Chronological Audio Listen-Through

Dark Shadows Dramatic Reading 6: The Path of Fate
(Angelique & Quentin - Circa 1988)

The play opens with Angelique giving a rather... biased summary of her past, especially given the newly revealed circumstances of her self-exile. She (understandably) gives a more friendly account of herself than what actually occured.

Given that we now know of those events, we can place this audio in 1988, as it's stated to be five years since her return. Which puts it only four years after the last season of dramatic readings. And possibly only three years after Bloodline, depending on how much time passes between the end of Tainted Love and the beginning of that. I guess we'll find out later. Given how fast they zipped through the remainder of 1983 and the bulk of 1984 there in the last season of Dramatic Readings, it would be rather easy for them to bridge the gap there as well. On the other hand, they could just put like three or four more seasons of miniseries in there as well. Who knows.

I wonder how long the Collins family has known she's back in the land of the living. I mean, if she's been shopping in the market I guess they'd hear about it eventually, but you'd think they would have contacted her sooner. Granted, we've got a couple blank years to fill in, as I said, so I guess there's nothing saying she hasn't shown up every now and again.

Interesting that it's somewhat common knowledge that she's a witch, or was, at least. I guess, given the events of the latter half of Bloodlust, that this shouldn't be that surprising.

The amount of exposition is a bit jarring, but this was, what, the 6th dramatic reading? They did a lot of summarizing of television stuff in the early days.

Oh man we get explicit exposition about Quentin's past, about the first Quentin. I mean, the other audios sort of cover that stuff, but this is a rather explicit infodump.

Are they talking about the 1995 storyline from the show? Haven't gotten that far in the Original Series yet.

There is a heart in that closet. What. The. fiddlesticks. Welcome to Collinwood, I suppose. New character! Heart in a Jar!

Very colorful descriptions given in the narration.

Man what is up with this stairway. Doesn't exactly seem to be a stairway through time like it's older brother.

I note that this is the second time an explicit Lovecraft entity has shown up in the audios. The show, I understand, pastiched Lovecraft a lot, but made up their own olde ones and gods to play with. The fact the audios are just borrowing from Lovecraft without even making a pastiche of it bothers me somewhat.

Oh man it's that heart again. And, oh dear, full werewolf Quentin. That can't be a good thing. For anybody. No wonder he's been blacking out.

Man the first Quentin sounds like a hardass. Builds a non-Euclidian stairway through time and messes with shit. Damn. I think I've heard mention of Judah before. So are we to understand that this heart is how the original Quentin found the power to build his mighty stairway? And that it has something to do with Angelique's old teacher of witchcraft?

Selby does a wonderful job of making Quentin sound helpless and terrified. He's a great actor.

Who the hell is this guy? This the Judah guy they've been talking of? Oh, I guess not. Isaiah Mason, the teacher of Angelique's teacher. He ever show up in the show? So the OG Quentin cut out Isaiah's heart to use his power? Damn, that's cold.

Isaiah is possessing Quentin, and seems to think that Angelique is just going to roll over and take it. She shows him lol. But, in the process, damns herself once more.

That hellhound scene was rather gruesome to listen to.

Girl just can't catch a break :/

All in all, a good play. I liked it. A nice two-hander, with some first person narration.

Next up I'll be going through the entries in Echoes of the Past, which will round out with a follow-up to this, and thus we progress ever onwards.

Time marches on...

Dark Shadows: Echoes of the Past: The Missing Reel
(Quentin Collins II - 1958)

This one takes place betweeeeeen (checks notes) The Eternal Actress and The Darkest Shadow. Interesting. And of course it takes place in California. Good stuff.

Strange guy (in a normal sort of way) shows up at a diner looking for Quentin. Writer for a rag. Oh man this guy just shrugged off Metropolis. Them's fightin' words! Apparently there's an old silent horror film called The Werewolf's Curse.

It's kind of fascinating listening to this fan, this Eddie guy, ramble in nervous excitement over this film he loves. The cadence at which Selby reads off his lines is so accurate to those types I know in real life, he does a really good job of it. Over the course of around ten minutes we get a rambling tale about the trouble production of this film, about deaths in the cast and crew, and about eight minutes that were supposedly removed from the final cut. But ah, there was apparently a full version of the film smuggled out before the cuts were made. And Quentin's got a briefcase with him. Hmm.

