Julia talks Barnabas out of killing Adam.

Synopsis

Soon the sun will set on another day at Collinwood, and with the coming of night, a terrifying chain of events will be put into motion. At the Old House on the Collins estate, time has run out for two desperate people. They both know that unless a solution is found, a young girl may be murdered before the daylight comes again.

Julia talks Barnabas out of killing Adam. Barnabas sends Julia to warn Victoria; Adam attacks Barnabas then catches up with Julia and stops her. Adam starts to strangle Victoria as Barnabas gets to her room.

Memorable quotes

Barnabas: Julia, you're using common sense again, and when did common sense or reason ever mean anything to Adam?

Dramatis personae

• Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
• Grayson Hall as Julia Hoffman
• Louis Edmonds as Roger Collins
• Robert Rodan as Adam
• Alexandra Moltke as Victoria Winters

Background information and notes

Production

Story

• Victoria, in her room, is reading a book that has a dust cover that looks suspiciously like Collinwood on a huge cliff overlooking water.
• INTERNAL MONOLOGUE: Adam: Barnabas must know what it's like to be alone.
• TIMELINE: This is the first episode of the long night sequence that begins in this episode and continues until 598, when dawn finally comes.

Bloopers and continuity errors

• In Act I, as Julia and Barnabas are talking about the possibility that Barnabas may die if he kills Adam, there is squeaking and shuffling from off-stage, and someone off-stage coughs.
• Jonathan Frid flubs, "You know what to do, Mag... Vicki... [falters] um, uh... You know what to do now, Julia!" He also flubs this line: “Don’t argue with me now, Julia. You must simply go over there and be convincing to her, and let her, and make sure you get her out of here by tonight.”
• When Barnabas looks out of the living room window of the Old House and says, "The sun has gone down," instead of the woods that surround the Old House, we see a picture of a huge panoramic window with a view of mountains, tops of trees, and a lake!!! [Perhaps the whole Collinwood estate is on a peninsula, and the Old House overlooks an inlet on the west side of the peninsula. So you're looking to the west out over the inlet to hills on the opposite shore.]
• A boom microphone shadow can be seen above Barnabas's head as Adam blocks Julia from leaving the Old House.
• When Victoria and Roger are talking in Victoria's room, off-staging shuffling and someone coughing can be heard.
• When Barnabas struggles with Adam, the rifle falls apart.
• How does Julia know Adam and Barnabas are connected? She only knew what David repeated to her. Before he could play it for her, Cassandra and Nicholas switched the tapes. [David told her enough for her to know there's some connection. She's just speculating on the possibilities of what that connection means. She does know that Barnabas provided the life force for Adam because she was there.] [Also, the dialogue here clearly indicates that don't know all the details even though they know there's a connection between Barnabas and Adam. As Barnabas says after Julia reminds him there is "some unusual connection between you and Adam," "We never quite knew what it [Lang's tape] meant."]
• After Roger leaves Victoria's room and she gets into bed, Adam can be seen standing outside the window with his hands at his side. Since Victoria's room is on the second floor, this cannot be possible unless there is a big enough ledge outside her room for Adam to stand on.
• When Barnabas finds Julia in the woods and he is waking her up, the loud, three-note theme usually used at the end of a dramatic scene is heard, and it is out of place in context with the scene. [It does sound somewhat like an error, but it does coincide with Barnabas's discovery of an unconscious Julia, which is pretty dramatic.]

External Links 

Dark Shadows - Episode 585 on the IMDb

Dark Shadows Every Day - Episode 585 - The War on Halloween

The Dark Shadows Daybook - Episode 585

Dark Shadows Commentary- Episode 585: Death and mausoleums and being buried alive

Dark Shadows Before I Die- Episode 585: 9/20/68