"My name is Victoria Winters, my journey is beginning ..."

[James from London]

I'm loving me some DARK SHADOWS, currently filling the TOMORROW PEOPLE shaped void on JamesNet. Look! Here's a dark haired Vaughn Leland with an Irish accent! Look! There's a young Harvey-Beth Lacey digging up the dead to steal their bling! And then there's Joan Bennett striding in and out of drawing rooms like a cross between Meg Mortimer and Angela Channing, and a Mrs somebody or other who does the cooking and cleaning and helps out with the exposition on her afternoon's off. And who's that at the door? Why, it's Cousin Barbarnabas who's popped round for coffee and biscuits after being dead for two hundred years. Don't tell me what happens next, I beg you!

[Pamela Barnes]

what is Dark Shadows ?

[James from London]

"Dark Shadows was a gothic horror [daytime] soap opera which originally aired on ABC-TV, some 30 odd years ago. It ran from June 1966 to April of 1971.

Some of the characters and creatues that were on there included a vampire, named Barnabas Collins, his wife, the witch, Angelique. His distant cousin, a werewolf, named Quentin Collins, and various spirits abound. There was even a phoenix in the family, her name was, Laura.

Dark Shadows was a unique type of soap opera, as one can see, in that it took on a different aspect to soap operas, by including the realm of the supernatural."

http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/braker/139/vampds2.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Darkshadows.jpg

"My name is Victoria Winters... my journey is just beginning..."

On 27 June 1966, those words began the journey of a young governess to the remote coastal town of Collinsport, Maine, which for the next five years would be the home of the assorted supernatural forces inhabiting the world of ABC-TV's Dark Shadows, the first gothic soap opera.

From the murky images of virginal governess Victoria Winters (Alexandra Moltke) on a twilight-bound train, to the hulking inky outline of the ominous Collinwood mansion, the opening moments of the first episode made it clear that Dark Shadows did not intend to play by any of the traditional soap opera rules. A heady distillation of gothic romance plots and intrigue, producer Dan Curtis' brainchild was not an overnight success. Intially faced with poor viewing figures and twee mysteries surrounding the parentage of the young governess, in desperation a ghost story was added to the mix. When viewers responded positively, the producers decided that the supernatural plots were where the show's future lay, opening the floodgates for a vivid cast of spectral characters to menace the tortured Collins family and their ghost-ridden mansion, Collinwood, a dark wonderland housed in a tiny Manhattan studio.

Nine months into the show's run, grave-robbing drifter Willie Loomis (John Karlen) released vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) from imprisonment in the Collins family mausoleum, and pop-culture history was born.

http://www.collinwood.net/info/

[J.B.]

Dayum James you just brought back great memories of the show. While I wasnt even born during the show whole run ( I was nt born till 1973)watching the attics of the Collines family were great scifi moments. makesm e hate they quit airing it. Yes the Phoenix Laura, Angelique the witch, Qunetin the wereworf, and Barnabas the vampire.


Not to mention the over all eccentric Collins Family


Elizabeth ( The Elvira/Lily Monster of the manor)
Roger ( Liz's brother)
David ( Roger's son)
Sarah ( Barnabas ghostly sister)

Dr. Julia ( A witch docter with a crush on Barnabas)
Maggie (Barnabas's modern Josete look alike)
Ben Stokes (A decent looking Egor)
Adam ( the frankenstein monster ment to drain the curse off of Barnabas)

Quentin ( A young Richard Channing-Falcon Crest)
Daphne ( A young Sabrina Duncan- Charlie's Angels)

Collinsport
Collinwood
Widowhills
The old House
The Mausoleum


were all legendary places on Dark Shadows


If you want a modern day 90's version of Dark Shadow's which also was a ABC soap which last just a little longer then check out Port Charles

It was the modern gothic classic with their Vampires, Werewolfs and even Angels!

[James from London]

So Cousin Barnabas hands Joan Bennett a crock about how he's some distant relative over from England when really he's been lying in the nearby mausoleum for the last 200 years. Victoria Winters appears for the first time and what a nervous little flibbertygibbit she is. Barnabas has a loooong scene with a little kid in a darkened, cobwebby room. I like it when the kid screws up his lines--"I like it when the ocean, er, the water, er, the sunrise comes up over the ocean"--and then when Barnabas has a cryptic conversation with a portrait of some dead chick called Josette whom he blames for something or other. There's also a groovy 60s blonde who makes a habit of listening at doors and then, just when Vaughn Leland is about to reveal what happened eighteen years ago, bursts into the room and shouting, "What happened eighteen years ago? What? What are you talking about?" Harvey Beth Lacey has been missing for two episodes now. I gotta baaad feeling about that ....

Angels, huh?

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

Yay James! I was a little worried you would hate the show and be upset with me for making you waste your money on it. :D See, I told you a daytime soap can be done right in the US, you just need to find the right one!

I can't wait until you reach the second and third collections when the brilliant Grayson Hall joins the cast. She is very bizarre, very drag queeny, but riveting at the same time. But my favorite is Willie Loomis, who I'm guessing you call Harvey Beth Lacey? He's the reason I plan on buying the Cagney & Lacey DVDs, he's fab.

I've only seen the first three collections so far and they are each fantastic with great cliffhangers each time. I especially loved the first few weeks of the show when they introduced Barnabas. Very dark and creepy.

[J.B.]

Dont you just loved the characters idiosecrecies. I loved the way Barnabas kidnaps Maggie and makes her believe she Josete while Julie acts to stop any of his doings toward hurting or conrtroling any woman. Not for the mere protection of it all but mostly cause of her own hidden love for him funny I dont think Angelique ever discover the love Julia had for Barnabas or did she ?


I love the troublesome David always whining and crying about some insecurity and how Roger being the cynical dysfunctional parent he was always evaded his sons real issues. I love how Ms. Johnson ( The collins cynical fanical christian maid) always seeme to be overly supicious of everyone, while Carolyn didnt seemed to not know who or where she was PERIOD!

Willie & Roger had to be men that had extreme high blood pressure because they were both under a strain or critically nervous. Willie because of knowing the truth, Roger because of denying the truth. Maggie always seemed to look like she was in a state of shock, while Laura ( aka Madame Phoenix) seemed to flaunt around in a state of sovernty.......talking and acting toward people in a dismissive ignoring unimpressed fashion as if the world only consisted of her and her flames, who incidently (Diana Millay) was a good actress and with very little words but personality seemed very telling. Is it me or did Diana Millay bare astriking resemblance to actress Tippi Hedren who played in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds".

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

JB, James mentioned in his first post that he doesn't want any spoilers. You should edit your post. :) You can get as spoilerific as you want in the DS thread on the Sci Fi forum. :)

[J.B.]

OMG I'm so sorry I missed that, however it seems to me after reading all of James post hes discovered quite abit already yet I am sorry and wont post any more spoilers at this point on this site until reaches a certain point. I do apologize if I ruined it!

[James from London]

Don't worry, JB! I skimmed over your post and didn't read too much. I've started watching where Barnabas arrives. I've no idea what's going on, but that's half the fun really.

Thanks, CSM. I'd seen a few episodes years ago on the Sci-Fi Channel so I knew I'd like it, I just wasn't sure where to start. Yes, Harvey Beth is married to Mary Beth on CAGNEY AND LACEY, and is always having heart attacks.

[J.B.]

James if you dont mind please tel what episode you on and whats going on at this point as I'm excited to hear you go through it all. Dont worry I wont make a post yet it will be exciting to hear where you are with me knowing whats to come. Incidently are the episodes with Barnabas still in black or white or did they change over to color yet? (lol hope thats not a spoiler?)

[James from London]

So Victoria meets Barnabas in the House of Cobwebs, and is impressed by his knowledge of the exact way the front door sticks, even though he's apparently never been there before. "My ancestors in England spoke about this house in great detail," he explains rather insanely, and even more insanely, she seems to buy this explanation. Anyway, this scene goes on for ages and then Victoria another has a scene which also goes on for ages in which she tells the blonde 60s chick everything that's just happened in the previous scene, and I'm finding it hard to remember if life existed before this episode began. And then some fey gentleman, who reminds me of Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE, suddenly notices that the ring that Barnabas is wearing is exactly the same as the ring that the man who looks exactly the same as Barnabas in the portrait is wearing! What are the odds??

Then there's a great episode which is all set in the groovy bar, The Blue Whale or something, where some dishy guy tells Captain Fogarty from DALLAS and some girl I've never seen before this creepy story about a calf that's been found drained of all its blood, or exsanguinated as they used to say on THE X-FILES. And all anybody's talked about for episodes is "Where's Harvey Beth Lacey gone? Where's Harvey Beth Lacey gone?" and so when he finally shows up in the bar, it's a big deal. Harvey Beth is terrific, he's real intense, like James Dean's slightly pudgier cousin. And Captain Fogarty's spoiling for a fight, but Harvey Beth's all jittery and freaked out, and then Vaughn Leland turns up, but before Captain Fogarty can ask Vaughn where he was the night Bobby Ewing was shot, Vaughn notices Harvey Beth's jacket has blood on it! Could it be ... calf's blood?? Whooo do do do ... I love it!


James if you dont mind please tel what episode you on

I'm up to April 24th 1967! Just another hundred million years to go!

[Dr. Ackerman]

I'm up to April 24th 1967! Just another hundred million years to go!

The turning point of the series comes in November/December 1967. Until then, the story meanders a bit, and outright drags for weeks at a time, but hang in there, because it's worth the wait. What was happening behind the scenes was a creative debate: Should the vampire Barnabas be a short-term character to increase ratings before the show returned to telling more reality-based stories, or should the show take the plunge and become all-supernatural-all-the-time? Thankfully, they decided to take the supernatural route, and once they did, they never looked back. The turning point later that year is every bit as compelling as, say, Season 4 of KNOTS LANDING, when all of the components of the show just came together in an exciting dramatic way, making all that had come before seem like mere exposition.

I've always thought of DARK SHADOWS as being America's DOCTOR WHO: a low-budget (VERY low-budget) fantasy series that attracted an audience BECAUSE of its stripped-down, bare bones qualities, which gave it an odd intimacy. Much of the charm of DS is its flaws: the flubbed lines, the cheesy special effects, the over-the-top acting. Yet, the actors and writers and production people present the show with such sincerity and conviction that you can't help but be drawn in by it.

Grayson Hall's Dr. Julia Hoffman is one of the highlights. How she delivered some of her lines without cracking up I will never know, but she did it. Jonathan Frid's tortured Barnabas is also fun. (Frid complained that his coffin was too short for him, and he always had to bend his legs to fit into it.)

