Dark Shadows: Episode 1 - The Arrival

With Roger and Elizabeth, sister and brother, gnashing teeth at each other, Victoria Winters answering an employment request to nanny a neglected son (of Roger, for Elizabeth), and Burke Devlin returning to Collins Port (and eventually Collinwood) with preparations and plans of revenge towards those responsible for his prison time; Dark Shadows in the pre-Barnabas era was setting up its machinations for the ongoing “first chapter” before vampires, alternate timelines, witchcraft, and the like. Why was Victoria specifically chosen by Elizabeth? What is Burke up to? How will Roger react when he learns of Burke’s return? Will Victoria stay at Collinwood (the Collins’ family mansion) and be nanny to Roger’s bizarre son? When pressed by Victoria, will Elizabeth waver, give in, and tell her why she was chosen for the position? The first episode produces just a bit of back story for Victoria, includes Elizabeth and Roger at odds over the governess job for weird, neglected David, and has her meeting a particularly cranky Burke, who is meeting a paid PI (sent to Collins Port to dig up dirt on the Collins-Stoddards) at the Blue Whale.

With all our ghosts, we sure don’t need no strangers in the house.

So, how to start from the beginning. Well, an orphan raised in a home in New York is contacted by Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, who owns practically the whole fishing village of Collins Port, Maine, a sleepy, moody, dark place the train barely stops for because no one wishes to visit it. A sweet, but haunted, adult now, Victoria Winters takes the position and rides by train to Collins Port, hoping to understand why Stoddard contacted her, of all people, for the job. This job draws the ire of Stoddard's disgruntled, boozing brother, Roger, who has a troubled son, David, that will be the reason for Victoria's governess duties. Roger, quite a louse, temperamental and antagonistic, questions Stoddard, as so much as calling her a fool for doing so. Meanwhile, several key characters who remain vital to the pre-Barnabas period forewarn Victoria of having anything to do with the Collins family. Returning home after some time away, local Burke Devlin, still sour and harboring anger towards the Collins family over a matter not yet determined and waitress of the Collins Port Inn, Maggie Evans, both attempt to dissuade Victoria from taking the position, considering them toxic and dangerous.

 What I felt is particularly established here in the first episode is the feeling of resentment and angst about the Collins family; their presence seems to cast an alarm, a distrust, an eerie spell over the small community who live in Collins Port. I love, cherish, and adore Gothic horror, and enjoy immensely stories surrounding a family with a shroud of mystery and how their past and power holds a gloomy shadow over a village who finds contempt and fear for them in equal measure. In Maggie's conversation with Victoria, we get this overview of how the Collins remain a symbol of creepiness, as if ghouls occupying a castle that rests in a perch on Widow's Hill high above the rest of the village, like gargoyles overlooking the little people.

 I just sensed that there is this well-established threat that could entangle Victoria within a web of danger and intrigue; good work by Dark Shadows Creative in producing that aura of the unknown palpable in regards to the Collins. I particularly like how the show is character oriented and will bring in (and evolve) a number of locals who are all involved, in one way or another, with the Collins family. And, kudos to the dark, shadowy nature of the village, the immediate acknowledgment of discontent and hidden agendas brewing in many of the characters, and the prevailing idea that doom might be on the horizon for Victoria if she decides to remain instead of heeding to the warnings and advice of others who seem to understand just what might lie in wait for her.