Previous Screen		 VIEWMASTER PRESENTS DARK SHADOWS, Screen 9
Next Screen


Nicholas sent Eve on journey into the past with lover.
Nicholas sent Even on journey into the past with her lover.

SLIDE 9 (From Episode 610; Broadcast 10/25/1968)

Bewildered, Eve fled back to Adam's room only to find Nicholas awaiting her, demanding to know whom she had seen that disturbed her. Her answer was confusing, but it told him enough to know that Jeff Clark was involved. Needing to know more, he mesmerized her to send her back to her previous life nearly 200 years before.

"Fix your eyes on the candle," he commanded, "and concentrate. You are moving back through the years - back -"

First Eve went limp, then she stiffened and cried out, "Peter! I did it for us! For you and me I killed Philip - because he would have killed you! I swear he would! Peter - don't look at me that way - don't condemn me - I tell you I had to do it! Peter -"



NOTES:

  • Bewildered, Eve fled back to Adam's room only to find Nicholas awaiting her, demanding to know whom she had seen that disturbed her. -- Of course he shouldn't know that she's seen anyone, but just having him magically know this is easier than the time it would take to have him figure it out. See how cleverly Viewmaster condenses the story by having answers just fall out of the sky? If only it worked that way in real life.

  • Her answer was confusing,... -- Tell me about it!!

  • ...but it told him enough to know that Jeff Clark was involved. -- "Now, if only we knew who Jeff Clark is, that might actually tell us something!"

  • Needing to know more, he mesmerized her to send her back to her previous life nearly 200 years before. -- Any good full service hypnotist can perform this function. No problem there, but what's this business about her having a past life 200 years before, when she was tossed together in a lab from spare body parts like Adam? Well, for one thing, the VV hasn't actually told us she was built in the lab, you just have to infer it from the fact that Adam was (which they almost kinda sorta told us in the Introduction). Also, they haven't told us how she was brought to life using the Life Force of a ghost, so maybe they were just hoping people would assume it was a fairly simple case of reincarnation from a past life, that everybody in a show like this must have in their past.

  • In the show, Eve/Danielle had killed someone named Philippe (not Philip), for much the same reason (he was hitting on her while she was trying to hit on Peter). But Peter wasn't blamed for his death. In fact, nobody seems to have been. Why they changed the name is unclear. Even in the show, Philippe seemed to have no real purpose other than for his ghost to almost strangle Barnabas at a séance, so for once it isn't Viewmaster that's holding out on us. The unintentional irony here is that the actress (Marie Wallace) later went on to play a character who was married to someone named Philip.

  • First Eve went limp, then she stiffened and cried out, "Peter! I did it for us! For you and me I killed Philip - because he would have killed you! I swear he would! Peter - don't look at me that way - don't condemn me - I tell you I had to do it! Peter -" -- Isn't this exciting? I wonder what it all means. Well, fear not. Even Viewmaster figured out at this point that a little emergency exposition might be needed, so they graciously put in this little sidebar to explain what the heck is going on. Let's see if it helps...

    Scroll down


    • Sidebar to SLIDE 9

    The workings of implacable fate lay behind Eve's confrontation with Jeff on the terrace. In the Collinsport of Colonial days grim tragedy parted these star-crossed lovers at the very foot of the hangman's scaffold. Jeff, whose name in that earlier incarnation had been Peter Bradford, saved Eve's life by confessing to a murder that she, not he, had committed.

    Condemned to die on the scaffold, Peter heroically rejected Eve's pleas to save himself by surrendering his soul to the powers of witchcraft which she herself had embraced long ago. Thus an innocent man died in ignorance of the fact that Eve's powers would work on him even in death and that the two of them would meet again after long centuries had passed.



    NOTES:

  • Ahh, this helps a bit. Except for the fact that it's all made up by Viewmaster and bears only faint resemblance to what happened in the show. Yes, Jeff was Peter Bradford in 1796, and he was hanged, but the resemblance ends there. In actuality, he was in love with time-traveling governess Victoria Winters (who makes a meaningless appearance in Slide 11, though she no longer has any Colonial connection with Jeff or Peter in this version of the story). He didn't confess to any crimes he didn't commit. Instead, Vicki shot Noah who was trying to kill Daniel (don't ask!), and Peter was blamed for it. Eve was nowhere near at the time. In the actual show, as here, they did try to claim that she'd been around during that storyline and loved Peter (though we all knew better) but even then he didn't like her, and certainly wouldn't have taken a murder rap for her.

  • This bit about urging him to surrender his soul to the powers of witchcraft is hilariously over the top. Nothing like it was in the show, but you know, I'm almost sorry!

  • In fact, if these powers of witchcraft can save one from being hanged, then where was the need for Peter to have taken the rap for her in the first place?? They just add these things in without ever stopping to think if they make any sense.

  • It's a good thing he did refuse her offer. Being a Satanist is bad enough. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to become a Balberithist, and not be able to pronounce it!

  • Peter's appearance in the 20th century being caused by Eve's so-called powers of witchcraft is also something Viewmaster added. In the show, he arrives in the 20th century (with a physical body!) for no reason in particular, but presumably because the power of his love for Vicki helped him do it. (Yeah, I know, I know, don't say it...). But if love could bring him to the future to find Vicki on TV, then how come it couldn't help him do the same for Eve here, if he loved her as much as they're saying, huh? Ha! Gotcha! (Or am I overanalyzing this?)



    • Previous Screen    		 VIEWMASTER PRESENTS DARK SHADOWS, Screen 9
    Jump to Screen #...
    01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
    11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
    21

    Next Screen

    HOME

    by Graeme Cree and Linda Keats