A Modern Prometheus (April-December 1968)
Worried that Vicki has discovered his secret in the past, Barnabas bites her and convinced her to elope with him. But seeing Peter Bradford on the side of the road, Vicki crashes the car. Hospitalized, Barnabas finds he is temporarily cured by a blood transfusion, freeing Vicki and Carolyn from his power. And Dr. Eric Lang informs him that he might be cured permenantly through an experiment of his. Victoria, however, admits she is unable to marry Barnabas. She believes that Peter has come back to her as Jeff Clark, Dr. Lang's assistant, and she is in love with him.
But Barnabas has other problems. Trying to keep him from becoming human again, Angelique has returned in the guise of Cassandra Blair Collins, Roger's new wife. She unleashes a dream curse which is passed from one person to the next, which will end with Barnabas becoming a vampire again. After Angelique kills Dr. Lang, assuming he is the key to Barnabas' cure, Julia conducts his experiment, which involves transferring Barnabas' life force into a creation of human body parts. The creation, Adam, comes to life, but he is as a small child. Strangely, Barnabas is also alive - but as a human. He is cured.
The dream curse continues, resisting Julia's attempts to stop it. Even trying to destroy Angelique directly through a portrait containing her life force fails under her powers. But a new threat to Angelique appears - Prof. T. Eliot Stokes. He confronts her in her own dream curse, turning it against her. Then he helps to summon the spirit of Reverend Trask to get rid of Angelique. Unfortunately, he takes revenge on Barnabas first. Julia saves him with help from Josette, but Cassandra isn't so lucky. Trask ties her to a tree and exorcises her.
Adam, though he has learned to speak, has no idea of his own strength, or how his scarred face makes him appear to others. He tries to escape from Barnabas several times, but others' fears cause him no end of problems. But he develops a crush on Carolyn, even risking his life for her.
Warlock Nicholas Blair, posing as Cassandra's brother, ressurects Angelique, making her start the dream curse again. This time it reaches Barnabas, but due to a psychic link between him and Adam, he remains human. Angelique tries to break the link by killing Adam, but Nicholas has plans for him, and punishes Angelique by causing her to age to death.
Thinking he can use Adam to start a new race to serve his Master, Nicholas convinces Adam to demand a mate from Barnabas. They work on a new experiment, but it requires a life force. Knowing the first experiment cured Barnabas, Angelique (Nicholas brought her back as a vampire. Who says he doesn't have a sense of humor?) tries to be the life force. Barnabas wants to use Maggie, but Willie hides her to protect her. This causes her to remember her experiences with Barnabas, but Nicholas wipes those memories out for reasons of his own. Carolyn volunteers for the experiment, but almost dies as a result. Finally, Nicholas brings back the spirit of Danielle Roget, one of the most evil women of the 18th century, who becomes Eve.
Eve, however, detests Adam. She is more interested in Jeff Clark. Convincing him that he really is the reincarnation of Peter Bradford, Danielle Roget's ex-lover, she tries to win him back, but he rejects her. After he marries Vicki, she watches in horror as he is drawn back to his own time.
Barnabas, deciding that Eve needs to be destroyed, goes to kill her, but falls victim to Angelique the vampire instead. Foresaking her other victim, Joe Haskell, she concentrates on Barnabas against Nicholas' wishes. She tries to run away with Barnabas, but he escapes. Nicholas, realizing Angelique is working against him, tries to destroy her, but she moves her coffin and escapes him.
Adam, furious at Eve's rejection, kills her. He tries to create a new Eve, but fails. Stokes befriends the monster and sends him away to have his scars removed.
Angelique visits the underworld where she tells her master Diabolos that Nicholas' plan for Adam and Eve fails because of his love for Maggie Evans. He orders Nicholas to sacrifice Maggie in a Black Mass. Vicki finds out about his plans and he brings back Tom Jennings (one of Angelique early victims) to take care of her. But Barnabas saves her, destroying Tom forever. Nicholas is also destroyed when his Black Mass is interrupted.
Vicki tries desperately to find a way to get Peter back. Stokes advises her that if she goes back to 1796, she will be where she was when she left, hanging from a rope. But Peter once again defies time and comes back for her. The two of them disappear back into the past together.
"All I do is stand around saying 'I don't understand what's happening.' [Barnabas] has hypnotized me into eloping with him, tried to cut off my boyfriend's head to put on that goofy monster they made, even sent me hundreds of years into the past during a seance. And I still haven't figured out that he may not be quite normal." So Alexandra Moltke describes her role as Victoria Winters three years into her five-year contract. She wanted something more interesting to do, such as a villain, but the producers couldn't see virginal Vicki that way. Only something extreme would make a change. Alexandra Moltke advised them she was pregnant. That would never do, and she was released from her contract. Two attempts were made to recast the role, but finally Victoria Winters would be written out. Dark Shadows had lost its original raison d'etre. And, to the aggravation of long-time fans, without resolving the original mystery of her parentage.
But it didn't seem to matter. By this time, most viewers hadn't started watching until Barnabas' arrival, and had no idea of Vicki's mysteries, or the skeletons of the original family. They seemed to serve no other purposes than to be plagued by the supernatural and saved by Barnabas and Julia. This focus on Barnabas, however, caused unbearable stress on Jonathan Frid. Always having had a problem with memorization, Frid was being required to remember huge amounts of lines on a daily basis. It seemed that Barnabas was needed in every episode. Frid complained that they needed someone to help relieve the pressure.
But Frid garnered hundreds to thousands of letters from fans every day, and kept the ratings at the top. In order to focus less on Barnabas, someone would have to be found who could at least equal that kind of popularity. That seemed impossible.
Or was it?
Credits and characters of Story 7
Portrait Gallery for Story 7
