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'Buried alive' fear ruled life of Victoria at Blair house.
"Buried alive" fear ruled life of Victoria at Blair house.

SLIDE 11 (Earlier in Episode 610; Broadcast 10/25/1968)

While Eve's retreat to the past was going on at Blair House, fear permeated one of the rooms at Collinwood like a tangible thing. Victoria Winters, trying to tell Elizabeth Stoddard about her plans for marriage with Jeff, found the older woman returning again to the dread conviction that had been growing on her for some time - that her fate was to be buried alive.

Vicki's efforts to make light of this obsession met with no success. "It's no use talking," Elizabeth insisted. "I can hear the spirits of the dead. They say I will be among them, but - but I will not be dead!"



NOTES:

  • Two more people that you haven't heard of before (unless you've been reading the notes), suddenly being thrust on us out of nowhere. Liz is the mistress of Collinwood, and Vicki is governess to a kid who doesn't appear in the booklet, just in case you were wondering who they were, whether they ought to be in Collinwood, and whether or not anyone should call the cops on them for breaking and entering. Since Vicki has nothing to do with anything else in the Viewmaster Story, and since the Buried Alive subplot is in no way advanced in the VV, you could skip this slide without missing a thing.

  • So really, then. Why are these two here if they have nothing to do with the story? Probably because they're people that the buying audience wants to see. Joan Bennett was a major movie star, and Vicki was the central character in Dark Shadows' early days. The people who are going to buy the package want them in there one way or the other. I remember getting this set as a kid and being disappointed that only 2 slides (this one and Slide 20) showed interior shots of Collinwood. The same principle applies here. Just as you couldn't do a Star Trek Viewmaster around an episode that Dr. McCoy didn't appear in, you can't do a Dark Shadows Viewmaster without putting in Vicki and Liz.
              "Okay smarty," I hear you say. "In that case how come Carolyn Stoddard, an equally major character, is missing entirely? Well, that is a good point. They may have had no choice. She may have simply been unavailable. She only appeared in one episode during this time frame (Episode 609), and missed 31 out of 32 episodes between 602 and 333. Sounds to me like she was on a long vacation, and that nobody was on the ball enough to corner her by the coffee machine on the one day she was actually in, and make her pose for a shot.

  • The "Liz's Fear of Being Buried Alive" subplot was something that dragged on interminably (over 150 episodes on and off) when they couldn't think of anything else to do with Joan Bennett. By the time it actually happened, the viewer was more grateful than upset. You really don't want to know how it started or how it played out.

  • ...fear permeated one of the rooms at Collinwood like a tangible thing. -- only ONE of the rooms? Since when has Viewmaster started soft-pedaling?

  • ...fear permeated one of the rooms at Collinwood like a tangible thing. -- If fear were a tangible thing, what do you think it would feel like? I imagine that it would be like putting your elbow in a stick of melted butter.

  • Vicki's efforts to make light of this obsession met with no success. -- They're actually giving Vicki credit for more than she deserves. On the show, all she ever did was claim not to understand. Making light of the obsession ("A funny thing happened on the way to being buried alive...") is something she certainly never did.



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    by Graeme Cree and Linda Keats