I wish another actor had been found to play Dr. Lang. He's an interesting character. He believes in totally crazy stuff. but he doesn't believe in supernatural forces. A better actor could have made him into a three-dimensional loony, but instead, whenever I see him, all I can do is laugh which bothers me, because I'm not a member of the "Dark Shadows is great camp" school. What is missing in Addison Powell's performance? I'm not good at figuring these things out. All I know is that it seems to come from the surface, not from inside him - but I don't know why.
I'm always bothered by how careless Barnabas and Dr. Lang are with Professor Stokes's talisman. Stokes made it clear that he didn't want to lose ownership of the talisman. But when Barnabas handed the talisman to Lang, he didn't say, It's on loan from somebody and it's valuable, so that makes it especially important that you keep it on you. And even though Barnabas hadn't said that, surely Lang could have seen that, whether or not it had any practical use, it was valuable. It was from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, right? I don't remember any scene of Dr. Lang telling Barnabas, "Tell me how much you paid for it so I can reimburse you."
