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8
Number

8

Timeline

1967

Narrator

Alexandra Moltke
(as Victoria Winters)

Writer

Art Wallace

Director

Lela Swift

Broadcast

July 6, 1966
(Wednesday)

Recorded

June 22, 1966
(Wednesday)

Video

Complete: Disc 1
Beginning 1: Disc 1

8 Gallery
We have 5 images of Dark Shadows 8

Carolyn admits she loves Joe but turns aside when he asks her to marry him.

Synopsis[]

Opening narration
My name is Victoria Winters. The devils of a forgotten time have found their home on the crest of Widows' Hill and the great house echoes with their pain. It's a lonely and frightening world, but for me, it's a place of hope. A place where the winds of the past can bring the answers for the future.

Teaser

Elizabeth discovers the window in Victoria's room has come open and goes to close it. As she does, she sees some papers lying on the floor, among them the most recent letter from Victoria's friends in New York (5) which she begins to read when Carolyn comes in, noticing the letter. They discuss Victoria, Carolyn asking why Elizabeth had hired Victoria rather than going to Lewiston or Bangor. Elizabeth sticks with her story that Roger knew someone at the orphanage, but Carolyn seems to have doubts. She tells her mother that she suspects Victoria went to town to call the foundling home to find out if she told the truth. Carolyn leaves and Elizabeth goes back to reading Victoria's mail.

Act I

Miss Hopewell reveals to Victoria that she didn't know of Roger Collins until after Victoria got the job offer and that she’s just as curious as Victoria is, and no one on the staff has ever heard of Elizabeth or Roger or any of the Collins family. Elizabeth, in a fit of anxiety about the past, wonders if she made a mistake in hiring Victoria, who likes to look in shadows, and considers terminating her employment. Carolyn begs her not to, because she finally has a friend.

8C

Miss Hopewell talks to Victoria

Elizabeth asks Carolyn if she needs Victoria since she has Joe Haskell, telling her she can be free of Collinwood now that Victoria is here. She tells Carolyn that if she does not fire Victoria it will only be because of Carolyn.

Act II

Joe arrives with flowers for Elizabeth and Carolyn and good news: he has earned a promotion off the boats and into the cannery office that means $25/week more and regular working hours. That places his boat purchase next year. He and Carolyn kiss passionately and she tells him she loves him, so he ruins the moment by asking her to marry him again, which instantly turns Carolyn sour. Elizabeth comes in with the tea service and Carolyn tells her Joe has good news to give her as Joe berates himself silently over his ill-timed proposal.

Act III

Elizabeth is very happy to hear the news, but Carolyn begins to suspect that Elizabeth strong-armed the promotion. Joe mentions that when he saw Bill Malloy last night he said nothing, and Elizabeth, looking guilty, says that maybe he didn't decide until this morning. Carolyn notes that Bill Malloy and her mother talked for a long time this morning on the telephone.

Joe asks Elizabeth if she had a hand in the promotion, and Elizabeth flounders around, saying Joe's name came up and then asking the rhetorical question if it was wrong for a business owner to approve a promotion. She insists that Bill came up with Joe's name on his own and she enthusiastically agreed, but then blows it when she says that it had nothing to do with the fact it would make it easier for the kids to get married.

Carolyn tells her mother to quit trying to marry her off, and Joe tells her he is on Elizabeth's side. Just then a knock on the front door interrupts them and Carolyn flees the drawing room to answer the door, closing the drawing room doors behind her. It is Victoria, who forgot she had a key. She and Carolyn talk in the foyer and Carolyn becomes upset, finally admitting she's scared at this chance to flee Collinwood.

Act IV

Elizabeth goes to see what is happening in the foyer, but it is empty. Joe tells her that Carolyn always reacts badly when he brings up marriage, and Elizabeth says it is probably the famed ghosts of Collinwood that scare her away. She goes to get Carolyn, but Joe asks her to stay, telling Elizabeth that he met Burke Devlin last night at the Blue Whale after he brought Carolyn home (3). He also relates that Burke offered to pay him for information.

Elizabeth is none too pleased when Joe says that Burke knows about him, Roger and Elizabeth. Elizabeth is visibly shaken when he says that Burke knew "everything" about Victoria, which amounts to who she was, what her job was, where she came from and "all the rest of it." Elizabeth wants to know what he meant by the last statement, but is interrupted by Carolyn. Elizabeth continues the questioning, and Carolyn tells her Victoria is back and in her room. Elizabeth is so unnerved that she leaves the kids alone to go see Victoria. Carolyn laments that whenever she likes someone she always seems to do her best to push them away.

