How She Stands: The Victoria Winters Story

It’s a long December. But there’s reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last.

For one thing, 1967 has a vampire in it.

Let’s let her believe that for now.

As we enter Dark Shadows’ sixth month, we see it begin to take the final transformative steps that make the eventual introduction of that vampire everybody talks about possible. Of course, all Barn won’t be popping up until April, but by the end of 1966, Collinsport will become a world that invites the possibility of vampires.

For now, though, we still have to wrap up this ‘maniac on the loose’ stuff. Don’t panic. I’m sure we’ll be fine.

So, one of the immediate positive side effects of the murder of Bill Malloy being resolved the way it was is that Roger is no longer the villain. Instead, he’s just Louis Edmonds transplanted into a dreary gothic soap opera. Which is technically all he’s ever been, but now they don’t have to bother making him seem like a viable threat.

Take, for example, Roger’s attitude when the long-suffering Victoria Winters apologizes for suspecting him of murder, a theory that one month ago seemed so plausible that the show went out of its way to make the audience think she was in mortal danger just sharing a room with him.

So, the A-story that dominated the show since September is now a punchline. It’s a funny incident that happened that Roger may eventually want to bring up at cocktail parties in an attempt at embarrassing the governess.

This is good progress.

Even better, Burke calls and Roger answers the phone. When Burke asks after Vicky, Roger gives her this look like his ex is asking for the new girl.

Burke asks Vicky to visit him this morning. I should probably point out that today is a different day from yesterday, which was itself a day confined only to one episode. Likewise, next episode will also be a different day. They’re really committing to picking things up around here.

The subtext is basically text at this point. Which is good, because all the homoeroticism was kinda waylaid over the last few weeks what with all the murder suspicions and whatnot. We are reminded that Roger doesn’t want Vicky consorting with Burke who, after all, has multiple times threatened to destroy the Collins family, Roger in particular.

Who can blame Vicky for needing the reminder? It has, after all, been several months and Burke hasn’t really done much to destroy anybody except any middle–aged suited dayplayer who has the misfortune of sharing a set with him.

This is in the same mold as last episode’s numerous restatements of mission. There, Francis Swann used his last script as a vehicle for essentially making a bulleted list of the various story points that remained to be resolved, with Burke and David essentially having a writer’s room discussion on the state of David’s mentally ill mother, Burke’s manslaughter conviction, and the mystery of Vicky’s origins.

Here, Ron Sproat signals at a new center of conflict, and a not unwelcome one. One that has, like all those other points, been neglected since very early on: the relationship between Vicky and Burke, and how it threatens Victoria’s allegiance to the Collins family.

We’ve been treated to various hints of this being important, as far back as the very first week when Roger suggested Vicky and Burke arriving in Collinsport on the same train was more than mere coincidence. This spiraled into Vicky being dragged into Burke and Roger’s dispute when Burke was suspected of stealing the suppository from Roger’s car. It escalated still further in the Malloy story, when Vicky was forced onto the hotseat to provide an alibi for Roger, something that Burke was irrationally upset with her for doing. And then, of course, we had two weeks in which Vicky’s suspicions vacillated between Burke and Roger before she finally became Burke’s confidant and collaborator in the plot that ultimately put Roger behind bars…albeit for a crime he didn’t commit.

And in the fish tube, one does not have agency of one’s own. All of Vicky’s interactions and conflicts with Burke have been the result of her being dragged in against her will. Roger forced her to confront Burke the night of the car crash, and he forced her again to give first Burke and then the police his alibi for the night of Malloy’s death.

Even when Vicky sought out Burke, it was only because she had nowhere else to go, and even then, Burke was the proactive one in the partnership, with Victoria’s input being relegated to just another dispenser of information Burke didn’t have yet.

The one major exception to this dynamic I can think of, the one instance where Vicky had some sort of agency in her dealings with Burke, was right after the suppository saga wrapped up, and she had dinner with Burke in the hopes that he might show her any information his detective had dug up on her.

Such information, of course, did not exist, and in the end, it’s not like Vicky had anything over Burke. He still had all the cards in the situation. She just showed up.

So, there’s a problem. This relationship isn’t exactly one built for song and story.

Which is a shame, because this is a story.

I have made lots of bellowing noises about how Burke was left out of the big reveal of Malloy’s killer. These bellowing noises were enhanced in their bellicosity (holy shit, that’s a real word, I was just being fanciful) by the fact that there was a man close to Victoria involved in those episodes: Frank Garner.

