Dark Shadows Discussion Thread

[DRW50]

The show itself kept getting the year wrong (as time passed they started calling  it 1797, I believe, and of  course there was material in 1796), so that isn't something you have to worry about with DS.

[Broderick]

I like the very beginning of the series, too.  It's slow as Christmas, and some of the scenes can drag on forever.  But it's also VERY atmospheric, with doors blowing open and dead leaves scattering across the floor, windows suddenly flying open and curtains whipping around in the wind, lots of thunder and lightning, lots of exterior shots of Collinwood, the cliffs, the sea, and the Old House.   Once the ghoulies begin to arrive, it's certainly more bizarre, but also it becomes sort of frustrating, as they burn through their stories too quickly and too slipshod sometimes.  

[Vee]

There's some deep character work in the pre-Barnabas stuff, especially on Burke Devlin and Roger, even if a lot of storylines do focus on characters and plot points who never fully show up or come to fruition (like all the talk of 'Ned Calder,' a character clearly intended to pair with Liz who never appears). It's very well done for what it is, and Mitch Ryan is extremely magnetic (and great with Alexandra Moltke). I knew the show like the back of my hand as a kid and still have a great deal memorized, but I have never revisited the overlap period with both Ryan and Jonathan Frid and I should - I can't imagine the show being big enough for both.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend starting pre-Barnabas. I think it's good stuff, but I think you gain a deeper appreciation for that slow, dreamy material after you've seen the show's primary self. And I think the first year of Barnabas, the initial storyline, is terrifying work.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Vee

[te.]

Oh wow, I'm actually finished with the show.

 

The final episode is kind of a trip - first they wrap everything up, then they do a cliffhanger only to have Thayer David do a narration where he's basically "lol no that wasn't an actual cliffhanger"

 

I already miss it.

[te.]

Can we discuss The Josette Conundrum and how she's an example of the show being a child of its time?

 

When we first hear of Josette we think of her as this grand character - the sort of woman that would make a man absolutely lose his mind. Barnabas ends up confirming that - he's absolutely bonkers and would do anything to get her back to him, including brainwashing the local waitress.

 

Then we travel back in time and Josette is... an ordinary woman and quite frankly boring and plain. This ends up working because it provides an unintentional subtext that maybe Barnabas, being a romantic and an idealist, has a completely warped perception of her. Of course, this was probably unintentional by the writers as it probably wasn't a conscious decision as much as dictated by the standards at the time.

 

And this also is an example why it can't be rebooted - The Josette Conundrum of being an utter bore would present an issue for current day writers who would surely write her as more exciting and nuanced, which would take away from Barnabas's romantic and idealistic nature.

[Vee]

I don't think they intended that at all. I think they felt KLS as Josette was dazzling and beautiful. She was beautiful, and the character pretty much is the fair, doomed maiden they conceptualized her as. She just wasn't that deep. I don't think she was more or less boring in her original living iteration than a lot of other characters, though.

[DRW50]

I also don't think Josette was ever intended as making a man lose his mind. She was always a tragic figure. I do think she was allowed more agency and voice before the actual Barnabas arrived. Aside from Angelique, to a degree, any woman in Barnabas' orbit tended to just suffer and pine and suffer and pine and suffer. It's one of the reasons the character never really appeals to me that much.

Edited August 12, 2022 by DRW50

[Soaplovers]

I always read viewers were thrown when Vicki #2 started airing..and after seeing a compliation of the original Vicki's last few episodes, I can see why.

She has warm scenes with Liz, providing excellent development for Vicki..plus flashbacks to her hanging, her realization Jeff is Peter, the two having an angst ridden conversation about it, and how Vicki supports Jeff about Eve's death in the same way he had supported her back in 1795.  Then poof she was gone (and rumor had it that the Evw angle was meant to go on a bit longer before Alexandra's departure).

https://youtu.be/VskkdOr79Cw

 

[te.]

