By PATRICK McCRAY
Aug. 3, 1966
Taped on this date: Episode:37
It’s the middle of the night, Roger is awake in the drawing room, fraught with fear. He phones Sam, similarly awake. He wants Sam to cancel Burke’s portrait session immediately. Vicki, awake, walks in and is assailed by Roger, who accuses her of listening in. Vicki informs him that she tried to quit, but Liz prevented it. He brings further attention to himself by forbidding her to speak of the phone call she didn’t hear. At the Evans cottage, an awakened Maggie wants to know what the phone call was about. He tells her not to worry, but she will. After she retires, Sam pens a note. Maggie, still awake, asks about it, but Sam keeps its contents a secret. The note, he reveals, is for Maggie, only to be opened in an emergency. She intuits that it was about Roger. Sam murmurs about ghosts. Back at Collinwood, mysterious weeping leads Vicki on a hunt for its origin. It leads her to the forbidden room in the basement. Footsteps follow her… those of Roger Collins. He’s furious that she’s doing anything beyond her job. The phone rings. It’s Ned Caulder, and Roger dismisses it. Vicki tries to tell Roger that Liz was desperate for the call. Roger scolds her again, but apologizes. Vicki won’t buy it, but Roger implores her to speak with him. Roger blames his temper on the pressure. He apologizes unilaterally to prevent her from complaining to Liz. Vicki will accept his apology if Roger will acknowledge the sobbing. He does, and has no idea of its origin. Ghosts? Roger feels they are real indeed.
If Roger were any more Nixonianly paranoid about phone calls, he’d start speaking in the third person. But he has a strong streak of Eddie Haskell, as well, when he tries to seduce Victoria into not having Liz give him the royal redass he deserves.
(Episode 28 airs on this date.)
Aug. 3, 1967
Taped on this date: Episode:298
Liz and Carolyn theorize that, with the recuperation of Maggie, they should be safe from the maniac who once roamed Collinwood. Nevertheless, Carolyn senses impending doom. Burke arrives to ask Liz to buy Seaview, the house he looked at earlier. Liz agrees. Carolyn warmly invites him in, knowing it’s for Vicki. Liz finds that the deed is marked “not for sale.” She knows little else about the house. Liz and Carolyn agree to examine the house with Burke. At the house, Liz marvels at Burke’s urge to settle down. He wants her approval, and that warms both. Liz suggests that there is a coldness to the house that makes her uneasy. Burke wants to know the cost, but Liz is uncertain. At the Evans cottage, Vicki probes Maggie on her memory of the night someone tried to break into her room. Maggie feels so close to remembering everything, and wants to. But she just can’t. The loss of time and memory is infuriating. Vicki suggests that she thought she saw her at the Eagle Hill cemetery. It seems strangely familiar, but Maggie still can’t recall. It doesn’t make sense. When Maggie hears that Vicki was putting flowers on the grave of Josette, Maggie goes into a strange reverie and begins to remember. The name has significance, but what? Maggie the remembers a grave, then a coffin. A knock at the door heralds Julia, looking for Sam. Julia eavesdrops on the memories of coffins and graves. Vicki further gets her attention with the mention of Barnabas and the Old House. Julia steps in with her hypnotic medallion. Vicki goes for tea, and Julia re-hypnotizes Maggie to forget. When Vicki returns, Maggie remembers nothing.
Seaview. A nod to Seaview Terrace, the home used for the exterior shots of Collinwood. In my fevered imagination, it provided the name for Collins Oceanic’s secret construction project for Admiral H. Nelson’s revolutionary submarine that saved the Earth any number of times. If you can separate DARK SHADOWS from the Irwin Allen Universe, you’re a better man than I. Seriously, I saw Seaview Terrace by accident back in 1998. I was chaperoning a trip to the Boston area. We’d just been to Lovecraft Country and were headed to the Breakers mansion. The bus turned a corner and there it was. It’s surprisingly close to the road. Very few images have taken my breath away. This may be the most mythically resonant one I’ve ever seen. You know in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, when Kirk gets that exterior tour around the refit Enterprise? Yeah, it was that. I never feel fear or foreboding when I see that building. Collinwood, as much as anything, represents hope and possibility. It was a James-Horner-COCOON-theme moment. I’ll never forget it. Worth the drive. Also… Fact: Julia Hoffman… she swings a mean hypnodisc.