And you know my problems with that Frank Garner. He’s a woeful character in general and does nothing for Victoria. Burke, at least, is an interesting, dynamic, and fun to watch (thanks, Mitch) character, even if I’ve always had trouble buying him as Vicky’s central love interest. What’s worse, they’ve been leaning so hard into Vicky and ‘Good Guy’ Frank, while at the same time having next to no real romantic foundation for Vicky and ‘Bad Guy’ Burke.

The love triangle is old as the Mesopotamians; it’s hard to fathom how you could drop the ball on such a time-tested formula. Yet here we are.

They still talk like they’re friends. Just friends. Not best friends, or close friends. Friends. They meet up for coffee sometimes and talk about work. One will ask the other what they saw on TV last night. Stuff like that. The girl just had a terrifying experience in which she honestly believed a maniac was about to snap her neck and they’re making idle small talk about it.

My first thought was that Burke was manhandling Victoria as he guides her to the couch, but I’ve come to the slightly less charitable conclusion that there’s a simple explanation for why Episode 114 is one of the very few that required a second take.

You see, there’s something kind of…off, here.

Okay, so…um…Mitch Ryan, thank God, is still with us. And I stan, and he’s great, and I feel confident saying that Dark Shadows was lucky as hell to be a soap opera in the ‘60s with a stage presence of his immense talent in its roster.

But, that being said, a lot of Mitch’s idiosyncrasies in these first months…the line flubs and the stammers and the pauses and the shambling…were the result of a little…uh…

He drank a lot, is what I’m saying. And if you’re old hat to Dark Shadows you already knew this. If not, and you’re new, I’m glad I was the first to tell you, because I will add, as well, that Mitch eventually overcame the disease of alcoholism and, in his later years, became an extraordinary character actor, who still performs today, well into his 80s.

That being said, at this time, he was in a Broadway play most every night, and was in numerous episodes of this show, shooting from morning to afternoon, then doing dress rehearsals for the next episode if he was in that one (which he often was), and then getting out just in time to go on stage.

In fact, that busy schedule may be the reason Burke was out of the show for the past six episodes, leaving the miserable Frank Garner to fill the man-shaped hole in the Dark Shadows canvas.

It also doesn’t help that most of this week’s episodes were filmed out of sequence to accommodate the Thanksgiving holiday. That is, the episode they filmed the day before this wasn’t 113, but 112. They would film 113 the day after filming this one, so this was Mitch’s first day back on set in about a week.

This was also Thanksgiving, so the cast and crew didn’t get any time off or anything like that.

So, Mitch is playing Burke reacting to a recap (providing by Victoria) to a situation that his character (Burke) already knows from Mrs. Johnson, related to him in an episode that Mitch has not yet filmed.

Thankfully for all of us, Mitch recovers his composure in time for the conversation to reach the non-recapping nonsense stage of the proceedings.

In between all of this, he asks Vicky if Matthew said anything about the manslaughter case or anything Malloy may have known the night he died, which he didn’t, of course, because Matthew killed Malloy for next to no good reason. It’s infuriating and has nothing to do with anything.

Vicky admits she’s glad Matthew apparently knew nothing about that old business because, she reminds Burke, she wants nothing to do with this.

Vicky has been with the Collinses for 18 on-screen days, so not quite three weeks. Still, in that time, the Collinses have become the only family she’s ever known. Her attachment to them has grown considerably since she and Burke first discussed it. Can it still be true, what she told Burke when he came to Collinwood all that time ago? Does she still stand on her own two feet?

More importantly, do the Collinses…specifically Roger…even deserve her loyalty? Is that what family is for? If you ask Elizabeth, she’d certainly say yes. But is family worth sacrificing your values?

But she is involved. Has been involved ever since she walked through the doors at Collinwood 18 days and almost half a year ago. There is no going back. If Carolyn and David must constantly be pressured to choose between their family and the Devlin, so too must Vicky, if she really wants to call the Collinses her new family.

And that’s really where we are now, by this point in the pre-Barnabas era. By the time the Dude shows up, four months and change hence, Victoria is essentially an official member of the family. And it won’t be because she learned that the Collinses are, in fact, her blood relatives. As I’ve hinted before, the saga of Vicky’s quest gets one more milquetoast hint this very month before the show drops it forever.

Rather, Vicky will feel the Collinses are family because they treat her as such. Because, even after the chaos of an attempted murder and actual murder investigation, she feels at home at Collinwood. She feels, as she tells Burke, that Elizabeth Stoddard has given her a family.

And, unlike Carolyn, who has always had the assurance of family, that concept is too novel, too rare for Vicky to consider dropping it for the love of a man, even if she is, somewhere, beginning to believe he may have a point about being falsely accused.

