Gerald Conway has come to Collinsport in pursuit of a dream. For the last few months, he's been haunted by visions of the House by the Sea. Now Gerald is staying at the House, he's beginning to uncover its dark past. Warlocks, vampires and murderers have all come here looking for something – and they've all died. What dark secret of the Collins family is hidden there?

Suggested by a fan on the Big Finish message boards and written with Collin Baker in mind, The House by the Sea is the third Dark Shadows audio adventure to feature a Doctor Who actor in a prominent role. Colin Baker, who specifically requested the opportunity to perform in a Dark Shadows drama, follows Matthew Waterhouse and Nicola Bryant playing new characters in relatively continuity free Dark Shadows stories in which the producers admittedly cast Doctor Who actors to attract Doctor Who fans to Dark Shadows. They are looking forward to the release of the upcoming film so that more potential fans in the UK will know what Dark Shadows is.

Although the audio dramas are relatively continuity free and designed to be standalone stories, many of them do have ongoing elements. For example, the “Quentin in London” series begins with London’s Burning, continues in The Creeping Fog, and will conclude with Operation: Victor, in which Quentin parachutes into Nazi Germany. Josette’s “post-mortem” adventures are chronicled in Final Judgment and The Lost Girl, and further stories of the Trask family have already been chronicled in The Wicked and the Dead and The Carrion Queen (both Gregory), and The Poisoned Soul (Charity). These stories will come together and father and daughter will be reunited in The Fall of the House of Trask this July.

It looks as if The House by the Sea is the first in a series of interconnected standalones, too.

[NOTE: You may expect spoilers throughout this post and one big spoiler at the end.]

The conceit of this audio is a man (Colin Baker) who suspects he is losing his mind recording an audio diary to his psychiatrist on a hand held reel-to-reel tape recorder. He is an Englishman living in America, but he “came over with the Beatles” so he’s been here for some time. He had been having recurring dreams of a house by the sea, and when he spotted the very house on a television documentary about fishing villages in Maine, he felt compelled to see if it was available for rent so that he might get to the bottom of this mystery.

His recording is punctuated with many stops and starts as he’s interrupted by a knock at the door, when he switches it on to record the sounds of a raging thunderstorm, etc. Foreshadowing is used to great effect as he often sets up the events of the day, then switches on later to describe how they turned out. Colin Baker is evidently a talented voice actor, and this story gives him the opportunity to prove it. He not only affects a generic American accent, but he also provides quite passable impressions of many familiar Dark Shadows characters, including Elizabeth, Carolyn, Julia, Barnabas and Tom Jennings.

For the purposes of this audio, the house that Burke Devlin and Vicki Winters were interested in buying is folded in to the house which Nicholas Blair rented from the Collins family during his stay. In truth, neither the sets nor the photographs used on TV match, but that can be explained away by the fact it is a large house and the photos taken from different angles. Also folded into the plot is that the house itself was once occupied by Danielle Roget (the evil 18th century woman who provided the “life force” for the artificially-created Adam’s mate, Eve). Those familiar with Dark Shadows mythos will recall that the last owner of the house, Caleb Collins, attached a rider to the deed that the house could not be sold outside the family for a period of 100 years. The mystery surrounding why not is the central theme of the story.

The audio begins with the sounds of someone stopping and starting the tape player, rewinding it a bit at a time looking for a particular spot. The gibberish, noises and snatches of dialogue and narration we hear actually foreshadow bits of the story in reverse, but that’s not apparent to the listener the first time through. (Something else which I didn’t catch until the second listening was that Gerald used a turn of phrase very similar to one used by Burke Devlin in the very first TV episode, something about Collinwood being both the “beginning and the end of the world.”) Because he believes he is slowly being driven insane, this provides Gerald Conway with the perfect opportunity to begin by ruminating over the various meanings of the word “crazy.”

Gerald moves in to find a basket of fruit and a note awaiting him. The note reads, “You are here for a reason. We want something from you,” and it is signed “D. Roget.” There is also a single human tooth lying near the basket. Elizabeth Collins is the first to welcome Gerald Conway. She mentions the strange provisions of Caleb Collin’s deed and mentions that the 100 years is almost up, but she doesn’t know anything about the basket or message. Later, at the Blue Whale, Gerald meets Elizabeth’s daughter, Carolyn. Colin Baker has Carolyn’s rambling patter down.

The Blue Whale is packed with townsfolk, mostly fisherman and sailors. They are soon joined by Carolyn’s friend, “Julia something,” who Gerald gathers is a doctor of some sort. In an excellent blend of writing and performance, he describes her as someone who looks as if she “owned one too many cats.” She is frowning and he also mentions that she looks as if she “enjoyed a good frown.” She also mentions that she knows of Danielle Roget, but doesn’t disclose any details other than that she lived a long time ago. When Gerald mentions the crowd, he soon realizes that he is the only one of the three who can see them.

