1897: Barnabas Wars with Angelique

 

1968: Dr. Julia Hoffman

 

Don Briscoe Detail

 

1967: Joe, Maggie, and Sam

 

1968: Barnabas Collins

 

The Whole "True" Story of DARK SHADOWS

I love these.
 

1795 (Redux): Barnabas Collins Will Never Have the Woman He Loves!

Victoria Winters

 

Behind the Scenes of Night of Dark Shadows with Nancy and John

 

1795: Millicent's Descent

1840: Gerard Stiles

 

House of Dark Shadows: Maggie Evans

 

Night of Dark Shadows: Carlotta Drake

 

The Debut of Dark Shadows

 

The Beginning and the End of the World

 

 So I started a kind-of rewatch of Dark Shadows in August of 2024, enjoying an episode every morning before school. I say "kind-of" because I started with 210 and then worked my way to the end. I've performed what Danny Horn refers to as "the ritual" once before, during 2020; since then, I've hopscotched my way around, enjoying whichever storyline I felt like consuming whenever I felt like it. And though I've watched what I consider "the heart" of the show - i.e., the introduction of Barnabas through the Leviathan storyline (with a soupcon of Parallel Time 1970) - several times, I really struggle with the last year. But I persevered this time, and made it to episode #1245 this morning. And I felt a pang. It's an endeavor, as every Dark Shadows fan knows, to take it all in, which is why it's rather fun that there's over a thousand episodes to watch, and then, if you're feeling blue upon completion, you can do what many of us do, and what I also did this morning: finish #1245 and then start over immediately at #1! 

And it's rather cool to go from Bramwell and Catherine and shouty Morgan and faux-vampire bites on Melanie's neck -- and a bit sad, knowing you're going to leave behind Jonathan Frid and Grayson Hall and Lara Parker for two hundred episodes or so -- and then to travel back in time five years, to jump on that train with Victoria Winters, to find that fabled black and white beginning and end of the world, as Burke Devlin observes, via broomsticks and unicorns.  

The end ... 

...and the beginning!

And then, if you're feeling particularly nostalgic, as I was following the final episode, you can revisit one of my anniversary posts I share now and then, which is a compilation of screen captures from the music video included after the "After the Shadows" segment narrated by Roger Davis. I love this montage: it includes clips from all the storylines, set to a groovy, jazz-inspired rendition of the theme song.

Follow this link to visit that post!