Ubiquitous
2021-11-08 09:30:42 UTC
https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2021/03/22/episode-1236/
"It's not difficult to die! Did you know that?"
#1: Why is it still happening? Brutus Collins, invoking the curse in 1680
after murdering two family members and his best friend, said: "It shall not
end, until that time that someone spends a night in this spot, and survives
with his sanity!" Well, Morgan spent a night on that spot three weeks ago,
and he's alive and sane, judging by the local standards for sanity. He's
currently parked on the sofa, drinking his morning tea. That means the curse
is over, it's been over for weeks, it wasn't that big of a deal in the first
place, and nobody has to listen to Brutus Collins anymore.
#2. Why hasn't the family investigated the spooky room before? Julia asks
Morgan what it was like when he spent the night in the cursed bedroom, and
instead of answering the question that you'd think they would have thoroughly
discussed at the post-possession debrief, he decides to take her on a field
trip. She's taken aback, but he says, "It's at night that it's dangerous.
We'd be perfectly safe in the daylight." If that's true, then they should
have been breaking down the barely-hidden secret door and spelunking down the
secret stairs for over a century. What have they been doing all this time?
#3. Why are James and Amanda's bodies still down in Brutus' secret records
room, dusty but otherwise preserved? Brutus killed them in the 1680 flashback
we saw last week, and then injected them with something and said their
spirits would be trapped here forever, but - not to put too fine a point on
it - why exactly did he do that?
#4. Morgan says that he touched the body of James, and in that moment of
contact, James possessed him. He cautions Julia not to touch the bodies, or
she might be possessed as well. How does that work? Melanie is occasionally
possessed by the spirit of Amanda, but Melanie doesn't touch the corpse; it
just happens. When Amanda's done possessing Melanie, does her spirit head
back downstairs to the secret records room?
#5. While I'm on the subject, they say that Melanie is possessed by Amanda
when she goes into her strange fits and tries to kill people with a knife,
but the Amanda that we saw in the flashback was perfectly nice. She didn't
support what Brutus was doing, not least because he killed her and her
boyfriend, and trapped their spirits in their undecaying corpses. Why is she
interested in killing people for him?
#6. Julia wants to give the bodies a Christian burial - despite the fact that
Morgan just said they can't touch them - and Morgan says, "No, we can't take
them anywhere. That's not in Brutus' plans for them." That should be a good
thing; we're supposed to be opposed to Brutus' plans. Sometimes I think that
Morgan is actually on Brutus' side.
#7. By the way, where did all the secret records go? Last time we were down
in the secret records room, there were secret records piled up all over the
place. Did Brutus build a backup enormous hidden cavern for his secret
records that nobody who lives at Collinwood has ever noticed?
#8. While Morgan and Julia are discussing the bodies, Brutus turns the lights
out and slams the door shut, locking them in. Why does he do that? This seems
to be outside the confines of the curse. Also, Morgan said that there was no
danger in the daytime. You see what I mean, about Morgan?
#9. Why does Gabriel have to report to the principal's office? He's casually
sauntering down the main staircase after robbing Catherine at knifepoint, in
no particular hurry to leave the scene of the crime. Then he's caught short
by a call over the loudspeaker from Brutus, saying, "Gabriel, it is not yet
time to go. Gabriel, come to me! Do you hear me? Come to me! Come to me! You
will find out! Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!"
So Gabriel turns right around and walks back upstairs, straight into the
police dragnet that should be set up on the second story landing, if these
people had any kind of problem-solving skills. But the real question is, why
did Brutus wait for Gabriel to walk all the way downstairs before telling him
to come back up?
#10. Melanie finds Morgan and Julia in the secret records room and lets them
out, hurrah. Morgan says that they'll have to do something about the bodies
down in that room, and Melanie says, "But Morgan, if we do something, it
might make him even angrier, even more dangerous. And what would happen to us
then? Morgan, what would happen then?" I have a better question: what is
happening to you now?
#11. Also, what is happening to the cameras? I swear, it's practically
impossible for me to take a decent screenshot these days. There is more than
one camera in operation at ABC Studio 16 which is currently incapable of
getting a clear picture of the actors. This should be obvious to the camera
operators, the director and everyone in the control room. Why do the lighting
directors even show up for work? Have they really all given up, to this
extent?
#12. Reporting to the spooky room, Gabriel finds a knife sitting on a surface
of some kind. (Seriously, the cameras.) It appears to be the same knife that
Gabriel has used in the past to assault his family members; in fact, Gabriel
used it for exactly that purpose literally four minutes ago when he traded it
to Catherine for something shiny. Why is this being played as a pivotal
moment in his criminal career?
