Dark Shadows

[Saija Kwann]

Any fans of the show here?

I'll admit, I've never ever seen the show or movies until recently. My first viewing was the 2012 Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp and I thought it was good. Not great, but certainly not some horrendous abomination of film like the critics made it out to be. Then I wanted to check it out more and discovered a torrent of the complete series, all 1225 episodes. That sounds like a lot but this was late 60's-early 70's soap opera TV with 30 minute runtimes (with commercials), so the actual episodes minus opening theme and end credits are a mere 20 minutes and change.

It's amazing that any of the early episodes survived since most major TV companies erased the recordings to re-use the tapes, like the BBC did with early Doctor Who episodes. It might have been due to the fact that Dark Shadows was produced by an independent company (Dan Curtis Productions), ABC Networks only distributed and aired it.

The budget is extremely low but that's one of the charms of the show. It's very much like watching old school Doctor Who. The first year is shot in black and white; it will be quite a while before I get to see the show in color (trivia: Dark Shadows was ABC's first color soap opera). It will also be a while before Barnabas Collins (the most popular character, the vampire guy) shows up, he didn't appear for the first ten months but when he did, that's when Dark Shadows really exploded in popularity.

I love it when I recognize older actors in roles they played when they were young. Mitchell Ryan (best known to Trekkies as Commander Riker's father) was a face I immediately recognized. And I also caught a younger Louis Edmonds, who went on to play Phoebe Wallingford's husband, Langley, in the long-running ABC soap opera All My Children (AMC was a guilty pleasure growing up).

One of the things I caught on the Wikipedia entry for Dark Shadows is not only did it deal with vampires, witches, werewolves, etc. but there were story arcs that dealt with time travel and parallel universes. For a soap opera, those kinds of stories are completely unheard of. Simply put, there hasn't been a show quite like it and probably never will be again (there was a revival version made in '91 for prime time but it only lasted 12 episodes). If you like H.P. Lovecraft type horror and spooky stuff in general, Dark Shadows is totally worth checking out.

 

[Darth Terraxia]

LOL 16 episodes in and I am sooooo loving this show. The camp factor is through the roof but in the very best way.

Mitchell Ryan as Burke Devlin is deliciously sleazy, he's a great actor. The character is such an uber-chad and based AF. The daughter Carolyn Stoddard, who is engaged to a total cuck, literally throws herself at him. He's a total cock-block while playing it up all innocent. I don't think he actually wants to shag her, but rather Devlin has more complicated revenge against Carolyn's uncle, Roger and her mother Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the family matriarch.

The kid, David Collins, is the worst part of the show yet he manages to be creepy AF. Maybe his horrendous acting plays into that, it just multiplies the camp factor. In the very same episode he goes on a rant that would land him in a mental hospital, he sabotaged his own father's car to murder him. They would never get away with this on TV today. I guess you can't completely blame the kid though, he is haunted by ghosts or something. I also like to pretend he's autistic because that would also explain a lot of his personality ticks and other abnormal behaviors.

I do very much enjoy the main female lead, Victoria. The narrations before each teaser suck you into the next episode and she is beautiful and talented. So many of today's actresses are crap. Yes, I'm biased to the classics but there's no one I can think of in this generation of talent that could deliver this much melodrama with such seriousness and make it believable.

Lastly, I love all the period clothing on the women, total 1960's...big hair, simple makeup and knee length dresses with those classy lines and simple elegance. The men dress in shirts and ties with jackets, everyone's so prim and proper. Except for the groundskeeper guy, Matthew, he's a cranky old codger. Unfortunately episode 16 was his last appearance, the next time we see him he's played by a different actor. This happens alot in soap opera, they just recast and run with it.

tubi.com has episodes starting from #210 which was the first appearance of Barnabas Collins. If you decide to watch Dark Shadows online, there's a recap clip which covers episodes 1-209. I'd suggest this before starting so you can get a feel for the main leads and get up to speed on the pre-Barnabas era of the show.

 

[Marina DeVoe]

Oh wow... I didn't know that Barnabas didn't appear till after 200 episodes. When I happened to catch it, it had started off with the freeing of Barnabas.
Now you got me so curious. I'll certainly put it on my watch list after I finish what I am currently binge watching at home already.

Thanks, I too got into DS for a time.
I just never realized there were pre-episodes before the vampire.