Here’s something else: these two don’t have romantic chemistry. Mitch Ryan is hot and sexy and studly. He sizzles in the company of Nancy Barrett and, for that matter, Louis Edmonds (but that’s another story). Alexandra Moltke is also charming and talented and very pretty.

But they just don’t…they don’t spark. And I wish I’d say that this was the one time Vicky didn’t have sparks with a love interest, but we’ve already seen that Frank sucks all the charisma out of the room.

And there will be more after him. And Vicky just won’t click with any. It doesn’t help that Mitch Ryan is arguably the best romantic lead Vicky will ever be paired with, so if this isn’t working, it’s no surprise the others don’t either.

Well…given he just spent three minutes trying to get information out of here, yes, I imagine she does have that picture of him.

But Mitch plays that line very well. He sounds honestly surprised and wounded that Vicky doesn’t believe he has any human concern for the plight she’s been through. He takes it personally in a way he never takes anything anybody else says to him. He cares about her.

Vicky attempts to excuse herself, but Burke steps forward, tentatively says her name, “Vicky…”

And there it is. The leads have kissed. It’s been 112 episodes, but it finally happened.

Burke tells Vicky he “didn’t mean for that to happen”, and I can believe it. The kiss itself may have been nice, but Vicky pulled away like he smelled like fish.

I watch General Hospital, so this isn’t the most sexless kiss I’ve ever seen, but it’s certainly the most flaccid after kiss I’ve ever seen.

And it’s supposed to be uncomfortable. Vicky is shaken and embarrassed and she knows she can’t too involved with Burke.

But. What is the truth?

Does Vicky want Burke? Does she find him repellent? Are her reasons for avoiding Burke only based out of loyalty to the Collinses? Does she find him attractive at all? What does Burke see in her? Why is this happening? Why are they kissing now?

I am all for Ron Sproat trying to make this into a soap opera, trying to add some love into the proceedings. We saw that right from his first episode where he included an explosive fight between Joe and Carolyn, and focused right on Maggie’s pining for Joe. He identified the romantic potential of that story right off the bat as something lucrative enough to exploit immediately.

And yet it’s been a month, and we haven’t seen any forward momentum where that’s concerned. We haven’t even seen Joe since then.

And Burke and Vicky are supposed to be the tentpole pairing of the entire show. As Art Wallace envisaged it, these two are supposed to eventually defy the disapproval of the Collinses and get married. Housewives at home and teen girls just out of school are supposed to find this forbidden romance so compelling that they drop all their shit to tune in at 4:30 every afternoon just to see what they do next.

Houston, we have a problem.

See? He has more chemistry with Blair, and he’s invisible on the other end of that phone.

James Blair, who we will never see again, but will be stubbornly mentioned on-and-off for the next several months as the outside man who arranges Burke’s nebulous business affairs, is informing Burke of a significant new development in his various campaigns.

Luckily for us, we can.

Roger has some flowery excuses about how he’s taking off work because he wants to see what “conspiracies” Vicky is concocting with Burke. This is very cute, because Roger was probably going to cut work anyway, but there’s a very middle school part of him that wants to know if Vicky has taken up with his ex-man and he’s decided he needs to be the first to know.

Liz notices David heading out of the house and chastises him for walking out on whatever homework Vicky assigned him. I like that Vicky can just give the kid busywork while she skips out to do whatever she wants during work hours. Even for a soap opera, this job is absurdly cushy.

Extraordinary recovery on Joan Bennett’s part. 10-10 for David Henesy not flinching once and then going to the next line. This show is practically the Olympics.

So, Liz sends David upstairs and returns to the drawing room, where Roger points out that David wouldn’t be trying to get away from his schoolwork if Vicky were actually doing her job. And, again, he’s right. This is terrifying new territory. I don’t know what to make of it.

This delightful chitchat, as you can see, is merely a vehicle so we can see David slipping off on some variety of subterfuge because, in case you’ve forgotten, he is aiding and abetting an insane murderer currently hiding out in the woods behind the house.

Somehow, that’s the C-story of the episode; the A-story is Vicky’s romantic anticlimax with Burke, and the B-story is the call Liz gets from Burke in the next minute.

Burke responds by coolly observing that ‘she hasn’t changed’, which is more of the usual stock dialogue these two always use on those unfortunate occasions when the show wants to center business maneuverings. It’s even weirder because Burke last saw Liz a few nights ago when he showed up at Collinwood to entrap Roger. Of course she hasn’t changed; it’s only been three days.

