645

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Number	637
Timeline	1968
Narrator	Joan Bennett
Writer	Gordon Russell
Director	Penberry Jones
Broadcast	December 13, 1968 (Friday)
Recorded	December 6, 1968 (Friday)
Video	Complete: Disc 68 Collection 11: Disc 4

We have 18 images of Dark Shadows 645

In the secret room, David and Amy find a skeleton.

Synopsis[]

A violent storm continues over the great house at Collinwood, and it has been discovered that two children have disappeared in the middle of this night. While the adults in the house search frantically for them, the children are busy in an old storage room in the abandoned west wing, about to make a startling discovery of their own, one that will change the course of their lives.

In the secret room David and Amy find a skeleton. David and Amy get a cradle from the Old House and put it in the secret room, as they were "instructed" to. David and Amy plan to "play the game" with Quentin.

Memorable quotes[]

Elizabeth: Barnabas, a locked door never kept David Collins out.

Barnabas: This is not the first time David has wandered away from Collinwood.

David: I like you, Amy. You're my good friend, you know that?

David: (to Amy, pushing her toward a ghostly cradle that rocks) She needs you.

Amy: (to Barnabas) It's so good to see you again.

Amy: Boys are like that, you know. Whenever they do something they should be proud of, it always makes them feel embarrassed when anybody talks about it.

Dramatis personae[]

Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
David Henesy as David Collins
Denise Nickerson as Amy Jennings

Background information and notes[]

Production[]

Final episode directed by Penberry Jones.
The voice of the laughing ghost is not that of David Selby.
The fade-out to the commercial happens long after the music has ended as David and Amy huddle together.

Story[]

David and Amy are not seen leaving the west wing, putting on their clothes, getting to the Old House, and taking the baby cradle from the Old House to Collinwood.
GHOSTWATCH: Whilst David and Amy are in Quentin's room, the gramophone suddenly starts playing, and an evil-sounding male laugh is heard. David starts to become possessed by the ghost of Quentin.
TIMELINE: People have been searching the grounds for two hours for David and Amy. Day 254 begins, and will end in 646. 1:30am: David and Amy go to the west wing.

Bloopers and continuity errors[]

In the reprise, David knocks out the bottom second panel from the right and Amy sees the door. In the previous episode, David knocked out the bottom right panel to see the door.
In the reprise, David Henesy flubs a line: "I can't see from...I can't see very much from where I am."
In the teaser, Amy trips coming into Quentin's room. It looks like it may be an actual trip (and David follows up with an impromptu "Watch out!").
After 75 years, the matches in Quentin's room still light on the first try. [Not a blooper. First, it is entirely possible for this to occur. Second, even if that weren't the case, this is a supernatural scenario, with a ghost helping them.]
Joan Bennett flubs when speaking to Barnabas: "You always... you know how fascinated David's always been with this house."
After bringing the cradle downstairs at the Old House, as David and Amy are discussing how to get it back to Collinwood, there is off-stage noise.
I wonder how David and Amy got that crib through that small one-panel opening outside of Quentin's room.
Denise Nickerson flubs: "We should go back downstairs now, David." "Why?" "Because nobody knows who we are".
Amy hugs Barnabas on seeing him, saying it is so good to see him again. They have not been in an episode together since Amy's arrival at Collinwood. [Obviously, not every moment of every character's life is shown on the show. Though it might seem too much to expect of soap opera viewers to remember, both Barnabas and Amy recently spent time at Windcliff, and we are now expected to put two and two together and assume that they met there.] [Addendum: Also, Barnabas makes it pretty clear they were at Windcliff together. He tells her, "We haven't seen each other in several weeks. You seem so much happier than you were at Windcliff. We have to get reacquainted again."]
When David and Amy return to Quentin's room the next night, it is 1:30 a.m. However, they are wearing the same clothes they were wearing during the day. No doubt they had pretended they were going to go to bed, would have changed into their night clothes, and would have actually gone to bed until they were ready to sneak into the west wing. It seems unlikely they would change back into their daytime clothes, especially since they didn't bother to do so the previous night when they sneaked into the west wing.