Dark Shadows: The Revival Begins

By PATRICK McCRAY

When a boozing handyman decodes the secret location of a wealthy family’s long-lost treasures, he uncovers the deadliest legacy of all. Can the new tutor for the family’s troubled heir unravel the mystery before becoming a bride of the living dead? Loomis: Jim Fyfe. (Repeat. 1 hr.) 

All-around scamp Willie Loomis unleashes Barnabas Collins, a vampire trapped in his own coffin for two centuries. Masquerading as his own descendant, Collins reclaims his dilapidated ancestral home and is compelled to woo his family’s newest employee, a soulful governess who resembles the bride he lost centuries before, 

When Ben Cross died, I remember writing that the 1991 Dark Shadows "revival" was the first expression of the franchise that felt like mine. It was the first Dark Shadows production of any kind  to roll out in my lifetime. More or less. I was born just a few days after the program went off the air, and, let's put the cards on the table, I'm not really sure Night of Dark Shadows counts except as a metaphor for the Fine Art of Settling for What We Got that was the albatross of being a fan back then. Few gigantic pop culture phenomena required as much of its fans as Dark Shadows at that time. This was a program you were lucky to even catch on TV. In 1990, many of the fans had never seen the entire series and had no real hope of doing so. I worked for public television at the time, and the rumor around the station was that Worldvision was asking so much for the final package that absolutely no station would carry it. True? False? I don't know. But I don't see Gerard Stiles around here, do you? 

Following the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the idea of a prime time, big-budget, hour-long television series on the most powerful network on television was like a reward for loyalty. And it immediately created a strange sense of conflict with the original series. To this day, I feel inexplicably disloyal saying nice things about a TV series that could have hired almost all of the original stars, the oldest of which, among a certain age bracket, wasn't even 50.  Still, putting that aside, this was an incredible proof-of-concept. This was an affirmation that Dark Shadows was not just a TV series.  A recognition like this is like finding yourself on the pop culture equivalent of the periodic table. Attention was at last being paid. And honestly? The fact that the original actors were not featured was, strangely, a compliment to them. It was an acknowledgement that they created something so indelible that it became larger than their individual personalities. If anything, it was a tribute to their immortality…  just a few inconvenient decades early.  

In my lifetime, there was no better time to be a Dark Shadows fan. Twin Peaks had cleared a path for a nighttime supernatural mystery soap opera.  Anne Rice was going great guns and had yet to go through that weird, post-9/11 Jesus phase. The Lost Boys wasn't that long ago, and if the Bernard Hughes character isn't the prototype for what they did with Dave Woodard, then… well... I don't need to bother coming up with something to finish the sentence. He clearly was the model. 

And you've got to love that. However, therein lies the ultimate reason for the show's failure. Bernard Hughes. Mastermind of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait? You tell me. The future staff of Dark Shadows goes to see The Lost Boys and the hot property they come back with is a character kind of like Bernard Hughes. Yeah, that's the takeaway, apparently. Keep in mind, I exist in a world where Bernard Hughes defines male sex appeal. But there are times when I wonder if I am actually the entertainment industry's key demographic. Not that a 1991 Dark Shadows has to be the Lost Boys, but it was state-of-the-art. And the 1991 Dark Shadows… was not.

I don't lay the failure of the show on the Gulf War. I had a reason to watch the show because I was a Dark Shadows fan. So, I did what a person did at the time; I read the newspaper and I read TV Guide and I followed the show around like Waldo wherever it might pop up on the schedule in between Iraq’s regularly scheduled missile attacks on Israel.  I never missed an episode. So, if motivated, it was scientifically possible for a viewer to keep up with the crazy schedule of the show. But the rest of the nation was not properly motivated. Logic dictates that the program, despite its quality, did not significantly motivate viewers en masse. And that's what happened.

Dan Curtis was 39 when the original Dark Shadows went on the air. To put this into perspective, not only was he a relatively young man, but his greatest inspiration, Tod Browning's Dracula, was only 35 years old when the original TV show premiered. Yeah, it was only five years older than the Dark Shadows remake is now. It was all pretty fresh, cosmically speaking. In fact, the original novel was less than 70 years old at that point. But by 1990, Dan Curtis was 63. Horror had reinvented itself at least twice since he was a prime mover in the field. And while no one would call him tired, he produced a Dark Shadows remake that had the kind of dated swagger that comes from someone who helps invent a genre. Because of that, maybe he doesn't see a lot of need to check in with what has become of that before jumping in again. I kind of get the feeling that everyone around the office considered Dark Shadows 1991 relevant because Dan Curtis said it was relevant .  Unfortunately, the Zeitgeist didn't get the memo.

In the long run, I think this serves the 1991 Dark Shadows series better now than it did at the time. It has a stately confidence that grows as the series moves on. But I don't know many people who hang out at the water cooler gushing about how excited they are to see more stately confidence that night on TV. Perhaps, in 1990, God help me, it needed a blond Barnabas with spiky hair and a leather jacket. That was the fashion back then, and at least it would be a tribute to paying attention. And that's great. They didn’t do that. After all, conservative clothes never go out of style. It has an admirable stodginess that a 63 year old guy who had  just spent a decade waging World War II would look at and say, "Yeah, that's about right." 