James, be sure to give us progress reports as you work your way through the months. BTW, how many episodes do you get at once on DVD?

[James from London]

Harvey Beth Lacey spends scene after scene, episode after episode, in a state of abject terror over something so incredibly horrific he cannot speak about it. Everyone else stands around asking each other "Where's Willy? Is Willy coming back? Is Willy leaving? If Willy is leaving why has he come back? What's happened to Willy?" Then he almost leaves--he crawls downstairs and gets as far as the painting in the foyer and then collapses by the front door, just like Sable Colby. Vaughn Leland gives him a cuddle and eventually finds two little marks on his veinless arm. Has he been ... bitten? Does he have a vampiric arm?Don't tell me. It's all totally mad and genuinely eerie in places. Poor Harvey Beth. He's going to give himself a heart attack at this rate and no Tyne Daly around to save him.


What was happening behind the scenes was a creative debate: Should the vampire Barnabas be a short-term character to increase ratings before the show returned to telling more reality-based stories, or should the show take the plunge and become all-supernatural-all-the-time?

That's interesting. It's hard to believe they could have considered going back to normal after unleashing Barnabas upon the viewing public! There are 40 episodes per DVD box set.

[SnarkyOracle!]

There is a genuine, collective creepiness about "Dark Shodows", despite no budget and being shot on the cheapest of videotape.... only could have worked in the '60s.

And Grayson Hall may the creepiest thing in the entire show.

[Dr. Ackerman]

It's hard to believe they could have considered going back to normal after unleashing Barnabas upon the viewing public!

Actually, Barnabas wasn't the first supernatural character on DARK SHADOWS. Shortly before (on the earlier episodes that never get rerun), David's mother, Laura the Phoenix, appeared, and she tried to lure David into her supernatural flames as she was burning. And before that, I believe there was a ghost who emerged from a painting. But these were very short-term appearances, lasting no more than a few weeks. When Barnabas first appeared (nine or ten months into the show's run), he was only supposed to be around for six weeks or so before he got staked. But he caught on with the viewers, and the rest is TV history.

As you watch those first months with Barnabas, you can see how the writers were feeling their way, unsure as to how to proceed. When they finally realized that Barnabas was the show's breakout character, they proceeded to reshape the show around him. This becomes obvious in the episodes of November/December 1967. DARK SHADOWS, which had been somewhat slow-paced up until then, suddenly goes into plot overdrive. If you miss a few episodes after that, you won't know what's going on.

[James from London]

Barnabas wants to move into the cobwebby house but Joan Bennett isn't listening; she appears to be distracted by an off screen floor manager who's probably motioning frantically at her to speed up or slow down the scene. So it's left to her rather effete brother who reminds me of Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE to take an interest. I hope Barnabas does move in. It'll be like some 1970s sitcom with Hannah Gordon and John Alderton, MY VAMPIRE NEXT DOOR. Harvey Beth is still freaking everybody out. When he isn't there, they're all asking, "Where's Harvey Beth? Where's Harvey Beth?" and when he is there, they're all asking, "When's Harvey Beth leaving? Why won't he leave?" The doctor is called and informs Vaughn Leland and Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE that Harvey Beth is suffering from ... a lack of blood, which is exactly what all the exsanguinated cattle are suffering from! Oooh!

[J.B.]

Originally posted by James from LondonSo it's left to her rather effete brother who reminds me of Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE to take an interest. I hope Barnabas does move in.



Yeah Roger Collins....who was as gothic as the show it self!

[James from London]

I don't believe it! Harvey Beth has finally moved out of the house! What will Joan Bennett complain about all day long now? Meanwhile, she's given permission for Barnabas to move into cobwebby house next door, even though it's so full of cobwebs as to be uninhabitable and so volunteers the services of her maid, Mrs Somebody. Barnabas assures her he has help already. One imagines a sinister housekeeper like Mrs Danvers in REBECCA or a hairy henchman like Odd Bod in CARRY ON SCREAMING, but instead it's ... Harvey Beth! He's moved next door! So that's what Joan Bennett will have to complain about. It's rather like Joan Collins moving into the shed at the bottom of the garden on DYNASTY. Then Barnabas drops in to the local diner for an after hours cup of coffee where Maggie the waitress (Kathryn Leigh Scott who later shows up in KNOTS LANDING and DALLAS) seems oblivious to the fact that he's the most sinister man that ever lived. He leaves his silvery gold cane behind so Maggie and Hunky Joe go up to the old cobwebby house to return it. It's all very Brad and Janet in THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, except we don't get to see them in their underwear. In fact, Maggie never takes off her waitress's apron even she's at home. She also can't shake off the feeling she's being watched ... Spooooooky.

http://www.codelphia.com/lali/05Oct30-MyJohnKarlenBirthdayCollage.jpg
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[James from London]

Someone keeps trying to eat all the waitresses and cattle in Collinwood. Maggie the waitress is scared that someone has followed her home. There is a knock on the door! Happily it's nice Mr Barnabas, only the most sinister man who ever lived, so of course she is in no danger from him and invites him inside. He's got a thing for her dad's paintings and commissions him to do his portrait, but stipulating that they can work only at night and in the cobwebby house. Joan Bennett is not best pleased when "My name is Victoria Winters" tells her that Harvey Beth Lacey has moved into the cobwebby house with Barnabas (I knew she wouldn't be). She pops round to investigate and that weird kid tags along. He starts freaking out about how the house has changed. Joan hovers anxiously, waiting for the kid to remember his lines in the right order. (He repeats that the house has changed about fifteen times.) Turns out he's got the hots for some dead chick called Josette (whoever that is; there's a postcard of her in a wedding dress that comes with the DVD so I guess she's a big deal) and Barnabas has taken down the portrait of her that used to hang in the cobwebby house.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

She pops round to investigate and that weird kid tags along. He starts freaking out about how the house has changed.

Word! I always found him to be so strange and I never bought that Roger could have a son, lol. He was *so* fabulously gay and all of those trips he'd take just scream Fire Island!

[James from London]

This is turning into THE MAGGIE THE WAITRESS SHOW. She goes to sleep and the screen turns all wibbly wobbly and we're into this far out dream sequence full of dry ice. Maggie finds herself in front of a coffin and it opens and inside is ... her! And she tries to scream but she can't because her head's turned into a fleshless skull! Then she wakes up and really does scream, she screams and screams and screams some more. Then she calls Hunky Joe who takes her to the 60s theme pub to get her drunk, and Barnabas is there hanging out with Maggie the Waitress's dad, Father the Painter and Captain Fogarty from DALLAS (who warns Barnabas against Harvey Beth; everyone warns Barnabas against Harvey Beth) and they all pretend not to notice that Barnabas has started wearing eye shadow. Then something freaks Maggie the Waitress out and she goes back to bed where she twists and turns in her sleep, unaware that Barnabas is actually coming through her window--4real!

[James from London]

Barnabas stands at the foot of Maggie the Waitress's bed. He smiles and ... oh look, he has fangs! After a bit of wave-crashing-against-rock title music, the action then cuts straight to the next morning. Given that (to paraphrase Frida from Abba) every moment in DARK SHADOWS seems last an eternity, this feels like the soap opera equivalent of the moment in ALIAS where Vaughn suddenly tells Sydney that two years have past since the last scene. Maggie wakes up all high strung and hysterical. She goes to work where she's the waitress from hell, spilling coffee and breaking cups and then fainting. At night fall, she gets all giddy AGAIN (just like Harvey Beth!) and drives Father the Painter over to the cobwebby house where he is painting Barnabas's portrait. She and Barnabas act all sly and knowing around each other, then she goes home, opens the windows of her room, gets into bed and bares her throat in readiness ... Gosh, it's all a bit Madeline Smith in THE VAMPIRE LOVERS. Meanwhile, Vaughn Leland blackmails Joan Bennett into giving him a job in public relations to cover up the fact that he's blackmailing her over the way she murdered Dirty Den and buried in him in the cellar of the Queen Vic, or something. Thrillingly, Vaughn even says the immortal line, "Blackmail's such an ugly word." Joan is rattled and gets her dialogue all in a tangle. Fortunately, the groovy 60s blonde who is always listening at doors then interrupts their conversation. She's all suspcious, even more so when her camp uncle (Larry Grayson) tells her that information about her missing father is locked in a secret room. Groovy 60s blonde wants the key, but Joan Bennett doesn't want her to have it. "My name is Victoria Winters" gets all nervous and begs Groovy to drop it, but she won't ...

[James from London]

"Things are getting deeper and deeper and people are saying and doing things for no reason at all!"

Everyone's freaking out because Maggie the Waitress has disappeared. Harvey Beth makes an anonymous phone call to "My name is Victoria Winters" telling her that Maggie's in the graveyard, wandering around in her nightie looking like a cross between Linda Blair in THE EXORCIST and Ruby from UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS. "My name is Victoria Winters" and Captain Fogarty from DALLAS find her and take her home, much to the annoyance of Barnabas who was planning to eat her, and he beats Harvey Beth with his fancy stick. Back at Father the Painter's house, bite marks are discovered on Maggie the Waitress's neck. This show is wildly atmospheric, and the great thing is, you can wander off in your mind and start thinking about your favourite soup for a while, without actually missing anything.

[Rio Colby Dexter]

Enjoy it while you can. I am about two years ahead of you (1897), and believe me, it's even faster-paced than todays soaps. I really miss the "atmospheric" Dark Shadows of 1967 and 1795. It seems that after 1795, they decided that "more is more", and totally threw out the slow-evolving relationships, atmosphere over action, and real life events mingling with the supernatural. After 1795, there are NO real life events to counteract all the supernatural goings-on. As of 1897 (which I am six months into) there are at least four supernatural storylines going on at once. No one is involved in anything realistic. I really miss that aspect of the show. Sometimes less IS more!

[James from London]

"There was every indication she was dead!"

After her latest blood transfusion, Maggie the Waitress dies in hospital and then jumps out the window. Father the Painter grieves amusingly, and no one can understand how she can have disappeared now that her heart has stopped beating and everything. It's a bit like Pam Ewing after she was wrapped in bandages, and you half expect Katherine Wentworth to be behind the whole thing. But it turns out Maggie's shacked up with Barnabas who wants to turn her into Josette, his fiancee who threw herself off a cliff two hundred years earlier (you can understand why). He gives her the wedding dress he's been saving ever since, which is in remarkably good condition. This is like REBECCA meets Miss Haversham meets VERTIGO meets necrophiliac daytime TV.