Oh hey, Pasadena, I spent some of my childhood there.

Ah, Quentin's got the reel. Eddie followed him here from the auction.

The Werewolf's Curse was made in 1927. Cool, another little tidbit to fill in Quentin's adventures. That'd be a few years prior to Blood Dance then.

Can I just take a moment to say that I'm really loving the sound design in this? Trask the Exorcist didn't have a whole lot of sound fx going on, but it had splashes here and there, but this one's been different. Nice, subtle background jukebox during the diner scenes. Film real noise and olde timey silent film piano during the screening. Combined with Selby doing a nice distinct voice for Eddie and this doesn't really feel all that different to early Dramatic Readings like The Skin Walkers so far.

But anyway, we are treated to a "viewing" of the missing bit of film.

Ah, and now we get Quentin, recounting the events of 1927 to Eddie, explaining just what the deal is. Starts fairly typically for a Quentin story: wandering around, gets involved with something, falls in love with someone, chaos ensues, etc. And then things get dark. Very dark.

Oh, man. You know, for a story that doesn't actually apparently feature anything supernatural as of yet, it's still pretty sordid and shocking. Very Hollywood.

I like it.

Next up is Lunar Tides, featuring Miss Maggie Evans, in May of 1983.

Dark Shadows: Echoes of the Past: Confession
(Angelique - post-Path of Fate)

Oh man right off the bat we've got some classic Dark Shadows sound cues going on. Good stuff.

Angelique writing out her last confession. We get some ruminations that make non-specific references to the events of The Path of Fate. And of course some ruminations of Barnabas, who's off travelling with Julia (again (again)). She's been using witchcraft to watch him as he travels, hitchhiking in the minds of people and animals nearby.

I wonder if this Black Shroud thing is real. Or rather, if it's a real world myth. It sounds like the sort of thing that could come out of folklore somewhere, but I've never heard of it before, though admittedly I haven't done a whole lot of research into the lore of Central Africa.

The conceit of Angelique sitting in her cabin in the woods while at the same time being witchily present overseas is actually a nice one, and could work well if one wanted to use her as a supporting character in audios featuring those abroad (as it does now, sort of).

Angelique franticly casting spells across the ocean in an attempt to get this shroud thing away from Barnabas. She's... gonna pay for this later, isn't she?

I'm having fun trying to imagine how this would be filmed in the Original Series. There'd be some interesting camera overlay tricks, similar to the early Josette stuff, for the Shroud, and I imagine some cheap visually trickery for a tarantula (representing Angelique) on set casting out this "demon".

Hehe Angelique using her witchcraft to inflict petty inconveniances on Julia amuses me.

We are then treated to Angelique bruskly listing off various threats to Barnabas without his knowledge. I can almost imagine her ticking them off on her fingers.

We are treated to some nice descriptions of the market in Istanbul. Goes a good way towards helping the image form in the eye of one's mind.

Hmm, something seems to have set a trap for our favorite creature of the night. A singular ring of some sort. Which freaks Angelique out something fierce.

And then we segue a bit, getting some insights into Angelique's time in the layers of Hell. Fun times. Or rather, not. At all.

The Stoker of Hell. Reminds of The Butcher, or The Blacksmith, from the Diablo series of video games. It's a common archetype. Helps me solidify an image of the being in my head. This is the one who made the ring. Angelique is a bit torn between helping Barny and drawing The Stoker's ire.

Well, I guess that's that decision taken care of. Ohhhhhh Angy you're gonna get it now. Yup, she's getting it. Getting it bad. And, uh, Collinsport seems to be in the way. Oh dear.

Before the final end, Angelique is bid confess, in such detail that all the other things that crawl in the night will know what happens when you cross those who rule in Hell.

Hmm. We've named a secondary character. I... don't know if that's a good thing or not. And, she's shown up again...

and...

oh.

Angy no

I, uh, kind of hope this doesn't work out for her.

Yeah.

Damn.