Yes, let's admit it, we answered the question, "What if somebody gave a Dark Shadows and nobody came?”  Because it was not Twin Peaks. It was a response to the Zeitgeist of 1967 that got made 23 years too late. Me? My idea of a great band back then was and still is the Ink Spots. So, I like the fact that the show is not some winkingly postmodern flavor of the month, diagnosing the audience's sperm motility the old-fashioned way with a high style that can't make up its mind if it's parody or sincere. Like Twin Peaks. Instead, that show just bullies you by condescendingly Lynchsplaining that whatever tonal interpretation you have of it is wrong. But my real beef with that show is that it was successful and reportedly good and a lot of people liked it and instead of priming the audience for Dark Shadows, it created a situation where Dark Shadows was criticized by many for not being it. 

And because the man works his ass off to run this particular Bartertown, I have to acknowledge the head of the Historical Society here. It would be ooky not to.  You get the daybook, I believe, because Wallace has big executive stuff to do. The guy is a fantastic writer. Go back and read Monster Serial if you want proof. Look at the first line of his Alien review. It is rhetorically sublime. The man knows what he's talking about. One day, if I'm lucky, I will be able to hook a reader with a simple first sentence like the one he uses there. Wallace loves Twin Peaks, and he's smarter than I am to an extent that makes me a gym coach who's gotten stuck trying to muddle through an organic chemistry textbook because the actual teacher has jury duty. He loves Twin Peaks, so go watch it. I'm just cranky because what kind of a world is it where a guy dressed up like Barnabas Collins (Dale Cooper in his natty black suits) gets all of the cultural cachet while the new Barnabas Collins struts around in vaguely dated turtlenecks that make him look like Ron Burgundy's mortician?  Barnabas Collins was not a man with much need for business casual circa 1979.  I swear to God,  I think Willie just raided Roger’s latest donation to AMVETS and convinced Barnabas that it would impress Victoria. I'm sure he talked Barnabas  into slathering himself with Paco Rabanne, wearing a gold chain under the offensive turtleneck,  and probably sansabelt slacks just to complete the ensemble.  Ben Cross brings a uniquely regal sensibility to Barnabas, and it works best in the context of the 1791 flashback. That's really where the character comes into his own, and since everyone knows what the mystery of Barnabas Collins actually is, I wish they had simply started the series there. It would have given a fresh sense of sympathy and relevance to his quest for Josette, allowing them to enter the modern era with Barnabas as an understandably reluctant vampire. That was a magical choice that the original series had to discover through trial and error. There's no need to repeat the learning process. Let the story itself do the heavy lifting. Unfortunately, Cross is forced to play an almost cartoonishly suave and confident vampire who is largely interesting because he's named Barnabas Collins. I wish they had allowed him to explore the nervous, fearful, and  paranoid, dethroned aristocrat that I always think of when considering the essence of Barnabas Collins in those early episodes.  Cross was reportedly a man with a tremendous and ebullient sense of mischief, and I think he would have risen to that challenge with a lot of gratitude.

Having had fun at the expense of a show I actually like, let me list what really works in this pilot. The cast is incredibly strong.  Joanna Going is positively luminous as Victoria Winters.  Alexandra Moltke strikes me as playing a loving caregiver for a disturbed boy who also does what she can as an educator. Joanna Going gets to play a highly credible educator who also happens to have a skill at reaching this disturbed young man. It's an important distinction, and it makes it easy to root for her as a character capable of solving Collinwood's mysteries rather than someone I'm just kind of concerned about. The rest of the performers spend most of their time doing what casts do in a pilot; they recite exposition. But they execute it with a sense of investment and stakes. Roy Thinnes’ natural presence and dark integrity help to create a different type of Roger Collins, but one I am just as interested in seeing revealed. This is a man who has been married to a fire demon and has lived to tell the tale. And it's wonderful to see Jean Simmons out of makeup, despite having rock and rolled all day and partied every night.

In a cast of standout performances, there are several unexpected ones that work exceptionally well and are worthy of special praise. Dan Curtis and the team make lightning strike twice with the casting of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as David Collins. Like David Henesy before him, he has a blend of maturity, menace, confidence, and vulnerability that does the impossible by making a child character just as interesting and unpredictable as any of the adults. Equally terrific is Barbara Blackburn. She combines Caroline’s necessary youth with a mature intelligence, sense of wit, and honest, smokey-voiced eroticism grounded more in those inner qualities than simply relying on her bone deep physical beauty. As with the women of the original Dark Shadows cast, Hollywood really missed the boat by not casting her in everything possible for the next 30 years. 

My favorite of all of them is Saint Jim Fyfe. His audition was reportedly an explosive exercise in risk-taking that commanded his casting… despite being nothing like John Karlen.  Because the character is so distinctive, he gets to have far more fun than anyone else in the cast. Fyfe and the writers know that this character is destined to be a sympathetic everyman, loyal to Barnabas more and more out of an instinctive sense of his master’s nascent humanity than fear.  It’s only now that I can see a series where Willie is the audience surrogate more than Victoria.  Making Willie the troubled inheritor of the Ben (Stokes) Loomis mantle grounds his sense of loyalty in something larger than himself, and it is the thread that so beautifully ties together the two eras occupied by the show. No, he’s not John Karlen. But he does what I think Karlen would champion; he makes the character his own rather than an imitation. It’s a trait shared by his castmates, but he gets to explore the furthest dimensions of it. There are few episodes of the series where he doesn’t make me laugh and tear up just a tad. Fyfe embodies the single most important adage in selecting performers: choose the most interesting actor, not just the most naturalistic. 

