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[[File:|254px|link=:Category:623|623 Gallery]]
623
Timeline

1795

Writer

Gordon Russell

Director

Lela Swift

[[File:|254px|link=:Category:623|623 Gallery]]
We have 16 images of Dark Shadows 623

Eve travels back in time to 1795 when she was Danielle Rogét to stop the marriage of Jeff Clark and Victoria Winters. There she enlists the aid of Ben Stokes to save Peter Bradford and discovers the Collins Family History Book.

Synopsis

Teaser

This is Collinwood in the year 1968. But for one person, on this night, it will be the Collinwood that existed almost two hundred years ago. In another house not far from here, a strange ceremony has taken place, and it has enabled one woman to transcend the barriers of time for six hours. During this brief visit to the past, she will see and do things which may tragically effect the present. The place is Collinsport in the year 1795.

Eve fades away to 1795, arriving at the Collinsport Gaol just as the warrant for Peter's execution has been received and read.

Act I

Danielle tells the jailer she is here to see Peter Bradford. She explains they were once to be married, but she has been gone for six months. The jailer tells her Peter certainly had a way with the ladies, that only a few weeks ago he was to marry a young woman, but that she was handed on a charge of witchcraft. When Danielle says she must be dead now, the jailer says that she was certainly hanged, but she requested a mask before the execution and when they removed it, the body was that of another woman. He takes Danielle to see Peter, who does not face her, saying there is nothing between them. Danielle says it is ironic that he condemns her for killing a man and now he has done the same. Peter states the difference is she is guilty and free, and he is innocent and going to die. She makes a plan to bust him out of jail, saying he only needs to be read when she comes for him. She recalls that Angelique told her “If I stay more than six hours...”. She has obviously convinced herself that if she stays more than six hours she will change history and stay in the past with Peter. She says she needs time, and Ben Stokes, the one man who could never refuse her anything. At Collinwood, Joshua Collins calls Ben into the drawing room and gives him the news that Peter Bradford has been condemned to hang and there is nothing anyone can do about it. He only hopes between his execution and Victoria's that the hysteria in town will die down. He also tells Ben he wants him to destroy the Collins Family History Book.

Act II

Ben asks Joshua why he wants the book destroyed and Joshua says he believes the book is evil, and if there is any such thing as the product of The Devil, this is it. He tells him that he has read the book and it frightens him, but he plans on perpetuating many of the inaccuracies of the book so that they will become part of history. He intends to write his own history without the real cause of Barnabas' death and what he became after, Naomi's suicide, or “any mention of Millicent's association with "that scoundrel". Instead, Barnabas will have gone to England and never returned, Naomi died of natural causes, and Millicent lived a life of spinsterhood. Joshua believes once the book has been destroyed the curse on the family will be lifted, so he orders Ben to take it into the woods, far away, and burn it. Back at the jail, Peter Bradford asks Mr. Prescott (the jailer) to bring him a pen and paper as his last request because he wants to leave someone a note. Just outside Collinwood, Danielle meets Ben and begs him to meet her at the jail with 2 horses. She intends to drug the jailer to sleep while the other man there is preparing for the execution. Ben asks for assurances that the jailer won't be harmed and tells her he is doing this for Peter, not for her, but first, he has a book to burn. Danielle tells him he can burn the book later, but the matter with Peter is more urgent. She takes the book from him and tells him she will return it when he comes with the horses.

Act III

Danielle realizes that Victoria really did travel to the past and she must have brought the book with her, and that she can make use of the book. Ben arrives with the horses and tries to get the book back, but Danielle sends him out as the jailer returns. She tries to seduce the jailer, but when he tells her Peter is writing someone a note, she decides to go ahead and see him. Peter says he is not going to try and escape, that he is going to keep his promise to die with Vicky, and live with her again in another life. He gives her a note he says will explain all his reasons. The jailer and his assistant come to take Peter away. The jailer turns to Danielle and says she can go “into the waiting room”. Danielle reads the note and realizes it is what she needs to sop Jeff and Vicky from getting married. She puts the note in the book, clutches the book to her chest and fades away in front of the jailer.

Memorable quotes

  • Ben Stokes (to Danielle): "Helping you in one of your schemes means hurting someone else. I'll have no part of it”.
  • Jailer (to Danielle): “A hanging is a gruesome thing. Not a sight for a lady”.

Dramatis personae

Background information and notes

  • Peter calls the Jailer by his name, Mr. Prescott, but that name does not appear in the credits..
  • Mr. Prescott's assistant is unnamed and uncredited, even though he receives a good deal of screen time.
  • It is in this episode that we learn how the misinformation about the family history appeared because Joshua Collins read about it in the Collins Family History Book and decided it was more generous to his family than an accurate history would be. This would be the very misinformation which causes this book to be written, with inaccurate history. Sort of a mobious strip.
  • This episode depicts the latest point in the eighteenth century that is shown on Dark Shadows, being set, "a few short weeks" after the execution of Victoria Winters.

Continuity and mistakes

  • The jailer refers to the witch who escaped her execution as "Gloria Winters," when the character he is referring to is actually Victoria Winters.
  • The jailer tells Danielle several times she should not attend the execution, but executions at the time were public entertainments where crowds gathered and people brought their children to watch. It would be unusual for someone over the age of 15 not to have attended several hangings.
  • Marie Wallace is credited as Eve, but in this episode she is appearing as Danielle Rogét.
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