Parallel Time 1970 - Which Witch Is Which? (March-July 1970)
Barnabas arrives in parallel time, but his hopes of being cured by the exchange are dashed. When Carolyn Loomis discovers him in the house, he attacks her. Unfortunately, her husband, writer William H. Loomis is immediately suspicious when he moves into the Old House with them. Finding out Barnabas is a vampire, William chains him in his coffin with the intent of getting his life story to use as a new book.
Quentin Collins, master of Collinwood, returns from abroad with his new wife, Maggie Evans Collins. But the shadow of Quentin's dead wife Angelique hangs over the house. The bad wishes of those who were obsessed with Angelique and Quentin's quick temper all make Maggie feel unwelcome. Despite the best intentions of Liz Stoddard and Amy Collins, she feels Quentin would prefer to have Angelique back. Things get even more complicated when a woman arrives claiming to be Alexis Stokes, Angelique's twin sister. Unable to handle the pressure, Maggie leaves Collinwood.
Dr. Cyrus Longworth has been conducting secret experiments on changing the chemical composition of mankind. Drinking a potion of his own devising, he is unable to remember the results, but finds evidence that he was responsible for an attack on his fiancee Sabrina Stuart, and for a fight at the Eagle Bar, though the description of the man sounds nothing like him. Chemist Horace Gladstone starts snooping around Cyrus' laboratory and uncovers something of his experiments, but not enough to satisfy his curiousity. Mixing a new potion designed to get rid of the memory loss, Cyrus turns into another man. Calling himself John Yaeger, Cyrus' alter ego returns to the Eagle Bar, flirts with barmaid Buffie Harrington and beats up her boyfriend Steve. Yaeger insinuates himself into Buffie's life using Cyrus' money, but he is cruel and abusive, even killing Steve to keep him from interfering.
Having discovered Angelique was murdered and her spirit is restless, several people, including Quentin's son Daniel, suspect Alexis is really Angelique. Even Quentin admits the possibility. But after musician Bruno Hess tries to strangle her, Alexis gets fed up. She, Quentin and Cyrus open Angelique's crypt, and are shocked to discover that even after six months the body has not decomposed at all. Now cleared of being Angelique, Alexis goes to view the body alone before it is cremated. Just then, Angelique comes back to life. Killing her sister, she takes her place, putting Alexis in her coffin. She returns to Collinwood free of suspicion.
The experiment isn't going quite as Cyrus planned. He starts turning into Yaeger uncontrolably. Horace finds out that Cyrus and Yaeger are the same person and starts blackmailing him. Yaeger has to kill him to be rid of him. Finding a secret passage to the Old House, Yaeger discovers a chained coffin. But William stops him before he can open it. Unfortunately for Will, Barnabas is able to get free and bites him. Barnabas introduces himself as a cousin from England, but when Quentin gets suspicious of him, he tries to leave parallel time. But he can't.
Angelique finds she is menaced by the spirit of Damien Edwards, one of her lovers that she killed with the help of Bruno and Trask the butler. Once she exorcises him, she gets to work on her real plan: destroying Quentin and Maggie's marriage. Getting help from her aunt Hannah and housekeeper Julia Hoffman, she convinces Maggie to return to Collinwood. Posing as Alexis and pretending to be Maggie's friend, she easily drives a wedge between Quentin and Maggie, causing Quentin to think Maggie is untrustworthy, unsympathetic, and possibly a witch, while she makes Maggie suspect Quentin of murdering Angelique. She even attempts to make Maggie commit suicide. But trouble comes from an unexpected quarter. Barnabas figures out she is Angelique, and she is forced to appeal to her father Timothy Stokes for help. She and Hoffman decide Barnabas must be gotten rid of.
Sabrina discovers Yaeger is really Cyrus. She tries to convince him to change back, but he refuses. He likes being Yaeger. Encouraged by Angelique (Cyrus was another of her lovers), he kidnaps Maggie. He kills Sabrina when she finds out, then is killed himself by Barnabas in order to save Maggie. After John Yaeger dies, he turns back into Cyrus Longworth.
