007, he appeared in a couple of Big Finish Dark Shadows audios. He didn’t play Adam, but maybe someday Big Finish will get around to that.
The screenshot above is Mike Bersell, who played Bobby Martin on All My Children. I couldn’t find a picture of Bobby, because he only appeared in one episode in 1970, so that’s a screencap from a Rub’n’Glue commercial that I found on YouTube. Bersell has been a Chef de Cuisine at Disney World since 1988, which is delightful.
Even though Sam Hall said different, I always imagined the bond between Adam and Barnabas was broken when Barnabas’ body vanished from the old house basement in the fall of ’69.
Even though I grew to hate Adam towards the end, I liked Robert Rodan and I find myself a little sorry to see him shoved off the show so quickly. But as you wrote, at least Stockes suggests a little happy closure for his character.
Reports are that Rodan asked for more money. You don’t do that with Dan Curtis.
One has to wonder what Rodan had been expecting, since all actors were paid a modest flat per episode rate. A Joan Bennett biography (The Bennetts: An Acting Family by Brian Kellow) and her IMDb page list her starting per episode salary as $333 in 1966, and she had been a major movie star for decades.
Still, there appear to have been no hard feelings on either side over the years. In 2001, when the cast gathered to be honored by the Museum of Television and Radio (now on DVD), though not an invited guest Rodan emerged from the audience to step up on stage while Dan Curtis was giving his introduction for the event. Curtis embraced him warmly and invited him to take a seat and Rodan was allowed to sit in with the panel. Even Mitch Ryan was invited and appeared at this event.
Here’s a Tumblr page devoted to Robert Rodan as Adam, which includes an amusing photo, for comparison, of Richard Kiel’s Frankenstein’s monster portrayal from a 1967 episode of The Monkees TV show:
https://www.tumblr.com/search/robert%20rodan
As a footnote, Robert Rodan’s IMDb page lists his height as 6 foot 4, which would make him just 1 inch taller than David Selby, so it couldn’t have been his height that was a factor against his being recast. So if it wasn’t the salary issue, then it must have been that his wall count had dropped too low. Dan Curtis kept track of actors’ wall counts on a daily basis.
credits: it has only the crew credits, no cast, and the background is just a picture of the Old House, not a set from the day’s episode, which is usually the case.
Are you seriously telling me that this was Adam’s last appearance??
I haven’t seen these shows in 50 years, and I missed most of them back then due to the annoyance of being in Junior High School (as we called it then). Hard to believe the writers felt this was an appropriate way to end a story arc.
I actually think the Adam story had the potential to be touching and meaningful. What a parable: he is brought into the world for the selfish purposes of others, who consider killing him immediately. He then is alternately tormented or fostered, along the way developing a healthy mistrust of most people. He desires love and a mate, and is denied real companionship. He becomes a kind of arrested development teenager, mentally, constantly indulging in self-pity and anger. Yet he has a great capacity for learning.
Somehow, perhaps because the format wasn’t the optimum one for telling that story, Adam mostly missed becoming loved by us, or of any real concern to us. Which I suppose is actually one of the sadder things in a pretty sad story arc.
Good grief–he used his hands on her head like a vice, then kissed her hard enough to mash her face in! What in the world must have it been like to be married to him? Per Wikipedia, he married and divorced four times.
Our thoughts
John: It's funny how the lab switch also controls the music that's playing. As soon as Julia flips the switch, Bob Cobert's music ends abruptly with the lab sound effects.
Christine: That was pretty amusing.
John: A new outfit for Adam! And all it took was getting shot. Sadly, this was the last we'll see of Adam. Frankly, I think he deserved a bigger exit than Stokes sending him to his room.
Christine: I agree it was not a satisfying way to exit a character we've spent 78 episodes getting to know, and seems problematic with his fate still connected to Barnabas' affliction. If Stokes should send him away for cosmetic surgery and he dies on the operating table, could Barnabas be caught out of the coffin at an inopportune time?
