The evolution of the iconic “Dark Shadows” – 5

Sarah Collins

According to the plot of the original series, we know Sarah as the beloved (after Josette, of course), sister of Barnabas Collins, who died, not without the influence of Angelica, at the age of 10 from pneumonia. According to the story, she is the third daughter in the family of his father Joshua Collins and mother Naomi.

Angelica tried to manipulate the little girl’s health in order to force Barnabas to marry herself. So, with the help of a Voodoo doll for the first time, she caused Sarah’s mysterious illness, and blackmailed Barnabas that if she cured Sarah, he would certainly marry her.

After Barnabas’ death from a bat bite and his return as a vampire, Sarah accidentally saw him in the garden from the window and followed him.

She eventually entered the Collins Mausoleum and was trapped. While waiting for someone to let her out, she saw Barnabas enter with a bloody collar and mouth (he had just attacked another prostitute in Collinsport).

Sarah ran away from him in horror, hiding in the cemetery. But at that moment a storm broke out, and the girl, soaked through, was brought into the house by Barnabas’s servant, Ben Stokes.

Soon that same day, little Sarah died right in the arms of Barnabas Collins, telling him: “I love you, Barnabas! And always will!”:

Her death was deeply mourned by all who knew her.

Sarah first appeared in episodes 255-256 of the series as a ghost, in the basement of the Old House, where Barnabas Collins imprisoned Maggie Evans, who played ball and sang the folk song “London Bridge is Falling Down”, from where Maggie soon helped Maggie escape:

First, Sarah nurses her doll, and then suddenly starts playing catch.

In the same episode 256, Sarah first met David and later became his friend:

Throughout subsequent episodes, she appeared to various characters, trying to warn them about Barnabas. So, Willy Loomis saw her on the way to the Old House, Victoria Winters – on the stairs after a seance during a costume party, Julia Hoffman – in the Collins family mausoleum, where the ghost lamented that Julia had killed Dr. Woodard and was Barnabas’ accomplice…

It was Sarah who revealed her older brother’s secret to David when she lured him to Eagle Hill Cemetery and showed him the secret room in the family Mausoleum, where the vampire was kept in chains for 200 years until he was released by Willy Loomis.

And then David had a strange dream where Barnabas rose from the coffin and attacked him:

David finally realizes that his friend Sarah is a ghost and his cousin Barnabas is a vampire. We see how he rises from the coffin and goes to Sarah:

“Barnabas Collins: Sarah! My little Sarah. You’re back. Finally you’re back.”

David screams, begging Sarah to leave. Barnabas turns his attention to David, presses him back against the wall – and then raises his cane to attack.

The episode ends with the shadow of Barnabas’ cane lowered to hit the boy.

It turns out that this is just a nightmare, from which David wakes up screaming…

“David (to Victoria Winters): Didn’t you listen to anything I told you? Sarah is DEAD!”

True, later, in episode 327, David meets Sarah in the forest and says that he has a few questions for her.
Sarah: What’s the matter?
David: I had a dream last night.
Sarah: What’s the dream?
And then she acts like she has nothing to do with it. Didn’t she participate in the dream? I mean, I know it was HIS dream, but everything about it turned out to be true, so I assumed that Sarah used some sort of ghost magic power to make it happen.

This episode ends with a visit from Sarah, who appears in David’s bedroom:
Sarah: You said you wanted to ask me more questions.
David: Well, I want to know where you took me in my dream.
Sarah: I don’t understand what you mean.

Then Sarah appears in episode 335, when David looked into his crystal ball and called to her:

Sarah was angry at him for telling Dr. Woodard about her, thereby framing the elderly man, and giving her “Big Brother” Barnabas a chance to kill him.

Here is how Barnabas himself speaks of his sister:

“Barnabas: Wherever you are, little Sarah, forgive me for turning you down, for not being able to look at him and tell the truth.

Yes, Dr. Woodard, Sarah Collins is my sister… and the most precious being that has ever walked this Earth (Episode 338). Sarah was a wonderful child. She was the sum of everything that made life worth living on this earth.

The holiness of her heart affections was pure and tender. I loved her the way I never loved a single person “(Episode 302). She died when she was very young … and very innocent. She was very dear to me. I mourned her death for a long time (Episode 276).