[James from London]

It's like a particularly gothic episode of CHANGING ROOMS when "Mynameisvictoriawinters" and Groovy 60s Blonde pop next door to see what improvements Barnarbas has made to the cobwebby house. He's swept up all the cobwebs! It's amazing! Barnabas appears out of thin air, and they tell him they just lurve what he's done to the place. He modestly agrees that Josette's bedroom is "brimming with femininity". The girlies then make their excuses and leave as they have to home before the curfew, lest they get eaten alive like poor Maggie the Waitress. Once they're out of sight, the episode turns into an undead version of WHAT NOT TO WEAR as Maggie materialises wearing Josette's wedding dress, and looking so two hundred years ago.

[James from London]

Barnabas is having a candle lit dinner (is there any other kind in Collinwood?) with Maggie the Dead Waitress, whom he insists must now be called Miss Josette. They are interrupted by a knock at the door. It's Hunky Joe and Father the Painter! Harvey Beth hides Miss Maggie the Dead Josette Waitress upstairs while Father the Painter and Barnabas have a painfully protracted conversation (is there any other kind in DARK SHADOWS?) about how they'll have to postpone the completion of Barnabas's portrait. Miss Waitress the Dead Maggie Josette hears their voices and suddenly remembers who she used to be when she was alive. She makes a noise and Barnabas is not best pleased. He gets rid of Hunky Joe and Father the Painter and does ... something to her. Next day, the weird kid is back! He sneaks over to the cobwebby and sees Josette through the window! He couldn't more excited if it was Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall. Everyone--Barnabas, Mynameisvictoriawinters and Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE--are all very cross with him for trespassing, but he doesn't listen. All her cares about is a 200 year old dead woman in a wedding dress. What a special little boy he is.

[James from London]

Miss Josette the Dead Maggie Waitress and the weird kid have this long conversation where it's like they're both on drugs, and she keeps repeating everything he says. "Your fondness for this house is insatiable," Barnabas tells the kid later. Is it legal to use the word "insatiable" when talking to a child, even a child as weird as this one? Dead Waitress Maggie Miss Josette misses the kid when he's gone. "Oh little boy? Oh little boy?" she calls, wandering the cobwebby house in her 200 year old wedding dress. After looking at slides of Maggie's blood cells through a microscope, the doctor goes all Scully and refuses to believe what he sees. He calls for a second opinion but then his office is ransacked and the blood samples stolen. He then reluctantly shares his opinion of what happened to Maggie with Captain Fogarty from DALLAS: "It's terrifying and ... impossible!"

[James from London]

Suddenly there's no vampires or dead waitresses and it's like watching a normal black and white soap opera. Vaughn Leland tries to blackmail Joan Bennett into marrying him--nothing fancy, just one of those Greg 'n' Abby or Richard 'n' Terry "Merger Made in Heaven" type affairs. Joan's having none of it and decides to call his bluff and tell Groovy 60s Blonde the truth about her father (whatever that maybe). Groovy 60s Blonde gets all nervous and runs away screaming when Joan tries to tell her that her father wasn't a very nice man.

[SnarkyOracle!]

I miss the old fisheye lenses from the 60s and the 70s. Nobody ever seems to use them anymore.

[James from London]

Things are moving reeeeallllly sloooowllllly. Harvey Beth is forced to give the doctor a blood sample, in the hopes that it might hold a clue to what happened to Maggie the Dead Waitress. "I guess some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen in my life have been microscopic views of hideous malignancies," says the doctor chattily, not noticing Barnabas exchanging the blood sample with another, less supernaturally tainted one. Joan Bennett appears to be going along with Vaughn Leland's marriage idea when she consults her lawyer about divorcing the husband she secretly murdered eighteen years before. "Perhaps we're people who were never meant to be married," muses Joan's camp brother, aka Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE. Dr Smith then reminds his niece, Groovy 60s Blonde, that she's desperate to know what's locked in the basement. "Oh yeah, I'm desperate to know what's locked in the basement!" she suddenly recalls.


I miss the old fisheye lenses from the 60s and the 70s. Nobody ever seems to use them anymore.

What a great picture. I await the Richard Channing years with interest.

[James from London]

Father the Painter drops by the cobwebby house and leaves his pipe behind! Maggie the Dead Waitress aka Josette the 200 Year Old Bride glides downstairs and finds it! She can't remember who the heck she's supposed to be, but knows the pipe is significant. Harvey Beth is nervous about Father the Painter's visit (but then, what isn't Harvey Beth nervous about?) and goes to wake Barnabas who's having a disco nap in his coffin. (yes, he sleeps in a coffin--what joy!) While they're gone, Maggie the Dead Waitress disappears! Father the Painter sees her outside his window, but nobody believes him, it's just like with Audrey Roberts and Joan van Ark. Barnabas finds her in the graveyard and gives her a good throttling before locking her in a coffin in the crypt as punishment. Harvey Beth finds her and brings her home where she remembers that she's Maggie and then she forgets and thinks she's Josette and then she forgets and thinks she's Maggie and on and on.

[James from London]

So Maggie the Dead Waitress has remembered that she isn't Josette, but keeps forgetting who it is that she is. However, she knows enough to know that she has to pretend to think she's Josette or Barnabas will get real mad. He's planning their wedding ("All her complete being will be mine!") and Harvey Beth has been busy building 'His n' Hers' coffins for the big day; it really is too cute. Nobody's mentioned the word "vampire" yet, but somehow Maggie the Dead Waitress intuitively knows that driving a stake through Barnabas's heart is what's required to get her out of this undead matrimonial pickle. Meanwhile, next door, another enforced marriage looms as Joan Bennett and Vaughn Leland announce their engagement. On Vaughn's advice, Joan opens the mysterious room in the basement for the first time in eighteen years and allows Groovy 60s Blonde, Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE and mynameisvictoriawinters to poke around inside. They open a couple of suitcases, but soon get bored and don't so find whatever it is that she is hiding, wherever she's hiding it (beneath the floor would be my guess, given the frequent and ominous close ups of everyone's shoes).

[James from London]

It's all curfews and fangs this week. Barnabas bares his gnashers after waking up in his coffin to find Maggie the Dead Waitress standing over him in her 200 year old wedding dress and pointing a stake at him. He's very annoyed and tells her she's no longer worthy of the name Josette (a bit like Danielle from BIG BROTHER being stripped of her Miss Great Britain title). He can't decide whether to marry her or kill her. Heck, why not do both? "I'm close to killing you tonight," he tells her. "Only your beauty saves you." He decides to drive her insane first, then kill her. "You must endure great pain before you die, Maggie Evans. Greater pain than any human being has ever endured." Sounds like a plan. Then he locks her in a convenient cell where she does a lot of screaming.

Groovy 60s Blonde is such a mixed up crazy kid since her mother got engaged to Vaughn Leland that she takes up with a hairy biker, a sort of cross between Charles Manson and Jeremy Beadle. They come back to the mansion late at night, drunk, and dance, dance, dance to the radio. Joan Bennett appears in her dressing gown and it's all very FALCON CREST Season 9--posh matriarch meets naughty young people on motorbikes--Charley St James, "God of the Grapes", all that stuff.

[James from London]

Maggie the Dead Waitress, still locked in a cell, tries to get word to the outside world by giving Harvey Beth a ring to sell (I can't quite follow the logic either). The freaky kid from next door breaks in to the cobwebby house in the hopes of obtaining Josette's autograph and 200 year old diet and exercise tips, but Harvey Beth throws him out. He finds the ring that Harvey Beth has dropped and takes it home, planning to wear it when he grows up and embarks on his cabaret career as a Josette tribute act. He stupidly shows it to Mynameisvictoriawinters who primly shows it to Barnabas who deviously pretends it's an old family heirloom and takes it and shows it to Maggie the Dead Waitress and laughs in her mad, screaming face.

Joan Bennett and Vaughn Leland announce they plan to marry in two weeks' time (which will doubtless take another three 40 episode box sets to reach). As an act of rebellion, Groovy 60s Blonde decides to marry Jeremy Beadle on the same day, in spite of Hunky Joe's stern disapproval. "That guy looks about as much fun as a bag of spiders!" he tells her.

[James from London]

Maggie the Dead Waitress obediently agrees to Barnabas's suggestion that she listen to the music box that will make her think she's Josette, which in turn will make Barnabas want to marry her rather than kill her. Then she changes her mind, deciding that, on balance, she'd rather be dead than undead.

There's a very funny scene where Barnabas has a speech in which he has to say the word "exist" about ten times and gets completely tangled up, but he has to keep going even though you can tell he has no idea what he's talking about.

Then something really weird happens--this little girl in a Victorian costume suddenly appears outside Maggie's cell singing "London Bridge" (the original, not that funky new version by that girl from the Black Eyed Peas). At first I thought she'd wandered in from another studio by mistake, but then she appears to the freaky kid as well and asks him to sing "London Bridge" with her. He refuses, saying it's too childish a song. I think he's more a "Don't Rain On My Parade" type myself.

Groovy 60s Blonde describes her stepfather-to-be as "the man who inspired the invention of truth serum."

[James from London]

The little girl in a Victorian hat suddenly appears inside Maggie the Dead Waitress's cell. They have a good time playing catch (not exactly the most challenging game to play inside a confined space, but needs must) and singing "London Bridge". Maggie's hoping the little girl will show her a way to escape but instead she just disappears into thin air. What a bitch. This sends Maggie round the twist. Barnabas finds this a big turn off and decides he won't marry her after all; he'll just kill her.

Joan Bennett is threatening not to marry Vaughn Leland if Groovy 60s Blonde goes through with her promise to Jeremy Beadle. While Groovy is the ladies room of the Blue Onion ("Her nose needed some powder," explains Jeremy Beadle--he actually used those words) Vaughn tries to talk Jeremy out of the wedding, saying that Groovy is just using him. But Jeremy doesn't care. Well he always was game for a laugh, wasn't he?

[James from London]

It's only taken 49 episodes, but DARK SHADOWS has suddenly got really exciting. First Groovy gets arrested for Driving While Blonde and nearly killing someone in the process. With Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE off cruising boys, there's no family member available to bail her out of jail unless ... Joan Bennett can bring herself to leave Collinwood for the first time in eighteen years! It's unthinkable of course, but mynameisvictoriawinters finally persuades her. And you think Groovy is gonna be so impressed by her mother's efforts on her behalf that she'll call off her wedding to Jeremy Beadle, but she throws it back in Joan's face instead and refuses to leave the jail with her. The sheriff, later on the FALCON CREST Board of Supervisors, has to more or less boot her ass out of jail. If that were not enough, Joan Bennett then confesses to mynameisvictoriawinters her real reason for marrying Vaughn Leland: he knows that she murdered her first husband!

