Here’s an episode guide for all of the Dark Shadows Every Day posts. For the blog’s greatest hits, check out the “Satan’s Favorite TV Show” tag.
April 1967
Introduction: Satan’s Favorite TV Show
Barnabas Collins appears at the White House to frighten underprivileged children.
Episode 210: Opening the Box
We break into the mausoleum, find the secret room and open the mystery box.
Episode 211: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Jason visits the cemetery and makes a new friend.
Episode 212: The Collins Blood
We learn several reasons why you shouldn’t play in a haunted house.
Episode 213: I’m Upset About Something
I explain why Dark Shadows is just like Melrose Place, Happy Days and Family Matters. But in a good way.
Episode 214: Very Much Alive
Barnabas talks about pyramids and plaster for a while. Then he loses track of what he’s talking about and never really recovers.
Episode 215: Where’s Willie?
Somebody’s going around perforating cows, and Jason’s going to get to the bottom of it.
Episode 216: I Don’t Dig You Out
We get examples of various acting techniques, including backacting and pretending to be afraid of portraits.
Episode 217: Not Enough Vampire in Your Vampire Show
Jason gives his expert opinion re: arm blood, we consider the consequences of dude-on-dude vampire action, and Stanley Kubrick gets a great idea.
Episode 218: Madman with a Box
Roger opens and closes doors, Jason plays Where’s Willie, and Barnabas hangs out under the boom mic for a while.
Episode 219: Addled Quacks
Roger talks to Willie, Jason, Sheriff Patterson and Dr. Woodard. The episode stops when he runs out of people to be sarcastic to.
May 1967
Episode 220: Never Drink Wine
Willie demonstrates a common soap opera malady called EPCP, or Excessive Pre-Commercial Pausing. It’s important!
Episode 221: Mystery Date
Maggie meets a tall, dark stranger, and Barnabas gets cane-blocked.
Episode 222: Whom It Was
Barnabas makes a social call, and we learn why castles don’t get stormed very often. Also, Sam Evans has 22 words to say; let’s see how many he can remember before the end of the scene.
Episode 223: The Me/You Fun Gap
The AFTRA strike of April 1967 takes its toll on the Dark Shadows cast, as Liz putters around, Burke sets his wristwatch, and David complains about the air.
Episode 224: The Late Shift
David hears dogs, Jason makes insinuations, and Maggie has some pretty sweet dreams.
Episode 225/226: Fangs for Nothing
The end of today’s episode is a huge exciting milestone, which they screw up completely. Also: Barnabas, Sam and Burke play dialogue chicken.
Episode 227: Sick Day
Maggie feels drained this morning. We go through the Dracula checklist, plus: triple backacting.
Episode 228: Those Things in That Room
What things? You know, those things in that room in the basement. What room? And so on.
Epsiode 229: Thirst World Problems
Maggie’s lost a lot of blood. She’ll probably find it in the last place she looks.
Episode 230: The Transylvania Twist
Maggie’s in a cemetery with a vampire and a fog machine and a brand new hairstyle.
Episode 231: Bedside Manners
The Doctor regenerates, and we break new ground in the field of recaps. Also: I have a question for women.
Episode 232: Just Add Water
A bunch of recap conversations, plus a thunderstorm.
Episode 233: All Wet
It’s raining, so Vicki and Carolyn sit around in the drawing room and talk about how scared they are.
Episode 234: Adventures in Babysitting
Dr. Woodard tells Sam that Maggie’s going to be hit by a car. Or something. I wasn’t really paying attention.
Episode 235: The Waiting Room
Maggie loses blood, and then Dr. Woodard loses Maggie.
Episode 236: Extreme Makeover
Maggie’s disappeared from the hospital, but the most pressing questions are: Why is there a camera in the hallway, and why does everybody keep touching Sam?
Episode 237: Cold Case
Sheriff Patterson was up all night searching for Maggie. Now he’s sitting on the couch and talking about how discouraged he is.
Episode 238: Unreal Estate
Vicki and Carolyn just walk right into the Old House and look around. This is technically suspenseful but you have to be pretty generous about it.
Episode 239: Local Girl Mysteriously Disappears
An undead ghoul from the 18th century kidnaps a waitress from the local coffee shop, puts her in his dead girlfriend’s wedding dress and takes her on a make-believe date. Relationship status: It’s complicated.
