678 — darkshadows

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Number	669
Timeline	1969
Narrator	Don Briscoe
Writer	Sam Hall
Director	Lela Swift
Broadcast	January 29, 1969 (Wednesday)
Recorded	January 22, 1969 (Wednesday)
Video	Complete: Disc 71 Collection 12: Disc 3

We have 42 images of Dark Shadows 678

In a dream, Beth warns Amy that Quentin is trying to kill Chris.

Synopsis

A strange, distorted night in the great house at Collinwood, a night in which one woman wakes and sees a mysterious weeping figure in her room, a figure that disappears without a word, leaving fear in its place.

In a dream, Beth warns Amy that Quentin is trying to kill Chris. Barnabas and Julia suspect that Chris tried to kill himself; however, he convinces them otherwise. After talking with David, Amy decides to tell Elizabeth about Quentin and “the game.”

Memorable quotes

Barnabas: How often, such a short time ago, I would sit in the Old House and doubt that I would have the strength to get through a night and wonder if wasn't best to die now.

Julia: (smiling and amused) So we're at the mercy of a ghost.

David (responding to Barnabas's invitation to have breakfast with him): Oh, it won't be much fun. Mrs. Johnson's always so grumpy in the morning.

Barnabas: Oh, we can ignore HER.

David: It's very hard.

Barnabas: I'm sure you and Amy manage.

Dramatis personae

Background information and notes

Production

Story

David explains to Barnabas that he may want to become a doctor someday because of the news about Chris being sick the previous night, though this may not necessarily be true, as he could have told Barnabas about his desire to become a doctor to draw suspicion away from him and he is still under the influence of Quentin's ghost. In the Big Finish audio drama Kingdom of the Dead, it will be revealed that David did in fact become a doctor.
Amy has once more revolted against Quentin's rule when she is determined to tell Elizabeth about the game.
Chris has contemplated suicide in the past but denies doing it on this night.
David says Chris was supposed to take Amy and David to the movies.
This is the first time Beth's ghost speaks. However, she only speaks while in Amy's dream.
GHOSTWATCH: Beth's ghost leads Julia and Barnabas to a dying Chris (reprised from previous episode).
DREAM SEQUENCE: Amy dreams about Beth, who calls out to her and shows her Chris dead, stabbed in the stomach.
TIMELINE: Day 268 begins and will end in 682. David was at Chris' cottage yesterday around 6am.

Bloopers and continuity errors

The reprise has many small changes from the end of the previous episode. These include Beth not using her hand to open the door; Julia and Barnabas having switched positions at the front doors of Collinwood, David's hair being noticeably shorter, and Chris no longer wearing a jacket. [Addendum: David is not in the reprise. Also, I don't honestly see much difference in his hair when he does appear.]
Previously in Ep 677, when Chris falls after drinking the poison, he pulls the lightweight chartreuse and teal tablecloth from the table and ends up partially covered by it. However, since the tablecloth is needed in this episode for its original purpose (it’s the coverlet for David’s bed), the heavier turquoise and olive drab woven floral bedspread seen on Vicki’s / Maggie’s bed has been substituted for today’s reenactment.
Barnabas is able to detect poison by smelling the alcohol Chris drank in the decanter, and Julia is able to identify it as strychnine by smelling the alcohol as well. However, strychnine is odorless.
Julia makes the call to Windcliff Sanitarium at approximately 6:25 am to get the antidote for Chris. When Barnabas and Julia are next seen, Barnabas asks how Chris is and Julia says the antidote worked, the clock on the mantel shows approximately 6:30 am, so one would wonder how the antidote could have been delivered to Collinwood, which is approximately 100 miles away, in only took five minutes. (Perhaps the clock is not functioning properly.) [Addendum: The time on the clock on the mantel is not consistently changed. For many scenes and episodes, it was always at 6:10. In the previous episode, it moves from 6:10 to 6:30 in the previous evening. Clearly the clock has not been changed again.] [I think we may take it as clearly established that the clock was malfunctioning.]
Grayson Hall flubs, "A ghost led you here." She should have said, "A ghost led us here" or "me here."
At the beginning of the scene with Amy's dream, Amy is lying in bed with her eyes closed (sleeping). Shortly before her dream begins, at which point she starts moving her head back and forth, her bed shakes slightly. This seems to be someone giving her a cue (since her eyes are closed) to start "dreaming."
After Amy closes the wardrobe behind her, the door swings open again.
Jonathan Frid has trouble remembering a line when Barnabas and Julia are talking to Chris: "We just...[looks at teleprompter]...are very glad that...well, that...we were wrong about the poison."
Grayson Hall steps on Don Briscoe's line: Chris: "Why not? What is it?" Julia: "Amy..." Chris [finishing his line]: "Honey, are you gonna believe some dream and not believe your own brother?" Julia: "What exactly did you dream, Amy?" Shortly after, either Grayson Hall or Denise Nickerson seems to forget a line: Julia: "What made him sick?" Amy: "I don't know." [Long pause, and Julia seems about to speak.] Amy: "Well..." Julia: "What...what else did you dream?"
A boom mic shadow appears on Barnabas' shoulder as he talks to David.