The Dark Shadows Daybook: June 23

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1969: Episode 786

Magda tries to use the Hand of Petofi to cure Quentin, but to no avail. He transforms, anyway. Meanwhile, Charity Trask moves into Collinwood as Judith’s stepdaughter. She is soon pursued by the wolf, causing Trask to break off his harassment of Magda to help set traps. Charity meets Magda, and after having her cards read, falls into a dream where Quentin recites the lyrics to his song, revealing them to be his secret. She associates the werewolf with him in sleep, as well, and Quentin warns of the capricious wheel of fortune. In the waking world, the wolf tussles with a policeman and gets its leg caught in the trap.

This is that one. The one where Quentin sings. And he’s no William Shatner. For once, I mean that as a compliment. I assume we were at the apex of celebrity albums. Lorne Greene warbled the theme to BONANZA. Sebastian Cabot was doing Dylan. Adam West sang us our “Miranda” waiver. Eddie Albert was blowin’ in the wind. We not only had celebrities (kind of) singing, we just had celebrities. In our post-ironic age today, I’m not so sure that we do. Not in the same way. But with the DARK SHADOWS soundtrack album getting out there, this was a perfect promotion. 1897 is noted for its dream sequences, and this was one of the biggies, no doubt catering to the new, true audience: teenagers enjoying the first weeks of summer’s surreal freedom. Selby seems forever fated to do everything with class and integrity, and he pulls this off, too. The Charity Trask romance is conveniently shoehorned in with little relationship to the plot, but she serves as an easy audience surrogate for swooning.

On this day in 1969, Warren Berger was sworn in as US Supreme Court Chief Justice. He was replacing George Lazenby who sat in on one case before his agent advised him to move on.