Episode 240: Open House
We review the appropriate security protocol for vampires who have a hypnotized girl on the premises.
Episode 241: Mrs. Snuffleupagus
Another etiquette lesson for the criminally insane: How to react when you find uninvited guests hanging out in your house with your brainwashed girlfriend.
Episode 242: A Mystery in Science
Dr. Woodard thinks he’s going to find out who kidnapped Maggie by looking at her blood tests. Burke is concerned, but not enough to remember his lines past sentence four. Let’s see what happens.
Episode 243: Blood Drive
Dr. Woodard shows up at the Old House and asks Willie for another blood sample, which is a totally normal thing that doctors do.
June 1967
Episode 244: Indecent Proposal
This episode is basically a series of escalating dares between Liz and Jason, like a very slow and dramatic game of chicken.
Episode 245: Tragic Malady
Another great example of how Barnabas takes over the show, by being way more interesting than anyone else has ever been.
Episode 246: Family Planning
We see the very last lawyer to appear on the show who doesn’t end up possessed by a witch. Also: two minutes spent opening and closing doors.
Episode 247: I’m Someone Else
Burke touches Sam again, Maggie invents thinks, and the director tries to figure out how to shoot a scene where a grown man has a conversation while lying on his back in a coffin, without looking silly.
Episode 248: Damsel in This Dress
Maggie walked from Collinwood all the way down the hill to her father’s house, wearing a bright white wedding gown and holding a pipe, and attracted no attention at all. What are people doing in Collinsport that they’re too busy to notice that?
Episode 249: That Room with Those Things
Liz and Jason finally let Carolyn and Roger into that room in the basement, and everybody walks around on Paul’s grave.
Episode 250: Exit Strategy
Maggie the Vampire Slayer takes action, recruiting Willie into helping her knock some sense into Barnabas.
Episode 251: Close to Killing You
What do you do when your abduction storyline has run its course? You take the same girl and lock her up in a different room. It’s that simple!
Episode 252: How to Ruin Your Life
Carolyn has a pleasant evening out with an agreeable and attentive young man. Everybody else needs to lighten the hell up.
Episode 253: Alive and Someplace
Maggie is still spitballing escape plans, while David continues his reign as World’s Noisiest Intruder.
Episode 254: The Summer of Love
Carolyn has another awesome evening with her dreamboat beatnik boyfriend.
Episode 255: Job Interview with the Vampire
Barnabas touches Maggie’s hand, and without thinking, she recoils. That’s what we call a career-limiting move.
Episode 256: Falling Down
London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.
Episode 257: Bachelor Party
Jason has a quiet word with Carolyn’s boyfriend. It doesn’t go that well.
Episode 258: The Casual Ghost
Maggie makes a new friend, who happens to be a dead nine-year-old obsessed with singing “London Bridge”. Jealous?
Episode 259: Cell Blocked
Carolyn decides that today she’s the lead character in an educational short about juvenile delinquency.
Episode 260: The Secret of My Suspense
It’s a Friday afternoon on the last day of school, and the Dark Shadows writers finally figure out what suspense means, just in time to scare the hell out of the kids.
Episode 261: Bigger on the Inside
Maggie is found alive on the beach, and Dr. Woodard comes up with a crazy idea: tell everybody she’s dead, and hope for the best.
Episode 262: Feelin’ Gloomy
Vicki tells everybody that Maggie is dead, individually and in slow motion.
Episode 263: Don’t Say Anything
Vicki visits Maggie’s father to see if parking herself on his couch helps at all, with predictable results.
Episode 264: Unconscience
Barnabas faces off against Jason, as the writers start to figure out how to keep the vampire on the show.
Episode 265: Doctor Strange
We fall under the hypnotic spell of Doc-tor Hoff-man.
July 1967
Episode 266: Jump Start
People keep walking up to Elizabeth and telling her what time it is. It’s not a surprise that she’s started considering suicide as an option.
Episode 267: The Least Torment
Barnabas and Liz stand on a cliff and talk about life and death, and then Vicki and Burke dance.
Episode 268: Suicide Is Painful
Elizabeth has decided to kill herself. I don’t know why the rest of us have to suffer, but that’s life, I suppose.