Harvey Beth poisons Maggie the Dead Waitress's milk so that she can avoid an even uglier death at the hands of Barnabas. But before she can drink it, The Little Girl From Another Time appears in her cell again and gives her clues on how to escape. Then the little girl appears to Father the Painter and asks him to draw her. He positions her on a stool so that she can read her lines off cue cards and she tells him that if he wants to see Maggie again, he should look for her on the beach that night. Then she disappears.

Meanwhile, Barnabas has risen from his coffin and is coming to kill Maggie. She's trying to work out the riddle and pressing bricks in a certain order hoping a magic door will open. The wall gives way and she escapes just as Barnabas arrives, and I'm nearly having a heart attack. It's suddenly all so creepy and NOSFERATU-ish.

[James from London]

Maggie the Waitress escapes to the beach and collapses. A shadow looms over her ... it's Barnabas. Oh God no! Maggie screams and Father the Painter comes running. Barnabas has no choice but to leave her where she is and make a run for it. Father the Painter brings her to the hospital where Maggie decides she's nine years old and wants to play with dolls. The doctor is worried that whoever kidnapped her before will try again and decides that the sensible thing to do isn't to call the police as one might imagine,but to fake her death and then send her to a private clinic run by Dustin Hoffman. Father the painter and Hunky Joe think this a swell idea.

[James from London]

Vaughn Leland spooks Barnabas when he's never seen him in the daylight. Harvey Beth meets The Little Girl From Another Time. He then tells Barnabas about her who gets even more spooked.

Father the Painter and Hunky Joe visit Maggie the Dead Waitress at the secret clinic. She's gone completely round the bend and keeps singing "London Bridge is falling down". She gets fixated on the line "Take the key and lock her up, lock her up" and starts screaming it over and over, which is disturbing and hilariously funny at the same time. And oh my days, was there ever a doctor in all of soapdom as spooky as Dr Hoffman?

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

lol You have finally met Dr. Julia Hoffman! I've been waiting for that. She gives me nightmares and I'm still not entirely convinced it's a woman, but I love watching her.

Just wait until you hear her drag queeny screams!

[Dr. Ackerman]

And just wait until Julia Hoffman cuts her hair really short (around June 1968). She looks even MORE androgynous, if that's possible. And she carries around this shiny medallion in her purse that she uses to hypnotize people. :lol

But, jokes aside, she does morph into one of the best characters on the show.

[James from London]

Oh I look forward to more of Dr Julia. She's like Anne Bancroft on steroids.

Harvey Beth feels real bad that Maggie the Waitress had to die because of Barnabas. "My existence has special requirements," is Barnabas's explanation, which seems reasonable. Three old women in headscarves visit Joan Bennett in a dream and tell her to throw herself off Suicide Hill, so she gives it a go but every time she's about to jump, someone comes along and finds her. First it's Mrs Thingy the housekeeper, who hasn't come out of the kitchen for over fifty episodes, and then Barnabas. For a thrilling moment, you don't know whether he's going to save her or push her.

[Dr. Ackerman]

Sidenote: Dr. Hoffman was originally intended to be a 'Van Helsing' vampire-hunter character named Dr. Julian Hoffman, but a secretary's typo gave him a sex change. When producer Dan Curtis saw the "Julia Hoffman" typo, he thought, "Hmm, why not?" And the rest is TV history.

[SnarkyOracle!]

Oh I look forward to more of Dr Julia. She's like Anne Bancroft on steroids.



Oh, very good... you're so sharp: both women are Virgo with Scorpio Rising (and sister Moon signs yet!)

You'll need to know that when the Marsians administer "the quiz". (d)

[SnarkyOracle!]

For all our Dr. Julia needs:

[James]

Having never seen the original series, I'm only familiar with the Barbara Steele version I'm currently watching in the primetime revival. And I thought she had a drag queen quality...

[James from London]

Joan Bennett is gonna throw herself of Suicide Hill. The voices are calling to her, she's really gonna do it this time, really, really. But then bloody Mynameisvictoriawinters stops her. Is it wrong of me to feel cheated? So she decides to marry Vaughn Leland instead. Even Groovy attends the wedding ... with a gun in her purse. How very FALCON CREST. Anyway, the minister is asking Joan Bennett "Do you take this man?" and Groovy's got her finger on the trigger and is aiming it (discreetly) at Vaughn Leland, when Joan suddenly announces that she murdered her first husband eighteen years earlier and that Vaughn helped her. See what happens when you let people write their own vows?

"That's where I'll go on my honeymoon--I'll go crazy!"


Oh, very good... you're so sharp: both women are Virgo with Scorpio Rising (and sister Moon signs yet!)

No way. That is so ... DARK SHADOWS of me.

[J.B.]

Oh dear Joan always on edge to the point of sudden breakdown. I love the revelation and the wickedness that seems to surround Vaugn Leland (LOL) holding it over her head![

[James from London]

Vaughn Leland does a runner, Dr Smith from LOST IN SPACE goes hunting for him with a shot gun on Suicide Hill, and Joan Bennett has an episode long flash back to eighteen years ago in which she kills her husband, King Galen of Moldavia, after he threatens to leave home and take her stamp collection with him. Vaughn Leland then buried him under the cellar ...or did he? Back in the present day, Sheriff FALCON CREST and Burke Devlin (as in "today, the role of Burke Devlin will be played by ...") dig for, oh, minutes without finding a body!!

[James from London]

Vaughn Leland is caught and admits he faked King Galen's death. Joan Bennett refuses to press charges so Sheriff FALCON CREST gives Vaughn 24 hours to get outta town. Vaughn sneaks over to the cobwebby house next door and overhears Barnabas and Harvey Beth discussing how it was they that kidnapped Maggie the Dead Waitress!! The great thing about the slow pace of this show is that when something like this happens you almost have a heart attack with the excitement.

Barnabas says it's time they kidnap another chick and turn her into Josette, but Harvey Beth doesn't approve. "I exist in a prescribed manner," insists Barnabas. "There can be no alternative for me." Gee, wonder what his birth (or death) sign is? Anyway, I'm thinking they could hold local auditions to find the right girl, sort of like THE JOSETTE FACTOR with Simon Cowell and Sharon Osbourne on the judges' panel, but then Barnabas announces that he has "already selected the next Josette." Might it be Mynameisvictoriawinters, by any chance?

So then Vaughn blackmails Harvey Beth into giving him fistfuls of Barnabas's jewels, or at least tries to, but when Harvey Beth turns up with one puny necklace, Vaughn isn't best pleased.

[James from London]

Groovy forgives Joan Bennett for killing her father before realising that her father isn't even dead, and no one mentions Jeremy Beadle.

Vaughn Leland opens the coffin in the basement of the cobwebby house expecting it to be full of jewels and out comes Barnabas's hand and it .. it .. it chokes Vaughn Leland to death! It's just too awful for words. Barnabas and Harvey Beth bury him in the family mausoleum thingy and Barnabas reveals that he had a sister who died when she was a little girl, and we realise that he is talking about The Little Girl From Another Time who keeps appearing out of nowhere.

The doctor who isn't Dr Hoffman shows Maggie the Dead Waitress a drawing of The Little Girl From Another Time and she freaks out some more. The doctor who is Dr Hoffman glowers disapprovingly.

[J.B.]

LOL Julia and her gothic expressions lol. Wow James this is good I completely for got Barnabas killed Vaugn Leland.

[James from London]

So everybody thinks Maggie the Dead Waitress is dead but really she's just left town, and now they all think Vaughn Leland has left town but really he's just dead.

Barnabas invites the Collinses to a costume party where they can all dress up as their dead relatives. Everybody is into the idea except for Joan Bennett who, being Joan Bennett, has to say no before she says yes, and then has to say no again before she says yes again. Mynamevictoriawinters is particularly excited about the idea because she has no life, and is blissfully unaware that Barnabas is grooming her to be his next undead bride or bride of the undead, or whatever you call it.

[JROG]

I read the first recap and all this sounds too exciting for words! Looked it up on Amazon and, although not overly priced, I can't say I can afford all those DVDs lol. Although, it does sound too exciting for words. :D

DDD

[Daniel Avery]

The 1991 revival of DS (on NBC, as a prime-time soap) compressed nearly 18 months of the original DS into 13 episodes, which gives you an idea of how much meandering was going on, plot-wise, in the original series.

Anyone who understands how much work goes into TV production cannot help but appreciate a show like DS, where the budget was virtually zero. Note how their town pub never has more than two patrons in it, and how entire episodes can consist of two characters sitting on one set an entire half-hour. It was rare to have more than four actors appear in an episode. They engaged in a production style called "live-to-tape," where they performed an entire episode as if it were going out live (as many soaps still did), but actually taped it in order to add in any (cheesy) special effects. If there was a mistake (flubbed line, coughing, falling prop, etc.) it simply got left in; the only time they re-shot a scene was if someone cursed or did something that could not be aired on TV. There were many very good actors on the show, but this style of production allowed a lot of really, really bad performances to be left in. And yes, there were a few horrid actors on the show, but those are the ones most fun to snark on.

My favorite parts are yet to come, really: the alternate time periods and parallel time sequences do tend to take over the show, but only because the present time stuff looked so dull in comparison.

[James from London]

Joan Bennett has to be the biggest party pooper in all of Dark Shadowsville. "Hey, Joan! Barnabas is having a party where we all dress up in dead people's clothes, it'll be great!" "Oh but I don't think I want to go to a party and dress up in dead people's clothes." "Oh, Joan, please say you'll come to the party and dress up in dead people's clothes. You'll enjoy yourself!" So she goes and sits there in dead people's clothes with a face like a smacked arse. Then someone says, "Hey Joan! Let's have a seance and contact the dead people whose clothes we are wearing! It'll be great!" "Oh but I don't think I want to have seance and contact the dead people whose clothes we are wearing." "Oh, Joan, please say you'll join in the seance and contact the dead people whose clothes we are wearing. You'll enjoy yourself!" So she joins in, but--call me crazy--I don't think she's going to enjoy that either ...


it does sound too exciting for words.

DARK SHADOWS is too everything for words.

[Dr. Ackerman]

Today is John Karlen's 74th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Willy Loomis!

[James from London]

Mynameisvictoriawinters becomes possessed by Josette at the seance, and it's too much for Barnabas who quietly freaks out. Then she sees The Little Girl From Another Time at the top of the stairs and it's all too mysterious for words. (Actually, it's a bit boring.) Barnabas then gives her the music box that used to belong to Josette, the same one that made Maggie the Dead Waitress go all loopy. Dr Tootsie Hoffman, meanwhile, puts Maggie the Dead Waitress under hypnosis and she remembers being in the cemetery!

