Which Was More Tedious....

[Bob_the_Bartender]

The Dream Curse Or Tad’s Playroom?

Hey, gang,

I’ve been recently watching some of the 1968 Angelique-inspired Dream Curse episodes and also the 1970 Gerard Stiles haunting of Collinwood episodes. DS fans have expressed varying opinions on these two storylines. For example, Robin Vogel, in her superb “Robservations” here on this site, has opined that she found the Dream Curse to become tiresome after ten or so DS characters had experienced the increasingly terrifying dream. Personally, I enjoyed the Dream Curse, especially when Dr. Julia Hoffman and Willie Loomis experienced Angelique’s Dream Curse; Grayson Hall and John Karlen literally each chewed up the scenery with great elan as they staggered and made their way from door-to-door in that eerie limbo-like Dream Curse room.

It’s too bad that not quite every DS character got to experience the Dream Curse. I would have liked to have seen the venerable Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker experience the dream; it would have probably looked like Mr. Magoo fumbling through those “endless corridors,” and trying to keep his prince-nez glasses from steaming up in that oh-so-spooky place.

 And, what if the haughty Roger Collins had been beckoned by someone (probably Madam Janet Findlay or possibly Leona Eldridge), and upon observing the squalid condition of the Dream Curse room, Roger exclaimed, “How did I ever end up in a Hell-hole like this!?!”

If Blue Whale bartender Bob Rooney, my personal favorite DS character, somehow took part in the Dream Curse, I suspect that, upon entering the Dream Curse room,  the blunt and direct Collinsport saloon-keeper would unleash a steady stream of “colorful” and “descriptive” invectives that would make even the late Red Fox and Andrew Dice Clay blush in embarrassment! “What the ‘expletive-deleted’ is this God-d@mned place!?!”

As to Tad’s now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t playroom which we were shown during the summer of 1970, I found the room to be a real sleep-inducer, even better than Ambien or Restorol PM. To see David Collins and Hallie Stokes initially express great uncertainty and anxiety in that room and then for them to temporarily (and repeatedly) morph into Tad Collins and Callie Stokes, respectively, got old in a hurry. And, weren’t the teenaged David and Hallie too old to be hanging out in a room, stocked with toys more suited for ten-year-olds to enjoy?

And, please, don’t get me going on Hallie Stokes’ incessant whining during this DS storyline. I felt very sorry that Hallie had lost both of her parents in a recent automobile accident. It’s terrible for a young person to lose a parent (or parents), when that person is not even in his or her twenties yet. But, oy vey, Hallie’s anxiety attacks were just too much to take. “Give that young girl a Xanax, will you, Dr. Hoffman!?!” And, the usually sage and thoughtful Professor Stokes hardly “distinguished” himself by deciding to bring his grieving niece to Collinwood (of ALL places!) to emotionally recover from her terrible personal loss. (Beirut or Benghazi would have been more “peaceful” than Collinwood, imo.)

Finally, after all of this playroom nonsense in the summer of 1970, when Julia (and later Barnabas) finally  travelled to 1840, the playroom was only seen once or twice in passing, and the ghosts Tad and Carrie, who were so important during the summer of 1970, were mere afterthoughts as young people during the 1840
Gerard Stiles/Judah Zachary storyline. In fact, actor David Henesy appeared as Tad Collins in only a few of the 1840 episodes before leaving the show for good.

So, even with its faults, I prefer the Dream Curse episodes to the narcolepsy-inducing Tad’s Playroom episodes. What say you? 

[Gerard]

I much preferred the dream-curse plot better than the side-running Adam one.  And I preferred anything over the 1970 pre-1840 set-up storyline.  It was just an uninspiring rehash of the Quentin/Beth Turn-of-the-Screw season.  That playroom made no sense, whether in 1840 or 1970.  What teenager would use such a facility, especially in the mid-19th century when youth of Tad and Carrie's age would already be preparing to get married?

As for Hallie, I always waited for the episode where somebody - anybody - pushed her out of the tower room window.

Gerard

[Bob_the_Bartender]

As for Hallie, I always waited for the episode where somebody - anybody - pushed her out of the tower room window.

Yes, the perpetually angst-ridden Hallie Stokes should have taken a nose dive from the tower room of Collinwood, like PT 1970 author Will Loomis or PT 1841 Morgan Collins (a really “nice” guy) did! 

