THe Dark Shadows Daybook turns 3!

(With acknowledgement to the work of Tobe Hooper)

OPENING

Collinwood, night.

NARRATOR’S VOICE
The dawn will soon come to Collinwood, and bring with it the unresolved troubles of another day. A man, a man with an unusual compulsion, sits hunched over an antique typewriter. Besides the oiled, rhythmic noise made by machine’s carriage, there are no other sounds in the room. Yet somehow fear and suspicion still persist. It is a false calm, with terror echoing in the sounds between the letters hammering paper. The setting disguises the presence of an even greater violence, and the sinister stillness that obscures an unmentionable evil.

The camera has begun to pan down until settles on the keys as they spell out the words “Dark Shadows Daybook.” A light from somewhere offscreen flashes erratically, like a broken strobe light. Our writer is Patrick McCray. He is obsessed.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
This is a formica table. Green is its color.

PATRICK McCRAY
That’s of no use to me. You’re not even from the right series.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
Sometimes we speak of other things. Things that cast no shadow. 

PATRICK McCRAY
That’s the other guy you’re thinking of ... Wallace. He distracts easily. There’s a Dark Shadows Daybook due today and you won’t get in my way. 

The rhythm of the typewriter keys continue at the same pace throughout this conversation. The screen flickers, awasj with static. We hear McCray’s voice as the picture fractures into the opening scene of episode 211 of DARK SHADOWS. Jonathan Frid is standing in the foyer of Collinwood, a wry smile on his face. The actor is unaware how his life -- and an entire genre -- is about to change forever.



PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
No other character on television is quite as iconic... in the same way... as Barnabas Collins. Human in his frailty. Mythic in the fate he will chart. At the very least, he was a figure designed to save a network television show and potentially the careers of everyone involved. April 14, 1967 was the most important day in a lot of lives, most specifically the life of Dan Curtis. He had already introduced the reality of the character prior, with the image of the hand from the chained coffin. When I first saw that shot, it felt like it had always been in my memory, even though I’d never seen it before. It’s simple, fierce, savage, and sudden.

Back to the television ...

BARNABAS COLLINS
Oh, madam, if you would, you may tell her that it’s Barnabas Collins...

This scene is an oft-visted spot in McCray’s dreams. The register at the Collinsport Historical Society shows almost 10,000 visitors to this episode, alone. McCray has been consumed by his obsession, dubbed by the shadowy cabal that runs the historical society, “The Dark Shadows Daybook.” The daybook’s existence can be traced back to three years ago this week.

We cut back to the darkened room and the typewriter. McCray stops typing. The sounds of the keys echo for a moment in the darkness.

PATRICK McCRAY
Numbers. Dates. Today is Tuesday in 2019. The episode is a Friday in 1969, but will air on a Wednesday two weeks later. It’s been four years ...

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
“Moby Dick” is a whale made of 206,052 words.

PATRICK McCRAY
Herman Melville was an amateur. The Dark Shadows Daybook is already at 282,825 words and growing.



The video flickers again, cutting out more abruptly this time to episode 694 of DARK SHADOWS.

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
TV shows, but especially soaps, are vicarious homes. They are often for the lonely. The characters become family. The limited stage sets become extensions of the living room, especially now in the age of the 65” norm. And yes, we expect to see these new, beloved family members punished on a regular basis. But Roger and David have something more profoundly disturbing happen to them. They both receive Quentin’s (mostly) off-camera wrath. 

We cut back to the darkened room.

PATRICK McCRAY
Did I write that? I don’t remember writing that ...

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
It was just last year.

PATRICK McCRAY
1969?

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
No, 2018.

The video flickers. We see flashes from other TV shows from the 1960s. We see the Monkeemobile, Spock delivering the Vulcan neck pinch, a clip of Jay and the Americans playing some song we’ve all heard a million times but still can’t remember the name of. 