If Dark Shadows 1991 failed to be a show with numbers demanding a second season, and if it falls short of being the late-Eighties music video nightmare that might have gotten all the gang talking at the sock hop, it doesn’t matter. It sustains its half-season with a unique, compelling, and headstrong voice that doesn’t need to ask for anyone’s approval. Dan Curtis’ braggadocio may have created a strangely anachronistic show, but given the nature of its lead character, that may have been the most loyal choice possible. 

Ben Cross: In Memoriam

He was the last of his kind, truly. A regal actor for fantasy roles that required a star to speak clearly, command the room, and, you know, shave and bathe. They were parts that called for a man of both truth and imagination. A master of theatrical size and total sincerity. He was Captain Nemo. He was Ambassador Sarek. He was Barnabas Collins.

While he was never the first to essay those roles, he had the insightful integrity of a man who made each totally original.

For some, he was their Captain Nemo and their Ambassador Sarek. And although the productions in which he essayed the roles are not definitive versions, Ben Cross delivered performances that were as indelible as those who originated the parts.

For many of us, he was our Barnabas Collins. Not that we weren’t deeply familiar with Jonathan Frid, but the 1991 series spared no expense to give us all of the corners cut in the 1960’s. It was a reward for loyalty. Although it was not the original, it was the creator of the show standing atop the towering successes of the Wouk miniseries, determined to make every element the finest he could. Star Trek returned with Patrick Stewart as the lead. Well, Dan Curtis saw Gene Roddenberry’s Patrick Stewart and raised him a Ben Cross, matured beyond Chariots of Fire. Capable of bringing equal Classical artistry to television fantasy’s other great saga.

And he was every bit Stewart’s equal. He was ours because for many of us, Dark Shadows left the air before we were born. But, as with Next Generation, we had the excitement of following the production through its initial announcement to the first photo of the next Barnabas Collins.

Cross’ performance matched that first, soulful photo. Intelligent and ferocious, he lacked Jonathan Frid’s endearing neurosis, but that allowed him the chance to explore the role of Barnabas Collins with his own judgment. Both men are martyrs to loss and betrayal, but while Frid was determined to rebuild, Cross was bent on revenge. It’s a less subtle performance in that sense, but wholly appropriate for the beginning of an arc that would only last for a tad over three months. His game was all too brief. His performance matched it, burning hot and fast. But it was never without delightful humor and humanity.

This is what he brought to Dark Shadows. His Barnabas had a texture, energy, and life all its own, and as such was Richard Burton to Frid’s Laurence Olivier. They gave two vastly different interpretations of the great man, and thus, neither encroached on the other. Instead, they are colleagues, and they both gave us the finest performances in the role that we could want.

The same for his Nemo. The same for his Sarek.

At 72, the loss is stunningly premature. It is exceeded only by our fortune that, if batons were to be passed, his was the hand to grasp them.

- Patrick McCray

Celebrate World Women's Day with ... Dark Shadows?

"Josette DuPres Collins gambled her soul, and lost it, in an ill-conceived bid to destroy her rival Angelique. Now the Dark Lord has sent his emissary to bring Josette to her place in Hell."

The Lost Girl might seem like an odd choice to highlight for World Women's Day. From a narrative point of view, Dark Shadows offers a significant challenge in celebrating much of anything ... it is, after all, a television series about bad people making bad decisions. There aren't many role models in Collinsport.

But The Lost Girl is unique among the Dark Shadows line of audios. Unless I'm overlooking something, it appears to be the only installment starring women and written by a woman. Sure, Nigel Fairs is onhand to provide a little menace, but it's telling that the only male voice in the tale is basically playing the devil.

The Lost Girl sees Kathryn Leigh Scott return to the role of Josette, a character that continues to suffer even in the afterlife. Also appearing in the episode are Rebecca Staab ("Daphne Collins" from the 1991 Dark Shadows revival series) and Lara Parker as you-know-who.

The Lost Girl was written by Debbie Lynn Smith, who has a ton of television writing credits under her belt, but these days runs Kymera Press, a comic book publisher that produces comics by women and about women. It's slogan? "We're Not Asking For Permission." How badass is that?

You can get The Lost Girl directly from Big Finish and from Amazon.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: JANUARY 25

By PATRICK McCRAY

Taped on this date in 1991: Episode 5

Julia’s cure continues to transform Barnabas, who can now operate during the day. His confidence grows as his romance with Victoria deepens. An openly jealous Julia begins tampering with the formula, causing Barnabas to revert to a savage form of his vampiric condition. Barnabas demands that she administer a dose strong enough to cure him forever. Instead, she uses an altered version that causes him to age hideously. Carolyn stumbles upon him, and he attacks her. The result? He returns to his former youth, has Carolyn as a blood doll, and swears enmity to Julia Hoffman.

It’s a shame that the original series movie “franchise” and the 1991 revival didn’t go beyond Barnabas’ earliest days. Dan Curtis clearly had certain plot points that he cherished as part of the ritual. We’ve seen Barnabas age three times now, and although the vampire gets old, the moment never does. Thanks in part to the resulting “old vampire” Halloween mask, it may be one of DARK SHADOWS’ two main contributions to Original Horror Moments. I still prefer the first go, from the tv series. The character is old, but not repellent. But maybe that misses the point. It is part of the fabric of our collective horror unconscious,

With the exception of an endless date between Joe and Carolyn, this is an ideal episode to use as a series introduction. You can pick up 99% of the backstory from context, and it thrusts you into the action with one engaging scene after another. Writer Matthew Hall delivers vampiric peril, arch jealousy, and fairy-tale-if-fated romance. While those elements are in ample supply, what really keeps the installment going is its humor. Barnabas employs gentle wit in his occasionally playful seduction of Victoria, and Hall uses it with kindness and sympathy when exploring Jim Fyfe’s tragicomically affectionate take on Willie Loomis. It’s writing that can only come from growing up so closely to the series that you know each beat and why they matter. Once you see those intimately and intuitively, an appropriately ironic voice emerges.