[Mason]

Love your commentary, James! I can't wait til you get to 1795. That's when things REALLY start to get good! LoL

[James from London]

Honestly, that Dr Tootsie--she doesn't care does she? First she drags Maggie the Dead Waitress kicking and screaming to the graveyard to see if it will catapault her psyche into remembering what happened to her, and they narrowly miss Myvictoriawinters who is visiting Josette's grave, having suddenly acquired the 200 year old hots for her. Dr Tootsie and Maggie hide out in the Collins mausoleum and Maggie freaks out when she sees the name Barnabas, so Dr Tootsie does what any responsible psychiatrist would--she abandons her patient to go undercover as a historian so she can inflitrate the Collinses and find out what makes them so gosh darn weird.

[SnarkyOracle!]

girlfrien', she gotter sum cheekbone.

[James from London]

Mynameisvictoriawinters thinks she's seen Maggie the Dead Waitress, which she has. Burke Devlin, who doesn't even look like Burke Devlin anymore, thinks she's gone ****ing nuts, which she also has. She gets trapped in the cobwebby house during a storm and Barnabas invites her to stay the night in Josette's room. How can she refuse? She is awoken by the sound of The Little Girl From Another Time singing. Then she falls back to sleep. Then Barnabas comes into her room. Is he gonna kiss her or kill her?

[James from London]

Dr Tootsie asks Joan Bennett to let her research the Collins family, and of course Joan Bennett spends half an episode saying no before she says yes. Dr Tootsie also badgers Barnabas, but he don't like her much, especially when she starts waving her compact about to reveal he has no reflection!

[James from London]

Barnabas lurks outside Mynameisvictoriawinters bedroom, then comes in through the window while she is asleep, but cannot bring himself to bite her. It's Spike and Willow all over again! The next day, Dr Tootsie lurks outside Barnabas's house, then climbs in through the window and finds him asleep in his coffin. Then the next night, Barnabas lurks outside Dr Tootsie's bedroom, then comes in through the window ... but she's hiding in the shadows waiting for him. He's been out-lurked! "I've been waiting for this meeting for a long time," she tells him, "a long long time, a long long long long time, a long long long long long time ... I know what you are!" It's crotch-grabbingly exciting!

[Mason]

LoL, just wait 'til you get to Angelique's acid-trippy orgasm scene in Collection 10! lol

(you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it)

[James from London]

"I cannot permit you to continue your existence!" Barnabas tells Dr Tootsie, but then she tells him she's been working on this great new diet plan that could cure him of his vampirism. He's interested for a while, but then decides to kill her anyway. That's when she tells him she's treating Maggie the Dead Waitress and that sooner or later Maggie will recover her memory and blow the whistle on him, unless she is alive to stop her! That Dr Tootsie--she's so nuts.

The weird kid invites The Little Girl From Another Time home for tea, but she vanishes into thin air before he has a chance to introduce her to Mynameisvictoriawinters. How rude.

[James from London]

The Little Girl From Another Time materialises in Maggie the Dead Waitress's padded cell and helps her escape. Meanwhile, Mynameisvictoriawinters shows Barnabas and the Burke Devlin recast round a spooky old house she's fallen in love with--it's sort of like SCOOBY DOO meets LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. They go to that groovy bar afterwards and who should walk in but Maggie the Dead Waitress. Barnabas tries to hide his face, but she walks right to him and ... falls over and goes to sleep. It's just too exciting.

[SnarkyOracle!]

I like photo...

http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m127/tubesteak69/frid37.jpg

[James from London]

"Good news! This programme, DARK SHADOWS, is now being presented in colour." God, how exciting. Everything looks groovy and kinda like early STAR TREK. The one thing now lacking, however ... is those dark shadows. Alas, you can't beat black and white for atmosphere and spookiness.

Maggie gets her memory back, but Dr Tootsie quickly hypnotises her so she forgets that it was Barnabas who kidnapped her. To be on the safe side, Barnabas decides to kill her anyway. He's always deciding to do that.

That Dr Tootsie is one loony bitch.

[SnarkyOracle!]

"Good news! This programme, DARK SHADOWS, is now being presented in colour." God, how exciting. Everything looks groovy and kinda like early STAR TREK. The one thing now lacking, however ... is those dark shadows. Alas, you can't beat black and white for atmosphere and spookiness.


Quite true. But at least that mid-60s color scheme has a Halloween-y quality to it.

[Daniel Avery]

Tell me about it. It was as if someone in the production offices said, "Ooh, we're broadcasting in color now, so let's call up Orbach's Department Store and have them send over the most obscenely loud clothes they have!"

Instead of that cheesy medallion, Julia should have hypnotized Maggie by having her stare into Carolyn's closet.

[James from London]

The Little Girl From Another Time appears to Maggie again and gets all huffy because Maggie can't remember who she is. Then Barnabas gets all weirded out when he's trying to kill Maggie in her sleep and the sound of The Little Girl From Another Time singing "London Bridge" puts him off his stroke.

They've kind of written themselves into a bit of a corner by having Dr Tootise come to town pretending to be a historian. Now that Maggie's out of the loony bin, she also has to pretend Dr Tootsie isn't Dr Tootsie so that Dr Tootsie's cover isn't blown, but as she doesn't know that Dr Tootsie is secretly a vampire dietician, her pretending doesn't make any sense. Anyway, whenever Maggie starts remembering anything inconvenient, Dr Tootsie just shoves her magic medallion in her face and that shuts her up straight away.


that mid-60s color scheme has a Halloween-y quality to it.

Yes, Halloween-y; that's a good description.


"Ooh, we're broadcasting in color now, so let's call up Orbach's Department Store and have them send over the most obscenely loud clothes they have!"

Oh I don't know; the colour scheme seems quite specific to me--maybe because of the early technology, only certain colours worked well on screen so they had to be selective?


Instead of that cheesy medallion, Julia should have hypnotized Maggie by having her stare into Carolyn's closet.

Ha!

[dexdexter]

Marky, Love the Dr. Julia photo collage.

[James from London]

There's a new bit of exterior set on the Collingwood estate, where Mynameisvictoriawinters and Burke Devlin come to be romantic (i.e. press their tightly shut mouths together for uncomfortably long periods) and naughty people (or non-people) like Barnabas and Harvey Beth spy on them from the bushes. Burke has bought the SCOOBY DOO house and wants Mynameisvictoriawinters to come live with him and be his bride. Barnabas is upset, but then Dr Tootsie tells him he's well on the way to becoming properly human and that seems to cheer him up a bit.

[James from London]

Oh my days, it's all kicking off--Mynameisvictoriawinters and Burke are engaged. Burke is convinced there's something suspcious about Barnabas and starts asking questions, but everyone else on the show is in denial and thinks this weird old guy who wears pancake and eyeliner and a cape is as normal as can be. Burke even manages to make a connection between the soft, tinkling music that Maggie the Dead Amnesiac Waitress keeps hearing in her head and the music box Barnabas gave Mynameisvictoriawinters, and which she now believes has a mind of its own!! (I'm not sure, but I think the music box plays the same tune as Baby John's wind-up toy that Sue Ellen breaks in the Season 2 premiere of DALLAS.)

Barnabas makes threatening noises about killing Burke, which can only mean one thing: he won't kill Burke. Barnabas never kills anyone which, for a vampire, kinda sucks.

Meanwhile, Dr Tootsie and The Weird Kid go cruising for The Little Girl From Another Time. She dropped her bonnet last time she was in this dimension, see, and Dr Tootsie thinks she can use it to lure her out, but then the bonnet suddenly disappears ...

[James from London]

The Little Girl From Another Time appears to the Weird Kid again and persuades him to hang out with her at the graveyard, as you do. There, she shows him how to get into a secret crypt thingy and then they play Coffins. Coffins is a great game, in which you lift the lid of an ancient coffin and gaze open-mouthed at its contents until the beginning of the next episode when you then re-enact the same scene in slightly different positions and then the camera reveals that the coffin is ... empty! Which is exciting and anti-climactic both at the same time.

[James from London]

Maggie the Dead Waitress has cabin fever from hiding from the murderer at home, so she puts on her cardigan (it's so yellow!) and Hunky Joe and Father the Painter take her to the Blue Whale where they meet Mynameisvictoriawinters. It's hard to concentrate on what anyone's saying because Francis Lai's "Un Homme et Une Femme" is playing on the jukebox and it's so orgasmically French and groovy. Anyway, Mynameisvictoriawinters brilliantly deduces that there might be a connection between The Little Girl From Another Time that helped Maggie the Dead Waitress escape and The Little Girl From Another Time that The Weird Kid hangs out with. However, she has yet to connect them to The Little Girl From Another Time that she herself has seen. Ah well: truth takes time, as Irina Derevko once said.

Burke turns up at the bar and Mynameisvictoriawinters is snotty to him. It might be because she's finally noticed he's not the same actor as he was when the show was in black and white, or it might be because she's found out he's looking into Barnabas's past. When Burke tries to tell her his suspicions, she refuses to listen: how could that sweet old man with the fangs and the cape and eyeliner whose best friend just happened to have died 130 years ago have anything to do with Maggie the Dead Waitress's kidnapping? She threatens to break off their engagement if he continues to talk so whack.

Hunky Joe and Father the Painter ask The Weird Kid about The Little Girl From Another Time, but he's too excited about taking the bumpy bus to Bangor for the day. (Isn't that in Wales?)

Father the Painter starts to wonder whether Dr Tootsie is really the best psychiatrist for Maggie the Dead Waitress when she spends all her time hanging out with the Collinses pretending to be a historian.

[Daniel Avery]

he's too excited about taking the bumpy bus to Bangor for the day

There's a naughty pun in there somewhere, and I'm not going to say it.

[Rio Colby Dexter]

James, Bangor is a real town in Maine and my mother just happened to grow up there. And it is pronounced "Bain-Gorr" by the local Mainites, not "Bang Her" as the actors on Dark Shadows, who have probably never been to Maine, might have you believe. Collinsport is actually supposed to be Bar Harbor.

Truth certainly takes time with Victoria. Just wait until 1795 ~ girl is so stupid she deserves everything that is coming to her!