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
All of the potential energy for Angelique to be a force for good is released by just the chance that Barnabas might believe in her. But there are transformations and resolutions all over the episode. Judah Zachary no longer has to wear the mask of Gerard, and James Storm manages the new character with an elegantly brutal menace. He takes her powers as easily as she took Barnabas’ curse. The ease of both actions mocks the years of struggles endured to cure one and mitigate another. Yep. It really was just that simple. For someone in power, anyway.

He’s speaking about episode 1196 of DARK SHADOWS, but at this point the themes have blurred together to the point of becoming one episode. 



PATRICK McCRAY
Sometimes the faces change. Sometimes the names change. The everybody’s reality stays the same. My favorite episodes of DARK SHADOWS are payoff episodes. Rarely has a slow burn paid off in such a spectacular manner. Probably because this has been slowly burning for three years and finally wraps up, pretty much, the series. The key question: is it satisfying? Immensely, and as the first of three episodes, it’s only beginning.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE
Who are you talking to?

PATRICK McCRAY
I sometimes don’t know. The feedback is ... inconsistent. Sometimes I write these things and people respond. Other times if feels like I’m writing to entertain the void. But that’s OK because even the void needs a friend.

Static. This time we cut directly to episode 706 of DARK SHADOWS. Barnabas Collins has a gun to his head. We know it’s not a real gun, because it’s just a TV show. The character holding the gun, Carl Collins, also knows it’s not a real gun, even though he is just a fictional character. 



PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
Here we have Barnabas on a mission to save a life. As noble as it gets. And yet? From day one in 1897, he leads (as the title of my autobiography will read) “a life under siege.” Rarely has he had a worse day than this one, and it gives him the chance to display his greatest power ever, which the restraint he shows by not choking the living shisha out of Carl, Edward, and Magda. Yes, Angelique, Nicholas, and Adam tried his mettle and soul to the ectoplasmic marrow. These are major, existential crises. Compared to this unbroken chain of stubbed situational toes in 706? Childsplay.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE (VO)
I’ve seen this one!

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
Wait ... what?

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE (VO)
I used to run home from school to watch D-

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
I think we’re done here.



The channel flips over to episode 650. Victoria Winters is preparing her exit from DARK SHADOWS.

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
Betsy Durkin, in her final appearance on the show, again ably carries the episode, with a Victoria pushed beyond arguable madness and into an understanding of time and destiny known by very few. Her farewells to Liz and Barnabas are as credible as if she’d been essaying the part since 1966. Roger Davis puts in a performance both heartfelt and heightened, without ever straying into the hamfisted. The unsung hero of the episode is Jonathan Frid. In saying goodbye to Victoria, we see the character’s pain, his restraint, his compassion, and his wise dignity. Of course, for Barnabas, his knowledge of her is fresh. He’s known her maybe a year? That includes how they met in 1795. His feelings for her are fresher than we, the viewers, realize.

MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE (VO)
That Betsy Durkin opinion isn’t a popular one, is it?

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
It’s my daybook and my rules.



Another flicker. An old woman stands at the doorway to Collinwood. 

PATRICK McCRAY (VO)
At its core? People desperate to solve a problem rooted in paranormal unknowns. The solution, intoned by candlelight, is equally mysterious. The strange working used to summon Baphia Mapes has all of the logic of a dream… meaning none, yet it must be and is trusted implicitly. Like a dream, it is mundane, yet dramatic. It works, with dreamlike lighting to match. Rarely is the show this dark, yet steady and purposeful. 449 is rich with an atmosphere that arises from the situation and characters rather than being a desired, imposed “feel” in search of a story. 

The screen begins to flicker again as the sound of a typewriter rises in the background. It’s as if sound is pushing out vision. We cut quickly back to the darkened room. PATRICK McCRAY is back to work. His body is here in the present; his mind has travelled backward in time to 1970. And 1840. And 2012. And 1795. The MAN FROM ANOTHER PLACE has gone back to ... well, another place. Probably Lodi, New Jersey.

PATRICK McCRAY
282,826 words ... 282,827 words ... 282,828 ... 282,829

FADE OUT