I think
DARK SHADOWS was usually on at 3:30 or 4:00 when I was a kid. I remember, the first time I saw it, it was on at a friend's house. I barely had any idea what was going on, but they had some big guy locked up in a basement. Many years later, I figured out it was part of the "Adam" story (their version of
FRANKENSTEIN).
My brother started watching it, and like so many things, I began as well, during "
The Ghost Of Quentin" story. (Decades later, I found out this was an tribute to "
The Turn Of The Screw", also filmed as "
The Innocents".) These 2 kids were possessed by a ghost, and their govern-ness (I understood the concept from
MARY POPPINS- heh), "Maggie Evans", was being terrified. I took an immeidately liking to her. Actress Kathryn Leigh Scott became my favorite on the show, at least when she was on the show.
Then things got VERY strange. Barnabas, Julia, and Professor Stokes, went down into the basement and decided to use something called the "I-Ching Wands", in order to cast some sort of spell, in an attempt to contact the ghost, and find out WHY the bastard was haunting the house. According to Stokes, once cast. Barnabas would go into a trance, he'd see a door, and walk thru, and once thru, he would find the answers he sought. But instead... he found himself trapped inside a coffin, he realized he was-- get this-- once again under the curse of being a VAMPIRE (!!!!!!!), and, he had somehow been transported back in time to the yar 1897!!! Talk about your "WTF?
" moments!!!
I continued watching during this "1897" thing... but after a few weeks, got bored and dropped off. I rarely ever watched every episode of anything as a kid, but continued stories-- especially a story that continued 5 days a week, was just something I was not used to (ewxcept for following daily adventure comic-strips in the newspapers, like
MANDRAKE, THE PHANTOM or
BUZ SAWYER).
Months later, a bit older, maybe with a bit more patience, I happened to tun in the show again. Things had changed. Now Barnabas had a tentative ally in the form of this beautiful blonde girl named Angelique, who was apparently a witch. It also seemed they had a "history", and had once been enemies, but were not allies. I contined watching as the story ended, then ABRUPTLY moved to 1795, then to 1969, and a new story, about "The Leviathans" started. I got a few months into this... before dropping off again. As you can see, I never quite made it back then all the way thru one of these long, long, LONG storiylines.
I'll pont out now that, while watching the show in reruns in the 1980's, on PBS, I was delighted to see the "1897" story again... and TOTALLY STUNNED when it kept going, and going, and GOING, until I suddenly realized-- MY GOD!!! --when I had started watching again, back then, Barnbas had not travelled back to 1897 AGAIN.. he was STILL there! The "1897" story actually stretched over 9 MONTHS of the show!!! Good grief.
I will agree with the general concensus, however, that the "1897" storyline-- which, by the way, almost neatly breaks down into 3 major sections-- is probably the BEST-WRITTEN in the show's entire run. A close 2nd, in my opinion, might be the first 8 months or so, which focus mostly on Burke Devlin (Mitchell Ryan). I didn't get to see those until about 12 years ago, when I saw them on the Sci-Fi Channel. At that point, the ENTIRE RUN had finally found its way into syndication. I was able, for the first time, to see al the way to the end of the show, then start over at the beginning. So much I'd never seen before. What a charge!
The tragedy of "1897", by the way, is that longtime producer Robert Costello left the show a few weeks before that long story finally drew to a close. For about 8 months, the writing, and the PACING, were damn near as perfect as could be imaginable for such a series. then the new producer took over, and he was apparently in a HURRY to wrap things up, sweep the story under the carpet, and move on ot his new idea, "The Leviathans" (a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft's C'thulu mythos). And as a result, the last 4 weeks (I feel) were CRAMMED into 2 weeks, almost totally ruining the end of the story. I wish Costello had stuck around, if only for just one more month. It would have been much better if there'd been some kind of a clean break, an end to one epic, a beginning to another. But soaps almost never work that way. Too bad they don't follow the example of
MANDRAKE or
THE PHANTOM, where there is NO overlap.
Hey--
STAR BLAZERS was like that! Each season (made several years apart) consisted one one big 26-episode-long story.
