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« on: March 19, 2011, 04:34:13 PM »
Glad to have stumbled onto this thread. Some extremely keen insights here - I never realized all the layers of subtext in the Reverend Trask character. I just knew he was one of the best-written characters on DS, and that Jerry Lacy played the role superbly. As for Trask's abuse and Jamison's silence in reporting these deeds to his family - I can relate.
While Dark Shadows was still on the air in 1970, I was in the 3rd grade in Southern California - and my male teacher believed in corporal punishment, and would strike and spank the (mostly male) students for misbehaving - by bringing them up to the front of the class, telling them to "Bend over!", and then in front of all one's peers, swat the kid in the butt with an encyclopedia, dictionary or unsanded ping-pong paddle! I got swatted twice in that school year - and I never told my parents about it at the time. Good thing laws changed and kids in school had more protection going forward.
As for the b-episodes with no main characters, I actually don't mind those so much. They're infrequent, and the episodes that follow them are often chock-full-of main characters (episodes with a cast line-up of Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, Louis Edmonds, Grayson Hall, Thayer David and Nancy Barrett are choice) who push the story forward.