By JUSTIN PARTRIDGE
I suppose I owe you lovely readers an apology first and foremost.
It has been a good while since I have graced the hallowed halls of the CHS. So long in fact that my typewriter and paltry desk lamp have been moved BACK down to the Cupboard Under the Stairs, right back next to the mop and spare encyclopedias. It really is my bad.
Truth be told, some freelance work took me up to accursed Bangor and kept me there far, far too long. I got to talk about
Swamp Thing over at
Newsarama a bunch. I covered some horror film festivals AND wrote in a quite good zine (available now and with issue #2 on the way!) over at
Dis/Member. I was even in a magazine! The Eisner winning
PanelXPanel #25, all about the
Sandman franchise, which was a trip and a half. It would have all been worth it had I not been in that festering cesspool of mediocrity that is Bangor. Schlepping down to what they pass off as a bar, filling pieces while choking down that weak freaking tea they call beer all while dodging mouth-breathing jabronis who haven't heard a goddamn
Steely Dan song they didn’t love.
Anyone who tells you Bangor is a “decent enough town” is WRONG. Dead wrong. And probably selling you something.
But I’m back! And I have plenty of work ahead of me, work that will hopefully get me out of the broom closet and back into something at least resembling a workspace. Which brings us to this new column!
The Marilyn Ross Codex! That’s right, after all these years, the
Paperback Library’s’ Marilyn Ross books are finally receiving the audiobook treatment thanks to Oasis Audio. We here at the CHS have gotten a hold of some of these beauties and are going to be taking a listen to them. The immensely talented and far smarter than I am Alice Collins (
@VampAly!) will also be joining us eventually along the way, and maybe a few other guests, if yer lucky! Welcome to
The Marilyn Ross Codex!
So, I have a special relationship with the
Marilyn Ross books, in that I DON’T have a relationship with them. Like my beloved Big Finishverse, I had only become aware of the cult classic tie-in novels here recently. Which is a bummer as I have heard they are quite insane. Like, fighting mummies and offering a completely separate prose universe alongside the TV canon insane. All of that sounds very much my jam. A lot of fans seem to really like these, and I have always meant to get around to them but a 32 book long series is daunting even for the most devout of fans. The closest I have come to really getting into these is listening to the fantastic
Bodice Tipplers podcast episode about book #6 Barnabas Collins, by all rights, the horniest of the Marilyn Ross affairs.
Which is why I am excited to get to these reviews! I now have a pretty great in point for these and should I want to double-dip, buying both the old novels to display while keeping the audiobooks as my “reading copy” I totally can! It is nicely symmetrical for the obsessive collecting dork in me.
So how is the actual content itself, you may be asking now. And to that I say, pretty great! Though lacking the production values of the Big Finish audios and clocking in at a pretty decent chunk of time (which I will get into later), this first audio, carefully and lovingly read by Maggie Evans herself
Kathryn Leigh Scott, is a fantastic entry point into this “Expanded Universe” of
Dark Shadows.
Stop me if you have heard this before, but Victoria Winters has come to Collinwood. Lured by an offer to work at *checks notes* Collins House as governess to a child that lives there. Something, something beginning and the end of the world, you get it. What follows is a pulpy, fairly loose adaptation of the first dozen or so episodes of the original TV series, stocked with all new characters and variants on the show’s opening dynamics. Characters like Ernest Collins, a seemingly famous concert violinist and suspected murderer who lives in Collins House (a canny anachronism that continues for the first few Ross books).
As a fan of Expanded Universe, I sincerely love the idea of a semi-independent canon that stands alongside the TV canon, with it’s own cast and storylines. That said, the lack of production values is a bit of a bummer, especially when compared to the still ongoing Big Finish
Dark Shadows line. Another bummer is the lack of any other cast members. Maybe the idea further down the line is to get other cast members in the booth and I DO love hearing Scott talk just in general as she has a smooth, caring tone that I find psychologically soothing. But part of the charm and drive of the Big Finishverse is hearing her play once again against other actors. I fear these might sound a bit stuffy after the full-cast efforts.