Episode 269: Loving the Monster
Vicki tries to talk Liz out of suicide, and I try to figure out why I love this television show when I can’t stand the main character.
Episode 270: Here Comes the Bride
Carolyn is determined to stop her mother’s wedding. If anybody can do it, she can.
Episode 271: I Killed Paul Stoddard
The wedding guests clear the room for a flashback to 1949, where Elizabeth picks up a poker and just does what comes naturally.
Episode 272: Bourne Yesterday
A procedural question for Burke and Roger: Why are you shooting at Jason? He has no history of violence, he’s unarmed, his back is turned, and you’re guests at his wedding.
Episode 273: All These Years
Burke and the Sheriff go downstairs to dig up some trouble.
Episode 274: The Bachelor
Barnabas and Willie have one of their regular staff meetings, where they review their progress and set goals for the next quarter.
Episode 275: The Last Normal Day
Jason goes treasure-hunting in a haunted house. It doesn’t go that well.
Episode 276: Crime Scenes
It’s Barnabas’ first actual murder, which for a vampire is basically his bar mitzvah.
Episode 277: Around the Sun
This is the episode where Barnabas literally transitions from a psychopathic killer to a romantic love-triangle rival in the middle of a scene.
Episode 278: Of Course! A Costume Party!
Barnabas and Willie plan a pleasant social engagement, because that is what vampires do.
Episode 279: Party Animals
The upcoming costume party leaves everyone with vague, unexplained feelings of dread.
Episode 280: Costume Drama
Everyone shows up at Barnabas’ costume party, and there’s nothing to do but sip claret cup and talk about how much you look like dead people. So obviously they have a seance.
Episode 281: Ancestral Exercises
Barnabas throws a party to get closer to Vicki, but then his ex-girlfriend shows up and tells everybody what a jerk he is. I think we’ve all had nights like that.
Episode 282: The Examined Life
Julia tries to help Maggie figure out why she has that song stuck in her head.
Episode 283: Role Playing
Julia and Dr. Woodard swap personalities, and it sticks that way.
Episode 284: Doctor Who
Julia talks her way into a lifetime invitation to Collinwood.
Episode 285: Kandor Crush
The chilling story of what happens when the living dead comes to your house to lend you a book.
Episode 286: Slumber Party
Another example of Great Moments in Time-Filling: Vicki walks around Josette’s room for two minutes, lighting candles and then blowing them out again.
August 1967
Episode 287: Notes on Camp
Julia can make more than 20 different facial expressions in 60 seconds. We discuss mythopoetic trickster-figures for a while, and then it’s back to Julia making faces.
Episode 288: The Unreflected
Julia lies to everyone about everything.
Episode 289: That Hoffman Woman
Vicki and Carolyn talk about the weather, while Julia quietly takes over the show.
Episode 290: The Ancient Truce
Something in the studio catches on fire during the show, and they keep the scene going. Seriously, that actually happens. It’s amazing.
Episode 291: The Alchemist
In a brilliant plot twist, Dr. Julia Hoffman offers Barnabas both a material and a spiritual release from the vampire curse. This involves “purging the arterial system” and other make-believe science phrases.
Episode 292: I Know Who’s Dead
Julia lies to Woodard, Sarah tells David that Maggie isn’t dead, and Vicki falls in love with a house. It’s less complicated than it sounds.
Episode 293: Untouched
Vicki is going to keep telling rich guys about this house that she likes until one of them finally buys it for her. This is a surprisingly successful strategy.
Episode 294: House Party
Vicki and her two suitors walk around “the house” and talk about “the past”. Meanwhile, the spirit of a girl who died in the 18th century breaks Maggie out of an insane asylum. It’s a weird show, is what I’m saying.
Episode 295: Nothing But Lies
The thrililng development today is that the show is now broadcast in beautiful, muddy, low-definition color. Today’s episode includes little cups of things, a one-sided telephone conversation and a prescription-strength medallion.
Episode 296: United Stakes
Julia keeps lying to everyone, and then lights a cigarette off one of Barnabas’ candleabras. Julia is a rock star.
Episode 297: The Honest Truth
Sarah visits Maggie, and demands her doll back.
