Dark Shadows: The Devil Cat
Starring: Jerry Lacy as Tony Peterson and Lara Parker as Cassandra
Format: one mostly full-cast CD (or download) with no episode breaks
Silly? Only in the ways paranormal soap operas typically are, or to set up swerves.
Standalone? No. This is chronologically the last story of the Tony & Cassandra arc and is better saved until after having heard at least The Death Mask and The Phantom Bride.
Recommended? No by itself, but yes in its place after the aforementioned releases.
My reactions to this story contain spoilers for it, previous Tony & Cassandra audios, and the Dark Shadows TV series.
Before listening
I briefly considered counting the Tony & Cassandra arc as too tightly linked to randomly select the last story without prior ones, but I decided against it. This story was sold separately and does not follow up a direct cliffhanger from a previous story, and at the time of The Devil Cat's release the Tony & Cassandra audios were sprinkled among the Dark Shadows audiobook range rather than forming a specific packaged set.I believe I've heard this one before twice, both times during a listen-through of what at the time was the complete Tony & Cassandra arc. (There have since been further releases set chronologically before this one.) The Tony & Cassandra arc is pretty good overall, but The Voodoo Amulet engages in some gross stereotyping (consistent with what the TV series would have done, but that's not a good excuse). The important previous installments of the arc are The Death Mask and The Phantom Bride; The Last Stop is a good story but doesn't do anything important arc-wise.
Lara Parker is credited on the Big Finish episode description as Cassandra, but this is an alias. As anyone following the arc would already know by this point, she is Angelique, the witch who is responsible for some of the major horrors of Dark Shadows. As Cassandra, she is starting to enjoy living more of a human life and being on the side of good. The Devil Cat is the story that pulls the rug out from under that in the grandiose paranormal soap-opera fashion that one would hope for from an Dark Shadows arc climax.
Cassandra is partnered with Tony, who Angelique had seduced and manipulated on the TV show. Tony has somehow genuinely forgiven this, and there is an obvious element of romance in their detective partnership. Tony does not happen to be any sort of supernatural being and is not under any explicit curse or other supernatural condition. I mention this because it's not necessarily a default condition for a Dark Shadows protagonist.
This story is set in 1973-ish rural England. Writer Mark Thomas Passmore makes some attempt at depicting England as a 1970's American soap opera would have depicted it, or at least as a present-day English audioplay would imagine a 1970's American soap opera doing so. The film The Wicker Man is explicitly and emphatically invoked. However, the local drama of the English countryside cultists is not the full story here, and by the end Angelique/Cassandra's personal arc is the more important part of the story.
I am very much looking forward to this one. I've heard previous Tony & Cassandra audios enough that I don't need to backtrack to refresh my memory about the characters, and this will be an appropriate Halloween listen.
After listening
The Devil Cat is extremely well-structured. The first two thirds tell a mystery adventure story which superficially resolves but leaves some unanswered questions. Then, a denouement conversation between the detectives is interrupted by the sudden answer to those questions. The clever part of the structure is that, very close to the end, there's an additional twist, this time hinging on open questions not specifically from the current case but from Tony & Cassandra's past together. This brings the Tony & Cassandra arc of Big Finish Dark Shadows audios to a gut-punch of an end, but with hope for some distant coda. At the end of this audio set in the 70's, Cassandra/Angelique is in position for her appearance in The House of Despair, set in the 80's. A plot hook is in place to open the possibility Tony and Cassandra might eventually reunite at some point further ahead in the timeline, but so far, later-released Tony & Cassandra audios have just been set before this one and the hook remains in reserve (assuming it hasn't been picked up in a story I'm unaware of).The Tony & Cassandra arc is mostly set in locations other than Collinsport. There is implicit thematic significance to this fact, and in this story explicit and possibly supernatural significance is established parallel to that thematic significance. Pairing themes and character traits with supernatural phenomena is something Big Finish does very well, and it is done excellently here.
The story is almost full-cast. Only a few moments are narrated, and there are only two scenes in which some characters lack voice actors. A couple action sequences are unfortunately not well-presented, and I relistened to them in hopes of following them better only to find that they're basically unfollowable and the characters explain them after the fact in dialogue. This is awkward, but the script is so well-written that I forgive it easily.
I am, perhaps, being vaguer than usual about this story. While this blog does contain spoilers, and I do not make apologies for the fact, I sometimes try not to spoil a twist any more than necessary to write down my reaction to a story. In this case, my admiration of the structure and of the thematic use of the supernatural doesn't require explaining anything about what actually happens in the story. On the other hand, The Devil Cat is not just a gimmick story, and after you already know how it works, it still works.
The Devil Cat is an excellent story, particularly taken in the context of its arc. I recommend starting with The Death Mask, skipping The Voodoo Amulet, treating The Last Stop as an optional side story, continuing with The Phantom Bride, and then closing on The Devil Cat. (I haven't heard the subsequent Tony & Cassandra boxset, but given the way Big Finish usually does non-chronological releases, it probably assumes you know what's going to happen in The Devil Cat.) If the concept of a supernatural detective spinoff of a soap opera sounds even vaguely appealing to you, this slice of Big Finish Dark Shadows is well worth your time.
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