Discuss - Ep #0311

[Watching Project]

Robservations - #311

And if you'd care to look back, the first WP discussion topic for this ep:

Re: Discuss - Ep #0311

[DarkLady]

Lingering in the secret room of the mausoleum, Barnabas ignores Willie's discomfort. He remarks yet again on Sarah's purity and goodness. Then he smiles with patronizing amusement. You don’t like it here, do you you, Willie? he observes. No, Willie answers, with all too many memories of how this room changed his life. After some further Willie-baiting, Barnabas decides they will leave.

Willie hits his head as they exit the secret room. Poor John Karlen is in pain, clutching his head during the rest of the scene.

Poor David (still hiding in the coffin) can hear Willie open the panel but can't see how, so of course he's well and truly trapped. After Willie and Barnabas leave, he climbs out of the coffin ON SCREEN, the only view of this procedure during the entire series.

More new costumes: Carolyn wears a pretty, cherry-colored long-sleeved dress as she paces up and down the drawing room, waiting for news. Joe comes back after not finding David. After they spend some time blaming themselves for David's disappearance, Carolyn assures Joe that she's over Burke and is happy that Vicki is engaged to him. Vicki returns from a date with Burke. She is wearing a lime-green coat over a pink--but of course sleeveless--dress.

Vicki goes out to be miserable on the terrace, where Barnabas finds her. She tells him about David's disappearance, then bursts into tears, ashamed of her weakness before him. Barnabas takes this golden opportunity by the shoulders (literally) and tells Vicki, Why don’t you just lean on my shoulder and cry your heart out. No one will hear you but me, he assures her. I’m sure he means only to comfort her, and very happy he is to do it, especially with Burke nowhere near. But when he happens to look up, he sees that the moon is full (if not blue). Suddenly overwhelmed by Vicki's nearness, he is poised to sink his fangs into her neck.

[Lydia]

I had completely forgotten the story about Sarah and the dog that had to be put down, and of course now I want to know what its name was.

We saw Joe wondering why Wilie was so obsessive about keeping people away from the Old House, and if Willie was hiding something there.  So apparently management hasn't given up on their plan to destroy Barnabas.  I daresay Dan Curtis is just dying to do a big, bloody scene.  Well, he got it eventually - or did he?  Never having seen House of Dark Shadows, I don't know.  Maybe the ending is incredibly subtle.

During the teaser, I listened to Barnabas telling Willie, “Open the panel,” and thought Barnabas was being awfully high and mighty and lazy - but then I realized it was necessary, so that David would hear Barnabas telling Willie to open the panel, and know to jump into the coffin.  Really, it would have made more sense for Barnabas to go to the mausoleum alone.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

The following letter was written on August 21, 1967, the day before this ep was taped and the day Ep #310 was taped - but considering Frid refers to the taping of this ep as well as the taping of Ep #312, I figured I'd post the letter here in the middle of them. (And the reason why the taping day doesn't coordinate with the airing day (as in this ep was taped on a Tuesday but originally aired on a Monday) is because a lot of the eps in August and the beginning of September of '67 were taped out of sequence.)


Monday

Dear Mother,

This will be a brief one. I have two heavy shows tomorrow and Wednesday. I had one lemon last week and I can't afford another.

Enclosed is a write-up from last week's Newsweek. I was delighted with it. As of the past few days we are the highest rated soap. I suggested to the producers today that perhaps we'll lose that rating as soon as school begins. During the summer it seems to have become very popular with the kids. Most of my mail lately has been from young teenagers. They all complain about having to go back to school and missing the show.

Curtis (producer) told me today they are going to do a story where all the characters in the family are going to "regress into the past" and become ancestral counter-parts. I will play myself in my "first existence” and the story will tell how I became a vampire. Sounds like I'll be good for four or five more months. All of this could be subject to change depending on the ratings.

Had a good day today. Both the show we taped and the one that was aired were pretty nice.

Love, John


It's fascinating that even at this point Frid was thinking that his time on the show could have ended after the end of Barnabas' origin story. But what would really be fascinating to know is if at this point they were going to go with the 1830s backstory they were currently relating in the present or if they were already thinking of throwing all that out the window and going with what we would see as the 1795/96 storyline? I suspect at this point that there's a real possibility that it still may have been the 1830s  backstory and that's chiefly because I've read that one of the main reasons the origin story was set in 1795/96 was because the costumes they ended up renting for the storyline were of that period and not the 1830s. And I've said it before, but it really is so amazing how so many of the behind the scenes happenings influenced what we saw on screen.

And BTW, the show that aired on August 21, 1967 was Ep #301, which contains the infamous "dueling" scene between Barnabas and Burke.

[DarkLady]

Lydia, they probably used a swimming pool's worth of fake blood for HoDS! There's a gory scene in the middle, and the ending has even more gore. This being October, it's bound to be on some channel or other if you haven't got Netflix. It's a hoot. (I remember TCM showed it at some point last year, maybe as part of a Joan Bennett festival.)

