DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '08 II => Topic started by: rainingwolf on December 28, 2008, 05:13:57 AM
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I've just finished the Adam story and have begun the werewolf sequence. It suddenly dawned on me what became of Adam---it was the magic shirt! All through the story he wore The Green Sweater. Now I always thought it strange that he went into Prof. Stokes bedroom never to be seen again, but on watching it this time, it was obvious; When he put on the plaid shirt Prof. Stokes gave him, THAT was the reason he disappeared. How could he be Adam without The Green Sweater? So we can absolve the poor Professor of any ill-doing, and blame Adam's demise on The Magic Plaid. Mystery solved. [frankie]
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i don't care how it happened but i have never been happier to see a character go than i was adam.
in my opinion he,and the ever expanding cast of disposable monsters that came to dominate the show in 1968,was the worst thing that ever happened on the series and the day of his departure was indeed a fine one.i'm glad they didn't even bother to give this idiotic character a propper send off.
i've only seen these episodes recently.i skipped ahead when i first watched it through because i hated the storyline so much i just didn't care how it ended.there were some high points and fun moments but in general adam,nicholas,eve and tom jennings sucked all the oxygen out of the room.for me they took alot of the magic and fun out of the proceedings.it was too campy and hard to take seriously.i love angelique but by late 68 and her stint as a vampire i was glad to see her get a break.
funny but once these characters are gone they're gone.they'd dominated the program for nearly a year but when their reign is over they barley get a mention.once the quentin and chris jennings storylines take off the show takes a decisive shift and all of that becomes history.
the show feels like it returns to what it truly is...a gothic mystery centered on the collins family as opposed to a sci-fi schlock-fest...with the commencement of the quentin storyline.it's like a breath of fresh air.it feels newly energized.i love these episodes seeing them for the first time.
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I admit the storyline had lots of flaws, but Robert Rodan did a masterful job as Adam. Also, the whole disappearing act was handled so sloppily, it left too many loose threads. Adam and Barnabas were supposed to have this connection wherein whatever happened to one, happened to the other. So, I always wondered, [spoiler]when Barnabas once again became a vampire, did that mean Adam did, or did it mean Adam was dead. If Adam wasn't dead, then Barnabas couldn't have reverted to being a vampire, right?[/spoiler] So many questions with no answers! It was frustrating and still is. Even worse, once Adam went into that bedroom of Stokes', there was never a mention of him again (at least, that I can recall). [bnghd]
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Adam is mentioned in #1043 & #1050.
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Hey MSC, my congrats on finally getting through those late 1968-early 1969 episodes. There are some real gems in there.
One of the moments from that period that really intrigues me, even though it more or less falls flat, is the scene where Barnabas has to explain to the Betsy Durkin incarnation of Vicki about Vampire 101. I kept waiting for the character to go: "Wait ... didn't you have fangs at one point and give me these really, REALLY weird-ass hickeys?"
G.
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I have always believed that Adam left Collinsport and traveled over seas to Asia.
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As I've never been able to watch DS on TV (except by DVD), and probably never will be able to as I highly doubt a UK channel is going to pick up a 40 year old American show (though the remake was on Scifi channel), I've only ever seen the end of the Adam storyline (aka. the episodes at the beginning of volume 11 DVD), and I find it really hard to watch and really bad. (And I prefer old TV shows to modern ones!) In this case, while I'd normally be annoyed by the lack of sendoff, I was quite happy with it as it meant that storyline was finally over and done with.
As an in context explanation... hmm. I'd prefer to think Stokes was keeping a black hole in that room. :P
I suspect that Stokes really sent Adam packing secretly - I mean, he wasn't exactly liked by other characters. So secretly that even the audience didn't get to see it!
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i don't care how it happened but...
What she said.
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I agree with mcsbryk. Adam started out interesting when he was non-verbal, but his very presence screamed "gimmick". We've done a vampire, so let's shoe-horn a Frankenstein monster into Collinsport. This was the time when DS should have been about Barnabas's transformation and adjustment to being human. That would have been real, and affecting. We should have had many moments such as that one when Lang threw open the curtains, with Barnabas re-experiencing everything that had been denied him for centuries.
Instead, they thought they had to resort to manufactured "conflict", in the form of the same blunt, uninteresting threats being issued by Adam day after day, week after week. This was high-school creative-writing-class writing. Remember, you must have "conflict", they'd tell us.... so students would turn in paper after paper of people arguing over nothing!
The moment they turned the spotlight on Adam off, when he takes refuge in Stokes' house, that's the moment his story becomes interesting. His education and maturation are worth showing, not his threats and hostage-taking.