[Uncle Roger]

I vastly prefer The Dream Curse. The show was at a creative peak, wild and unpredictable. It also managed to involve almost the entire cast and gave each some interesting screen time. I too would like to have seen what Roger's dream would have been like. Elizabeth was off in the looney bin at that point but I'm sure that the writers would have come up with something special for her. But there certainly could have been dreams for Tony Peterson, Joe Haskell and Harry Johnson. Maybe even one for Cassandra.
The dreaded playroom! A truly bad idea right from the beginning. A retread of the Quentin/Beth haunting of less than two years previous and it does not compare well. David and Hallie are much too old to be drawn to a playroom. It's creepy for all the wrong reasons. I can accept vampires, werewolves, ghosts and witches. But I could never understand how the door would open to a huge playroom for some people but be a linen closet for others. Physical space should not change. If it's going to, there needs to be a reason.
Why does Gerard want to destroy Collinwood? He and Daphne have possessed the children and have taken control of Carolyn, Quentin, Elizabeth and Mrs. Johnson. Maggie has been sidelined. Barnabas is easily distracted. Julia spends way too much time reading ancient journals. Roxanne prevents Sebastian from doing anything. And Eliot is surprisingly useless.
I also think that the established occult practitioner Quentin is so easily seduced by the ghost of Daphne. That would have worked far better with Roger but Louis Edmonds had the good sense to sit this story out.
Many things are hinted at in 1995  and this setting but they never pan out. The Daphne/Gerard relationship that we see in 1840 doesn't really reflect what we see in 1970. And, if he's such a powerful warlock, why should he need two inept kids to resurrect him? Why would he have Carolyn be possessed by Leticia? In 1840, she's afraid of him. Edith would have been a better choice.
Poor Hallie. Poor, poor Hallie. I don't know if Cody was directed to give such an irritating performance or if that was the best that she was capable of at the time. I can easily picture director Henry Kaplan coming to her dressing room after taping and deliver a C minus.
Despite its many flaws, I do maintain a certain affection for the story. Nancy Barrett does some phenomenal work. And it's our final extended look at the core characters.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I saw Joan Bennett on a local NYC tv show a couple of years after DS had been off the air. Ms. Bennett was asked why DS had been cancelled and she replied that the show’s writers simply ran out of ideas during the last two years of its run. The summer of 1970/1840 storyline is a good example of this.

I think the DS writers didn’t know quite what to do with the character of Quentin Collins after Quentin became part of the Collins family household at Collinwood during the Leviathan storyline. We’d frequently see Quentin sitting in the drawing room, usually downing a couple of drinks and looking as if he were completely bored with absolutely nothing to do. Although Quentin was attired in contemporary, almost funky-looking suits from the 1970s, he still had that dreary 19th century victrola in his old-fashioned room on which he repeatedly played “Shadows of the Night.” You’d think that Quentin would have had a state of the art stereo system along with the latest television set and other modern devices. It was like Quentin was still stuck in 1897. And, as was pointed out in one of the DS books, Quentin was relegated to being a “sympathetic bystander” during the last days at contemporary Collinwood.

And, in regards to those summer of 1970 episodes, I found it to be annoying how Quentin had become so absolutely “smitten with the ghost of Daphne and the scent of lilacs,” while Barnabas and Dr. Hoffman were trying so desperately to prevent the impending disaster at Collinwood they had learned of during their brief trip to the year, 1995. Instead, Quentin was moping around, pining over his “beloved” Daphne.

But, what really annoyed me about this disappointing DS storyline, after Barnabas and Julia finally realize that Quentin hasn’t been helping them at all to figure out what was going on and trying to prevent the impending disaster at Collinwood, they actually let Quentin try to “save” David and Hallie at the last moment, literally, just as Gerard Stiles is summoning his zombie pirate crew from their graves to ravage Collinwood. Yeah, like I’d really entrust David and Hallie’s lives with a feckless fop, who was more interested in being with Daphne than in trying to stop the evil Gerard Stiles. Of course, Quentin fails to save David and Hallie and he then just blithely walks off into the
night, leaving Barnabas and Julia there as Gerard’s pirates proceed to trash the great house of Collinwood. Talk about a complete zero when the chips are down! I think even Willie Looms would have been more effective in aiding Barnabas and Julia in battling Gerard Stiles and his crew than the ineffectual Quentin Collins.