MB, you are amazing--thanks for yet another JF letter! It does seem as though the writers are still planning to kill Barnabas off. I wonder if there's a specific moment or episode that indicates that they changed their minds.

I'm sure Barn brought Willie to the mausoleum not only to do the heavy lifting but also to torment him--he seems never to let an opportunity go by.

I don't remember that we ever find out the name of Sarah's dog.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I wonder if there's a specific moment or episode that indicates that they changed their minds.

I don't know. We'll have to pay attention from this point on to see if we might pick up anything. 

Also, I'm not quite sure which ep Frid might be referring to when he says he had "one lemon last week" because he doesn't mention if he means an ep that aired the previous week or an ep that he taped. The eps that aired were Ep #296, Ep #297, Ep #299, and Ep #300. The ones that taped were Ep #309 (which taped on the 17th) and Ep #306 (which taped on the 18th).

[dom]

My biggest question with this episode is how did David close the cement door to begin with? Did he push it closed or jump up and out to pull the ring? And why should I care?

I wasn't sure that David was in the coffin to begin with, but he was. Wow, can you imagine the panic? Barn should have known David was in there. He should have sensed it. He was able to sense Willie's presence at Collinwood and communicate with him via a painting to get himself freed, yet, couldn't sense David hiding in his own coffin while his hand rested on the lid?

I would love to know David's thoughts about what he heard Barn and Willie saying.

I'd forgotten about Maggie's kidnapping having just gone on, adding to the suspense and terror of David's disappearance for everyone. It's moments such as these that make Liz's absence slightly absurd. Every resident of Collinwood should be seen and heard at a time like this. I assumed Roger was out of town as he's been abscent for quite some time. (I wonder what Louis was up to?)

Most of this episode seemed like filler to me. It's all important, yeah, but I don't feel the need to analyze or question it. Everyone is involved in the search for David in one way or another. Carolyn and Joe acknowledge their breakup and sense of responsibility for David's disappearance. And Joe suspects all is not kosher re: Willie and the Old House. It all fits in and makes sense.

Barn and Vicki on the terrace at Collinwood; Well, I guess we needed a Monday cliffhanger. It felt like an uncomfortable time for a fanging, especially between Barn & Vicki. The scene really did nothing for me. It felt awkward with Vicki crying into Barn's shoulder. Burke should have been there, not Barn. It was kind of fun to see Barn's fangs though.

[Lydia]

Barn should have known David was in there. He should have sensed it. He was able to sense Willie's presence at Collinwood and communicate with him via a painting to get himself freed, yet, couldn't sense David hiding in his own coffin while his hand rested on the lid?

I disagree.  Why should Barnabas have sensed David's presence?  I still don't know why he sensed Willie's presence.  It seems safe to assume that Willie was not the first insanely greedy visitor to Collinwood since Barnabas had been chained, so I'd say that there was something special about Willie, not about Barnabas, that made Barnabas sense him.

[alwaysdavid]

David's trapped in a tomb in an old cemetery and in reality what are the chances he'd ever be found, but of course this is Dark Shadows and everyone thinks to look there. I wonder why Sarah doesn't come to help him. Does her helping only occur when she is in the vicinity and it pops into her mind? 

[Lydia]

I wonder why Sarah doesn't come to help him.

Not her job.  Her job is Maggie.  Yeah, I know, nobody believes me.

[IluvBarnabas]

I was just as happy it was Barnabas, not Burke. I've had enough of Burke these past few episodes....I need a break from his huffing and puffing and blustering. Even though Barnabas has sinister motives for her at this point, I still like to see how gentle and caring he is with her....but his bloodlust is still going to overwhelm him whether he likes it or not.

Glad to hear Carolyn is over Burke. I'll say it again it's a relief that the writers ended the Burke/Carolyn relationship before Mitchell Ryan left and Anthony George came on. I just can't see the wild, immature Carolyn of the first year of the show become so infatuated with AG's rather bland and uninspired interpertation of the role. Though in all fairness, it's probably more the rewriting of the character of Burke that I don't like. If they had Burke kept some of the spitfire and charisma that Ryan had infused the character with, I might not have minded the change in actors.

Case in point: Willie Loomis. James Hall portrayed him as a really rotten creep. John Karlen replaces him and though not as creepy as Hall's, Karlen's Willie is still a jerk. Of course Willie also makes a radical change but we have an explanation for that: he's bitten by Barnabas and his free will is taken away and his mean temperment is diminished. So the change in Willie's character is at least explained.

Why Sarah doesn't appear to David...I don't know. I don't believe she feels Maggie is the only one who nees protecting like Lydia does. I wonder if there are times when Sarah goes back to 'rest'. Maybe she did this time and when she 'returns' she's unaware of what has happened during her absence. This would explain why she didn't come to David in the secret room right away. I'm just speculating though.