[James from London]

Hunky Joe reckons The Little Girl From Another Time holds all the answers to all the questions so The Weird Kid sneaks out of the house at night to look for her. He makes for the secret crypt thingy in the cemetery. Then he hears Barnabas and Harvey Beth talking their evil talk outside and when they enter the secret crypt thingy too, also looking for The Little Girl From Another Time, The Weird Kid has to hide in the empty coffin. Barnabas and Harvey Beth give up and go home sealing the secret crypt thingy behind them leaving The Weird Kid trapped inside! Hilarious!

Soon, everyone is freaking out about The Weird Kid's disappareance and Barnabas gets over-excited while comforting Mynameisvictoriawinters and nearly eats her (well it is a full moon), but is interrupted Groovy 60s Blonde and Hunky Joe. Later, Hunky Joe and the sheriff turn up at cobwebby house looking for The Weird Kid. Barnabas is getting twitchy because it's nearly daylight, but has no choice but to let them in to search. They leave without searching the locked basement and before Barnabas starts to singe. He tells Harvey Beth that if the Weird Kid ever shows up, he's gonna kill him. He's always saying things like that. Barnabas never kills anyone, which for a vampire is a little lame. Even Angel killed Miss Calendar and he had a soul (sometimes).


James, Bangor is a real town in Maine and my mother just happened to grow up there.

Thanks, Rio. There's also a song, "(Didn't We Have A Lovely Time) The Day We Went To Bangor" which, eccentrically, was a Top Three hit in the UK for Fiddler's Dram in 1979.

[James from London]

Everyone's worried about the disappearance of The Weird Kid. Even his prissy father joins the search party, skipping through the graveyard with Hunky Joe. They meet the loony caretaker, who is brilliant and has heard The Weird Kid yelling from inside the crypt but dismissed him as just another tormented soul of the underworld. Inexplicably, the prissy father gets distracted from the search for his son and starts oohing and aahing over the tombs of his ancestors (or "incestors" as the actor Freudianly fluffs). Just inches away on the other side of the wall, the Weird Kid has fallen asleep and does not hear his father loudly mincing about. Boy, it looks like this disappearance story-line could drag on forever, Krystle-in-the-attic style.

Meanwhile, Hunky Joe, Maggie the Dead Waitress and the Kindly Doctor have all grown increasingly suspicious of Dr Tootsie, the psychiatrist who never seems to do any psychiatring. This does not stop the Kindly Doctor from running straight to Dr Tootsie after learning from Miss Prism, the offscreen librarian and toy expert, that the doll The Little Girl From Another Time dropped in Maggie's bedroom is 150 years old. It's almost as if The Little Girl From Another Time is a little girl from another time.

[James from London]

The Weird Kid finally escapes from the mausoleumy crypty thing when the Little Girl From Another Time appears out of thin air and shows him the secret way out. But it's a case of out of the frying pan, into the eternal fire of damnation as the Weird Kid runs straight into the arms of Barnabas in the graveyard. It's just like that classic moment from the beginning of David Lean's GREAT EXPECTATIONS - only without being, you know, any good. Then Burke Devlin comes along and takes the Weird Kid home before Barnabas has a chance to eat him. Darn that face-changing Devlin!

http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0207.jpg

[MsTexas73]

James you make me giggle

Harvey Beth Lacey...HA HA HA!!!

I first caught Dark Shadows back in 1985..when a lowly little local tv station, WOIO Ch 19 FIRST began...and it would show some classic shows...

it was then that I first discovered...I Love Lucy...the Dick Van Dyke Show...and Dark Shadows...many of all the other shows they would air..I'd seen before when they were still on in primetime.


and at first I was really liking this show...but then it got REALLY corny to me and I stipped watching...

but I laugh at your descriptions of some of the actors and characters..esp Joan Bennet...as I nod my head in agreement....and I'll even add a bit of Victoria Barkley to that list.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

James, I've been enjoying reading this thread! I was avoiding it for a while because I hadn't bought a new set in a while. Now I've got a few and am back to enjoying the show. You will flip out once you reach collection 4. It's non-stop action and so many things are changing. I won't mention anything and spoil you, but it certainly gets better.

[James from London]

Barnabas gets increasingly pissed off with Dr Tootsie and keeps threatening to kill her. But it's hard to know if her permanently pained expression is a result of her life being in danger or because she's trying to remember her lines.


You will flip out once you reach collection 4. It's non-stop action and so many things are changing. I won't mention anything and spoil you, but it certainly gets better.

Sounds great!

[James from London]

The Weird Kid has the most amazing dream where he becomes this tiny phallic shaped thing that Barnabas's enormous mouth is about to devour. Meanwhile, Barnabas eats another waitress, but it's off screen and no one we know. In order to smoke out the phantom waitress eater, the sheriff from FALCON CREST and Father the Painter start a rumour that Maggie the Dead Waitress's memory is returning. This puts Dr Tootsie in deeper doo-doo than ever with Barnabas, but nothing compared to the pile of crap that's about to reign down on Maggie, as Barnabas vows to KILL her! TONIGHT! (Yeah I know he won't actually do it, but it's still fun to think about.)

[James from London]

Barnabas was really gonna kill Maggie the Dead Waitress this time - honestly he was really was, he put his coat on and everything, but The Little Girl From Another Time started singing invisibly just as he was leaving the cobwebby house and he got distracted. However, Harvey Beth Lacey had already gone to warn Maggie that Barnabas was after her, but the police mistook him for an intruder and shot him five times in the back. Now he's in a coma and everyone thinks he's the mysterious Waitress Eater. Everyone but the Weird Kid, who's been acting really weird and insists that the eyes in Barnabas's portrait are staring at him, and Dr Tootsie who airily claims that she knew Harvey Beth was a psychopath all along. The kindly doctor suspects that she is in love with Barnabas.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

James, what you are watching now has nothing on the next couple collections! I'll give you some incredibly vague hints...

- Well we get some new writers I believe starting with collection 4. The stories are better paced and the characters are fleshed out, especially the previously worthless Carolyn.

- The next storyline is a complete departure and utilizes the cast much better than Barnabas' introduction. I felt like the show was becoming too centered around Barnabas, but you can expect some surprising star turns from other cast members in coming collections.

- Victoria Winters gains a personality and (gasp) becomes interesting! I could hardly believe it. She suffered from them dropping her storyline when Barnabas first arrived.

- Some new characters introduced are better than anyone currently on the show.

- Grayson Hall's (Julia) acting becomes less drag queen, more woman. I didn't find myself laughing at the campiness, she fit right in.

- The horror element is in full effect. I'm surprised, but the special effects were somewhat successful, for Dark Shadows at least. The show is much darker and I feel like the stakes have been raised. I like it.

Now I have no idea if they'll maintain this momentum, but I'm enjoying it for now. Currently in collection 6.

[James from London]

Could the Weird Kid get any weirder? First the painting of Barnabas starts talking to him, asking what he knows about the secret mausoleum. Then the real Barnabas comes to his bedroom, asking what he knows about the secret mausoleum. Then he dreams a green and pink dream full of dry ice in which a faceless Dr Tootsie swings her Medallion of Amnesia at him and The Little Girl From Another Time tells him that she died when she was nine and Barnabas climbs out of a coffin and beats him with a stick. Not surprisingly, he wakes up screaming. Then he draws a picture of Barnabas's headstone and Joan Bennett purses her lips disapprovingly. Then Dr Tootsie visits and starts swinging her Medallion of Amnesia for real. The Weird Kid remembers the medallion from his dream and screams for Mynameisvictoriawinters. It's all so ... weird.


James, what you are watching now has nothing on the next couple collections!

Can't wait! Collection 4 is currently wending its way across the Atlantic to me.

[James from London]

The Weird Kid looks into his crystal ball and sees the Little Girl From Another Time hanging out in the woods. He goes to the woods and finds her. Having already looked into her crystal ball and seen the Weird Kid looking into his crystal ball and seeing her, she isn't that surprised to see him there. He asks her what she was talking about in his dream when she told him she was dead. She's just about to read her answer off a cue card when bloody Burke Devlin screws everything up by shouting for the Weird Kid. The Little Girl From Another Time disappears into thin air, and the Weird Kid calmly explains to Burke that she is a ghost. For some strange reason, Burke finds this hard to accept, but Mynameisvictoriawinters tells him she believes it to be true. Burke scoffs, so she challenges him to prove the Little Girl From Another Time isn't a ghost.

Everyone's been asking if Harvey Beth will ever come out of his coma. "Impossible!" say the police. "It would take a miracle!" say the doctors. No surprise then, when he starts to regain consciousness. Barnabas dispatches Dr Tootsie to the hospital to kill him. "I'm not that kind of girl," she insists, but he won't take no for an answer. Meanwhile, he hides Maggie the Dead Waitress's ring in a candlestick in Harvey Beth's room in order to frame him for the kidnapping. The Sheriff, played by someone else, searches the room but doesn't think to look inside a candlestick (who would?), so Barnabas must do some hilarious clumsy acting in order to reveal it.

There's a classic moment where Burke walks onto the set and then walks off and then immediately walks back on again before he starts acting.

[James from London]

No sooner does Harvey Beth come out of his coma than he is sedated for feels like several box sets. Everyone rushes to the hospital to try and kill him before he can talk. Dr Tootsie comes closest, hovering at his bedside and talking endlessly without moving her lips about how she really, really must kill him, but she ends up spending so much time talking she never actually gets round to doing it. Eventually, when Harvey Beth does wakes up, it turns out he's gone certifiably, stark staring, Method actingly insane and can't remember who he or anyone else is. It's Gail from CORONATION STREET and Michael from MELROSE PLACE all over again, except before cos this all happened in 1967.

In the next episode, Harvey Beth is shipped off to the Abby Dalton Home for the Criminally Insane. Shame. I'll miss him; let's hope he dons a curly wig and escapes soon. Meanwhile, The Weird Kid is convinced that Barnabas wants him to die and that there's Something Evil locked in the basement of the cobwebby house. The Weird Kid's prissy father keeps threatening to spank him. Then a little rubber bat flies through the window and chases The Weird Kid round his bedroom, tweeting away (the bat, not the kid). It's sort of cute and terrifying at the same time. Mostly cute.

[Rio Colby Dexter]

James, I remember when I saw this for the first time 3 years ago. I rewound the scene of the "bat on a fishing pole" several times, so awesome in its sheer campiness ~ I mean, how often do you see a ten year old boy being attacked by a bobbing bat on a fishing line?

John Karlen is the best. He played so many wonderful characters on DS: 1840's Desmond, Parallel 1840's Kendrick, Parallel 1970's Willie... Crazy Willie of Real Time, however, returns in 1968 during the Dream Curse storyline, right after 1795. Fast forward 2 years, and it's amazing to remember that Barnabas, Dr. Tootsie and Willie were not always the best of friends, and the champions of the Collins family, that they are by 1970.