Episode 298: Dread Alert
Carolyn, Liz and Burke shuffle around an empty house, and then Julia comes in and lies to everybody again.
Episode 299: A Human Life
Julia is in love with Barnabas, but Barnabas wastes his time standing in the moonlight with somebody else.
Episode 300: The Other Woman
Boring, boring, boring, Julia scene, boring, boring.
Episode 301: Burke Devlin Must Die
Barnabas talks like a Bond villain, and disputes Burke’s similes.
Episode 302: The Serpent
Barnabas and Julia spend a quiet evening at home, chasing each other around the living room and asking difficult questions.
Episode 303: The Back of My Mind
Burke and Dr. Woodard review the case, again.
Episode 304: Scooby-Doo Must Die
Burke stands behind a tree all night, watching the Old House. Then he goes around and asks people if they think Barnabas is a bit odd.
Episode 305: Paranormal Activity
David takes a shortcut through a Chromakey forest, on his way to a playdate at the crypt.
Episode 306: Out of Order
Sarah brings David to the secret room in the mausoleum, for no particular reason except to set up a story point for later this week.
Episode 307: Total Recall
Everybody sits around in the Blue Whale and does an epic recap of the last two months of the show.
Episode 308: In Circles
Sam and Joe try to investigate what’s happened to Maggie, and then Julia lies to everybody.
Episode 309: The Finger of Suspicion
It’s the last day for writer Malcolm Marmorstein, and he’s cooked up something special for us.
September 1967
Episode 310: Ghostbusted
David looks into his crystal ball to find out where Sarah is. It turns out she’s in the last place he saw her anyway.
Episode 311: A Tomb of One’s Own
Young man, you are giong to get trapped in that secret room, and you’re going to stay there, whether it makes sense or not.
Episode 312: Search Party
David is missing, last seen looking for Sarah. Barnabas doesn’t take the news very well.
Episode 313: Old Friends
David’s still locked up in a dark room, but there are lots of other things to look at today.
Episode 314: A Logical Explanation
Joe, Dr. Woodard and Maggie all believe that there’s got to be a logical explanation for all of this.
Episode 315: Between Sentiment and Survival
The main character of an increasingly popular daytime television show decides to murder a ten-year-old child.
Episode 316: The Big Bad
Barnabas thinks that David knows that Barnabas is a vampire, but he doesn’t, although David does know that Barnabas thinks David knows more than he’s saying that he knows, which he does.
Episode 317: The X-Files
Sam and Dr. Woodard are still walking around and asking questions, like there’s any chance that they will ever learn anything.
Episode 318: Interesting Times
Barnabas impulsively strangles Julia, and finds out that “secret panel” does not necessarily mean “soundproof”.
Episode 319: This Maniac
Dr. Woodard has a plan to catch this madman that’s terrorizing the town. It’s not a good plan, naturally, but it’s nice to see him having fun.
Episode 320: This Means Your Life
David has a Chromakey nightmare, while Julia and Willie try, once again, to talk Barnabas out of killing somebody.
Episode 321: What We Talk About When We Talk About Ghosts
It’s Monday, which means that Barnabas has had the whole weekend to think things over, and he still has the same stupid plan.
Episode 322: To Bite or Not to Bite
Barnabas tries to figure out if Julia has actually written a letter, or if she’s just lying again.
Episode 323: Fire at Will
Guess who ends up with five bullets in the back.
Episode 324: The Wrong Man
We don’t have a vampire on the show today, but we have the next best thing: an oil painting.
Episode 325: The Spirited Child
David looks at Barnabas’ portrait, and freaks the hell out. Then Barnabas comes into his bedroom and shows him a knife.
Episode 326: A Time Like This
This post includes the following: goldfish, Nazis, Nick and Nora, The City on the Edge of Forever, butter-colored pillowcases, German Expressionism, and the line “This is just an ordinary medallion.”
Episode 327: David vs the Goldfish People
The story of a young boy cursed with the ability to remember things for more than five seconds.
Episode 328: Look! A Ring!
Once again, the slow progress of Barnabas’ moral development skids off the highway and into a tree.
Episode 329: Willie Loomis Must Die
Julia has to decide whether to kill Willie by removing his IV, or by smoking in his hospital room.