#13. Why does Gabriel need personalized instruction in the art of picking up
a knife, and sprinting in the direction of his nearest and dearest? He's been
menacing people since episode 1227, all on his own.
#14. Why is Brutus standing in a hole? They did such a good job with the
Chromakey bodies in the secret records room, but every time they try to
overlay Louis Edmonds onto the screen, they can't get him in the right
position. They figured out how to do this three years ago, and after some
rough initial experimentation, they settled into an effective technique that
they've used dozens of times. In March 1971, Dark Shadows probably does more
Chromakey shots than any other scripted television show; they're the industry
leaders in this area. So why can't they get Brutus in the right spot, several
episodes in a row?
#15. Explain this: "Make no mistake, Gabriel! You are my servant, and will do
my bidding! It pleases me to see them all die! And you will kill them, one by
one, with that knife! And anyone who thwarts me will die!" Presumably, this
overrides the curse: instead of having a lottery and choosing one person from
each generation, Brutus has now decided to directly slaughter every member of
the family right now. So if this fails, as it will, is the family curse still
in effect? If so, why?
#16. Catherine tells Morgan that Gabriel came after her with a knife, and
Morgan says that he'll get Quentin and search for the assailant. "No, let him
go!" she says. "If he can find some kind of peace away from Collinwood, then
let him find it!" What? He hasn't even left the house yet. Does Catherine
have trouble with object permanence?
#17. Catherine says that they should leave Collinwood forever, because this
house is full of lunatics and they'll probably be murdered. Morgan replies,
"We are all cursed, and where we go, we take it with us. So, you see, it does
no one any good to run away: not you, not me, not Gabriel!" Is there any
actual evidence that the curse would follow them, if they left the house? It
doesn't even affect the people next door. Brutus' fiendish plan to massacre
the family involves a knife; his civilization hasn't even developed ranged
weapons yet. Has anyone actually tried to run away, or burn the house down?
#18. How does this new "kill everyone with a knife" policy advance Brutus'
long-term goals? When he set up the curse in 1680, he said that it was
designed to identify the person who was worthy of the name Collins. Is that
still part of the overall strategy?
#19. How does a single ghost have the power to create this complicated live-
action role-playing game? The most destructive ghost that we've seen up to
now was Gerard, who destroyed the house using a team of pirate zombies and
then ruled the ruins for several decades, but even he didn't do something as
breathtakingly weird as giving people the plague, and then curing them on
command, just to prove a point.
#20. So far, as a result of this stupid curse, three Collins family members
have died in the spooky room, not counting little Tim Braithewaite, and three
others went insane and then died afterwards. That makes at least six
ancestors who are just as pissed off with Brutus as Brutus is with everyone
else. Why can't they gang up on him?
#21. And when you think about it, do angry ghosts even make sense, as a
concept in literature? Who wants to haunt and punish their own descendants?
#22. I mean, if someone from the distant past was angry, then the people that
they were angry at are long gone. Being furious at your own great-great-
grandchildren says more about you and your long-term parenting skills than
anything else.
#23. So let's say you've got nine weeks to tell a ghost story about a family
being haunted by a murderous curse, and the whole thing hinges on the
ancestral backstory having some dramatic punch behind it. Why would you go
ahead with it, if the backstory that you have doesn't make any logical,
metaphorical or emotional sense? Or at least fix the cameras.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Catherine cries, "Killing you - killing me won't get you away from here!"
When the scene shifts from the establishing shot of Collinwood at night to
Gabriel walking down the foyer stairs, there's a flash of green.
After Gabriel leaves the spooky room holding the knife, Brutus is supposed to
do his evil echo-laugh, but he doesn't. Brutus starts laughing too late, and
the reverb is switched off halfway through as the next scene starts.
Gabriel asks Melanie, "Didn't you know there were many secrets and panels,
all over this house?"
Here's the opposite of a blooper, something that they did quite effectively
that I want to point out. In Act 1, Morgan and Julia are looking at the
bodies of James and Amanda, who are Chromakeyed into the scene. The Chromakey
footage was pretaped, because Keith Prentice is playing both Morgan and James
in the scene. When the lights suddenly go out for Morgan and Julia, the
lights on the bodies dim too, just at the right time. It's a nice moment,
well planned and executed. It's deeply strange that they can get this right,
and they still can't put Brutus in the right place.
--
Let's go Brandon!