[Uncle Roger]

Joan was absolutely correct. At a certain point, the writers just were not writing for her or Louis Edmonds, two of the show's biggest assets. They're both still around in the various storylines but their involvement in the overall story is minimal. 1840 Flora is one of the highlights in an otherwise plodding story. It might have been fun to see an episode or two based on Flora's version of the events.
Quentin is something else entirely. He was certainly one of the most popular characters and I'm sure that they wanted to hold onto him. So they came up with that incredibly convoluted explanation as to why he is still around in the 20th century. After the brief is he or isn't he Quentin subplot, he's reunited with and quickly separated from Amanda Harris.  Amanda is supposed to be the major love of his life but she's never mentioned again. Granted, I don't know if Quentin was the type to moon over his lost love, the way that Barnabas did over Josette but it might have given the character more depth.
After all that, Quentin never really has a story of his own. He's certainly on camera three or four days a week but he serves no real function that couldn't have been fulfilled by Roger or Professor Stokes.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

I’ve often wondered why Louis Edmonds was absent for so long during these summer of 1970 episodes. The writers had Roger Collins go on an extended “business trip” to London which never seemed to end. Surely, Roger would have immediately flown back to the US after hearing of the deaths of so many of the Collins family and the destruction of the house. Yet, although we see Barnabas and Professor Stokes in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Roger is still nowhere to be seen as Barnabas is planning to I-Ching-it back to 1840 and reunite with Dr. Hoffman there.

Was Louis Edmonds involved in some other theatrical performance during these crucial DS episodes?  We didn’t get to see him again until he (as the senile Daniel Collins) attacked Julia in that accursed playroom after Julia had just made it back to 1840 via Quentin I’s stairway-through-time.

I would have liked to have seen Roger Collins reacting with his trademark supercilious skepticism as Elizabeth, Quentin, the two kids, Carolyn and Mrs. Johnson all became possessed after the evil ghost of Gerard Stiles had put the “Malocchio” on all of them.  Sadly, we never got to see Roger Collins again on the show. His class, eloquence and charming haughtiness were greatly missed, imo.

By the way, it’s too bad that we did not get to see the venerable Eagle Hill Cemetery caretaker’ s reaction as Gerard Stiles’s zombie crew emerged from their graves at the cemetery. I think the aged caretaker would have looked just like Deputy Barney Fife, after the Mayberry, NC lawman thought he saw ghosts in an abandoned house on an episode of “The Andy Griffith Show”! 

Perhaps the unnamed cemetery caretaker had already witnessed Jeb Hawkes as the Leviathan leader had resurrected five deceased Collinsport residents (some of them, who were the caretaker’s old checkers game  buddies, no doubt) from that same cemetery months before, causing the elderly caretaker to finally take off
and head for either Key West or Venice Beach?  And, that’s why we never saw him again in Collinsport, much like Buzz Hackett and Tony Petersen? 

[Uncle Roger]

Consider the source but one of the fanzines that I read at the time (possibly from the Grayson Hall fan club) said that Louis Edmonds had taken an extended trip to Europe, meaning that Roger needed to be written out. But the character should have been at least mentioned in the post destruction episodes. Even just a mention that Roger couldn't get a flight back to the states in time for the funerals.
There may also have been behind the scenes issues with DC. Several cast members report that they had issues with DC during the run of the show. If DC was going to play hardball with Frid, I'm sure that he would have no hesitation about messing with Louis.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Yes, KLS, in her first and best DS book, “My Scrapbook Memories of Dark Shadows,” made a point of emphasizing, that, “we were NOT overpaid on Dark Shadows.” So, the late, great Dan Curtis must have been as “generous” with the DS actors as the late Lawrence Welk was said to be with all of the musical performers on Mr. Welk’s long-running and “slightly” schmaltzy music show. 

[Uncle Roger]

Both Robert Rodan and Lisa Richards said that their time on DS came to an abrupt end when their respective agents asked about a pay raise for their clients.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Both Robert Rodan and Lisa Richards said that their time on DS came to an abrupt end when their respective agents asked about a pay raise for their clients.

No wonder then why we never saw Adam again on the show! 