So, uh, despite how that turned out, it was good. And powerful. A nice roundout to the set. Am greatly looking forward to the next one (out in... damn, December). At present time I believe a story from Matthew Waterhouse(!) is the only episode yet announced, but the cast list is already up, and it's going to be Lacy, Selby, Scott, and Parker again. Selby and Parker will probably be playing Quentin and Angelique, though it's possible, I suppose, that they could be doing otherwise. I wonder which member of the Trask family Lacy will be playing this time. Hmm. Actually, given that Waterhouse is writing the story, I wonder if we'll get some connections between the Trasks and the Cunninghams, especially considering The Reverend Cunningham from Blood & Fire. Scott's probably going to be playing Maggie, though she's got a multitude of other parts if they chose to go another route with it.

Anyway!

Next up is Return to Collinwood, set in 2003 (iirc), and featuring a full-cast. And after that... who knows. I may go back and do this all again from the beginning, giving proper writeups to everything, as I didn't start doing meaty posts like this until somewhere in the middle of the 1970s audios. We'll see how things go.

Alright! Took me a bit, due to IRL things getting in the way, but here it is!

Dark Shadows: Return to Collinwood
(Everyone they had lying around - Collinwood, 2003)

We open. Liz has passed away

David is away, having not set foot in Collinwood after an argument with Roger some years prior. Roger has since passed, by David's still not home. Barnabas and Julia (& Stokes) are eternally traveling. Maggie's a bigwig at Windcliff (something something inmates running the asylum ) and she's now a couple with Quentin, Joe having passed since we last saw him. Carolyn's married Ned Stuart. Angelique's dead(?) (again?) (unclear on this). Willie's settled down with Jessica, and they're living over at The Old House. And Shaw is still in Windcliff (though one wonders how he avoided the machinations of Doctor Rankin. Perhaps he was in another sanitorium at the time...). I think that covers everybody. Anyway, the call has gone out, and the family (or what members can be found) are gathering for the reading of Liz's will.

David's been away for ten years or so, so circa '93. Daaamn. I wonder if Amy went with him. Quentin didn't manage to track him down.

Mrs Franklin is as crotchety as her predecessor. Lovely hahah.

I wonder what happened to Lela?

Hmm. Seances. Good old Dark Shadows standby.

Hahahaha this scene with Willie is fantastic. I can just about imagine him fiddling around, trying to install a jacuzzi. It's great. You can just feel the passion in his voice when he talks about all the work he's done on restoring The Old House.

Joe passed about a decade ago, so mid to early nineties.

Angelique's mind-talking to Carolyn. That's... certainly not a good thing. And is painting a picture of her, apparently. Only, no one recognizes it? Really? No one recognizes Angelique? What the hell, guys.

Ah, that gramophone.

You know, how the hell did Maggie go a full decade without running into anything supernatural to jog her memories? Maybe she only returned to the area recently...

Bwahahahahaha Willie can't do pipes as well as he thought. He and Jessica make a good pair Willie finds a package in the wall. Interesting historical tidbit about Cigar Lounges.

Having listened to Dreaming Of The Water, I am a lot less sympathetic towards Shaw. IIRC, I didn't even know who he was first time I listened to this. Ah, I see Angelique's got her hooks into him as well.

Ah, time for the seance. Tossup between this and the reading of the will for longest single scene of the play. As the scene goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that this has nothing to do with Liz and is, in fact, Angelique manipulating things from behind the scenes in order to come back to life. Again. I guess she didn't manage to get away from the Stoker after all. Or something. Who knows. There's between ten and fifteen years between Confession and this, after all. But yeah, scene starts out calm enough but then builds to fervor and everything devolves.

I wonder why they didn't call Amy. Like, we know, in a real world sense, that her character hadn't been reintroduced at this point, but listening to it now, it's, like, why didn't they call Amy?. I can't help but suspect that something horrible involving the Cunningham family has happened.

Sebastian shows up at the old house and attacks Jessica

And on to disc 2!

Quentin ain't happy with Angelique. Interesting. You'd think they parted on pleasant terms. I guess things soured there, prior to the latest end. Ah, speak of the devil, Angelique, sorry, Cassandra is at the door! God, the saccharin is down right poisonous. If wit were knives, they'd all be bleeding.

Carolyn seems pretty calm about being possessed. She's grown over the years, it seems.

So, the first time I listened to this, I was not aware that Quentin & Angelique had a bit of a romance at one point.

