Hey gang,
Dan Curtis and the Dark Shadows writers deserve high praise for their exciting and thought-provoking 1995 trip-to-the-future story line. I remember being glued to the television screen, watching these great episodes as a young kid way back in 1970.
And, even today, as a somewhat older "juvenile," I still have to marvel at Dan Curtis, et al's fascinating sojurn, "to boldly go (splint infinitive!) where, at least, no other soap opera had gone before!"
If I have one small complaint with the trip-to-the-future story line, it is that we did not get to see more of Collinsport proper and its familiar residents, circa 1995. Ten episodes just did not seem enough to do justice to this intriguing and unique story line.
Sure, we got to see the reassuringly familiar office of Sheriff Patterson's successor in the Collinsport Police Department building. It was nice to see that the room's spartan decor had not changed much in twenty-five years. (Wouldn't it have been cool to have seen an official 1995 photograph of the 42nd President of the US, William Jefferson Clinton, on the sheriff's wall, just as there had been an official 1966 photograph of the 36th President of the US, Lyndon Baines Johnson, on Sheriff Patterson's office wall?)
By the way, I get the impression that the Collinsport town fathers had to conduct a nationwide search to find Sheriff Patterson's successor. I know that the apparently unnamed 1995 sheriff said that he had grown up in Collinsport, but to me, Collinsport's top cop sounded more like a product of Birmingham, AL than of Bangor, ME!
Of course, we got to get a quick look at the Collinsport Town Hall (which looked suspiciously like the lobby of the Collinsport Inn). I especially enjoyed seeing the enigmatic Ed, the Collinsport Town Hall records clerk. However, for a second there, I thought I was seeing the late, great Abe Beame. With the grey hair, the sharp features and being short of stature, Ed looked remarkably like Mr. Beame, the former two-term mayor of New York City. (Perhaps, such NYC-area DS fans as Raineypark, Cassandra and RobinV will agree with me in that comparison.)
Certainly, it was fascinating to see Carolyn Stoddard-Hawks, Mrs. Johnson and Prof. Stokes at their various, advanced stages of life. And, while Carolyn was "slightly" confused, the eternally-youthful Quentin, positively, had both oars out of the water. ("I believe anything and everything!")
Yet, I still wish that we could have seen Barnabas and Julia visiting some of the old, familiar "haunts" of Collinsport. Was the Collins Cannery still a thriving business in 1995? (As we shall see, not all of the unseen and unaccounted for Collinses perished in the summer of 1970, but, much more about that later on.)
Does Widow's Hill still look the same in 1995? Perhaps the land was sold, and beautiful (not to mention extremely expensive) homes were built there, to take advantage of the panoramic view of the beautiful Atlantic Ocean.
Nevertheless, the one "unforgivable" mortal sin that Dan Curtis committed , IMHO, is that we did NOT get to see the beloved Blue Whale Tavern. Now, I'll freely admit that the Blue Whale is my favorite Dark Shadows set because it housed my all-time favorite DS character/role model, bartender Bob Rooney.
Surely, we all got to see so many memorable events in Bob Rooney's fine establishment over the years: the heartwarming start of Maggie and Joe's romance (also, the not-so-heartwarming start of Carolyn and Buzz Hackett's so-called "romance"!), Burke Devlin's savage bar fight with the then-thuggish Willie Loomis, and Maggie's dramatic and shocking return from Windcliff (and the presumed-to-be-dead) to name but a few.
I would have liked to have seen Barnabas and Julia make a sentimental journey into the Blue Whale for old times' sake. Was the cigarette machine still there in the more health conscious times of 1995? (If it wasn't, I'll bet that Julia Hoffman, M.D., was really bummed out that she could not get a pack of butts!)
What about the familiar telephone booth that so many DS characters used during truly crucial and urgent moments back during the late 1960s? No doubt, the 1995 Blue Whale patrons were all using handheld cell phones, much to Mr. B. and Dr. H.'s bemusement and astonishment!
What if Barnabas happened to walk over to the juke box, would he find those two (and, possibly only) songs there on the play list, "Meet Me At the Blue Whale" and the theme song from the film, "A Man and a Woman"?
Somehow, I think that after Barnabas put a couple of quarters into the juke box (unlike the single 25 cent charge to play a song in 1970), and heard, say, the unfamiliar sounds of Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" or Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," Barnabas would turn to Dr. Hoffman, seated at a nearby table and remarked: "Why, Julia, I'm dismayed to learn that people listen to such cacophonous claptrap in 1995."
And, what would Barnabas and Julia have made of Bob Rooney's successor behind the bar? Instead of seeing a familiar, chunky, middle-aged guy wearing a Sears plaid, flannel shirt and pouring draft beer into a stein, they now see a lean, perfectly-coiffed young guy, attired in a stylish Tommy Hilfiger shirt, and twirling a couple of whiskey bottles into the air, a la Tom Cruise in the film classic, "Cocktail."
Barnabas and Julia would have been shocked to have learned that the foppish bartender, Jared Clark, was the twenty-something progeny of an illicit Portsmith "rendezvous" between the now departed Jeff Clark and the late (and not to mention extremely "friendly") Donna Friedlander.
Perhaps Bob Rooney has long since retired to balmy Key West, Florida. I can see Bob bartending occasionally at the world-famous Sloppy Joe's Tavern and also appearing nightly at sunset at the Mallory Square Dock on west Duval Street, as "Bartender Bob: America's Southernmost Down-East Saloon Keeper" along with the rest of the assembled and aging hippies, bag pipe players, contortionists, etc.
Heck, with a grey beard and a few extra pounds, the venerable Mr. Rooney might even enter (and, no doubt, win) the annual Ernest "Papa" Hemingway Lookalike Contest in Key West!
One final "haunt" that I wish that Barnabas and Julia had visited in 1995, was the always popular Collinsport Cinema. Can you imagine, if in an attempt to familiarize themselves with the culture and mores of 1995, Mr. B. and Dr. H. just happened to attend an extremely early (and, I mean eight years early) sneak preview of the smash hit "Gigli," starring the beautiful Jennifer Lopez and the dashing Ben Affleck?
Somehow, after seeing just ten minutes of the film, I think Barnabas would have turned to Dr. Hoffman in the theater, and said: "My God, Julia, this is excrutiatingly bad! No wonder why everyone is so positively messed up in 1995!"
With that, Barnabas and Julia would probably race back to Angelique's East Wing room, in the desperate hope of returning to Parallel Time 1970, realizing that life there (even in a burned-out Collinwood) would be far better that actually living through this nightmare of a true scenario in Real Time 1995!
Bob the Bartender, who respectfully disagrees with the delightful Ms. Doris Day, by saying that "the future IS ours to see" (if you just happen to live in the mythical town of Collinsport, Maine!).