I also fear that the time commitment of this opener might be a turn off for casual fans. Clocking in at six hours, this thing really is a true blue audiobook (which, honestly, should have been something I anticipated going into this). Which means it's just bare bones reading for the whole time. Not helping matters is the fact that this first book is largely worldbuilding, setting up Vicki, Collins House, and the expanded cast of these novels. It has a pretty good hook, but anyone familiar with the TV canon won’t really be too surprised here. That said, I think die-hard Shadows people will find it a pretty great adaptation of this weird EU starter, but not having the frills of music or other cast members might be a tougher sell for me when I yell at people to get into the franchise.
You might think that is a contradiction to what I said above, but I really, really did enjoy
Dark Shadows. I think Scott continues to be really comfortable behind the microphone in any capacity and Ross’ odd, but engagingly written prose provides a spooky weekend listen for those still wondering what the hell this
Dark Shadows thing is all about anyway. Those in the know too will find this fun as well as it brings the weirdness of tie-ins and the franchise overall into a wider market, hopefully snapping up more fans and devotees. To quote a great man, Joe Bob says, check it out.
NEXT TIME! Marilyn Ross #2! 1967’s
Victoria Winters! To be honest, I’m just hoping we can get to the mummy fighting. Be seeing you!
Justin Partridge has always loved monsters and he thinks that explains a lot about him. When he isn’t over analyzing comics at Newsarama or ranting about Tom Clancy over at Rogues Portal, he is building Call of Cthulhu games, spreading the good word of Anti-Life, or rewatching Garth Marenghi's Darkplace for the dozenth time. He can be reached at the gasping Lovecraftian void that is Twitter @j_partridgeIII or via e-mail at justin@betweenthepanels.com Odds are he will want to talk about Hellblazer.
The writers swagger, having established Charles Delaware Tate as the most powerful being in the universe. I would say more powerful even than Petofi. If the Count were that powerful, he would have given the abilities to himself. Tate is the perfect man for the job, however, because he is one of the people in the dark shadows universe least likely to want it. If Petofi has to choose a vessel for the power, let it be Tate. Roger Davis responds to the task with his most cerebral performance on the show. Most Davis characters are situational pugilists, dealing with very direct conflicts with high stakes and little time. Tate, however, is a man saddled with the ultimate existential realization of his chosen profession, art. It’s safe to live by manifesting imagination if that manifestation is only two dimensional. But the responsibility that he realizes here is beyond the infinite. Can he change a math equation? Would that make buildings rise or fall? Can he change the shape of a continent? Or eliminate the stars with a splash of black paint? Is he experiencing the ultimate liberation of an artist or the ultimate prohibition? Roger Davis captures this complexity with the deliberate economy of a Go master. No small feat. 
1970 is Collinwood but not Collinwood when Barnabas and Julia return from Parallel Time and 1995. Roger and Liz are gone, as are any outsiders who are not menacing weirdos like Roxanne and Sebastian. I didn’t know how much I would miss Sam and Burke and the Blue Whale, which is the Drawing Room for the Common Man, quite so much. The stories have been so exotic that we really haven’t had time to mourn them. But the bread and butter of so much of the show was playing off rich from not-rich, isolated from urban, sherry from Stroh’s, etc. This perhaps became irrelevant with the introduction of Quentin, a man of pretty common sensibilities with an aristocratic last name. Losing that chemistry is a shame because it grounded the show and the family. Take that away, and disorientation sets in. Never before has the Collins family felt more isolated and helpless. Are these things even going on? Don’t bother to look, the mirror was blinded a year ago. The Collinses always saw themselves as the saviors of the commoners, but it’s the other way around. The last of the townsfolk, Maggie, is finally being sacrificed. It’s the price she pays for climbing Mt. Olympus. She was right to warn Vicki and a chump for ignoring her own advice.