Speaking of Jim Fyfe, I congratulate him again. Along with the writing staff, the choices they make with Willie set up the rest of the characters beautifully. Barnabas is the ultimate “cool kid,” and it’s clear why the awkward and drunken misfit, Willie, is drawn to him. In turn, we see a kindness in Barnabas that is alternately sincere and guardedly manipulative. Finally, it allows us to like this universe a little more when Julia turns on Barnabas and Willie is caught in the middle. If both Willie and Julia are out to get him, we are stuck in a world that’s a tad too cold and which lacks the interpersonal dedication of the original… once it found its most sustained voice.

This episode had an estimated thirteen million viewers with over one out of every ten TV sets in the nation tuned in to watch. It was only eleven days since the series premiered, and the Gulf War was kind to this episode with no recorded preemptions. It was about a month away from the cease fire. 

There's no escape from Barnabas Collins this Halloween

When it rains, it pours: Decades is broadcasting an extended block of DARK SHADOWS episodes in time for Halloween!

Marathons of the series have become a holiday tradition for Decades, a network that specializes in classic television. As a lead-up to its "official" launch in 2014, Decades broadcast  68 straight hours of DARK SHADOWS during the summer, followed later that fall with a weekend marathon at Halloween called "The Binge." This is the third year running that the channel has celebrated Halloween with a DARK SHADOWS marathon, which showcases episodes pulled from the earliest appearances of vampire Barnabas Collins in 1967. While a schedule of this year's activities is pending, look for this extended block of DARK SHADOWS to air the weekend of Oct. 28.

Click HERE to see if you receive Decades in your hometown.

Coincidentally, Oct. 28 is also the day TCM is airing a double bill of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS and NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS. HOUSE begins at 4:15 p.m. EST, with NIGHT following at 6 p.m. ... which means a few fans will have to decide whether or not to change the channel for a few hours that day. Has something like this ever happened before? It feels unprecedented.

If that's not enough for you, Freeform is offering to rot your teeth with the cinematic equivalent of candy corn, Tim Burton's DARK SHADOWS. While the movie is keeping a respectful distance from Oct. 28, you can catch it on television at 4:10 p.m. EST Oct. 23 as part of a Burton marathon, and again 8:20 p.m. Oct. 26, 7 a.m. Oct. 27, and 11:30 a.m. Oct. 30.

For those of you who cut the cord, fear not! Amazon Prime is now streaming the first 17 DVD collections of the series ... plus two collections of "Dark Shadows: The Beginning," taken from the first 200 "Pre-Barnabas" episodes of the series. All told, this represents more than 750 episodes of DARK SHADOWS, taking you from the introduction of Jonathan Frid as "Barnabas Collins," right up through the entire 1897 story arc and David Selby as "Quentin Collins." (UPDATE: Amazon has since added Collection 23 to their Prime offerings.)

Meanwhile, over at Hulu, you can watch nine DVD collections of the series. Sadly, they're not entirely consecutive ... the streaming service is offering volumes 1 and 2 of the series, followed by volumes 5-9. It's a little anemic, sure, but Hulu appears to be the only service streaming all 12 episodes of the 1991 DARK SHADOWS "revival" series. So, there's that.

Ratings Battle: Dark Shadows Vs Twin Peaks, 1991

By WALLACE McBRIDE

Before FIREFLY came along, TWIN PEAKS was the poster child for great television shows cancelled too soon. The David Lynch/Mark Frost joint debuted to stellar ratings in the spring of 1989, but had lost much of its audience during the following 12 months. A television series hadn't lost its luster so quickly since BATMAN in the 1960s.

But there was another television show cancelled in 1991 that managed to hold a grip on its audience long after it left the airwaves: Dan Curtis' reboot of DARK SHADOWS. If you were to compose murder ballads for DARK SHADOWS (1991) and TWIN PEAKS, the verses would be almost identical. Both had incredibly strong openings, but fell victim to network uncertainty, shuffled schedules and multiple preemptions by news coverage of the Gulf War. Each production fought like hell to keep their audiences engaged, but were foiled by the inability of their respective networks (NBC for DARK SHADOWS, ABC for TWIN PEAKS) to provide them with ideal timeslots.

Those ballads, however simplified, are also accurate representations of what happened ... more or less. After reviewing the ratings for both programs, though, I was shocked to see that DARK SHADOWS, the little television show that could, had consistently stronger ratings in 1991 than its spiritual counterpart, TWIN PEAKS.

(Before I go on, let me stress that this is merely an amateur comparison of the ratings of two television shows. None of this is meant to suggest that these ratings make either show better or worse than the other. Good ratings do not automatically equal quality. In other words, there's no reason to fight.)

From the very start, the DARK SHADOWS "revival," as it would come to be called, was being compared to TWIN PEAKS, a show that arguably owed a debt of gratitude to the original 1960s gothic soap.

"NBC is expending a large amount of its attention on promoting 'Dark Shadows,'clearly hoping it can be the 'talked about' show this winter, the "Twin Peaks" of 1991, wrote Bill Carter for The New York Times in January, 1991. "Even the show's own producer, Dan Curtis, described it as a 'gimmick' show."