The artist Sam Evans, whom Sarah appeared to and suggested where he could find Maggie’s missing daughter, painted a portrait of Sarah Collins (episode 212 of the series):

Also, a portrait of Sarah Collins was located in the family album, which Barnabas Collins leafed through at his leisure:

When Barnabas found out that his sister was trying to expose him, he was beside himself with rage and threatened to kill David, but only the timely intervention of Julia Hoffman saved the boy from certain death.

Sarah last appeared as a ghost in episode 364 of the original series in front of Barnabas Collins when he tried to strangle Julia Hoffman. Sarah played the role of conscience for her brother and told him that she was “very, very angry” at him for hurting people:

She also ordered to read him verses, which say that evil must be punished:

“That evil is wicked is well understood.

The wicked are punished…

so you must be good.”

Sarah tells him that he “must be good” or he will be punished. Barnabas, in turn, begs her to stay with him, but to no avail.

“Barnabas: Then punish me, Sarah. Do whatever you want… but stay with me for now.

Ghost of Sarah Collins: No, I’m not staying here. I’ll leave and never come back… never!

This will be your punishment. I know there is good and there is evil because I learned it from you.

But you forgot about it, Barnabas, and you’ll have to learn it all over again.

I’ll never come back until you do.”

And then she disappeared, and Barnabas bitterly mourned her second loss.

Here is what he said to Dr. Julia Hoffman, who tried to console him:

– “Doctor, if you mention yourself and Sarah one more time in one breath, I will forget that she was here. She is angry with me because I hurt people. I killed people, and I was no more worried than if I would crush a moth, because there are times when it is necessary to kill … when there is no other way! You mean very little to me. I hope you understand this?

That is, initially we are shown some kind of maniac – a psychopath who thinks only about his own well-being. If Sarah was secretly watching him, then why didn’t she save all these people, try to warn them and thereby prevent their death?

The last time she appeared to David was to warn him to stay away from the Old House where Barnabas lives:

The fact is that Sarah had tried to do this before, but did he listen to her? She keeps suddenly appearing in front of David and telling him secrets, and then gets angry because he talks to his family about ghosts and secrets.

So, in episodes 332-333 of the series, David still gets into the basement of the Old House and finds an empty coffin…

And fell into a trap to Barnabas Collins, who was standing in another part of the basement:

Barnabas Collins (to David): What are you doing here? You promised your father not to go near this house, so why did you break your promise?

David: It’s a coffin! What is he doing here?!

Barnabas: You ask too many questions, David! Too much for your own good!

David: Please don’t hurt me!

Barnabas: You broke your promise, David, and you should be punished for it!”

But then Julia Hoffman appears. She called for David, and the boy ran out of the basement to her:

And then there is this dialogue between them:

“David: Barnabas! He’s going to kill me!
Julia: Kill you?
Barnabas: I found him wandering around in the basement.
Julia: What?
Barnabas: Yes! I almost gave him a good spanking!

David: He grabbed me! He was going to kill me!

Julia: David, no one wishes you harm…

David (to Barnabas): Stay away from me! (to Julie) Don’t let him get close to me!

Julia: Barnabas won’t hurt you!

Barnabas: The little boy who breaks into other people’s houses without asking should be punished, but I’ll let your father do it!”

So Sarah appeared to David for the last time. She told him that her brother was dangerous, and one should not meddle in the Old House once again:

“Sarah Collins: Those who were here before are back and they are evil and there is someone in this house they want to destroy. Dead! They are evil and they want to destroy someone in this house! Stay away from Old House!”

But the boy, of course, did not understand anything, or did not want to understand, and considered her strange.

Shortly thereafter, all members of the Collins family, at the request of Dr. Julia Hoffman, staged a séance that took Victoria Winters back in time and showed us Barnabas’ backstory:

Speaking through Victoria Winters, Sarah Collins revealed that she has a friend, David, who she plays with.

“Ghost of Sarah Collins: I will never, ever let any of you see me again! Barnabas, when you marry Josette, will you still love me? Will you come and visit me at the new house?”