[Gerard]

One of the big things that irked me about the 95/70/40 plot was that they had all these initial things that were suppose to be a part of the haunting and then did nothing with them.  First, as pointed out, there was the playroom.  It was a big 95 and 70 thing, but in 40 it was seen a couple times and then was never mentioned again (maybe it got turned into that linen closet earlier than thought).  And, in that room, was the carousel with its tune - a take-off of Quentin's Theme on the gramophone which did serve a purpose in 69/97 - that tinkled away a few times in 95, less in 70 (if at all), and I have no recollection of it at all in 40.  So what was its purpose?  And don't forget how important Rose Cottage, both the doll house in the playroom, and the actual structure found on or near the Collinwood estate (how did they not notice it?), which really amounted to nothing in 40. 

And then there were Tad and Carrie.  They got killed (by whom and exactly why?) in 40, possessed David and Whine...I mean Hallie in 70, and spooked around in 95.  But in 40, neither died (Tad faded away) and Carrie just kvetched about.  So what was the purpose involving them in the haunting?

Then there's the sailing ship, the Raging Queen (I can never remember its name) that was a big thing and some central key in 70 with its model of the actual vessel in 40, but when 40 rolls around, she founders into nothing.  Again, what's the point and the reason?

And it's never determined, in the original 40 time-line, why "Judard" failed in his mission to bring down revenge on the Collins, how he died, and why he just hung around in the rafters for 130 years with the spookified Daphne, Tad and Carrie.  Oh, and why did Daphne die?  At least with Quentin and Beth, it was explained that in the unaltered time-line, she blew him away and then offed herself. 

The whole mess offered up so much stuff and delivered on none of it.  I was so glad when we went off to visit PT41. 

Gerard

[Uncle Roger]

Agreed on all counts, Gerard.

The whole extended arc is a convoluted mess. 1995 starts off well. The first couple of episodes, where we don't know what happened to Collinwood or the family, are genuinely creepy. But it doesn't maintain that level of intensity.

1970 finds the show with a much smaller cast. But, aside from Roxanne and Sebastian, everyone else is based on the estate.A little contrast would have helped.

We're never really told why Gerard is so focused on destroying the Collins family. Vengeance? For what? And, if she's supposed to be such a powerful warlock, why is he dependent on two idiot teenagers to resurrect him? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have a possessed Eliot or Quentin attempt the ritual? Or simply try it again?

I do understand why there were no scenes played on the Java Queen. Budget conscious DC would not likely have gone for the expense of constructing a proper set.

Then there's Daphne. She's supposed to protecting the kids but invariably leads them into further danger. 1840 Daphne seems to be somewhat frightened of Gerard but ghost Daphne acts like his second in command.

And then there's the kids. We are led to believe that the kids are going to be a pivotal part of 1840. They are quite prominent 1995 and 1970 but are barely seen in the flashback. And, gradually, Barnabas and Julia seem to forget that they were going to alter history and change the present. But they are soon distracted by the return of Angelique, vampire Roxanne and a very talky witchcraft trial. Carrie shows up a couple of times muttering about a vision of her and Tad on the playroom floor. Just to remind the audience, I guess.

This would have been a difficult storyline to pull off without David Henesy. But not impossible. Why not recast? At that point, I don't think that Henesy had completely decided to stop acting. His mother stated at the Anaheim convention in 2002, she persuaded DC to use David on a recurring basis. He did make a few appearances (3, at the most) but the scenes were kinda dull.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Yes, I thought it was boring to see most of these episodes taking place in Collinwood and that doll house/old mansion, Rose Cottage/the McGruder Mansion. Although, we did see David and Hallie, being briefly confined in Windcliff. (And, by the decidedly no-frills, “spartan” look of Julia Hoffman’s private hospital, no wonder why Maggie was so emotionally confused by the time little Sarah Collins helped Maggie to escape that dreary dump!)

It would have been enjoyable to have seen at least one DS episode during this time, taking place in the Blue Whale with Barnabas, Julia, Quentin and Carolyn enjoying some drinks and good conversation at Collinsport’s favorite watering hole or for them to be shopping at Brewster’s Department Store.

And, to describe David and Hallie as “idiot teenagers,” REALLY hits the nail on the head!   

[alwaysdavid]

The Raging Queen!  Just that name gives me lots of story ideas, though They probably wouldn’t make it onscreen in 1970.  If the writers had run out of ideas, then why not hire new ones. I’ve always found Sam Hall to be mediocre.