"It's not difficult to die! Did you know that?"
#1: Why is it still happening? Brutus Collins, invoking the curse in 1680
after murdering two family members and his best friend, said: "It shall not
end, until that time that someone spends a night in this spot, and survives
with his sanity!" Well, Morgan spent a night on that spot three weeks ago,
and he's alive and sane, judging by the local standards for sanity. He's
currently parked on the sofa, drinking his morning tea. That means the curse
is over, it's been over for weeks, it wasn't that big of a deal in the first
place, and nobody has to listen to Brutus Collins anymore.
#2. Why hasn't the family investigated the spooky room before? Julia asks
Morgan what it was like when he spent the night in the cursed bedroom, and
instead of answering the question that you'd think they would have thoroughly
discussed at the post-possession debrief, he decides to take her on a field
trip. She's taken aback, but he says, "It's at night that it's dangerous.
We'd be perfectly safe in the daylight." If that's true, then they should
have been breaking down the barely-hidden secret door and spelunking down the
secret stairs for over a century. What have they been doing all this time?
#3. Why are James and Amanda's bodies still down in Brutus' secret records
room, dusty but otherwise preserved? Brutus killed them in the 1680 flashback
we saw last week, and then injected them with something and said their
spirits would be trapped here forever, but - not to put too fine a point on
it - why exactly did he do that?
#4. Morgan says that he touched the body of James, and in that moment of
contact, James possessed him. He cautions Julia not to touch the bodies, or
she might be possessed as well. How does that work? Melanie is occasionally
possessed by the spirit of Amanda, but Melanie doesn't touch the corpse; it
just happens. When Amanda's done possessing Melanie, does her spirit head
back downstairs to the secret records room?
#5. While I'm on the subject, they say that Melanie is possessed by Amanda
when she goes into her strange fits and tries to kill people with a knife,
but the Amanda that we saw in the flashback was perfectly nice. She didn't
support what Brutus was doing, not least because he killed her and her
boyfriend, and trapped their spirits in their undecaying corpses. Why is she
interested in killing people for him?
#6. Julia wants to give the bodies a Christian burial - despite the fact that
Morgan just said they can't touch them - and Morgan says, "No, we can't take
them anywhere. That's not in Brutus' plans for them." That should be a good
thing; we're supposed to be opposed to Brutus' plans. Sometimes I think that
Morgan is actually on Brutus' side.
#7. By the way, where did all the secret records go? Last time we were down
in the secret records room, there were secret records piled up all over the
place. Did Brutus build a backup enormous hidden cavern for his secret
records that nobody who lives at Collinwood has ever noticed?
#8. While Morgan and Julia are discussing the bodies, Brutus turns the lights
out and slams the door shut, locking them in. Why does he do that? This seems
to be outside the confines of the curse. Also, Morgan said that there was no
danger in the daytime. You see what I mean, about Morgan?
#9. Why does Gabriel have to report to the principal's office? He's casually
sauntering down the main staircase after robbing Catherine at knifepoint, in
no particular hurry to leave the scene of the crime. Then he's caught short
by a call over the loudspeaker from Brutus, saying, "Gabriel, it is not yet
time to go. Gabriel, come to me! Do you hear me? Come to me! Come to me! You
will find out! Come to me! Come to me! Come to me!"
So Gabriel turns right around and walks back upstairs, straight into the
police dragnet that should be set up on the second story landing, if these
people had any kind of problem-solving skills. But the real question is, why
did Brutus wait for Gabriel to walk all the way downstairs before telling him
to come back up?
#10. Melanie finds Morgan and Julia in the secret records room and lets them
out, hurrah. Morgan says that they'll have to do something about the bodies
down in that room, and Melanie says, "But Morgan, if we do something, it
might make him even angrier, even more dangerous. And what would happen to us
then? Morgan, what would happen then?" I have a better question: what is
happening to you now?
#11. Also, what is happening to the cameras? I swear, it's practically
impossible for me to take a decent screenshot these days. There is more than
one camera in operation at ABC Studio 16 which is currently incapable of
getting a clear picture of the actors. This should be obvious to the camera
operators, the director and everyone in the control room. Why do the lighting
directors even show up for work? Have they really all given up, to this
extent?
#12. Reporting to the spooky room, Gabriel finds a knife sitting on a surface
of some kind. (Seriously, the cameras.) It appears to be the same knife that
Gabriel has used in the past to assault his family members; in fact, Gabriel
used it for exactly that purpose literally four minutes ago when he traded it
to Catherine for something shiny. Why is this being played as a pivotal
moment in his criminal career?