By the way, the scene where Julia actually SMOKES in the same room as a comatose Willie ~ you don't see THAT anymore!

[James from London]

The thing about this show is it's so hypnotically slow and repetitive that when anything unexpected happens, it's so shocking you almost have a heart attack. Like when the Weird Kid goes down to the cellar of the cobwebby house and finds the open coffin, and then Barnabas's head looms over the top. At that point, I nearly became one of the undead myself.

Alas, before Barnabas can kill, or even worse, spank The Weird Kid, Dr Tootsie interrupts them. The Weird Kid runs home to Burke and Dr Kindly and tells them about the coffin and Barnabas being secretly dead and everything. Dr Tootsie insists he's talking crap, the Weird Kid insists she's talking crap, the Weird Kid's prissy father acts prissier than ever, and Dr Kindly and Burke go to the cobwebby house and ask Barnabas show them his cellar so they can figure out whether he's dead or not. Barnabas indignantly huffs and puffs, (inasmuch as someone who doesn't breathe can huff and puff) but eventually shows them the cellar. Of course, there's no sign of a coffin. Which apparently serves as conclusive proof that there never was a coffin in the cellar. It occurs to no one that there might have been a coffin in the cellar and that Barnabas has now moved it.

Desperate to be believed, The Weird Kid breaks his promise to The Little Girl From Another Time and drags Burke and Dr Kindly to the mausoleum to show them the secret thingy with the other secret coffin inside, only now the secret opening to the secret thingy won't open, and it's all so frustrating. But then they find a flute in the mausoleum belonging to The Little Girl From Another Time, which opens up another mystery which will probably drag on for the next 120 episodes.


By the way, the scene where Julia actually SMOKES in the same room as a comatose Willie ~ you don't see THAT anymore!

I liked it when she accidentally blew smoke in Dr Kindly's face.

[JROG]

The thing about this show is it's so hypnotically slow and repetitive that when anything unexpected happens, it's so shocking you almost have a heart attack. <snip> which opens up another mystery which will probably drag on for the next 120 episodes.

Yes, yes, this is the American Soap! :exit::exit::exit::Dlol

This all sounds too exciting for words!

DDD

[James from London]

Oh it's all kicking off. No sooner does Dr Kindly get recast with a really short sighted actor than he discovers Barnabas is a vampire, so Barnabas kills him with a lethal injection supplied by a reluctant Dr Tootsie. And now Burke Devlin, who also used to be played by a different actor, is missing presumed dead after a plane crash in the Amazonian jungle. Maybe he'll meet Jock Ewing and Lindsay Blaisdel there. Dr Tootsie, wracked with guilt over Dr Kindly and secretly in love with Barnabas, is doing the weirdest, twitchiest acting you've ever seen in your life.

[James from London]

Dr Tootsie hypnotises Mynameisvictoriawinters by waggling a bit of chandelier in her face and telling her, "You will remember everything and you will forget everything." She then leads her to the cobwebby house and shows her Barnabas in his coffin. As a result, Mynameisvictoriawinters can no longer say Barnabas's name without stuttering and twitching (which, in fairness, she does most of the time anyway).

Groovy Blonde Chick wakes up in middle of night in full make up to see the Weird Kid standing over her bed. He tells her he wants to give her his toy soldier. (So that's what they were calling it in 1967). Groovy Blonde Chick agrees with Joan Bennett that it's time to put the Weird Kid away, but then she receives a visitation from the Little Girl From Another Time. Groovy Chick then tells Weird Kid that she now believes everything he's been saying about ghosts and vampires and rubber bats, but Weird Kid doesn't want her to believe him because Dr Kindly believed him and now Dr Kindly's dead. Oh it's all such a mess.

Meanwhile, Dr Tootsie's "You Are Who You Eat" experiments on Barnabas have gone horribly wrong. His hands have withered and his hair's turned white. I haven't seen what's happened to the rest of him yet, but judging by the face Dr Tootsie is pulling, it can't be good. Either that or her wig's on too tight.

[mattwuk]

This was a great show for atmosphere. Todays producers could learn a lesson or two.

[TJames03]

Some of the best things of "DS" were the bloopers!

It took me a split second to get the the very first one, but I did!

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[TJames03]

For my favorite actress in "DS" - the late and great Grayson Hall (Julia Hoffman, Countess Natalie du Pres, Magda Rakosi, 'Hoffman,' Julia Collins, Constance Collins, & Carlotta Drake)!

(sniffle....)

http://home.comcast.net/~flickhead/GraysonHall.html

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[TJames03]

The original and best 'supercouple' ever!

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[James from London]

Oh wow, Barnabas has aged about 200 years and is covered in latex. He looks brilliant, like a really evil puppet. Dr Tootsie suggests a possible cure for what ails him - eating Mynameisvictoriawinters. But Barnabas cannot eat someone he's in love with. So Dr Tootsie offers an alternative sacrifice: herself!! But Barnabas cannot eat someone he's physically repulsed by. He sure is a fussy eater.

Meanwhile, Groovy Blonde Chick goes around having the exact same conversation with Hunky Joe, Mynameisvictoriawinters and Joan Bennett about how maybe the Weird Kid isn't crazy after all, but they all say the same thing: that the stuff he claims to have seen - squeaky rubber bats and coffins in the basement - are so crazy that he must be crazy. Then Groovy Blonde Chick sees the squeaky rubber bat herself. Not a good sign.

So then Groovy Blonde Chick goes a-tresspassing in the cobwebby house. She creeps down to the basement, sees the coffin, opens it and finds ... nothing at all, it's empty. Oh jeez, you think, another near miss, another plot point that's gonna dragged out for the next fifty episodes. But then Dr Tootsie shows up and tells Groovy Blonde Chick to run, but it's too late - evil puppet Barnabas is here and he's got his fangs out! He grabs Blonde Chick and tells her not be frightened: "I wouldn't do anything to hurt my own flesh and blood." "AAARRRGGGHHH!" she replies. Fab.

[Dr. Ackerman]

Carolyn just got the bite from Barnabas? Good. You have finally reached the turning point of the series. In a couple of weeks, the Collins family will hold a seance to try to get to the bottom of things, and all hell breaks loose. The best part is: no more glacially slow storylines. The plot picks up so much speed after that, that if you miss an episode, you'll be lost. Enjoy!

[James from London]

Groovy Blonde Chick now sports some very cool puncture marks on her neck, as she wanders round the house in a blissfully zonked out but turned on state, just oozing to do Barnabas's bidding. I'll have what she's having. Meanwhile, Dr Tootsie casts whatever dignity she has left to the howling wind by volunteering to be Barnabas's servant. This does not prevent her from doing a bit of chandelier waggling in the direction of Mynameisvictoriawinters, whose subconscious she warns about Barnabas's plans to turn her into Josette.


Enjoy!

Thank-you, I will!

[James from London]

New character alert! Gregory Trask: a Collinsport lawyer with a lifelong grudge against the Collins family. Dashing but vengeful, he's sort of a cross between Glen Ford and Cliff Barnes. Dr Tootsie wastes no time in persuading him to lock her notes about Barnabas in his safe. Knowing that those notes are her only insurance against Barnabas killing her, Dr T grows more hysterical by the scene and it's a fascinating sight to behold: Grayson Hall's acting is either so awful it's brilliant or so brilliant it's awful, I can't figure out which.

[SnarkyOracle!]

Depp And Burton To Remake Dark Shadows

4 December 2008 10:59 AM, PST


Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are teaming up once again for a big-screen adaptation of the popular Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, according to a top Hollywood producer.

In a recent interview, producer Richard D. Zanuck confirmed rumours the longterm collaborating pair, whose next project Alice in Wonderland is slated for release in 2010, would take on their eighth film together.

Zanuck tells Collider.com, "I'm doing next summer - with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp - Dark Shadows, which is an old '70s soap opera (that aired) here in the United States."

And starring in the film will be a dream come true for Depp - who was obsessed with the spooky programme as a child.

Zanuck adds: "(Depp) was obsessed, as a young person (with Dark Shadows). He used to sneak out of school to get home to turn on the television set. It was a very popular show for about four or five seasons."

--------------

[Daniel Avery]

This project has been batted around the gossip pages for about a year. Though I love the show (old version and the update from 1991), I really get nervous when people start talking about how they can't wait to "put their spin" on the show.

Just how old is Johnny depp anyway? If he was "rushing home from school to watch it" in the original run (1966-1971), he'd have to be pushing 50....

[SnarkyOracle!]

Just how old is Johnny depp anyway? If he was "rushing home from school to watch it" in the original run (1966-1971), he'd have to be pushing 50....
45 or 46. He just looks young.

[James from London]

New character alert! Gregory Trask: a Collinsport lawyer with a lifelong grudge against the Collins family. Dashing but vengeful, he's sort of a cross between Glen Ford and Cliff Barnes.

I got it so wrong: he's not called Gregory Trask at all, is he? He's called Tony Peterson. Anyhow, Groovy Blonde Chick - who is supposed to be spying on Tony for Barnabas - ends up smooching him instead. How not very undead of her. The dogs howl disapprovingly. Barnabas tries to drive Dr Tootsie mad, first by making her believe Dr Kindly is haunting her and then by telling her he's in love with her. This makes Groovy Blonde Chick howl disapprovingly. Barnabas tells Groovy Blonde Chick she's very tired and she agrees.

[James from London]

Funny interview with one of the writers on the DVD who talks about how Dr Tootsie couldn't be trusted with the last shot of a scene because she would overact so much - and he was her real life husband!

[James from London]

Mynameisvictoriawinters isn't having the best day. After returning from a trip to Boston with the Weird Kid, she learns that her fiancee has been confirmed dead in the Jock Ewing Memorial Jungle. The family decide that the best thing to take her mind off death would be to join them in a seance. They're hoping to reach the spirit of The Little Girl From Another Place so that she can reassure them that she really hasn't been appearing to The Weird Kid, because of course ghosts don't exist, right? But halfway through, things turn a bit weird and Mynameisvictoriawinters vanishes into thin air to be replaced at the table by a chick called Phyllis Wick. Mynameisvictoriawinters, meanwhile, travels back two hundred years to the cobwebby house before it had any cobwebs. She is greeted by Barnabas, now playing his undead self, who thinks she's the Phyllis Wick chick, aka the new governess of the Little Girl From Another Place, aka The Little Girl From This Place. It's like a time travel version of WIFE SWAP. Adding to the confusion, Hunky Joe appears in a pair of britches and answering to the name of Hunky Nathan. Driven to lustful distraction by the sight of Mynameisvictoriawinters' 20th Century knees, he attempts to hump her leg so she slaps him. Joan Bennett also shows up, playing Barnabas's mother, (bet she was thrilled about that) and Mynameisvictoriawinters learns that she's arrived in the 18th century just in time for Barnabas's wedding to Josette. "This is insane!" she says accurately, and promptly faints.