Episode 330: Twenty-two Minutes
An examination of the five basic types of Dark Shadows cliffhangers.
October 1967
Episode 331: Bat’s Entertainment
Roger and Barnabas’ scene is one of those good old-fashioned slow-motion disasters that make watching Dark Shadows such an invigorating experience.
Episode 332: Safe? Safe!
Barnabas and Julia do another improv strangling scene, and Sarah breaks the sound effect rules.
Episode 333: Those Meddling Kids
The Scooby gang drives the Mystery Machine over to the Old House. It doesn’t go that well.
Episode 334: All Those Dead People
If the internet had existed in October 1967, then #nuBurkeFail would be trending this week.
Episode 335: The Shadow He Casts
A psychiatrist explains to us that the entire show is a metaphor for itself.
Episode 336: Talk Show
Dr. Woodard channels Art Linkletter, and discovers that ghost kids say the darnedest things.
Episode 337: Time to Kill
Dr. Woodard is the undisputed front-runner for America’s Next Vampire Victim.
Episode 338: Think Like a Woman
A critique of what Barnabas offers right now as a potential life partner, namely: strangling and fretting.
Episode 339: The End of Everything
Dr. Woodard sneaks into Julia’s room and spends pretty much the entire episode looking for her notebook.
Episode 340: Dave Woodard Must Die
Dr. Woodard has opened up another box.
Episode 341: The Night of the Doctor
Barnabas and Julia kill Dr. Woodard. Sorry, I should have said spoiler alert.
Episode 342: Shadow of the Bat
Baffling scenes featuring people wearing baffling outfits.
Episode 343: The Apparatus
Julia cranks up the mad science, and Barnabas tries to get a love triangle going.
Episode 344: Haunted
Everyone is worried about David.
Episode 345: Rest in Pieces
Vicki gets some bad news about Burke.
Episode 346: The Shipping News
We take a look at the purpose of “love” in an open-ended narrative. Also: why you can’t send Julia to the farm.
Episode 347: Mad Science
Julia says it’s too early for the vampire cure, but Barnabas insists they go ahead with it. What could possibly go wrong?
Episode 348: Mission Accomplished
Barnabas and Julia fire up the apparatus for another round of mad science.
Episode 349: Secret Aging Man
Barnabas has been a human for, like, ten seconds, and all he can do is complain.
Episode 350: Grumpy Old Man
If Barnabas wants to look young again, then he needs to drink somebody’s blood. Two candidates present themselves.
Episode 351: The Grateful Dead
Carolyn has a post-biting exit interview.
Episode 352: Disturbed Children
It’s Halloween 1967, and Carolyn celebrates by waking David up early and telling him lies.
November 1967
Episode 353: The “I Have a Dream” Speech
Carolyn is suspicious that Julia’s been hypnotizing Vicki on the sly.
Episode 354: Haunted House of Cards
Julia hypnotizes Vicki again, and leads her all the way over to the Old House basement and back. I don’t know why she can’t do all of these in one trip.
Episode 355: Julia Hoffman Must Die
Barnabas decides that he has to kill Julia… eventually.
Episode 356: Beat the Clock
Julia has an entire mansion full of hiding places, but she decides to hide her notebook in the middle of Collinwood’s busiest transportation hub.
Episode 357: When Worlds Collide
There’s a new writer on the show, and he’s brought a friend.
Episode 358: Boy Meets Ghoul
A sailor suit, a first date, a hypodermic needle and the secret magic number of the universe.
Episode 359: Love and Death
This episode poses the crucial etiquette problem: How crazy can a house guest be, before you start carelessly leaving train schedules around, and talking about how nice it is in Boston at this time of year?
Episode 360: Crazy Lady on the Loose
The people of Collinsport are living their lives in peace, until: sudden-onset crazy lady.
Episode 361: The One Where Julia Loses Her Mind
I can’t view this episode objectively, so I call in backup.
Episode 362: The Day After
This is the thing about Julia: she goes to eleven. And she doesn’t even work her way up to it — today, she starts at eleven, and builds from there. Twelve is an option.
Episode 363: Anyone But You
The vampire, the doctor, the lawyer, the governess, the niece and the little boy who talks to dead people. For months, they’ve been scrambling around each other, and it’s time to bring this era of the show to a close.