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well put magnus,
i think adam would have bothered me less later in the series' run...sort of a last gasp.
but coming on the heels of the show's high points and plunging it into the abyss was a bummer.despite all the "gimmicks" the show actually works best as a character study.
and it went on waaaay too long.
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i think adam would have bothered me less later in the series' run...sort of a last gasp.
Yes, it does seem like exactly the kind of thing a show would pull out and use at the end, after it had run out of ideas and was struggling to stay on the air despite that.
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I, too, have voiced my negative opinion in other threads about the whole Adam thing. I think it would have been more interesting to start the story the way they did, with Barnabas receiving that transfussion from the Mad Dr. Lang (MDL) and it cures him (maybe it kicked in with the vestiges of Julia's attempt at a cure remaining in Barnabas' system), but in the process the MDL discovers what Barnabas was. The MDL, in turn, tries to find some way to utilize Barnabas, or at least his blood, for some nefarious thing, such as developing immortality, and this pits Barnabas and Julia against him. They could've thrown in Cassalique and her dream curse trying to screw the whole thing up for good measure. So now you've got the MDL vs. Barnabas and Julie vs. Cassalique vs. the MDL and that would've been good enough without having a lumbering thingamajob.
Gerard
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Maybe the problem with the Adam storyline is that, with all the non-human beings running around, there isn't any real reflection on what it means to be human. Dark Shadows doesn't have much in the way of philosophical pondering (think what it would do to the ratings!) but you do get the occasional glimmerings. There's enormous opportunity for glimmerings here, but I don't remember seeing much light.
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I have a love/hate thing going on for the character of Adam. I liked him when he was still in his childlike state, learning to talk and such ("Food....friend...") and found his unrequited love for Carolyn sweet but sad seeing as she didn't return his feelings. But once he went into his "I want a mate no matter how I get it" phase I all but learned to despise him. He wouldn't listen to anyone (except Nicholas) and couldn't be reasoned with (even Professor Stokes couldn't get through to him).
Adam lasted as long as he could on the show. Not that I'm not curious as to what became of him once [spoiler] Barnabas got turned back into a vamp by Jeb Hawkes later on. [/spoiler]
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Since YouluvBarnabas, you must also luvAdam... When YouhateAdam, do you also hateBarnabas, IluvBarnabas?
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Since YouluvBarnabas, you must also luvAdam... When YouhateAdam, do you also hateBarnabas, IluvBarnabas?
[laughing4]
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the show's previous three supernatural characters...laura,barnabas and angelique...worked within the existing framework and tone of the show.even with the time travel element of 1795 it was still gothic melodrama.
adam and company changed(violently)the tone.suddenly it's not gothic melodrama but a full fledged "spook show" with the main cast relegated to the sidelines and monsters the focus.they'd spent the previous two years telling us that these are the important people then suddenly they're not the important people these are?does that make sense?
with the start of the quentin storyline that rights itself i think.
i agree with magnus' comments about adam's constant threats.as a plot device they grew extremely boring.ironically the more grandiose they got the more hollow.while killing vicki was somewhat achievable once it became the entire collins family it became an empty threat with no suspense.obviously they were not going to kill off most of the primary cast and viewers knew that.
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Well said. I'll add that no matter how strong a man is, his threatening to take out an entire family one by one at some unspecified date (perhaps weeks away) is ridiculous and unbelievable. There are just too many factors to stop him. People would run away, especially after the first throttling took place. Granted, you want to avoid even that first one... Adam's counting on Barnabas's desire for secrecy to be absolute, and Adam doesn't even know Barnabas's biggest secret, so he can't spill much. It's bad for Barnabas to have some beans spilled, but worse than what Adam's making them do? (But then, Barnabas isn't doing it personally!) At what point do you say, screw it, I'm tellin'?
Okay, I guess he would do anything to keep all the questions from arising.
I don't know all the things that could be done about Adam's overblown and insanely open-ended threat, but Barnabas could think of plenty. Perhaps privately-hired security goons to overpower and confine him, who would keep their mouths shut? Anesthetic darts? I don't know how Barnabas has money, apart for a handful of jewels, but he has it. Call Animal Control? Sell Roger on the idea of armed security guards for some made-up reason? (Barnabas can't have Adam hurt, but the sight of the guards could change his mind.) Do some Carribean voodoo he learned when he was young?
Really... worldly, very grown-up Barnabas ought to have laughed at Adam's threat. Really, Adam thinks he can hover in some hiding place they'll never find, indefinitely, and strike down everyone in Barnabas's entire family anytime he wants, now or months from now, force Barnabas to dig up bodies and stitch them together in his basement (If it comes to that, though, he's having the help do it!), then after it's over, he can just walk off hand-in-hand with his custom-made mate into the sunset, unmolested?
