The Beginning, Collection One - Disc 2.

Episodes 10 - 18

Airdates: July 8 - 20, 1966


THE PLOT

Elizabeth Stoddard and Roger Collins' anxieties about Burke Devlin's return seem to be confirmed when Burke comes to the house to confront them. Burke does not act like a man seeking vengeance, but his pleasant conversation is marked by multiple inquiries about buying the Collins house and business, and he clearly does have some resentment toward Roger. Nevertheless, he extends an olive branch, asking Roger to meet him for a drink in town to discuss an unspecified "business deal."

But when Roger heads down the steep, windy road to town, his brakes fail. Was it an accident? Was it Burke? Or did someone closer to home have a reason for wanting to see him dead?


THOUGHTS

My last review got so overstuffed with initial thoughts that I forgot to mention the title sequence. Dark Shadows has a truly splendid title sequence, very atmospheric and effective in terms of both the visuals and the music. The waves, beating upon the rocks, followed by a dissolve to the wonderfully spooky main house, with that eerily dissonant main title theme playing over it. It's simple, but hugely effective, and one of the most iconic US title sequences I can immediately think of.

As this disc rolls along, taking us to the start of the series' fourth week on air, we get a bit more of the backstory behind Roger and Burke parcelled out to us. One of the more interesting revelations is that Roger's own presence in Collinwood is only barely tolerated by Elizabeth, and that only because of David.

It does stand out how compressed the action really is. The first disc took viewers across a single night and day. The second disc makes that seem positively sprawling by comparison, with the nine episodes of this disc taking place entirely over the course of a single night! Part of this is a function of the show's theatrical nature. Scenes are long, static, and talky, with an episode cutting between what amounts to only two or three scenes. The result is that 30 minutes of program time encompasses probably about the same amount of time in the world of the show.


Cast & Characters

The cast continue to grow into their roles. As was the case on Disc One, Mitchell Ryan's Burke and Louis Edmonds' Roger continue to carry the bulk of the plot, with the Burke Devlin plot getting even more of the focus than was the case on Disc One. Mitchell Ryan continues to be the cast standout, though he is getting increasing competition for that title from Mark Allen, whose Sam Evans is becoming a genuinely interesting and sympathetic figure; and Frank Schofield, who gives a quietly and consistently excellent background performance as Bill Malloy. Meanwhile, as good as George Mitchell's performance continues to be, I'm seeing one problem with his casting as the character develops: When Elizabeth warns Vicki about Matthew's potential for violence, all I could think in response was how basically old and frail he seemed.

Victoria Winters moves from the spotlight to the background on this disc. She isn't even in Episodes 9, 10, and 17 (not counting the ubiquitous voice over intro.), and she is far less dominant in many of the remaining shows than she was in the first disc. As the other characters become more familiar to us, it becomes less important to have her as our "eyes" into this world. This creates the risk of Vicki becoming irrelevant, particularly with her own storyline being the weakest of the major throughlines at this point. Still, Moltke's performance is improving. She gets some pretty good scenes opposite young David Henesy as the troubled David (who also gets substantially more development on this disc), and she shares a quite memorable scene with Louis Edmonds in Episode 12, reacting to his story about "the widows."


OVERALL

Still very early in the series, we're already getting some payoff from the initial episodes. The episodes of this disc contain major plot developments, and I found myself downing three episodes per sitting this time out. All the characters advance, and all of the actors are improving in their roles.

On the downside, the occasional technical fluffs and forgotten lines are also increasing in frequency.  Louis Edmonds' recovery from mispeaking "100 miles" in Episode 17 is hilarious, in that he actually draws a lot more attention to the fluffed line than if he'd just kept going. Still, the series is improving on all other fronts, and is already delivering on much of its initial promise.

...And still nothing more supernatural than a creaky door and a particularly loud wind in sight!

Previous: Episodes 1 - 9
Next: Episode 19 - 27


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