Episode 364: Boom Goes the Dynamite
Barnabas thinks that everything will be fine, now that Sarah’s come back. He needs to transition out of that idea in a hurry.
Episode 365: Closing Time
The Collins family has a problem, and once again, there’s only one thing to do: hold a seance, and talk to the dead.
Episode 366: The Phantom Menace
Victoria Winters begins a strange and terrifying journey into the past, which will redefine the show and reboot the main characters.
Episode 367: Making History
Vicki wakes up from a strange dream, and finds out that it’s true: she really is stuck in 1795, and everyone hates her.
Episode 368/369: A Wicked Woman
Here comes trouble: Angelique arrives at the Old House, and nothing will ever be the same.
Time Travel, part 1: Mist Opportunities
A pre-emption Thanksgiving special! We travel through time to 1991, to watch the first episode of the Dark Shadows revival.
Episode 370: A Woman Scorned
Angelique is angry, and you know what that means. It’s a bad day to be a toy soldier.
Episode 371: Damn the Torpedoes
Vicki tries to figure out how time travel works. This is not a typical soap opera question.
Episode 372: Another Country
Angelique casts a spell on Ben Stokes, forcing him to work for her. Now the guy has two bosses that he can’t stand.
Episode 373: The Devil Wears Prada
It’s Ben’s first day on the job, and Angelique has some ambitious first-quarter objectives. Also: Hat parties.
Episode 374: The Wedding Presence
Ben stands by as Angelique delivers another spontaneous TED talk about how awesome she is.
December 1967
Episode 375: Dangerous Liaisons
Angelique stage-manages Josette and Jeremiah’s infidelity.
Episode 376: Card Tricks
The story’s stuck in neutral for a day, so Natalie busts out the tarot cards as a plot accelerator.
Episode 377: Speed Dating
Love is in the air, as Josette and Jeremiah are drawn together by a spell, and Nathan falls head over heels for Millicent’s money.
Episode 378: Resistance Is Useful
Angelique turns Joshua into a cat. This episode has something for everyone, especially people who like deeply goofy television shows.
Episode 379: Nine Lives to Live
Nathan comes on to Vicki, and Joshua is still a cat.
Episode 380: Something Borrowed
Barnabas and Josette have a traditional soap opera wedding.
Episode 381: Runaway Bride
As Barnabas is searching in the woods for Josette and Jeremiah, he runs across some black box experimental theater.
Episode 382: A Witch in Time
Abigail is sure that there’s something strange about the cat, and there’s something strange about Vicki. She is one hundred percent correct.
Episode 383: The Newlywed Game
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in toasting the happy couple, as they enjoy their first and only dance as Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah Collins.
Episode 384: Life After Love
Barnabas has a duel with Jeremiah, and he asks the big question that blows the whole family to pieces.
Episode 385: The End of History
Reverend Trask accuses Vicki of being a witch, and then he just stands there and hollers at her for the rest of the episode.
Episode 386: Make Like a Tree
Reverend Trask lies Vicki to a tree and leaves her there. I know, it sounds crazy, but let’s see where he’s going with this.
Episode 387: Truth or Dare
Angelique and Reverend Trask get along like a house on fire. Have you ever seen a house that’s on fire?
Episode 388: The Bad Ideas
Barnabas has a lot of feelings about Josette and Jeremiah’s marriage. Angelique is probably not the best person to share them with.
Episode 389: It’s Complicated
Angelique is disappointed with Barnabas again, and when she has hurt feelings, she tends to say it with voodoo.
Episode 390/391: The Princess
Barnabas tries to weasel out of his promise to marry Angelique.
Time Travel, part 2: Blood, Sweat and Tears
A pre-emption Christmas special! We travel through time to 1991, to watch the second episode of the Dark Shadows revival. The sun shines all night, subtext is dead, and I finally explain the real reason why Dan Curtis made House of Dark Shadows.
Episode 392: Christmas Stalking
“Fear not! For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all my people.”
Episode 393: Tell Them We Are Rising
There’s still 10 months until George Romero invents zombies — so what’s that crawling out of Jeremiah’s grave?