When asked by Carolyn Stoddard about why Sarah came to David, Sarah’s ghost, through Victoria Winters, replied: “To tell him this story. The story of how it all began …”

And then Victoria Winters teleported back in time to 1795, and another lady from the 18th century, Phyllis Wick, took her place:

And from that moment on, no one else saw Sarah in the series … Victoria Winters, according to the scriptwriters and according to the plot of the series, with the help of Sarah Collins, should have simply become a witness to the fateful events that led to the long-term curse of the Collins family, but turned into a likeness

Mary Sue from fanfiction…

She actively intervened in the course of events, tried to warn people from the last century about the danger, which led to accusations of witchcraft and hanging. And if she had been silent, like a fish, and inactive, nothing like this would have happened to her. But back to Sarah Collins.

In the 1991 series, she first appears in episode 3, when David, having a nightmare about Daphne attacking him as a vampire, heads to the Collins family mausoleum to find out if it’s true or not. By the way, the mausoleum here looks like this:

You and I know Sarah is the ghost of Barnabas’ sister who died in 1795 from Angelica’s curse and now she wants to protect the people she likes from her evil brother’s cruelty.

But we only know her backstory because we saw the old show. There is nothing in this scene that would help a real 1991 audience understand what is going on.

Sarah tells David: “Daphne is ashes, Daphne is dust!”, alluding to the fact that Elizabeth Stoddard’s niece, who became a vampire, has been destroyed or is about to be destroyed.

Although, in the very first episode, when Barnabas Collins returned home, David told him that he had a girlfriend named Sarah, who lives in the Old House, and even showed her a portrait:

In the first episode, David mentioned that he has a girlfriend named Sarah, and they show her to us only two episodes later.

David is confused by the ghost’s words and asks what the hell she’s talking about, but she replies that she can’t tell him and walks away singing “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…”

And that’s what turns me on – “London Bridge”. This is the key to everything that’s wrong with the story here.

When Sarah was introduced to the original series, the popular children’s song “London Bridge” in its original version, which sings about a girl immured in this very bridge (“my fair lady”), actually meant nothing.

It was not a metaphor or a clue. This only happened because they wanted Sarah to be a mysterious figure appearing outside of the prison cell in the basement of the Old House where Barnabas kept Maggie locked up.

That is why she sings the second verse of the song, as if hinting at what position Maggie is in:

“Take a key and lock her up,

Lock her up, lock her up.

Take a key and lock her up

My fair lady”.

(“Take the key and lock her up”).

The writers didn’t want to divulge anything in the first two episodes of Sarah’s appearance, but she had to do something, so they gave her a ball/doll and a public domain song. It was a little creepy so they kept doing it and that became Sarah’s theme.

Insofar as it meant anything at all, it represented her disconnection from the real world. Her family was dead and she, a ghost herself, was lost and alone, but it was the singing of “London Bridge” that made her feel comfortable retreating into the melancholy, delusional play space.

But what do we see here in the 1991 series? It doesn’t mean anything at all. They don’t even let her finish the verse.

Her song is just a random phrase that was included to remind fans of the original “Dark Shadows” about Sarah.

Of all the characters in the 1991 series, she interacts only with David and Victoria Winters.

So, Sarah gives David toy soldiers, and Victoria gives her diary in the library:

But hey, the toy soldier was featured in episode 331 of the original series. It was also given to David by Sarah. But he was in a single copy, and Sarah’s toys were a kind of amulets:

Sarah’s diary from the 1991 series then falls into the hands of Barnabas Collins himself, when he walks along the embankment with Vicki:

And while walking between him and Victoria, another of their incomprehensible conversations takes place: “Victoria: For more than two centuries, the Collins children must have been splashing in these waves. Barnabas: I’m sure. Victoria: Perhaps some of their ghosts still come here to play I hope the baby spirits have time to play. Barnabas: I hope so too.

Barnabas is reading Sarah’s diary and begins to worry about it when he finds a piece of paper folded and hidden in the binder:

In this sheet – a portrait of a disheveled blonde. This upsets Barnabas, he gets up, crumples the paper and throws it into the fire, from which emerges Angelique Bouchard (TA-DAMM!):

Then Barnabas says to the astonished Willie Loomis:

“Her name is Angelica, the true curse of my existence. She is such an evil and powerful force that even now she overcomes centuries to destroy me!

