Tag: Burke and Vicki

Episode 76: Twisting the Lion’s Tail, or Burke’s Law and How to Enforce It

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“I’ve come for Collinwood!”

Though not written by Art Wallace, today’s episode takes a big page from Shadows on the Wall, the outline that preceded the Dark Shadows television series.

Page 52 in the series bible tells of a significant shift in the story of Burke Devlin, which to this point, despite his vendetta toward the Collins family aiming through shrewd business machinations for their eventual financial ruin, has been more about proving his innocence in the manslaughter conviction that sent him to prison ten years ago. However, with the county coroner having just that day ruled that Bill Malloy’s death was the result of an accidental drowning, therefore slamming shut the lone remaining window of opportunity for Devlin to clear his name, Burke has now fallen back on the one thing that still drives him forth: revenge.

“…[Burke] leaves no doubt that he won’t rest until he is living in the home of the first family of Collinsport” (Shadows on the Wall, p. 52).

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Episode 35: A Great Dramatic Reading

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“The character of Sam Evans will be played by David Ford.”

 

Dark Shadows is known mainly as a “vampire soap” to even those with only a passing knowledge or awareness of the original TV series that aired weekday afternoons between 1966 and 1971.

 

Before rocketing into the public lexicon as television’s first vampire series, there were five gradual transformations that took place without which the “Barnabas era” of Dark Shadows would not have been possible.

 

The most significant transformation is, of course, the arrival of Barnabas Collins in 1967. The precursor to Barnabas was the phoenix story, featuring a fiery goddess threatening to consume and destroy the lives of all those with whom she comes in contact. The phoenix was the first supernatural monster on Dark Shadows. Before this was the first appearance of a ghost in episode 70, which was preceded in episode 52 by a supernatural occurrence in the Collinwood drawing room where a book was opened as if by the hand of an invisible spirit. The first essential transformation occurs here in episode 35 with the acting department, as David Ford joins the cast in the role of Sam Evans, taking over for Mark Allen who last appeared in episode 22.

 

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Episode 34: A Ripple in the Whirlpool

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Today Victoria Winters is making her first visit to the Blue Whale, while enjoying her first alcoholic beverage since arriving in Collinsport – even though she’s underage.

 

The character of Victoria Winters, and the actress who plays her, is barely twenty. Burke Devlin, the man who bought her the drink, is over thirty.

 

Evidently, the bartender didn’t ask to see the young lady’s ID. In yesterday’s episode, he wouldn’t even shut down a drunk and hollering Joe Haskell.

 

This won’t be the last time on the show where older men will be plying drinks on young underage girls. In those days, you could get away with that kind of thing. Dark Shadows, during that unsupervised era of daytime television, manages to do just that.

 

Those were the days!

 

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Episode 31: Breaking Point

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After having run away from home, David Collins has been safely returned to Collinwood, accompanied by the man David had sought to frame for the crime of attempted murder.

 

Burke Devlin holds the key. The missing valve from Roger’s car that David had planted in Burke’s hotel room is in his pocket. With David under fierce interrogation from his father, Burke waits for the right moment to step in and present the evidence, concocting a story intended to absolve both he and David of any suspicion of guilt.

 

By this point everyone at Collinwood knows that it was David, and not Burke, who was responsible for the accident that nearly killed Roger.

 

To an already tense and uncomfortable situation the element of confusion has been added, where both Vicki and Roger are compelled to question what they thought they already knew for certain.

 

But this act of interference cannot forestall the inevitable. The simmering cauldron of anger, fear, and lingering resentment is set to boil up to a breaking point, an eruption that will push to the limit the father and son relationship between Roger and David Collins.

 

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