Barnabas returns to his own time and tells Julia he must return to save Maggie from Angelique. He goes back to parallel time, but Hoffman has discovered his coffin. She is about to stake him, but Julia has followed Barnabas into parallel time and killed her duplicate to save him. She takes Hoffman's place and learns that Angelique is being kept alive by her father, transferring the life force from another body into her. Barnabas and Julia find Roxanne Drew is the life force being used, but Barnabas can't bring himself to kill so beautiful a woman. He convinces Julia to try to revive her.
Angelique finds out from Cyrus' journal that he believed Quentin killed her. Now she wants Quentin dead too. Killing Bruno, she frames Quentin who is arrested. She also makes Quentin believe Maggie killed Bruno. Trying to keep Barnabas from interfering, she tries to make Will tell her Barnabas' secret, but he jumps from the tower window rather than betray him. Finding out that her beloved Hoffman has been replaced, she locks Julia in a dungeon, but she won't betray Barnabas either. Angelique puts a spell on Maggie to make her shoot Quentin on sight. But Angelique's real murderer is Roger Collins, obsessed by her refusal of him. After he kills Carolyn and Liz, she finds out the truth and sucks the life out of him. Just as Maggie is about to shoot Quentin, Roxanne revives and Angelique dies, freeing Maggie from her spell. Quentin and Maggie are reunited. Barnabas rescues Julia, and they try to return to their own time. But Barnabas wants Roxanne to come with them. But Timothy Stokes sets fire to Collinwood, and the flames seperate them from Roxanne. The room changes, and Barnabas and Julia are back in their own time. Thinking Roxanne dead, Barnabas mourns her. Later, Julia discovers that the fire was extiguished and Roxanne is alive. As far as we know, she never tells Barnabas.
Dark Shadows went back to its roots in gothic romance to reenact the story of Daphne duMaurier's Rebecca, but with a DS twist: the dead wife really does come back. With Maggie Evans in the role of the new wife, Quentin as the somber Maxim de Winter, Julia Hoffman as the hostile Mrs. Danvers, and Angelique as the dead Rebecca herself, Collinwood was the perfect parallel for Manderley. The writers had the all the makings of a popular, intelligent story. But it didn't work.
First of all, the concept of parallel time was new and confusing. Seeing all these characters we already knew but acting so differently was too strange, and new viewers would be lost too quickly. This in itself could have been overcome if someone from regular time had been there to guide the audience. But due to the filming of the MGM movie House of Dark Shadows, Barnabas spends the first several weeks chained in a coffin. The movie also took Scott and Hall away from the series, making the Rebecca story drag to a standstill. Without a heroine to be menaced, there was nowhere to go with it.
So the writers fell back on the subplots, the return of Angelique and Cyrus Longworth/John Yaeger, a Jekyll and Hyde story. But those plots wore thin quickly without the presence of the familiar stars. New characters had to be brought in to duplicate the purpose of existing characters who were unavailable. Jerry Lacy as Trask the butler filled in for Hoffman. Lawyer Larry Chase, Chris Collins' partner was needed to do legal work since Don Briscoe was away. Liz, Roger, Will and Carolyn were simply ignored, leaving the audience with no one to actually like. Quentin was too quick-tempered and not willing to listen or explain himself. Alexis was nice, but we were always left with the possibility that she might be Angelique. We only discover the truth about 10 minutes before Angelique does come back and kills her. And Cyrus, far from being the tragic character of Dr. Jekyll, seems to relish turning into Yaeger.
The timing couldn't have been worse. Rating were already down from the dismal Leviathan story. Nothing offered here was going to change that. Once the regulars came back, the plot moved along nicely, with good pacing and plot twists. The character of Roxanne Drew even gave Barnabas a new love interest now that he was over Josette. But it was too little, too late. Something drastic was needed. Time travel jaunts had always been popular, but they had been to the past twice and now sideways. There was only one direction left to go.
Credits and characters of Story 12
Portrait Gallery for Story 12