Is Adam going to go through his life threatening everyone's family whenever he doesn't get what he thinks he deserves? His boss at the Seven-Eleven's really going to like that. I think the writers were thinking of Adam more as a "movie monster" and therefore as untouchable and unstoppable, when really he's just a very big, strong (unarmed) man, whatever his origins.
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Playing devil's advocate...
they'd spent the previous two years telling us that these are the important people then suddenly they're not the important people these are?does that make sense?
This prompts me to think that Adam's threat to kill the Collins family didn't have to be completely ridiculous to the viewers. The show started out with a sense that the supernatural did not exist but that Collinwood was a spooky place. Things changed, and the supernatural became real. The basic setup of the characters changed when Barnabas arrived on the scene. Why shouldn't another character also cause radical changes in the show? We could have ended up with a straight-down-the-line good vs. evil show - Barnabas vs. Nicholas - if the audience had responded favorably to the goings-on in 1968.
As for whether Barnabas should have perceived Adam's threat as ridiculous...Adam has been proven to have superhuman strength. Hey, he survived a dive off Widow's Hill! (Shouldn't he get a T-shirt?) If he decides to kill a bunch of people, he has the ability to carry through on it. And nobody will be running away. They'll just be saying, “There’s a killer on the loose...better not go out at night...I think I'll run down to the Old House tonight and ask Barnabas if we still shouldn't be going out at night...”
Anyway, Barnabas knows that the driving force behind Adam is Nicholas, and Nicholas is bad, bad news.
I concluded during the Watching Project's watching of 1968 that my objections to the Adam storyline are character-driven, not plot-driven. (Doesn't that make me sound highbrow!) Adam is welcome to threaten the whole Collins family to extinction however many times he want, if he'll just do it with a little style.
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lydia,
i'm fine with a character causing radical change on the show if the character is thoughtful and well written...as barnabas was for instance.
adam was none of those things.he,and the plot,was boring and stupid and adolescent.
your remarks make me think you care little for the original cast.i like them.i thought they deserved better than they got for most of 1968.for me there are more important things than how a particular plot affected ratings.i don't really care how "favorably the audience responded" to the adam storyline...i thought it was stupid.
i was glad when the primary cast was returned to front burner status with the quentin storyline.
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Yes, Lydia, even with a rampaging Adam going from one bedroom to another mangling Collinses, the survivors would still be waffling and wondering why they should leave the house!
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Since YouluvBarnabas, you must also luvAdam... When YouhateAdam, do you also hateBarnabas, IluvBarnabas?
In a word, no. I had at times conflicting feelings about the two men. I will allow that Barnabas and Julia probably should have handled Adam better than they did (having Willie look out for him was NOT smart at all). And Adam threatening Vicki and the Collins family, for example, was purely Adam (well, actually Nicholas) and not Barnabas.
Barnabas had good reason to think that Adam would carry out his threat, as mentioned, Adam proved he could have the strength to do anything when provoked. However, does anyone really think that Adam would have brought himself to kill Carolyn, the woman he loved? I tend to doubt it. Vicki, Elizabeth, Roger, even David yes, seeing as he had no emotional attachment to any of them. But he DID love Carolyn very much. I can't see him doing any harm to her no matter how many times she rejected him.
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your remarks make me think you care little for the original cast.i like them.i thought they deserved better than they got for most of 1968.for me there are more important things than how a particular plot affected ratings.i don't really care how "favorably the audience responded" to the adam storyline...i thought it was stupid.
mscbryk, my remarks were, except for the last paragraph, not about what I liked on Dark Shadows, but rather about what the audience might think was possible and about what the characters might think was possible. The last paragraph may have been a little misleading, because I see that I said “Adam is welcome to threaten the whole Collins family to extinction” when I meant to say that he was welcome to threaten the Collinses with extinction. And please note that I wanted him to do his threats with style. I assume you’ll agree that there was style in the original cast of characters.
There are certainly more important things than how a particular plot affected the ratings, but that wasn’t the philosophy of Dark Shadows management when they took the Leviathan storyline drastically off-course, and I assume it wasn’t their philosophy when they shut down the various mid-to-late 1968 storylines. If there had been a flood of “bring back Adam” letters, Dan Curtis would have found a replacement for Robert Rodan. I'm glad that didn't happen. I can't imagine anybody playing Adam better than Robert Rodan did, and even so, I just didn't like Adam.