Unfortunately for TWIN PEAKS, though, when it broadcast its first episode of 1991, the series was already hip-deep in its creative nadir. "The Black Widow" aired Jan. 12 to approximately 10.3 million viewers, which is among the lowest ratings of any show broadcast that night. The following evening, DARK SHADOWS aired the first of its three-part debut, with 23.6 million people turning in. (A "thank you" to tvaholics.blogspot.com for providing a terrific archive of A.C. Nielsen ratings for 1991.)



Now, it's not entirely fair to compare a series premiere to a random installment of an established television series. But it's worth noting that TWIN PEAKS began the year on already unstable footing. And this footing would become more precarious throughout the rest of the season as it was shifted to different days and times before finally getting axed after its June 10 finale. By June, DARK SHADOWS had already been mothballed, having aired its last episode March 22 ... despite pulling in ratings consistently better than TWIN PEAKS.

A look at the ratings for both shows illustrates just how far TWIN PEAKS had fallen. NBC killed DARK SHADOWS after two months of episodes averaging a viewership of 12.5 million people. During its final months, TWIN PEAKS failed to reach even 10 million people, bottoming out for two consecutive weeks in 1991 with 7.4 million. The lowest-rated episode of DARK SHADOWS fared better than the highest rated episode of TWIN PEAKS.

So, when ABC brought TWIN PEAKS back from the dead for one week in June to air its final two episodes, its was an act of kindness. Even though the Lynch-directed finale was an amazing piece of work (and one of the best episodes of the entire series) it was incredibly unlikely that ABC would bring the show back for a third season. After all, at least once in April, TWIN PEAKS was the lowest-rated show broadcast by any network that night (April 18, 1991.) It finished out the year #100 on a list of 134 shows.

Below is a chart comparing the ratings between DARK SHADOWS and TWIN PEAKS during 1991. I've tried to group these episodes by their closest weekly counterparts, but schedule changes made that a challenge. Also, none of these ratings identify which episodes were preempted by news alerts.



KEY: A ratings point represents 921,000 TV households. Shares are the percentage of sets in use. Number of viewers is in millions.

The Dark Shadows Daybook: February 8

By PATRICK McCRAY

Broadcast on this day in 1991: Episode 7

Victoria awakens outside the Collins manor house (later to be known as the Old House) in the year 1790. She calls Barnabas by name and passes herself off as the new tutor for young Daniel and Amy until she can find a way back to the present. Unfortunately, her strange clothing and mysterious origin draw suspicions from Barnabas’ Aunt Abigail, who is convinced that she is a witch and summons a maniacal clergyman, Reverend Trask. Meanwhile, the actual witch, Angelique, roams free and tries to reignite her affair with Barnabas from years past. She is unsuccessful, and vows to take control of the situation. The first to fall under her control is Ben Loomis, Barnabas’ faithful manservant.

This episode may be my favorite of the 1991 series. It has a sense of rambunctious enthusiasm and confidence that dominates the screen. When the daytime version goes into its first flashback, you can feel the sense of risk and danger behind what they were pulling off. The revival’s flashback lacks that sense of risk, trading it for a giddy confidence. DARK SHADOWS -- both the broad strokes and details -- had proved itself a lasting success. In the approach to the 1991 series, you can feel that. It has a strange swagger, and the 1791 flashback is Exhibit A. Knowing that Elizabeth would be Naomi, etc, etc, affected the casting with a foresight the daytime series never enjoyed. The double casting of the 1795 sequence feels like a stunt. The 1791 sequence in the nighttime show is clearly a choice. It’s where Dan Curtis reveals, if anything, the real program. Really, for such a young series (or young incarnation of a series), everything works. Making Barnabas, Peter, and Jeremiah a triumvirate of dear friends was a warm touch that humanizes the sequence immediately. The characters are well-drawn, anyway, and they serve as revealing foils for Barnabas. Barbara Blackburn and the writers find an entirely new way to make Millicent a nightmare. Stefan Gierasch’s Joshua is a stingy prig trying desperately to forget that he has a decent, loving heart. Lysette Anthony does all she can with Angelique, but this is the one misfire of the sequence. For all of the evil of Lara Parker’s Angelique, I believed that the love was genuine, and I saw traces of kindness whenever her mask would slip. Anthony goes a far more one-dimensional route, and the results are not the success they should be. Oddly enough, I love the snarling, long-haired zealot Trask played by Roy Thinnes. Both Jerry Lacy and Thinnes are forces with which to be reckoned, but in Thinnes case, I fear he might bite my fingers off while sending Vicki to the gallows.

At this time, the Gulf War had done its damage to the ratings by incessant preemptions, the Soviet Union was falling from within, and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was a box office champion. 

Barnabas + Victoria 4EVR

An interesting piece of original art from Innovation's DARK SHADOWS comic series has gone up for auction on Ebay.

The 20" X 30" painting shows Joanna Going and Ben Cross as Barnabas Collins and Victoria Winters as they appeared in the 1991 "revival" series. I'm a little unclear on the purpose of this artwork, though. Artist Jason Palmer did a lot of work for Innovation, creating the covers for the company's LOST IN SPACE series ... but I don't think he ever worked on DARK SHADOWS. It's possible this art is a rejected cover, was created for promotional purposes, or was a personal commission. (The auction merely says its a "poster art painting.")

The auction ends in three days. You can see the full artwork below.

Via: Ebay

That other time Ben Cross played a vampire

Vampire stories are derivative by nature. While the line might be a little wobbly, the distance between John Polidori's 1819 story "The Vampire" and HBO's TRUE BLOOD is not a great as we like to think. When you prune the decorative foliage from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, Anne Rice's "Interview with the Vampire," Marvel's "Tomb of Dracula" and DARK SHADOWS, you'll usually find the same tale of predatory romance lurking just beneath the surface.

