Plotlines that ended up going nowhere

[Roland]

With so much going on at all times, I guess it was inevitable that the writers of Dark Shadows would occasionally drop a story line in favor of something more interesting or promising. I'm not talking about such major lapses as never completing the "Vicki's search for her origin" scenario that seemed to be the very premise of the show at the outset (or the way they left poor Chris Jennings hanging at the end).

I'm talking about more minor narrative dead ends, ones where it seemed like the writers had something bigger in mind then just let it drop. Two that come to mind happen early in the Barnabas story. One involves Sam Evans' attempt to put an art show together. Some larger-than-life woman from "the city" breezes into town for all of one episode to fawn all over Sam's skills as a painter and to get him all excited about gathering his work for a show. He spends a couple of episodes bugging Roger about the whereabouts of the paintings he gave him, then the whole thing is dropped without any further mention.

The second example is the house on the Collinwood property that Vicki falls in love with. Two episodes
involve trips by various characters to check out the house, then nothing much is done with it.

I'd be curious to hear from others of similar story lines that just petered away without explanation.

[Roland]

On further reflection, I guess the Sam Evans story line did serve a purpose of sorts. It brought out into the open that Roger was buying Sam's silence over the "accident." So I might be off-the-mark with this example.

[Uncle Roger]

In parallel time, there is much discussion about the mysterious and powerful Claude North. We are even shown a gravesite with a tombstone bearing his name with a date indicating that he had died in the 1800's. The character is killed shortly after this and the story shifts to 1995 shortly afterwards.

The love spell that Angelique cast on Maggie and Quentin during the Leviathan storyline is no longer in effect in the summer of 1970. Did she remove the spell?

[Joeytrom]

Claude North did get a large buildup only to be gone so soon.  He said the grave was that of his great-grandfather.

[DarkLady]

I loved Portia Fitzsimmons, the woman from "the city" who wanted to buy Sam's art. I was always sorry that nothing more happened with her.

I didn't realize that there was supposed to be more of Claude North. I always thought that once we saw that he was Roxanne's Svengali figure, there was nowhere else for that plot line to go.

And then there's always 1840PT's Gerard Stiles, whom Kendrick Young hires to find his sister. Well, he did, but that was the end of him. And here I was expecting him to start blackmailing all the Collinses--he would have made a mint off them too.

[MagnusTrask]

I love Portia Fitzsimmons, too... I was entertaining self just now, trying to imagine what creatures she could have turned out to be...

Evidently I'm having brain-farts, and can't think of any other examples, even though DS is full of them... those already given are good ones though.  They built up Claude North as some intensely crucial and fascinating character (that's the implication I got from it) that it got irritating.  They kept dropping his name into dialogue, as if we must care about who he is, as if we'd be bowled over when Mr. North finally deigned to grace us with his onscreen presense.  Then he turned out to be a pushy, very young guy with a prematurely deep voice... That may be why they thought his character would take off, some sort of magnetism coming from being the youthful dreamboat type with a startlingly deep voice.  All that's just a surface impression though, no indication of solid acting, and I guess audience response wasn't what they expected...

PT Gerard strikes me as a sort of DS practical joke on viewers!  Drop him in, yank him out!  What's fun is that no one onscreen has any clue as to why he's of significance to viewers...

[Uncle Roger]

During the Leviathan sequence, Amy has a dream/flashback where Quentin's ghost talks to her about Jeb Hawkes. The dream gets a bit of discussion. Quentin says the only place that they could have met is the one place that he'd never been, hell. The matter is subsequently dropped. Jeb is soon killed off. Amy is written out a short time later.

Also, as Grant Douglas, Quentin seems to have some sort of antagonistic relationship with the never seen Frederick Thorne. It's teased a bit, then dropped.

[MagnusTrask]

Rog, you mean they establish that Quentin's ghost, back when he had one, talked to Amy about Jeb?   Or did she just dream it?

Frederick Thorne, don't even remember the name.

[Uncle Roger]

Amy isn't shown actually having the dream. She recounts it in flashback form to Jeb. On another soap, it would be easy to write it off as a fantasy but on DS, dreams are seldom just dreams.

Frederick Thorne is someone that Quentin/Grant ran afoul with at the High Hat or Top Hat club. He is never seen and only briefly discussed. A red herring, perhaps?

[Robot_Quentin]

It seems like there were at least two completely wasted episodes concerning the possible cure for Chris and his pesky werewolf curse in the "moon poppy"...  For whatever reason that always irked me to no end.

And I agree that Claude North was a completely wasted opportunity, and Magnus it was hilarious how everyone goes out of their way to mention him in some fashion or another, and he really doesn't do diddly-squat once he shows up... Except pronouncing her name "Roggzanne", which was only one of his many annoying qualities.

[Uncle Roger]

Much ado is made in PT1841 about the mysterious Woman in White, whose appearance was supposed to herald the impending death of a member of the Collins family. Morgan sees her, although the audience never does. After Justin dies, she simply stops showing up.

[DarkLady]

Frederick Thorne preserves his life by very wisely staying off screen. I knew that Quentin had run afoul of someone at the Hi-Hat Lounge but didn't remember the name.

I love love love (did I say love?) the novel The Woman in White, a real melodrama by Wilkie Collins. So when people started seeing the woman in white as a sign that a Collins was about to die (absolutely not the case in the novel), I got my hopes up, only to have them smashed to bits. That was the most disappointing dangler for me, but when you consider the death toll in 1840PT, she would have been in almost every episode. 

[Uncle Roger]

I think that one of the early KLS books says that Nancy Barrett played the Woman in White. Obviously, a misnomer.

And, Dark Lady, you are 100% correct. She would have been in many, many episodes. Perhaps a certain budget conscious executive producer vetoed the idea. 

[DarkLady]

Too bad. They even could have made a few-seconds-long clip and reused it when needed. Sheesh.

[Joeytrom]

In 1966, After the Malloy murder is resolved and before Laura becomes the main storyline, there's an episode where Liz tells Vicky about her grandmother once seeing a "woman in white" and then they show a live shot of the "woman in white" running around the columns of the Old House (which was used for Josette's ghost a few months before).

They could have used this footage but most likely it was long forgotten.