Dark Shadows: Remembering the show?

 

I first discovered Dark Shadows after buying a box of tapes years ago. These were from the SyFy airing of the show during the 90s. As I was going through the box, I found it odd that someone would wait around at odd times to record a show from the 1960s. SyFy wasn’t consistent with broadcasting Dark Shadows as it was with Lost in Space or Star Trek  The collection also included some episodes from the revival series from the 90s. All the episodes of the original weren’t there but the stuff with Barnabas Collins was and let’s be honest, he was the show. 

Dark Shadows: The Revival !

Now, I wasn’t that into the 90s revival. It just seemed like another 90s program that would’ve gotten canceled. Looking at everything on the franchise now, I wasn’t wrong. That series did have a few actors who managed to survive it and the rest of the 90s and a handful who went on to other TV and film work after the 90s—most notably, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  

Dark Shadows: What Was Great About The Original !

The original Dark Shadows was the show I watched out of that and it was great stuff. The pace is high on my list for anything about a show, film, comic, and so on. Dark Shadows was a soap that ran for a 30-minute slot. This wasn’t unusual for the 60s and 70s as almost every soap opera that debuted in the 60s ran for that time.  

It’s what Dark Shadows did with that time that was great. The show managed to tell a long, involved story in bite-size installments wonderfully. Characters were introduced, you had your mysteries, relationships, character deaths—and it was all done in a way where the time you put aside to watch it didn’t seem like it ran for longer. 

The first couple of episodes set the pace as far as letting you know that this was a different kind of soap opera. As a matter of fact, compared to the bigger ones out during the 1960s, this was the most unique of them. It mixed in some horror and was one of the first television shows to go the gothic route.   Now and days, you have at least two shows with gothic themes on TV or streaming every season. So, there’s little “Wow! This is new!” to the shows. 

Dark Shadows: A True Revival for Dark Shadows !

Soap operas tend to have a very long lifespan and can hold down the daytime blocks. Primetime soaps can be dicey because primetime is such a cutthroat block. If a show doesn’t swim during its first season, expect it to be canceled. Even if you loved it. 

Dark Shadows was one of those soaps that could swim in daytime or primetime. More importantly, it’s one of the very few that had more than enough value to get revivals. Dallas, 90210, and Melrose Place were the only soaps to come close. Dark Shadows had a TV revival, a film which…looked nice, and now another revival is in the works for the CW. 

Mind you, some time was needed before it could on the CW since you had the trifecta of Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and now Legacies. Will this revival sink or swim in this decade? We’ll have to see when it gets closer to the time for the CW to put its pencils down and show its work. For any other soap opera and entertainment news, please visit Daily Soap Dish. For more royal and celeb baby news, come back to Celeb Baby Laundry.

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Joseph Gordon-LevittMelrose Place
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