So the idea of accusing a vampire story of ripping off anything feels a little wrong ... especially when you're talking about something as pastiche driven as DARK SHADOWS.  But it's hard to discount the weird similarities between that show and the 1989 TV movie,  NIGHTLIFE. Here's the summary that was floated to regional TV guides prior to its debut in August that year:

"A newly resurrected vampire attempts to adjust to the modern world while being torn between the hematologist who wants to cure her and her undead lover."

It sounds a bit like a gender-swapped version of HOUSE OF DARK SHADOWS, doesn't it? Curiously, the movie's anti-heroine (played by Maryam d'Abo) is named "Angelique." And her undead lover "Vlad" was played none other than Ben Cross ... who'd go on to play  "Barnabas Collins" in the DARK SHADOWS revival just two years later. Some of these similarities are just matters of serendipity; others, I'm sure, are by design. You can probably figure out which is which.

If you're curious about NIGHTLIFE, there's a pirated version of the film currently streaming on YouTube. Embedding has been disabled on the video, but you can find the entire film HERE.

Spend Black Friday in Collinsport

By PATRICK McCRAY

On Black Friday, I’m gonna party like it’s 1991.

Okay, I apologize for that. I don’t even like Prince. Starting with such a line is part of the ritual, and now that it’s out of the way, I want to talk about why I’m watching all of the 1991 Dark Shadows in a day.

(Oh, and to get something else out of the way, “blame the Gulf War, blah, blah, blah.…”)

I had no contact with Dark Shadows fandom until 2012, when I watched “The Twelve Twenty-Five” (meaning all 1,225 episodes) in 45 days. As fandoms go, there are few more dedicated, passionate, and firm in opinions. And the legend I heard was that many fans were not fond of the 1991 series. I heard legends that Festivals tried to include some 1991ian involvement, and that did not, um, go well. Maybe it’s apocryphal.

Anyway, this surprised me.

Was it just me, or did they cast the 1991 show and start filming nearly a year before? I feel like I saw the first picture of Ben Cross as Barnabas in 1990, as I was graduating high school. If so, that was a significant picture, because I felt like I was seeing “my Barnabas.” Coming from the paradigm (finally) set by Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as, more importantly, Love Boat: The Next Wave), I now looked at the major franchises a bit like comic books or James Bond. They’d always be around. They’d be freshened by necessity. The only question was if they’d maintain continuity or be remakes.

I’d always hoped for a “new” Dark Shadows. Given that Mr. Frid didn’t seem very interested, a remake was the most I could hope for. When it was announced as a big budget, nighttime production by the Wouk-powered Dan Curtis on ratings titan NBC, it seemed that I’d finally be able to show people Dark Shadows and have them “get it.” This was the age of Twin Peaks, which might have made it possible. Between that and STTNG, I suspect that NBC was more than willing. They saw what I still see: Dark Shadows is the untapped Star Trek of horror. It’s a potentially expansive universe starting with a core cast of characters and central location. This was the best way to see that happen, I thought.

I remember liking it. And I also remember reluctantly acknowledging that the changes were made to appease 1990 audiences. I dealt with it. Would I have done things differently? Sure. And I may go into those things. But at its essence, is it Dark Shadows? Yes. Wrongdoings, regret, and ramifications abound. What it never had the chance to explore was atonement and forgiveness. I think it handled “1791” with a respectable tightness, and it played well with the whole Josette Doppleganger thing, making it dramatically pertinent to our audience surrogate. The most important change was that of Barnabas. He’s a bit too comfortable twirling his metaphorical mustache, a bit too confident in lying, and a bit too oily in romancin’ the gals. Jonathan Frid specialized in putting a barely concealed terror behind everything Barnabas did. Meaning that Barnabas felt a barely concealed terror. When he’d proclaim a plan would work, it always sounded like he were trying to convince himself. Ben Cross had a strength and confidence that was very different. Yet I bought it as a viable interpretation of the text. Will I now? I’m not sure.

I’ve watched it a few times over the years. Usually, to bring new girlfriends into the Collinsport fold. But this is the first time since I pretty much chucked all fandoms over to have no other franchise before Dark Shadows. I just hope they solved the day-for-night issues. Even if they didn’t, I’ll shut up and deal. We’re Dark Shadows fans. It’s what we do.

It’s worth it.

(Editor's Note: You can find a schedule for the day's events HERE.)

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Patrick McCray is a comic book author residing in Knoxville, Tenn., where he's been a drama coach and general nuisance since 1997. He has a MFA in Directing and worked at Revolutionary Comics and on the early days of BABYLON 5, and is a frequent contributor to The Collinsport Historical Society. You can find him at The Collins Foundation.

Watch the DARK SHADOWS revival with us!

Patrick McCray will be haunting Twitter on Friday, Nov. 27, bringing his latest DARK SHADOWS EXPERIMENT to the masses. (Editor's Note: You can read Patrick's introduction HERE.)

In the past, he's mainlined the entire original DARK SHADOWS television in increasingly shorter time spans, coming up with some fascinating takes on the series (my favorite is that Angelique is the true protagonist of the series, thanks to her driving involvement in every major conflict in Collinsport over the course of several centuries).

This month's experiment is a bit more modest: Patrick is watching all 12 episodes of the 1991 DARK SHADOWS "revival" series on Friday, Nov. 27. Beginning at noon, he'll be tweeting about the show and has invited you to join him.