The children fight inevitability and are victimized by it all at the same time that they symbolically enact it. (Kathy Cody’s best acting on the show is her eerie voice work as the gloating voice of Carrie.) Another element that makes this Collinwood-not-Collinwood begins with David Henesy’s narration. He’s not supposed to be doing this, and his voice is not supposed to be that deep. He and Hallie even argue over whether or not she’s a guest, and David gives her the bad news that she’s become a lifer. So… is she the next Vicki or Carolyn? Yes, no, too young. All answers apply, ultimately making her another element that doesn’t quite fit, and doesn’t quite fit… on purpose. It keeps Collinwood alien to us. Because this upcoming trip is not about saving David or Collinwood. Whether he knows it or not, this trip will ultimately be about Barnabas saving himself.
Today's episode is The House by the Sea with Jessica Dwyer. Jessica explains why the sins of Collinsport's royal family aren't always as sinful as they appear. You can download the episode HERE, or stream it below. If you've been keeping count, Jessica's episode marks the end of this week's "single serving" series, meaning you've got new episodes coming your way Monday!
I think the reason that drinking was kind of funny for so long was that the drinkers were often in on the joke, and the joke kind of changed before, during, and after the imbibing. “Morning after“ humor is a strange mix of regret, everyone agreeing to ignore the obvious after-effects, and the paradoxical pursuit of hair of the dog. In this case, the dog is Tom Jennings. Because if you look at this episode and kind of ignore the bite marks on its neck, it looks for all the world like Julia is sleeping off a hangover and everyone is either trying to deny what they know or find out what they fear. And it’s not just a minor hangover. This is, in the immortal words of Robert Urich, “a full, adult-size bangaroo.” It’s also perfect commedia dell’arte, where the hapless servants are trying to understand the decadence of one half of the household and then cover it up to the rest. What can Mrs. Johnson possibly be thinking? She worked for Burke Devlin, so whatever it is, it can’t be new.
It’s a cursed storyline. Cursed by the fact that we already know they’re doomed. Yes, the whole point is averting it, but at no point do our heroes catch a glimmer of hope. In this episode, we have only the third stringers to rely upon. And I hate to call Professor Stokes this, but the role of skeptic is a strange one for him, and it’s a little odd to try and get behind him not believing in something. Especially because he gets it wrong. And that’s what they do in the Ragnarok sequence. They get it wrong at every crucial point when getting it right would thwart Gerard. He is a villain whose plan only works because of entropy. An all-star can only get it right so many times. Stokes not only has trouble detecting that Sebastain Shaw is the real deal, but he even fails to detect the only lie told by him: that the children were in no real danger. In fact, he saw them dead. This isn’t a testament to Stokes’ waning powers; it’s a tribute to the insurmountable odds he faces in near ignorance.
Scenic designer Sy Tomashoff was not only responsible for the look of the continuing world of discovery and time travel on the program, but also for its sense of time, itself. Chronologically, yes, but also as the prison first Presented by Collinwood for the viewers. He never had the luxury of not thinking ahead. Would the show be going to color? Would the show be going to unknown storylines? Would the show eventually feature something actually scary? He was responsible for the look of the program in the present, and was constantly preparing for what the show might be in the future, an impossible feat.
Jeez, even a smooth-talking, well-dressed, hardworking, handsome professional guy from Hell doesn’t stand a chance against the eternal menace of The Old Boyfriend. It’s a credit to the casting and authorship of Dark Shadows that you side with the demon on the whole thing. It’s a longstanding tradition now that the show’s ostensible villains are the romantic heroes, but in this case, there’s no ostensible about it. He IS the villain. Nonetheless, he’s a villain experiencing his first love, and who can’t get behind that? Maggie brings out the best in him. Humbert Allen Astredo becomes a California-bronzed Richard Benjamin onscreen with Kathryn Leigh Scott, and together, they create television’s most subversive almost-couple.