The reason why Alexandra Moltke's exit was so abrupt was because her doctor supposedly put her on bed rest for her pregnancy - if it was true or if it was a way to get out of her contract earlier, we don't know. But either way, they were supposed to wrap up her story with Moltke in the role, at least temporarily. That's why Victoria #2 was so short-lived - she was only playing out what was supposed to happen. When they decided to use Victoria again, Victoria #2 would only appear again if she was given a contract and since they weren't really interested in anyone but Moltke playing the show in the long-term Victoria #3 happened for a few episodes.

 

They apparently kept approaching Moltke to re-appear, but she was happily married to a wealthy man and had a child, so why should she do a daytime television show?

[DRW50]

She also supposedly said she would only return  if she got to  play a different role, which they would not do.

[AMCOLTLLover]

Im stuck in the beginning of 1795/#392-ish and I loved the pre Barnabas episodes.

Especially David. He started off sinister and evil and became the most complex character development out of them all.

The Phoenix Story with Laura was amazingly done too. 

[Broderick]

The only thing "wrong" with the beginning of the 1795 storyline is there's so much repetition, it sometimes makes it difficult to binge-watch.  It was designed of course for people who were watching an episode a day, rather than 5 or 6, the way we watch it now.  

(It's hard to watch Victoria walk up to everyone in the cast and "accuse" them of being Joe Haskell or Elizabeth Stoddard or Burke Devlin or Mrs. Johnson, or whoever, and then get reprimanded for it.  You'd think after her first "identity faux pas", she'd have learned her lesson, lol.)  

[AMCOLTLLover]

Really? That didn’t bothered me at all. I even had the feeling Victoria didn’t had much to do between November/December 1967 until early 68. She finally told Barnabas the truth where she came from. I mean Barnabas doesn’t believe in witches and stuff but believes Victorias story? Sure, sure.

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Makes totally sense

I continued the show now and made myself through 393 to 400. The last week of 67 and the first week of 68. I’m quiet in love with Angelique! She is making the show right now for me! 
Barnabas/Angelique are married now. But he starts to get suspicious of her now. I hope she can drag it out for a while. I even feel kinda sorry for her. Barnabas promised her the world and made her his mistress before Angelique came to town. He never really cared for her at all. He always loved Josette from what I saw. Everyone treating her with disrespect and wonder why she would lash out. I can’t wait to see where Angelique’s journey will lead to.

Victoria didn’t had much to do besides being accused of being a witch. (Her being a witch would’ve finally add something interesting to her story/character). We made so much progress with Victoria. She survived Matthew and Laura and became quiet confident and stronger and now she is back to being a crying useless character with no confidence again. Ugh. 

[Paul Raven]

Star Tribune

Minneapolis, Minnesota

27 Dec 1966,

Soap Suds Get Murky

Producers In New York know her as Kathryn Leigh-Scott, viewers of the "Dark Shadows" daytime TV serial know her as Maggie Evans, and to her relatives in Robbinsdale she's Marlene Kringstad. She was home for the weekend, and between Christmas errands she leveled with me a little bit on how a simple acting-bug-bitten girl from Robbinsdale copes with life these days in darkest Soap-land.

"Dark Shadows" is one of the newest developments in daytime drama, a suspense-mystery soap opera. In its few months on the air it has become a healthy success, with good audience ratings. The show that precedes it on the air has low ratings, and the show that follows has low ratings, so the producers know that a lot of viewers make a point of tuning just to that show. To me the biggest mystery about "Dark Shadows," after taking one look at it,  was why anybody would tune in at all. The dialogue dragged, and the actors were looking off into space trying to remember lines they seem to have  forgotten. . When those comments appeared in a recent column, Miss Kringstad's brother relayed them to her from Robinsdale. The column comments were about an episode in which Miss Kringstad hadn't appeared.