Unlike the recent "binge" on the Decades Channel, there's no accompanying broadcast of DARK SHADOWS to help everyone participate. Patrick will be using DVDs, but Hulu has all 12 episodes currently streaming. The first three episodes are available for free, but a subscription is needed to access the remaining nine episodes.

The event kicks off at noon EST on Nov. 27 with the "pilot." I'll be posting hourly reminders throughout the day as we begin each new episode. Join us on Twitter to talk about the series. And don't forget to use the hashtag #DarkShadows on all of your tweets, otherwise we won't see them!

You can follow Patrick on Twitter @TheRealMcCray

Here's an episode schedule for Nov. 27:

NOON
Episode One: Convinced of an old Collins family legend of buried treasure, Handyman Willie Loomis accidentally releases vampire Barnabas Collins from his tomb. Barnabas introduces himself as a distant relative from England and begins to romance Victoria Winters, the new governess at Collinwood Manor. At the same time, the town of Collinsport is being upset by a series of deadly attacks.

1 p.m.
Episode Two: After being bitten by Barnabas, Daphne Collins dies and rises a vampire. Dr. Julia Hoffman discovers Barnabas's secret and offers to cure him of his curse.

2 p.m.
Episode Three: Dr. Julia Hoffman experiments to cure Barnabas of his vampirism. Professor Michael Woodard attempts to uncover the identity of the vampire.

3 p.m.
Episode Four: The ghost of Sarah Collins leads Victoria to her diary. An evil apparition of Angelique (nemesis from the past) begins to haunt Barnabas.

4 p.m.
Episode Five: Learning of Barnabas’ affection for Victoria, a jealous Dr. Hoffman decides to sabotage the progress of the cure for Barnabas.

5 p.m.
Episode Six: When a séance is held to contact the spirit of Sara, Victoria mysteriously vanishes. In her place appears a stranger from 1790.

6 p.m.
Episode Seven: Transported to the year 1790, Victoria meets the residents of Collinwood and becomes a tutor for Daniel and Sara Collins. Abigail Collins suspects Victoria of sorcery.

7 p.m.
Episode Eight: A jealous Angelique uses witchcraft to prevent the marriage of Barnabas and Josette Du Pres. A deadly duel ensues.

8 p.m.
Episode Nine: Josette Du Pres accuses Barnabas Collins of killing her true love. Abigail Collins enlists the aid of Reverend Trask to have Victoria Winters jailed for witchcraft.

9 p.m.
Episode Ten: The Collins Family mourns the apparent death of Barnabas as they move into the new Collinwood mansion. Barnabas rises as vampire.

10 p.m.
Episode Eleven: Victoria’s witchcraft trial begins. Angelique’s spirit seeks to prevent Barnabas from making Josette his vampire bride.

11 p.m.
Episode Twelve: Barnabas’ vampirism is discovered. Peter Bradford attempts to save Victoria from being hanged as a witch.

DARK SHADOWS (1991) DVDs restore original aspect ratio

I've lost track of how may times the 1991 DARK SHADOWS "revival" series has been released on home video. For a television series with just 12 episodes (in your face, FIREFLY!) the revival series has proven to be remarkably resilient. Unfortunately, the various DVD collections of the revival have generally been interchangeable, differing only in their packaging.

Apparently, that is not the case with the most recent edition from TGG Direct.

Previous releases (including the version now streaming on Hulu) feature video cropped to fit modern 16:9 television aspect ratios. The TGG edition released a few months ago features the original 4:3 aspect ratio, presenting the series the way it was originally broadcast.

It's a significant issue for some fans, but might not have been a concern for the series' creator, Dan Curtis.

"When the original DVD release of the 1991 DARK SHADOWS revival series was issued in 2005, MGM had teamed briefly with Sony for distribution and a breakdown in communications between the entities resulted in the DVD set not including the deleted scenes that I had assembled for the VHS tape releases in the early 1990s with MPI Home Video," said  Jim Pierson, the spokesman for Dan Curtis Productions (and a writer's assistant and production assistant on the 1991 series).

"When I informed Dan that the DVD release also had converted the series from its proper 4:3 standard definition television aspect ratio as originally broadcast on NBC — and re-aired on the Sci-Fi Channel — he informed me that for the 5 hours he directed - the pilot and episodes 2-4 (before he enlisted others, including Rob "THE X-FILES" Bowman to direct the rest of the series), he actually shot with an eye for widescreen and therefore he was not bothered by the DVD aspect ratio," Pierson said.

The modern 16:9 aspect ratio also made it more appealing to channels like Chiller to broadcast the program, he said.

While the original aspect ratio has been corrected for the 2015 release, the four-disc DVD set continues the habit of omitting bonus material assembled for the show's original 1992 VHS release. The show arrived on home video in a 12-cassette collection, with deleted and extended scenes accompanying the pilot episode. A 13th tape was also included in the collection, featuring bloopers, outtakes and interviews. A few of those features have since found their way to YouTube, but have yet to be included in any of the DVD editions in the U.S.

Another nagging problem with the original digital transfer was also not corrected for the 2015 DVD release of DARK SHADOWS: the color timing of several day-for-night shots in the series.

 "When MGM re-transferred the 1991 episodes for the DVD and digital releases, the mastering technicians did not properly 'color time' the pilot footage that was shot 'day for night'
using filters on the camera," Pierson said. "Therefore this material does not appear as dark as intended so it appears that Barnabas is flirting with dim daylight, unfortunately.