(Episode 289 airs on this date.)
Aug. 3, 1970
Taped on this date: Episode: 1076
The first sign in Carolyn’s list… the night of the sun and the moon… happens with a lunar eclipse. Meanwhile, David and Hallie follow the music they hear along with the note, “When the music stops, the play begins.” They find the doors to the playroom swing wide, and they enter. Hallie knows that the door should have been to a closet, but David suspects it is the ghost of a room. David seems scared, but Hallie is suddenly enchanted. She even knows the names of the horses on the spinning toy. David wants to know to whom the toys belong. Hallie suddenly speaks in an 1800’s vernacular, but David is perplexed. She suddenly asks to be called a name other than Hallie. Suddenly, Hallie cames to and grows frightened. The scent of lilacs fills the room, and they know “she’s here.” Hallie dashes out with David in pursuit. Left in the room? The ghost of Daphne. As the clock strikes, Quentin comes down to rouse Julia. The kids are asleep, the sun is up, and all is at peace. Maybe Carolyn’s 1995 warning meant nothing. Just the warnings of madness. But what of the house in ruins and Future Quentin’s insanity. Julia insists that the clues are their only guide to prevent the catastrophe. David visits a nervous Hallie. He wanted to see the ghost but she is unsure. She has no memory of her brief moment of nineteenth century reverie. All she remembers was entering the room, feeling fear, and the scent of lilacs. She has had it. She’s putting the dress from the attic back. David thought it was fun, but Hallie is hysterical. Julia finds Quentin drinking in the drawing room, thinking himself lonely. He says he wants a woman; Julia says he wants a drinking partner. She’s going to town to research Gerard. Quentin compliments her perfume, but she’s not wearing any. He can’t describe the scent until she leaves. Then he realizes it’s lilacs. Later, Quentin and Julia find each other in the cemetery. She’s coming back from town; he’s there to think. She found nothing about Gerard, and they examine his headstone. She then points out Daphne’s tombstone. Daphne was a ghost he spoke of in the future. She had a hold on him in the future. She was beautiful, impassive, and had the scent of lilacs. Quentin lies that the scent means nothing to him. Back in the Collinwood foyer, Hallie hears the playroom music, but David doesn’t. He wants to go, but she wants to stay. David accuses her of making it up, but she holds fast. Alone, she returns to the playroom, not knowing why she came. The doors open by themselves and she sees Daphne, sternly gazing at her. Hallie knew she’d be there. Daphne proffers the dress hallie put away. Hallie begs her to tell why she wants her to have the dress, and reluctantly takes it. In the drawing room, Quentin drinks and ponders the name of Daphne and the scent of lilacs. He falls into a dream where lilacs appear before him. In his dream, Daphne enters the drawing room and lays lilacs on the table before him. He calls her name, happily, but she withdraws. He begs her to stay. Quentin wakes to find himself alone. Except for the bouquet of lilacs that Daphne placed in the dream. Quentin smiles and asks for Daphne to appear to him.
If you’re a ghost from the 1800’s, you have to take out your greatest threat: master mage Quentin Collins. And how? Through his heart, with a woman from his own mother’s era. No one says it, but it’s as Oedipal as it gets. You see? He pulls a sword, you pull a bouquet of lilacs.That’s how you get Quentin Collins. That’s the Collinwood way. More happens in this episode than in the first six months of the series. (Trust me.)
(Episode 1071 airs on this date.)
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