So, another side effect of the new writing team (we’ll meet Sproat’s sidekick tomorrow) is that we are now able to fast track the belabored Logansport cannery business to its inevitable conclusion. The ill-advised plot beat of Burke trying to lure Collins fishermen to his new enterprise is quietly dropped, and Liz’s desperate attempts to raise enough money to purchase the cannery before Burke can comes to naught.

It’s not very exciting, but it does prevent us having to watch Mitch Ryan struggle through more dialogue-heavy nonsense with confused character actors.

Okay, so we’re back on the Burke’s revenge train, which is good because the murder mystery story sort of dampened the ardor, as it were. The sad thing is that Burke’s vengeance is kind of tame without the whole ‘vigilante justice’ aspect we got when Burke thought he could expose Roger as a murderer. So, it’s not clear this can really be sustained as-is.

Again, it’s been 112 episodes, and this is the “first big move”. So there’s already long-standing pacing problems here. Also, it’s weird that Elizabeth is so grim about Burke pouring massive amounts of capital into acquiring a defunct cannery (that presumably was only defunct because it did bad business) with no staff or management team. She really seems to think this is some sort of existential threat to the business, despite the fact that Collins Enterprises have been a fixture since 1690. Burke may have more money, but he doesn’t have enough experience, and he doesn’t even have experienced people. So the story’s angle is off. It’s hard to understand where the tension is coming from, why the urgency is being applied the way it is.

Anyway, here’s David raiding the cabinets.

That sojourn is over very quickly, which is a shame because we don’t see enough of that cute little kitchenette set. Now it’s back to Elizabeth explaining to us why we should be very scared that Burke bought the rival tuna company. Thankfully, Roger is here to enliven the proceedings with some good old fashioned cynicism.

His attitude has always been to just give up with regard to Burke. He was even in favor of selling him Collinwood several drawing room shouting matches ago. It’s funny because he’s supposed to be Burke’s rival, but it’s Elizabeth who gets the role in the business rivalry. That’s another reason the murder and attempted murder storylines worked for a while…it gave Burke and Roger excuses to have big conflicts.

But Roger doesn’t care about the business. It’s an actual character trait of his that he avoids going to work and resents doing anything while he’s there. He’s the quintessential rich wastrel. An old money fool who’d rather squander his cash than earn it.

Elizabeth accuses Roger of folding without a fight, but Roger wisely (!!!) notes that sometimes it’s better to give up the fight once you realize you can’t win.

Which, again…there is a point. It’s not the noblest argument, but why subject yourself to an ugly fight when you can back out when you have a chance? Roger has gone from being a scurrilous coward to a scurrilous, cowardly pragmatist. And it’s effortless. You understand how the version of the character you knew a month ago would say this, but you also appreciate how the nuances introduced by the change in the narrative made this version of the character possible in the first place.

As they bicker, David steals his way out of the house with his contraband. The camera is on him as he leaves but, significantly, you can hear Roger bemoaning how Matthew didn’t succeed in throttling Burke at the Blue Whale some nights ago. This is great, both because of course Roger would say that, but also because Elizabeth just chides him for talking smack about Matthew.

We are invited to pity Matthew because he, apparently, is without reasoning skills. The narrative treats him like an unstable animal not responsible for his own actions. Which is dehumanizing and questionable; it’s like they decided Matthew is of, er, subhuman intelligence, and therefore can’t be held responsible for his crimes.

I think it’s a side effect of the original plan to make Matthew Roger’s accomplice in Malloy’s murder, and not the murderer himself. But now, Matthew has become a monster character, a wild and unstable creature who can’t rationalize or be reasoned with. And he’s scary because of it. Uncomfortable things are scary.

But at the same time, they’ve decided Matthew was a fanatically loyal man who did things with good intentions, simply because he didn’t have proper reasoning powers. Essentially, he’s an overgrown child. And the Collinses have thrown him out to dry.

David’s bit of pantry-raiding was, of course, not for his own benefit, but so he could get Matthew his daily bread. Matthew isn’t in the episode, though, so we just get some atmospheric location footage of David approaching the Old House.

Back at Collinwood, Liz gets off the phone with her attorney Dick Garner, who apparently also handles her business affairs, presumably because the unfortunate Mr. Harris has pickled in his own juices.

Garner, who is not in the episode, informs Liz that there is nothing she can do to acquire Logansport from Burke because the deal has been sealed.

If his comportment when Roger was arrested is anything to go by, I don’t think Richard Garner’s ‘best’ amounts to much.

Also, Roger’s head back there was this site’s first thumbnail when I launched it back in Spring 2019. So sinister. So cute.

