The show was created by Dan Curtis, and started off as a kind of gothic romance. A young girl is hired as a governess by the Collins family, in a fairly remote seaport in Maine. About six months into its run, the writers introduced a ghost, but it wasn't until a year after its premiere that the show introduced its most famous character, played by Jonathan Frid, the vampire Barnabas Collins.
After Barnabas' arrival, the show's poularity took off and the floodgates opened. There were witches, warlocks, werewolves, zombies, man-made monsters, time travel and even a parallel universe.
Many of the actors on the show played several roles, and appeared and reappeared throughout its run, sometimes as a perfectly ordinary person and sometimes as say, a werewolf or a zombie. It was a variation on what Stephen King called, 'the kid trick.' He wrote about it in his book about modern American horror, Danse Macabre.
'The kid trick' is used by soap operas whenever they change actors for a particular part. For instance, a little boy or girl is sent off to summer camp and returns as a teenager. Or a businessman goes to South America, his plane crashes, and later on he's found. That's when it was revealed that a new actor is playing the part.
Nowadays, soap operas no longer do this. Once an actor becomes identified with a role, it's his until death. Could you imagine J.R. Ewing being played by any other actor than Larry Hagman? I didn't think so.
Dark Shadows was a half-hour in length, and there were over 1200 episodes filmed before the ratings sank out of sight and the show was cancelled. I watch one episode each weekday, just as if the show was really on the air. I never saw it during its original run, but it was shown briefly on a Spokane station as part of its afternoon lineup of shows in 1981 or '82.
Two movies based on storylines from the show were made during its run, using the same actors, and featured gore that regular TV wouldn't allow. There was a revival of the show in 1991 that lasted twelve episodes, starring Ben Cross as Barnabas. And now Tim Burton is remaking it as a film starring Johnny Depp as the vampire.
The show is dated by today's standards. The romantic aspects are extremely underplayed, when you consider the average soap opera of today features uninhibited and unlimited sexual activity.
Women were played very differently back then. One of the characters is Angelique, a witch of almost incomparable power. And what does she do with it? Torture Barnabas so that he will say he loves her and they can be married. That's it.
Women characters on the show want nothing more out of life than to be married and raise a family for their man.
Different times.
I first saw Dark Shadows as a comic book. I think it was Gold Key comics that printed it. Then I saw a few of the shows when travelling with my Father but it never aired on a network at home.
ReplyDeleteI have a torrent of the comic books, too.
ReplyDeleteI figured you would. :)
ReplyDelete