Revealing mistake: 1967: Barnabas and Vicky are talking in Collinwood's foyer when a great deal of noise starts interrupting the scene from backstage. You can hear coughing, several bumps and crashes, shouts, and finally, a fire extinguisher going off. Meanwhile, the distracted actors are completely blowing all their lines - but the unstoppable taping goes on.
Continuity mistake: Over the course of many Dark Shadows episodes set in the year 1795, Countess Natalie Dupres' dark, distinct, three-dimensional facial mole changes sides from left jaw to right jaw, briefly vanishes altogether, then returns as a faint, painted beauty mark on her right jaw.
Visible crew/equipment: Episode 1065, year 1995. The shadow of a boom mike against the wall is visible as it rises out of the scene when Barnabas and Julia exit the room.
Audio problem: 1897: Quentin challenges Barnabas by pulling a decorative sword from a wall display and pointing it at his throat. Unfortunately, the display wasn't all that well attached to the set wall. Though the camera pans away, you can hear a loud clunk as the piece falls, followed by the loud crash of shattering glass as it strikes and breaks a table lamp. You can also see the actors struggling very hard to keep straight faces as they continue with their lines.
Other mistake: 1970: Barnabas fends off a werewolf by striking at it with his silver-headed cane. Unfortunately, the cane bounces off the resilient werewolf and hits Barnabas in the head. (Jonathan Frid reportedly had to have a few stitches afterwards.)
Other mistake: 1967: Burke mangles his line to Vicky, and instead of telling her to get off her history kick, says, "I just think you should get off that hickory stick for a while."
Other mistake: 1967: A persistent fly insists on clinging to Barnabas' forehead as he plots to kill Dr. Hoffman. He tries to ignore it, tries walking briefly out of camera range, then comes back and tries shooing it away on camera, but it keeps coming right back.
Other mistake: 1795: Reverend Trask is attempting to perform an exorcism when a (demonic?) fly aims straight for his mouth. He has to interrupt his incantation long enough to blow it away.
Other mistake: 1967: The death of Sam Evans didn't play out according to the script. That's because the cameraman accidentally knocked the teleprompter off (with a loud crash), causing the dying "Sam" to sit up and yell "Where is it?!" "Maggie" ad libbed, "Never mind, Pop. It's going to be OK." Poor Sam then had to expire without delivering any poignant last words to his grieving daughter.
Revealing mistake: 1968: When the psychic enters Quentin's haunted room, she stumbles over the wire used to "ghostly" open the door, and has to grab onto the gramophone table to keep from falling. The table almost falls over with her, but she manages to stay upright, barely.
Other mistake: 1968: The now-vampire Angelique kneels beside Barnabas' chair to tell him he belongs to her now. When she tries to get up, her long white gown catches on something, causing her to muff her next line a bit as she gives the fabric an annoyed tug to free it.
Revealing mistake: 1966: Elizabeth is thwarted by a set door that refuses to open when she tries to make her exit. She struggles with it, tugging several times, but winds up just standing there, exasperated, until the scene ends a few merciful seconds later.
Continuity mistake: 1967: Barnabas selects a treasure from a jewelry chest while bad guy Jason spies on him through a window. Willie is supposed to put the chest away, but when Jason later breaks in to steal it, the chest is still sitting on the table in plain view, so Jason has to pretend not to notice it. The break-in scene is recapped the next day, only this time, the chest is no longer on the table.
Visible crew/equipment: 1795: Angelique throws open a set of double doors to find Jeremiah's ghost in the hall. She cries out and steps back, and to the right of the screen, you can see a crew member's hand enter the shot to pull one of the doors open further.
Revealing mistake: When "Dark Shadows" did its version of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde," the Hyde character, John Yaeger, had prosthetic nose trouble during a fight scene. His rubber schnoz came unglued and nearly fell off. He was subsequently given a nose job.
Revealing mistake: 1967: The apparently miscued Burke enters the foyer set through a door and starts across the stair landing. You can then hear the director say, "Try it again," and he turns, goes back out the door and comes in again.
Revealing mistake: 1967, episode 86: Roger is late for a meeting because actor Louis Edmonds, forgetting he had another scene, had gone to his dressing room and undressed. Because it was "live tape," the other actors had to awkwardly ad lib until Edmonds could throw on a shirt and be hustled onto the set, whereupon one camera zoomed in tight on him and stays there for his solo shot making a toast. You can hear the stress in the other actors' voices as they stifle laughter. They're trying to play an oh-so-serious scene with an actor wearing a shirt, a tie, and boxer shorts.
Revealing mistake: 1970: When the sheriff knocks, Jeb opens the antique shop door and the jangling shop bell falls off and crashes to the floor. They pretend that nothing happened and go on with their lines.
Audio problem: In several episodes, there is a shot of the grandfather clock in the downstairs hall. When the camera comes in for a close-up of the face of the clock, a chime can be heard. It is the Westminster chime, which normally sounds on the quarter hour (4 notes), the half (8 notes), the three-quarter (12 notes) and the hour (16 notes plus the number of hours). However, on several occasions, the clock is off-strike, either by the number of notes it chimes or chiming when it normally would not (for example, at 11:20).
Other mistake: 1969: David blunders his line to Cousin Amy: "Don't feel too bad, Amy. I don't like to feel my relatives, err, I don't like to see my relatives."
Answer: It's probably episode 193 (even though the slate at the beginning says 58). It's the episode with Sam demanding that Roger return his paintings. Three clues from the Dark Shadows Companion and from the comments of Kathryn Leigh Scott and Louis Edmonds all agree that 1) Scott is in the episode and is done for the day prior to Edmonds without his pants; 2) Edmonds is wearing a smoking jacket, and 3) Edmonds is leaning on the mantle (which is actually the cabinet where the liquor is, because the fireplace mantle is too high to lean on and the bench in front of it prevents getting too close to). There are several "breaks" in the lengthy scene where commercial were probably inserted, and all of the shots are above the waist. The previously mentioned episode 54 has Edmonds in a suit and Scott isn't in the episode; episode 54 doesn't have Edmonds or Scott; and episode 86 only has Edmonds in a suit.
Lou Edmonds was a consummate actor and would not forget that he had a lengthy scene to perform. Rather, in Episode 86, Edmonds more understandably forgot that he had to perform one last 15-second scene (a simple toast). He had removed his shoes and pants before he was reminded of the final, brief shot, and he hurried back to complete it.
Charles Austin Miller