"Hopefully at some point the deleted scenes, particularly from the pilot for which there is approximately 13 minutes of additional material, will appear on DVD, if not BluRay, streaming and download," he said.

Via: Amazon

"Lost" DARK SHADOWS comic promised a return of the Phoenix

There’s an auction currently on Ebay that provides some tantalizing clues as to the direction the DARK SHADOWS “revival” series might have gone — had it received a second season.

When DARK SHADOWS was cancelled in 1991 it left a number of plot threads dangling: Joe Haskell was dead, presumably making way for actor Michael T. Weiss to return the following season as “Peter Bradford;” Victoria Winters had returned to her own time aware that Barnabas Collins was a vampire; and the identity of David’s absent mother was still a mystery.

It's that last detail that has remained the most interesting to me. Based on nothing more than the plot details spilled early in the series, I've always assumed a second season would have delivered us some combination of Laura Collins and Cassandra Blair/Angelique Bouchard. After all, pyromania seemed too pat of an answer for David’s preoccupation with fire. And it seemed economical to bring back actress Lysette Anthony as Laura Collins, setting up a number of potentially interesting developments in the second season.

Alas, none of that came to pass. NBC prematurely pulled the plug on DARK SHADOWS, leaving fans with just the comic spin-off from Innovation. That, too, came to an end near the end of 1993, when Innovation shuttered its doors for good.

Innovation had published a pair of four-issue arcs, with the first issued of a third — titled “A Motion and a Spirit” — hitting stands in November, 1993, before the company went out of business. In all, they had produced nine issues of DARK SHADOWS.

But it appears Innovation had much more planned for the title. Now available for auction on Ebay is the cover art for a DARK SHADOWS storyline titled "Remember Martinique," which the seller says would have told “the long-awaited tale of Barnabas and Angelique's romance before he was forever cursed to walk the earth as a vampire, never made it to press.” The artwork appears to be the work of Hector Gomez, who provided the covers for the “Lost in Thought,” Innovation’s second DARK SHADOWS arc, as well as the lone issue of “A Motion and a Spirit.”

Here’s the thing: The abbreviated “A Motion and a Spirit” was set in modern day Collinsport and focused on Maggie Evans, David Collins and the ghost of Sarah Collins. Which begs the question: Had Innovation progressed so far that work had already begun on a fourth storyline in the series? If so, does that mean that the remaining issues of “A Motion and a Spirit” are sitting in a drawer somewhere — unpublished?

There are also no details about the creative team working on "Remember Martinique." (The identity of the cover artist is just an education guess on my part.) I've heard rumors that actress Lara Parker, who had loaned her likeness to one of the characters in the second DARK SHADOWS series from Innvation, had been asked to write a story arc for the comic. Is "Remember Martinique" the story that eventually became Parker's novel, "Angelique's Descent?"

None of this means that the art you see above, which shows a brunette Lysestte Anthony going all Jean Grey, has anything concrete to do with the unproduced second season of DARK SHADOWS. But Dan Curtis Productions and the series' license holders were actively involved in managing the editorial content of the comic, and it’s not unlikely that undeveloped plot elements from the show were fed to the writers at Innovation.

Via: Ebay

Lysette Anthony takes a trip on the TARDIS

Lysette Anthony, who played the mad witch Angelique in 1991's DARK SHADOWS revival series, is set to appear in an upcoming DOCTOR WHO audiodrama from Big Finish this year.

Anthony is part of the cast of THE SECRET HISTORY, scheduled for a June release. The presence of Peter Davison on the cover means that the story is either set in the time of the fifth Doctor, or that Big Finish is planning some bizarre crossover with ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL. Either would be alright with me.

While I've got some issues with how Angelique was written in the DARK SHADOWS revival series, Anthony was actually one of my favorite parts of the series (see also: Joanna Going). Anthony returned to Collinsport in 2010 for the DARK SHADOWS audiodrama "Kingdom of the Dead," and appeared in Dan Curtis' 1996 film, TRILOGY OF TERROR II.

Here's the official plot synopsis for DOCTOR WHO: THE SECRET HISTORY:

The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Vicki to the Italian city of Ravenna in the year 540 - besieged by the army of the celebrated Byzantine general Belisarius. Caught up in the fighting, Steven ends up on a boat bound for Constantinople, the heart of the Roman Empire.

Rescuing Steven, however, is the least of the Doctor's problems - because he shouldn't be mixed up in this particular adventure at all. Someone has sabotaged his own personal timeline, putting him in the place of his First incarnation... but who, and why? The truth is about to be revealed - but at what cost to all of the Doctors, and to the whole future history of the planet Earth?

DARK SHADOWS prop ring goes up for auction

A prop ring worn by Ben Cross in the 1991 DARK SHADOWS revival series is up for auction on Ebay. Again. This item popped up on Ebay a few months back, and the owners are still in search of a buyer. Like many prop collectibles, this item is prices well out of my reach, even though I'd say the four-figure starting bid is reasonable.

I actually like the design of this ring quite a bit. While the character's design for the original television series is iconic, Jonathan Frid said on more than one occasion that not much effort (or money) was invested in dressing Barnabas Collins. The cane was purchased at a local NYC store, and Frid often remarked that he thought the rings offered as a premium with the 1960's trading cards were better made than the one he wore on the show. The ring worn by Cross in 1991 appears to have been made of sterner stuff and is much more ornate.

The auction listing notes that the current owner purchased the ring at a charity auction conducted during the 1997 Dark Shadows Convention. The auction ends Oct. 2.

View the auction HERE.