That night he records some loud noises that he thinks at first in loud plumbing. Looking through the attic for some clue as to the mystery of the house, he finds some paperwork belonging to Caleb Collins and the prediction that a stranger must not take possession of the house. He also finds a few more human teeth.

The next day at dusk, Gerald meets Barnabas on Widow’s Hill and, again, Baker has Jonathan Frid’s slow, deliberate intonation down pat. Later, when Gerald rewinds to listen to the recording he accidentally made of their conversation, he discovers that Barnabas’ voice did not record.

Gerald discovers, too, that the house, Seaview Terrace, was once occupied by a magician… or perhaps “warlock” would be a more appropriate description… named Nicholas Blair. A hidden scroll leads Gerald to hold a séance… and to keep the tape recorder running. At first he is possessed by “Tom” who “died three times,” then by Caleb Colins himself. He discovers the sounds he has been hearing are not bad pipes but rather the poltergeists of all the lost souls who have lived in the house over the years.

When he comes out of his trance, a message written in blood on the mirror directs him to “Follow the teeth,” which he does, to the basement where he digs up a toothless body and allows him to ruminate further on the nature of death and decay. Then, he hears a heart begin to beat and to grow louder and louder.

SPOILER

Now, if the story had stopped there I would have been happy and completely satisfied, BUT… remember how I said the audio begins with a bit of foreshadowing before the tape is rewound? The first words we hear at the beginning are Gerald Conway saying, “…I am free!” but now that we’ve caught up to that bit again, the entire line is, “My name is Nicholas Blair… and I am free!” Yes, going forward, Colin Baker will be playing Nicholas Blair in future audio productions. I, for one, can hardly wait!

END SPOILER

Here’s a look at some near future releases:

April: Dress Me in Dark Dreams
May: Eternal Actress
June: The Fall of the House of Trask
July: Operation: Victor

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  • someone who looks as if she “owned one too many cats.”

     

    Awesome.

  • I thought you'd appreciate that line. :)

    And can't you just imagine Colin Baker saying it?

  • Oh, yes.

  • Has it really been two years since “The House by the Sea”? Guess so, considering how far behind I am just listening to my ever-increasing stack of Dark Shadows audios. The long-awaited (by me, anyway) sequel has finally been released, and I moved straight to the top of my listening list. [It’s #40 in sequence, and I have yet to listen to #27-39!] I just spent several minutes searching the main Dark Shadows discussion for “The House by the Sea” before I remembered that I liked it so much I gave it its own thread so as to keep all of the Colin Baker-as-Nicholas Blair stories together.

    THE HARVEST OF SOULS:

    “MY NAME IS MAGGIE EVANS AND THIS IS THE END OF MY STORY.”

    Collinsport is over. And, after recent events, Maggie Evans just doesn’t care anymore. She grew up here, she fell in love here, she grieved here. But no more. Maggie wants out. But there’s a problem as this town won’t let her go. Collinsport has unfinished business with Maggie. Maggie finds herself trapped in the empty streets, pursued by an old friend who wants only one thing. To make her happy. But Maggie Evans doesn’t believe in happy endings anymore.

    These “dramatic readings” contain complete stories with beginnings, middles and ends, but because they occur in the same continuity, even those not of a given series (such as the trilogy of “Quentin’s Wanderings” or the trilogy of the “Trask Family Chronicles” or “The Post-Mortem Tales of Josette” or this series-within-a-series featuring “The New Adventures of Nicholas Blair”), any one might refer to events in the overall line. Consequently, I discovered that skipping 13 episodes may not have been the best way to avoid spoilers (the “recent events” alluded to in the liner notes).

    I didn’t like “The Harvest of Souls” quite as much as I did “The House by the Sea”, but that’s largely because one of the main characters, a new love interest for Maggie, must have been introduced in one of the stories I skipped and is by the time of this story already dead. This being Dark Shadows, though, that doesn’t stop him from making a reappearance. Unfortunately, the reappearance takes the form of several flashbacks throughout Maggie’s life, from the time she was eight years old through adulthood. I say “unfortunately” because, instead of hiring child actors to play those roles, Kathryn Leigh Scott (who’s pushing 70) and Jonathon Marx (who has a very deep voice) also voice their characters’ younger selves, and neither one plays a convincing eight year old.

    Character-wise, Nicholas Blair is perfectly in synch with his previous incarnation. He now works for the Leviathan race and is still very much in love with Maggie… in his own way. Maggie is at her lowest ebb emotionally, and easy prey to Nicholas’ machinations. Or is she?

    Moving forward, I’ve already listened to “Operation: Victor” (mentioned above), and the one after that features another Doctor Who alum in a major role. Look for reactions to both of those in the main Dark Shadows discussion thread.

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