[James from London]

Oh this is getting really weird. Back in 1795, Joan Bennett and her prissy brother are now husband and wife, and parents to Barnabas despite him looking older than them. Dr Tootsie is now Countess Tootsie, but still reassuringly rubbish. Maybe it's something to do with all those period costumes and wigs, but no one can remember their lines. Anyway, Countess Tootsie's tartot cards reveal there's a wicked woman in the house. My money's on Angelique the maid, because she's the only character not played by someone from the sixties in fancy dress, and because there's an interview with her coming up at the end of the DVD.

[James from London]

I was right--Angelique is the wicked woman. She does voodoo on Barnabas, causing him to almost choke amusingly to death, but not quite. Josette, Barnabas's oft-mentioned fiancee arrives played by Maggie the Dead Waitress. Despite being completely French, she speaks with a tres, tres convincing American accent. This is like a whole new show. I wanna know what's happening in 1967.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

I thought 1795 was the best storyline they've done up to where I've viewed. The only downfall is that 1967 was very good itself before the swap.

[James from London]

Forget vampires, now it's all about Angelique casting spells - a bit of voodoo here, a love potion there - with the reluctant assistance of some fat fella who's a cross between Quasimodo and Benny from CROSSROADS. Angelique is kind of annoying. Oh well, only another 1,271 episodes until Richard Channing shows up.

[Maestro]

I love it........Angelique has made her widen eye balling gothic arrival and things are never the same. This is the first of many parallel time sequences through out the show and from this one you understand the basic Collins history and its too powerful. James Its going to be fun watching you brake this down...........lol I dont plan on blinking for fear orf missing.

Is it me or does Faye Donaway copy some great panting technique from Lara Parker's Angelique in her Mommie Dearest portrayal or did Joan Crawford really react that dramaticly lol.

[James from London]

The 1795 stuff is starting to grow on me. True, there are no vampires, but there's plenty of tarot cards and marks of the devil and love potions. Grayson Hall is still uniquely awful as Countess Tootsie, however. It's quite fascinating watching an actor trying to play someone with total authority when they're trying desperately to remember their lines at the same time.

[ChrisSumnerMatheson]

I'm at the episodes when Richard Channing arrives and he hasn't even spoke and it's been a month. Still, he joins the cast at a very good storyline (following a terrible one IMO). The 1795 stuff was an instant hit with me, from beginning to end. The only thing I didn't love is Angelique. I understand she's hugely popular with fans, but Lara Parker's acting is very irritating at times.

[SnarkyOracle!]

Barnabus amd Burke make mad, homoerotic, flirty verbal love --- and then leave together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9XIq8Ud2I


-

[SnarkyOracle!]

Jonathan Frid being interview by Merv Griffin in 1969 --- he's so fey and vulnerable! (Frid, not Merv, who's merely fey):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtoW82jcXw



--

[James from London]

Angelique, the maid who's really a witch, has turned Joshua, who used to be Joan Bennett's camp and grumpy brother and is now her camp and grumpy husband, into a cat. Sadly, the cat keeps running off the set, but the actors continue to refer to him as if he were still in position. Meanwhile, Countess Tootsie is convinced Mynameisvictoriawinters is the witch and enlists the aid of Reverend Trask, a mad old exorcist in eyeliner, to prove it. He slaps Mynameisvictoriawinters around a bit and then ties her to a tree overnight. Oh and Barnabas has killed Burke Devlin (or the 18th Century equivalent thereof) in a duel, but then a hand reaches out of Burke's grave ... Oh it's ever so good and quite, quite mad.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtoW82jcXw

Fun clip. Studio audiences seemed to do a lot more coughing in the old days. Must be all the smoking.

[vaughnleland]

Yeah Roger Collins....who was as gothic as the show it self!

the late brillaint Louis Edmonds. stage and tv star from the 60s-90s.

[Maestro]

Yes Barnabas, Roger, Nicholas Blair, Reverend Trask, and Quentin Collins
were as gothic as they come, no wonder Richard Channing work so well in Falcon Crest.

[James from London]

Hey, I just realised: DARK SHADOWS is located just outside of Boston, and so is PEYTON PLACE. On the cusp of 1967/8, both shows feature an impending wedding. On PEYTON PLACE, Martin Peyton's plans to marry Gena Rowlands are scuppered by when she falls down a flight of stairs and dies the night before the ceremony. Over on DARK SHADOWS, things are also looking pretty bad: On the day of Angelique and Barnabas's wedding, the groom is disowned by his father, the bride is buried alive by a zombie ghost, chairs are flying round the room of their own accord and blood pours out of champagne bottles. Impressively, none of this deters the happy - well, gothically miserable - couple from tying the knot.

DARK SHADOWS is all about Angelique at the moment. She's awfully wicked. I just wish she wasn't so screechingly annoying with it.

[adamski]

Am only able to find episode 1 on YouTube (apart from some compilations and selected scenes from later in the series). If anyone can direct me to where to find DS, I'd be grateful! Or do I need to go the dvd route when I have some £?

[Stimpy]

do you download stuff?

[adamski]

do you download stuff?

No, but I would...

[Afton]

Woot! I can now comment on your lovely summaries, James!

[James from London]

Woot! I can now comment on your lovely summaries, James!

Great! Comment away, Afton!

[James from London]

"I've been his sister a lot longer than you've been his wife, and don't un ... overestimate my influence with him!"

[Afton]

"I've been his sister a lot longer than you've been his wife, and don't un ... overestimate my influence with him!"

LOL! I remember that line! Insane. Of course it could be because I laughed for a good five minutes.

[Daniel Avery]

Early on, Roger makes a classic slip of the tongue where, when referring to Collins family ancestors, refers to them as "incestors". Of course it would explain a few things....

[Afton]

Yes, just before Barnabas makes Julia slip that doctor a lethal injection lol. Then he and evil Carolyn try to drive Julia insane with it afterwards.

I miss early Barnabas so much lol So deliciously evil.

[Daniel Avery]

I seem to recall when he was trying to drive Julia insane, he was suppsed to keep saying (with appropriate menace) "Remember Dr. Woodard! Remember Dr. Woodard!" or something like that. Only poor Frid forgot his line, and ended up stumbling through something like "Remember...um, you remember what you did...?" or something equally un-menacing while the scary music still trumpeted from the record player off-stage.

[Benny JR]

I just saw about the first fifteen minutes of Episode 1 tonight - it was AWESOME! So dark, creepy, atmospheric and with a chilling feel to it. Just like something Alfred Hitchcock would have made! It reminded me a lot of "Peyton Place", although it seems a little to gothic and dark to be a Daytime Soap. I think I might buy the boxset, but it's around $600.00!!!!

Does this show take place in it's own universe or does it cross-over with other shows from it's period?

[Daniel Avery]

Definitely its own universe. And quite a unique universe they create for themselves. There are the vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein-style monsters, parallel universes, witchcraft, time travel, demons and ghosts. Yet I don't think there was a TV set in all of Collinwood, and only one passing mention of the moon landing. They probably had not even heard of the country of Vietnam, and the Collinses would not have known a hippie from a hippo.

[Benny JR]

SOUDS AWESOME! I've watched like the first three shows and LOVED it!

I LOVE anything Horror, so I'm sure I'll love this, too!

Joan Bennett was very creepy, a truly underrated actress and considering I've only ever seen her in two other things ("Father Of The Bride" from 1950 with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor, and it's Sequel: "Father's Little Dividend"), she was indeed very good at her craft (no pun intended!). What a shame she wasn't a bigger star, but I think there was some sort of scandal involving her, which damaged her career and her fame, too.

[adamski]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Shadows-Original-Barnabas-Episodes/dp/B0077NF7AQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1336016384&sr=1-1

I've just rented this dvd which is out now in the UK.
It only has 20 episodes, but am wondering if it's better to start Dark Shadows at episode one, or do I just jump in at Barnabas's debut?

[Daniel Avery]

Early marketing strategies for the VHS tapes had them beginning with Barn's arrival. Those in charge at the time believed the post-Barn eps would be the only parts people would be interested in. Of course they underestimated the show's appeal, and ended up going back and releasing those pre-Barn episodes afterwards. I think you can pick up the show fairly well at the time of Barn's arrival, because the show tended to have only one major plotline at a time back then; as long as you get a quick tutorial on who is who and how they relate to one another, you can pick up the story easily. Very little of the stuff done "BB" (Before Barnabas) is referenced after he arrives, so it's not like some shows where lots of intricate back-story factors into current story.

[adamski]

Thanks for that Daniel, having gone back and read the "Afton has arrived in Collinsport" thread I think I'll start at the beginning. Am kinda scared of getting hooked on such a long-running show as I'm still working my way through several other shows (including Prisoner: Cell Block H) but DS does sound awesome!

[sunshineboyuk]

Someone keeps trying to eat all the waitresses and cattle in Collinwood. Maggie the waitress is scared that someone has followed her home. There is a knock on the door! Happily it's nice Mr Barnabas, only the most sinister man who ever lived, so of course she is in no danger from him and invites him inside. He's got a thing for her dad's paintings and commissions him to do his portrait, but stipulating that they can work only at night and in the cobwebby house. Joan Bennett is not best pleased when "My name is Victoria Winters" tells her that Harvey Beth Lacey has moved into the cobwebby house with Barnabas (I knew she wouldn't be). She pops round to investigate and that weird kid tags along. He starts freaking out about how the house has changed. Joan hovers anxiously, waiting for the kid to remember his lines in the right order. (He repeats that the house has changed about fifteen times.) Turns out he's got the hots for some dead chick called Josette (whoever that is; there's a postcard of her in a wedding dress that comes with the DVD so I guess she's a big deal) and Barnabas has taken down the portrait of her that used to hang in the cobwebby house.


HA! James how subversive of you to start 200 episodes in. Thats a huge deal, I'm impressed. I think when you finally go back in time to the very beginning and watch the first 200 eps you'll be .... is enlightened the wrong word? Yes it is. You'll be...... somethinged. Especially about the weird kid and Josette, although you're now 200 million eps in from me and doubtless Josette has now rocked up as Kate Jackson or Harvey Beth Lacey in drag.