8

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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

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.

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[]

← Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard →
← Elizabeth Wilson as Mrs. Hopewell
← Nancy Barrett as Carolyn Stoddard →
← Joel Crothers as Joe Haskell →
← Alexandra Moltke as Victoria Winters →
← Gwen Van Dam as Secretary (uncredited) →

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.
Dark Shadows: "Beginning Collection" DVDs were originally released to fans who signed up with a special club with MPI Homevideo after the release of either Regular Collection 26 or the Bloopers and Treasurers standalone disc in late 2006. The original intention (according to phone calls to and emails sent from MPI) was to release the 6 Beginning sets to the public (from their website and retailers) AFTER all of them had been released to club members. When "Beginning Collection 1" was first released to club members in January 2007, it was discovered that the tag scene at the end of Act IV of Episode 8 on disc 1 when Mrs. Hopewell dictates her letter to Vicki and the closing credits were edited out of this episode. The disc jumped from the fade out at the end of the scene in the bedroom discussion between Vicki and Liz right into episode 9. Club members began contacting MPI about this error. However, it wasn't til a vast majority of them called in or emailed, that MPI decided to remanufacture the disc. They then contacted all members with the "defective copy" of episode 8 to send it in (just the 1 disc not the whole collection). The disc was replaced with a new remanufactured copy, free of charge sometime between the releases of Beginning Collections 2 and 3 (circa March to May 2007). Prior to the club's release of "Beginning Collection 3" to members in May, MPI put out a press release that "Beginning Collection 1" was now going to be released to the public in late August (in between the club members' release of "Beginning Collections 4 and 5") rather than after all 6 were "club released". Whether the "early public release" of Beginning Collection 1 was due to this "repaired glitch" or not is unknown. However, when it was finally released to the public that August, the copies of Beginning 1 sold by retailers were also these newer "repaired " copies. MPI continued releasing club copies of the other Beginning sets every other month til September 2007, but waited til January 2008 to release Beginning 6. This was likely since most members were taking advantage of the "Buy 5 sets get 1 free" deal MPI was offering at the time. It is safe to assume many copies of Beginning 6, shipped free, hence the stall for a few months. Non members would get their first crack at the remaining sets fairly quickly (Beginning 2: in October 2007, Beginning 3: in February 2008, Beginning 4: in April 2008, Beginning 5: in July 2008 and Beginning 6: in October 2008 (just 9 months after club members got theirs). According to a member, MPI destroyed all the defectives copies of Beginning 1 Disc 1 that were sent back to them. In addition, all copies in releases of disc 1 in "The Complete Series" as well as in reissues of Beginning Collection 1 since April 2012 are also repaired copies. In 2009, club member benefits for extended to anyone who bought any of the 32 sets (including the buy 5 get 1 free offer which now applied to any of them). The club discontinued circa 2010, when all 32 sets were now easily available from public DVD retailers (including discounters) and the 2 summary discs "Vampire Curse" and "Haunting of Collinwood" were now the "NEW" items on the market.

End credits announcements[]

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