Miss Kringstad plays Maggie, a waitress In a coffee shop in the little seacoast town of Collin-sport. "I get stuck with a lot of the exposition," she said. "I'm a real yenteh, a busybody asking everybody who they are and why they're there. It's our equivalent of the French maid who comes on and explains that the master's away and young John is on his way home. The part was described first to me as 'a young Eve Arden.' You know, snappy, quick, but heart of gold under it all." The day I tuned in last week, Miss Kringstad was on the screen for most of the half hour, busy-bodying away with great efficiency. She and the other actors knew their lines; there was no fumbling. In that respect, it didn't seem like the same show I'd watched before. But a young Eve Arden she wasn't, and snappy the dialogue wasn't. It had that deadly soap-opera pace, with long pauses between lines. "I know," said Miss Kringstad. "Nonsequitur after nonsequitur, and the actors have to fill those spaces with their own thoughts. You have to build to climaxes where there is no climax, because there's a station break coming up and you want the people to come back after Rinso Blue. You get a little line like 'What do you mean?' that you might throw , away in a normal acting situation, but we build it up and load it with false significance so people will come back after the commercial to find out what you mean."I had assumed the show was performed live, because I couldn't imagine them not redoing an episode like that earlier one if it were on tape.

Miss  Kringstad assured me that every show is taped a week ahead of time. "But it's like live TV, because the first take is , the one that goes on the air," she said. "We've never retaped anything since the show started, and there's never been any editing. We're supposed to be professionals, and if anything unexpected happens, we're supposed to cover it. There's a 10-year-old boy on the show, and if he ever forgets anything, the older actors cover it as well as they can, and that's the way it goes on the air. "It's the most complicated Soap on TV, with 15 sets and two stage managers, and sometimes it gets pretty wild. Most of the soaps they do with a table and a coffee cup and a curtain, and they can read most of their lines off TelePrompters. But we have to learn our lines, and we really rehearse. With such complex sets and production, we just can't use the  TelePrompter. It's there in case you go sky-high on a line, but only as a last resort."

Miss Kringstad has been with "Dark Shadows" since it went on the air in May. She spent 10 months getting the part, and in that time did three screen tests and 10 auditions. Now she has a two-year contract that guarantees her appearance on at least one show a week, but she's been appearing more often than that and may become even busier in coming weeks. Miss Kringstad herself has had extra work as a ghost on the program. Regular viewers may be amused to know that it was she, wrapped in enough gauze to make her unrecognizable, who played the ghost of Josette Collins on several recetnt episodes. Some chores on "Dark Shadows" are harder than others, and Miss Kringstad and her fellow actors have compiled a list of Lines We Hate Most, which seem, unfortunately, to turn up regularly. These lines are "whaddya mean" and "you're acting funny" and "Why are you behaving this way? You've never behaved this way before." There are also "You act as though. . ." and "You sound as if . . ." followed by a pregnant metaphor. Surrounding these lines with pregnant thought it considered particularly bothersome. 

There's plenty of time left over for Miss Kringstad to work in TV commercials and industrial films, and audition for plays. So far she has a couple of off-Broadway performances to her credit. She's studying singing and dancing, since most Broadway opportunities these days seem to be in musicals. Miss Kringstad was graduated from Robbinsdale High School, and was a theater major at St. Cloud State, although she lists University of Minnesota on her credit sheet because nobody in New York seems to have heard of St. Cloud. "I explain it right away whenever that point comes up," she said. She did some acting for the North Suburban Theater and Theatre L Homme Dieu at Alexandria, but most of her experience has been in New York, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Herbert Berghof Studio. She paid her way at first by working as a Playboy Club bunny girl, and then by working in the complaint department at Bloomingdale's and walking doss in Central Park between 6 and 9 a.m. for a professional dog-walking service. Recently she moved into a garden apartment with a view of the East River. Her most recent non-Soap assignment was to wear a pink suit and white gloves to eat spaghetti while reading a Superman comic in an Italian restaurant, all for a Coke commercial that hasn't yet been on the air.

[danfling]

I don't know of anytime in her career that Ms. Scott (or Miss Kringstad) ever got to use her singing ability.   However, I am sure that she worked in many things with which I am not familiar!