Ah, I see, Angelique wants to either blackmail Quentin or just wait till everyone else (save Quentin) is dead. Damn, the two of them are tossing barbs at each other. Must have been a rocky time of it after The Path of Fate for Quentin to think so ill of her, now that she's come back again. Ah, I see, she's got his portrait. Hrm.

Quentin and Willie make a nice pair. I'm glad they continued it a bit in The House of Despair, but then Barnabas came back and Quentin was shunted to a more supporting role again :/

Man I hate that housekeeper. What a bitch. I suppose that means she's well written hahah

Willie digging holes in the cemetery and grumbling about it is just great. I know Willie's the fall guy, but he plays it sooooo well hahah. There's something morbidly amusing about Willie reminiscing about the family mausoleum as if he were returning to a childhood home. Gives Shaw a good once-over, while he's at it. Good.

And Maggie slapping Angelique like that is well deserved. Feels good man.

Ah, and finally, the reading of the will. As I said earlier, this is probably the longest scene in the play, but it's a powerful scene, and helps wrap up some some left dangling from the Original Series since before even Barnabas was a thing. When I first listened to this, I was about half way through the Laura stuff in the Original Series, prior to Barnabas (or even Willie) had arrived on the scene, so all that stuff was fresh in my mind, and this scene ended up being perhaps even more poignant than it could have intended to be.

Though, while I'm thinking about it, some stuff I've learned about Lara Parker's novels casts some of this in a slightly different light, and Quentin's comments there after the reading have a bit of a different undertone than I suspect was intended at the time. >__>

Which brings us to Violet. Ah... Violet. At the time, I had precisely no idea why she was a big deal. But, now, I understand the significance of the Chavez name. Now, again, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO AMY? OR LELA?? OR BURKE??? AAAARGH! Heheheheh

And I believe in a semi-recent podcast they floated the idea of doing some Dramatic Readings with Quentin and Maggie set after this play, as they get up to shenanigans. Should prove entertaining, if they go forward with it

Also also, since starting this listen, I have since learned of Lara Parker's upcoming novel, Heiress of Collinwood, which features Victoria Winters coming home, and will address some things that were addressed in this play. Given some of Lara's fast and loose regard to continuity in her novels (which, I suppose, isn't really that much different from the show's approach, at times, which felt no compunction with retconning things for the sake of a good storyline), it will be interesting to see how well it dovetails.

Now, afterthoughts. This one was... well, honestly, I recall struggling through it the first time round. I got to it after listening to a bit of the BF stuff and it's, quite frankly, not up to their standard. Like, it's not bad at all, just... BF does it better I do, of course, recognize its importance and significance. It is, for all intents, in a similar position to The Sirens of Time over on the Doctor Who side of things, a reuniting of cast to try and see if this audio thing is worth a go. And oh, the places it's lead us, a merry chase indeed...

Looking back on my early thoughts after my first listen through this is somewhat amusing:


Hard to believe that was only a year and change ago.

Of course, having gone through all the rest of the audios, as well as getting a couple hundred episodes further into the Original Series, watching the Revival, and the three films, most of my questions and concerns have been answered. Of course, I now have different questions and concerns hahah.

Ah well.

Will be interesting to see how I feel about it in another year or so.

Next up: I'm going to be going through the novels, or at least the novels starting with Angelique's Descent. I'll probably be posting my thoughts on those over in that thread, but depending on how well I feel they can be nested within the Big Finish continuity, I may include them in my next big chronological listen-through, which I do plan on doing, possibly later in the year after Bloodline and Haunting Memories are out.

Wait... what? There are Strange Paradise Audio Dramas?

Mind blown.

Quite right, it is. 

Which werewolf had a midnight snack, you mean? One lovable but lycanthrophic youngster soon discovers that if you salt them, people taste like bacon - and Nicholas Blair probably told him so.

Not sure but I think there may be a continuity gap of some kind between 462 & 463 where Echoes of Insanity might indeed fit into, or else maybe it taking place roughly simultaneous with 462-463 might work best if we don't want to meet Angelique prior to her dramatic introduction in 1795? (I admit to having the same preference, not sure why but it just seems right somehow).

So.... does Final Judgement occur post-1795 or post-1840?