This is, of course, a badly screwed up line, but there is also a secret profundity to it: Elizabeth believes Collinses can neither win nor lose, because Collinses are supposed to be above the rules that apply to ordinary humans. Collinses don’t believe anybody can compete with them. But, as Burke is showing them…it can happen.

It’s also fun when Louis Edmonds screws up a line, so there.

Vicky returns and is hastily roped into yet another inquisition about what she was doing with Burke.

So he’s heavily implying that he believes Vicky and Burke were doing hanky-panky. And, technically, he’s right. The guy’s on a roll. Being cleared has had a profound effect on his character.

Roger tells Vicky all about Burke’s most recent business maneuver against the Collinses, in what appears to be an attempt to make her feel bad, as if she needed any help.

I love him.

And that’s what Roger is for now: prime cattiness with a helping side of camp. Eventually, the rest of the canvas will figure out this is a winning formula for everything and everybody.

Poor Vicky is compelled to explain her decision to cut off ties with Burke.

And there we go. She’s telling them that now. It appears Vicky has finally chosen a side. And, since she’s decided she must be a Collins now, that means she must abide by Elizabeth’s family credo: ultimate loyalty.

Will she regret it? Does she have reason to already? I’ll let you be the judge, because God knows I’m not sure we ever get a definitive answer one way or another.

So, it’s a bad sign when your family (found or otherwise) begins putting strict limits on who you can and cannot see, implying that if you defy them, you will lose your spot in the family unit. It’s not like Vicky is Carolyn. She’s an adult, and also wasn’t raised in this household. But here she is, sacrificing her agency to feel like part of the clan.

Why? Have the Collinses really been so good to her? Even Liz and Carolyn aren’t always in her corner, and occasionally lash out at her for absurd and (in Carolyn’s case especially) unhinged reasons. That’s not even getting started on Roger and David.

Is it worth it? Is that what ‘family’ is?

Because Dark Shadows is also about family. The kind you’re born with, and the kind you find along the way, the connections you make throughout your life that change you for better and for worse. Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard believes family is something you manage. Carolyn Stoddard thinks family is something you escape. Maggie Evans believes family is something you protect at any cost. Roger Collins believes family is a burden.

Victoria Winters believes family is all that matters.

Maybe they’re all right, in their own way.

Vicky goes to resume her lessons with David. Roger takes advantage of her absence to warn his sister that if Liz blows all the money fighting Burke, Carolyn and David would be left off for the worse. This is transparent nonsense, of course, almost certainly Roger is more concerned about losing his own lifestyle than for the kids to lose their inheritance, but he still makes a point against the danger of scorched earth warfare, which is more than either Liz or Burke have ever been capable of doing.

Is she right? Is this a moral battle? Or is she, as Roger accuses her, just a stubborn authoritarian who won’t admit defeat?

We’ll have to wait and see because David’s missing again. Vicky comes back downstairs after discovering David isn’t in his room. Roger is, as you can imagine, Very Concerned.

Except it is, because David is currently aiding and abetting a fugitive murderer. Still, we’re 18 minutes in, and this is the first time Roger’s been wrong today, so we’re doing pretty well, all things considered.

Anyway, he is right about David’s absence not being cause for distress, because the little tyke returns very promptly.

Liz takes David to task for his absence, but the child must have Mary Poppins on the brain because he whips out an effortless…

Which is precious. According to Carolyn, this child once drowned his pet kitten, but he wants them to believe he was out with the pigeons.

And, naturally, it works, because David is the smartest member of the family and none of these people have a shot at measuring up. Even when Liz points out that Matthew keeps the birdseed locked in the shed, David claims he knew that and came back to get the key. And they can’t exactly say anything to that, can they?

David has all the cards. The one person with the ability to change where the story is going is a nine-year-old boy.

I really love this show.

Behind the Scenes Shenanigans

As discussed above, this episode was filmed out of broadcast sequence. The full order for the last week of November/first week of December 1966 was 111, 112, 114 and 113. They filmed 115 the following Monday, on the day 111 aired.

As also discussed above, this was one of very few episodes across the entire series run that required a second take. While it’s not confirmed this was because of Mitch Ryan screwing up, there…er…is evidence. Joan Bennett also was the only cast member with any clout to demand tape edits, but it’s unlikely she could’ve necessitated an entire retake, especially since she’s more or less in command of her material this episode.

This Day in History- Thursday, December 1, 1966

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle announces the date of the first every “Super Bowl” to be held at the Los Angeles Coliseum in January.

Kurt Georg Kiesinger is elected Chancellor of West Germany by a 126–53 vote “after a long and bitter debate”.

Bluegrass musician and half of The Stanley Brothers Carter Stanley dies at 41. His brother Ralph will outlive him by half a century.