John: I guess they didn't want to spend as much time or effort to send Jeff back in time as they did for Eve. Of course today's episode felt like it was designed to tie up a bunch of loose ends so they could move forward with new storylines.
Christine: I thought it was interesting to find out that Professor Stokes is not only a purveyor of rare herbs, but is also on a first name basis with a surgeon who specializes in treating bullet wounds discreetly. I wonder what other rackets he's involved in. It was quite a dramatic ending with Jeff Clark taking his first magic carpet ride as Vicki shows up in her granny nightgown to bring him down. It inspired him to clutch her head instead of his own for a change. How did Jeff Clark get out of jail anyway? Did he escape or was he cleared of charges?
This is a Sam Hall episode, so Stokes is delightfully quippy. “I won’t even ask you what has happened,” he says. “Curiosity is a most boring obsession. I’ll see that you’re taken care of.”
Episode 636: The Missing Link | Dark Shadows Every Day
Dan Horn doesn't even bother to note the Peter/Jeff/Vicki thing today!
Production
- Final appearance of actor Robert Rodan and the character Adam. He wears his third costume in his last scene. [Yes....this is the infamous episode where Adam goes into Stokes' bedroom to hide from Peter Bradford and is never seen again!!!]
- Thayer David provides the opening narration, but Grayson Hall announces Betsy Durkin over the title sequence.
- There are two tape edits in this episode: during the herb ceremony after Jeff says, “I can see the road” (18:00), and right after Victoria says, “I won’t let you go.” (20:08)
- There are no cast credits at the end of this episode, only crew credits. [Addendum: The picture is of the Old House, not a set from the episode as usual.]
Story
- We do not see the physician who tended to Adam's wounds. Professor Stokes calls him "Carl."
- This episode marks a foreshadowing to 'The Leviathans' storyline, referred to as "they" by Victoria and Jeff. When "they" are around Jeff, he is surrounded by a multicolored, swirling glow. The Leviathans' connection to the couple will be revealed in 967. Victoria's fate was prophesied in 617, and a mysterious force connected to Jeff's fate was mentioned in 610. [Addendum: This is an interesting theory, but it is "foreshadowing" only in the theoretical sense as the Leviathans story line was not even conceived yet.]
- Peter Bradford was born in 1770 to Nora and Caleb Bradford.
- Professor Stokes' telephone number is Rockport 8279.
- GHOSTWATCH: Professor Stokes mentions that he has never encountered a ghost who uses the telephone. Jeff thinks he is the ghost of Peter using the body of another named Jeff Clark. (This is somewhat ironic considering that David and Amy will communicate with the ghost of Quentin Collins from 639 using a telephone.)
- SEDATIVE: Julia offers to give Victoria something to help her sleep. Professor Stokes' doctor has prescribed Adam a pill to reduce the danger of infection. [This would not be a sedative but rather an antibiotic.]
Bloopers and continuity errors
- When Julia pulls the switches to turn off the equipment, it apparently turns off the music as well. It stops as the switches are pulled.
- In Act I, Jonathan Frid seems to have forgotten his lines when Julia is telling him Adam is getting away. He looks at the teleprompter and simply says, "Julia..."
- Why is Julia still wearing her trench coat when she is sleeping in the chair in Victoria's room? [Maybe she was just too tired to take it off.]
- How does Victoria get to Professor Stokes's so quickly from Collinwood, especially in a raging thunderstorm? She is in bed and is awakened as Jeff/Peter starts calling to her during the "herb ceremony" with Professor Stokes. When the scene switches back to Professor Stokes's apartment, she suddenly bursts in.
- When Adam goes to the bedroom door, there is a lock on it. Then Professor Stokes goes to the front door where there is no lock. Why would there be a lock be on the outside of the bedroom door and not the front door? If they used the same set for other scenes, someone should have remembered to change the doors.
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