#13. Why does Gabriel need personalized instruction in the art of picking up
a knife, and sprinting in the direction of his nearest and dearest? He's been
menacing people since episode 1227, all on his own.
#14. Why is Brutus standing in a hole? They did such a good job with the
Chromakey bodies in the secret records room, but every time they try to
overlay Louis Edmonds onto the screen, they can't get him in the right
position. They figured out how to do this three years ago, and after some
rough initial experimentation, they settled into an effective technique that
they've used dozens of times. In March 1971, Dark Shadows probably does more
Chromakey shots than any other scripted television show; they're the industry
leaders in this area. So why can't they get Brutus in the right spot, several
episodes in a row?
#15. Explain this: "Make no mistake, Gabriel! You are my servant, and will do
my bidding! It pleases me to see them all die! And you will kill them, one by
one, with that knife! And anyone who thwarts me will die!" Presumably, this
overrides the curse: instead of having a lottery and choosing one person from
each generation, Brutus has now decided to directly slaughter every member of
the family right now. So if this fails, as it will, is the family curse still
in effect? If so, why?
#16. Catherine tells Morgan that Gabriel came after her with a knife, and
Morgan says that he'll get Quentin and search for the assailant. "No, let him
go!" she says. "If he can find some kind of peace away from Collinwood, then
let him find it!" What? He hasn't even left the house yet. Does Catherine
have trouble with object permanence?
#17. Catherine says that they should leave Collinwood forever, because this
house is full of lunatics and they'll probably be murdered. Morgan replies,
"We are all cursed, and where we go, we take it with us. So, you see, it does
no one any good to run away: not you, not me, not Gabriel!" Is there any
actual evidence that the curse would follow them, if they left the house? It
doesn't even affect the people next door. Brutus' fiendish plan to massacre
the family involves a knife; his civilization hasn't even developed ranged
weapons yet. Has anyone actually tried to run away, or burn the house down?
#18. How does this new "kill everyone with a knife" policy advance Brutus'
long-term goals? When he set up the curse in 1680, he said that it was
designed to identify the person who was worthy of the name Collins. Is that
still part of the overall strategy?
#19. How does a single ghost have the power to create this complicated live-
action role-playing game? The most destructive ghost that we've seen up to
now was Gerard, who destroyed the house using a team of pirate zombies and
then ruled the ruins for several decades, but even he didn't do something as
breathtakingly weird as giving people the plague, and then curing them on
command, just to prove a point.
#20. So far, as a result of this stupid curse, three Collins family members
have died in the spooky room, not counting little Tim Braithewaite, and three
others went insane and then died afterwards. That makes at least six
ancestors who are just as pissed off with Brutus as Brutus is with everyone
else. Why can't they gang up on him?
#21. And when you think about it, do angry ghosts even make sense, as a
concept in literature? Who wants to haunt and punish their own descendants?
#22. I mean, if someone from the distant past was angry, then the people that
they were angry at are long gone. Being furious at your own great-great-
grandchildren says more about you and your long-term parenting skills than
anything else.
#23. So let's say you've got nine weeks to tell a ghost story about a family
being haunted by a murderous curse, and the whole thing hinges on the
ancestral backstory having some dramatic punch behind it. Why would you go
ahead with it, if the backstory that you have doesn't make any logical,
metaphorical or emotional sense? Or at least fix the cameras.
Dark Shadows bloopers to watch out for:
Catherine cries, "Killing you - killing me won't get you away from here!"
When the scene shifts from the establishing shot of Collinwood at night to
Gabriel walking down the foyer stairs, there's a flash of green.
After Gabriel leaves the spooky room holding the knife, Brutus is supposed to
do his evil echo-laugh, but he doesn't. Brutus starts laughing too late, and
the reverb is switched off halfway through as the next scene starts.
Gabriel asks Melanie, "Didn't you know there were many secrets and panels,
all over this house?"
Here's the opposite of a blooper, something that they did quite effectively
that I want to point out. In Act 1, Morgan and Julia are looking at the
bodies of James and Amanda, who are Chromakeyed into the scene. The Chromakey
footage was pretaped, because Keith Prentice is playing both Morgan and James
in the scene. When the lights suddenly go out for Morgan and Julia, the
lights on the bodies dim too, just at the right time. It's a nice moment,
well planned and executed. It's deeply strange that they can get this right,
and they still can't put Brutus in the right place.
--
Let's go Brandon!