Upstairs, Victoria admits that she called the foundling home to speak with Miss Hopewell. Elizabeth says she doesn't like being checked up on, but Victoria says she didn't like it, but the fact was no one there had ever spoken to her or Roger. Elizabeth tells Victoria that she is very important to Carolyn and has been to her also, but Victoria is free to leave any time she wants. Victoria says she doesn't want to leave, but it is difficult when she doesn't understand what is going on. Elizabeth says Victoria being at Collinwood is 'very important,' but she cannot allow her to question and investigate everything she says, and that Miss Hopewell was wrong, that she was hired on a recommendation given to Roger. Victoria considers this and Elizabeth tells her she will consider the matter closed and wants Victoria to be happy at Collinwood. She then leaves Victoria alone to consider this.

Back at the foundling home, Mrs. Hopewell dictates a letter to Victoria. She says that she received a visit from a man who claimed to be a magazine writer, but finally admitted to being a private investigator, hired to find out information about her almost identical to their earlier conversation. His name was Wilbur Strake and she asks Victoria if she knows him, or who hired him to find out these facts?

Memorable quotes[]

Elizabeth: Is it suddenly a crime if the owner of a business approves a promotion?
Carolyn: Approves? Or suggests?

Mrs. Hopewell: No. Vicki, that letter that you got from Collinsport was the first time anyone here had ever heard of Mrs. Stoddard or Mr. Collins...or anyone connected with them. I'm afraid that's not very much help, is it?
Victoria: But you're wrong. It's a great deal of help.

Dramatis personae[]

Background information and notes[]

Production[]

  • Final appearance of actress Elizabeth Wilson and the character Mrs. Hopewell.

Story[]

  • Some people may think Joan Bennett fumbled over her lines in the scene with Carolyn and Joe, but the character is obviously caught in a lie and trying desperately to get out of it, digging a deeper grave in the process, so her delivery may be deliberate.
  • Accounting for inflation over time, Joe Haskell's $25/week pay increase would amount to $226.58/week in 2023 dollars.

Bloopers and continuity errors[]

  • Joe claims his $25/week raise will now allow him to save an extra $500/year; however, there are fifty-two weeks in a year, so surely this should add up to $1,300/year.
  • As with the previous episode, Victoria addresses Hopewell as Miss rather than Mrs. She remains "Mrs." in the end credits, however.
  • When the credits end, Bob Lloyd doesn't say "Dark Shadows is a Dan Curtis production". He also seems to trip over the words "afternoon at."
  • Mrs. Hopewell calls Collinwood "Collinswood" when she is dictating her letter to Victoria at the end of the episosde.
  • When "Beginning Collection 1" was first released to MPI's exclusive "Dark Shadows On DVD" club in January 2007, the tag scene at the end of Act IV when Mrs. Hopewell dictates her letter to Victoria and the closing credits were edited out of this episode. The disc jumps from the scene in the bedroom right into episode 9. Members began contacting MPI about this error, but it wasn't til a vast majority of them called in or emailed, that MPI repressed the disc, and asked all members with the "defective copy" to send it in (just the disc not the whole collection) and they would receive a new copy of disc 1, free of charge. Prior to the club's release of "Beginning Collection 3" in May, MPI put out a press release that the set ("Beginning 1") was going to be released to the public in late August (in between the club members' release of "Beginning Collections 4 and 5"). Originally, phone calls to and emails sent from MPI, the plan was to release the Beginning sets to the public AFTER all 6 had been released to club members. Whether the "early public release" was for this reason or not is unclear. When the collection was finally released to the public that August, the copies sold by retailers were also newer copies with the scene restored. The copies in all releases of disc 1 in "The Complete Series" as well as the rerelease of Beginning Collection 1 in April 2012 were also repaired copies.

End credits announcements[]

  • How well do newlyweds really know each other? Watch the fun when recently married couples play 'The Newlywed Game', premiering Monday afternoon at two, one o'clock central time on ABC.

External Links []

Dark Shadows - Episode 8 on the IMDb

The Collinsport Historical Society - Dark Shadows Diary - Episode 8

Dark Shadows Commentary- Episode 8: The Famous Ghosts of Collinwood

Dark Shadows Before I Die- Episode 8: 7/6/66

Gallery (5)[]

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