And now let’s remember episode 463 from the original series, when Barnabas also tries to burn Angelica’s portrait:

“I lived with this curse for almost two hundred years,” Barnabas rages, looking at the portrait. “Isn’t that enough? Now that you’ve found me again, everyone must die like before?! Not! I won’t let you do this! “.

And Barnabas furiously throws the portrait into the fire, shouting: “Burn! BURN! This is the only way to die! It’s the only one

way to end this curse! BURN! BURN!

But it wasn’t there…Angelica’s portrait IS RESTORED AGAIN!

Naturally, Barnabas from the series did not tell anyone who she was, because he did not want to involve all his relatives in their “relationship”.

Let’s go back to the 1991 series. Now we see Sarah smiling on the stairs:

She appears, unseen by EVERYONE, to Victoria Winters during a costume party in Collinwood. This refers to a similar episode from episode 281 of the original, where Sarah is also seen by Victoria Winters:

However, unlike the original, this costume party, like in the 1970 film “House of Dark (Dark) Shadows”, is an ordinary holiday arranged in honor of the arrival of a new family member, and does not carry any mystical element.

Sarah’s last appearance as a ghost occurs in episode 6 of the 1991 series and is characterized by her intercession for Dr. Julia Hoffman, who was almost killed by Barnabas:

– Barnabas! she cries, “No! You can’t do it! Why don’t you understand that some people want to help you?”

This goes back to the episode where Barnabas is about to kill Julia, his only friend and most interesting character in the original series, when Sarah shows up and tells him he’s not a good person.

The only reason Sarah intervenes at this particular moment is because the 1967 audience loves Julia more than anyone else.

This scene takes place at the end of an impressive 20-episode run, over a four-week period where Julia has been in every single episode, directing the entire story, and the show no longer works without her.

We want someone to step in and save Julia because we love her and she can’t be allowed to leave the show. This scene is not actually about Barnabas and Sarah. This scene is about saving Julia.

But Julia Hoffman’s version from the 1991 series is nothing special. She’s not funny, she doesn’t have anything interesting to say, and she didn’t take an active part in the story, while the original Julia was an impostor who manipulated the entire Collins family with a blinding rain of ridiculous lies.

In this series, Julia is just a doctor whose patient died four episodes ago, so she has nothing to do but not drink poisonous tea.

And Sarah doesn’t play a particularly important role either. She, unlike her predecessor from the original, does not need to save anyone at all. Most of the time, Sarah seems lost and confused. Her only real connection is with David, but he has nothing to do with this scene.

In addition, if in the original almost a whole operation was launched to search for Sarah Collins, and not only her older brother, who was afraid of exposure, was looking for her, then in the 1991 series, only a couple of people saw Sarah, and there was no need to look for her.

As in the original series, members of the Collins family hold a séance, which soon takes Victoria Winters back to Barnabas’s past, not in 1795, but in 1790.

It also changes Sarah’s motive to send Vicky back in time. Whereas in 1966-1970s Dark Shadows Victoria should have simply seen the chain of tragic events leading up to the curse of the Collins family, in the 1991 series of the same name Victoria embarks on her uncertain and frightening journey into the 18th century to CHANGE history. the Collins family.

When Victoria fell into a trance during the session, Sarah announced through her: “Everyone in Collinwood will die, unless … someone comes! Someone should try to change things, make them different!”

And the next appearance of Sarah took place already in 1790, along with her younger brother, Daniel Collins, whom Victoria mistook for David:

Thinking she’ll recognize them, Vicki swallows, “Sarah! David! The little boy winces and says, “I’m Daniel! Who are you?”. And then their older brother Barnabas appears on the screen, who notices the resemblance of Victoria to his beloved:

This episode is also a reference to episode 361 of the original Dark Shadows, where Victoria also travels back in time and becomes Sarah Collins’ governess:

And, the first person Victoria meets in Collinwood is Barnabas’ uncle, Jeremiah Collins, who reminded the girl of the deceased Burke Devlin. He stands up for Victoria in front of everyone and gets a job with his brother Joshua, which we do not see in the 1991 series:

See how the zombie Jeremiah from 1966-1970s “Dark Shadows” looks like in comparison with the 1991 series:

According to the story, Sarah also dies in the arms of Barnabas, but before that she hides from him with her younger brother, and not in the cemetery, but in the forest. And that’s where her short role in the series ends.