Episode 394: Rules of Engagement
Angelique can make the dead rise from their graves, she can speak a word and stop a man’s heart — but nobody can deal with Abigail.
Episode 395: Cleaning House
The best thing about 1795 is that there’s no shortage of yelling.
January 1968
Episode 396: Dialogue of the Dead
Angelique woke up Zombie Jeremiah, and now he can’t get back to sleep.
Episode 397: Lord of the Flies
Angelique is still being haunted by Z-Jay.
Episode 398: No Rest for the Wicked
Special guest blogger Charlie Mason gets all up in Angelique’s face.
Episode 399: Hide and Seek
We spend a whole episode looking for Vicki, and when they get up to her room, she isn’t even there. Typical.
Episode 400: Playing with Fire
Angelique and Reverend Trask just go ahead and burn down the whole damn show.
Episode 401: Bewitched
Darrin wonders what life would be like if he and Angelique had never met.
Episode 402: Plan A
Barnabas decides that the best way to deal with his problems is to poison his wife’s sherry.
Episode 403: But I Loved You, and Other Excuses
Barnabas is holding a knife to Angelique, and she’s still doing a sales pitch.
Episode 404: Oh My God, Vicki Is an Idiot
Vicki has been accused of witchcraft, and she’s not super equipped to defend herself. Featuring a special appearance by the Worst Actor Who Ever Appeared on Dark Shadows.
Episode 405: Ever After
It’s Curse Day! Barnabas shoots Angelique, and she curses him with eternal life.
Episode 406: Unbreak My Heart
Ben walks into the Old House, and finds both of his employers bleeding out on the carpet.
Episode 407: Bram Stoker’s I Love Lucy
Put-upon Angelique struggles with those stubborn post-murder-attempt bloodstains, and then who should come along but her mother-in-law!
Episode 408: A Compromising Physician
Another medical school dropout makes a haunted house call.
Episode 409: Spoilers
Josette and Natalie get their hands on an episode guide.
Episode 410: Nightfall
But first, on earth as vampire sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent: Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race.
Episode 411: Other People’s Blood
We open the mystery box once again, and something terrible is loosed upon the world.
Episode 412: You’ve Got to Believe Me
Vicki is being tried according to the producers of soap opera justice, which means that everybody has to say everything they think out loud, until someone starts to cry and then the trial is over.
Episode 413: The New Black
Sarah runs out of the house in her pajamas, and runs all the way to the Eagle Hill cemetery, which is apparently in her front yard.
Episode 414: That Thing You Do
Barnabas goes down to the docks for a bite to eat. It’s been a rough week for the women of Collinsport.
Episode 415: Closing the Loop
As we start today’s episode, Sarah Collins is alive. Stay tuned for more updates on this developing situation.
Episode 416: Stone Cold
Another day, another funeral, plus a vampire suicide pact. Call me crazy, but I think the show has become a little morbid lately.
Episode 417: Too Soon
This is the second of three straight Sproat scripts, and it’s getting me down. Featuring the return of our old friend, the Convenient Rooster.
Episode 418: A Dark and Stormy Night (Varney the Vampire, part 1)
I can’t take another episode by Ron Sproat, so i go to my emergency backup plan — the landmark 1840s vampire penny dreadful, Varney the Vampire.
February 1968
Episode 419: Lose My Number
Josette gets clingy, and I explain why Twilight is the worst story in the world.
Episode 420: The Stalking Dead
A hat walks in, and under the hat is Suki Forbes.
Episode 421: Bird Planes
Josette wakes up with a song in her heart, and a brand-new neck wound.
Episode 422: Confining Women
Ron Sproat finds another excuse to lock a woman in a room. He should probably try to develop other interests.
Episode 423: Twisted
What Dark Shadows lacks in romance, it makes up for in lunatic plot contrivances. Here are several of them, in a row.
Episode 424: Pursued By a Bear
It’s absolute chaos around here, with subplots just ricocheting all over the place.
Episode 425: Jump Street
Josette takes a flying leap.
Episode 426: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
The royal family thinks they’re so great, but the B-story walks away with today’s episode.
Episode 427: Disorder in the Court
Hear ye, hear ye! The Collinsport Imaginary Witchcraft Court is now in session.
Episode 428: Duel It Yourself
Featuring an explanation of why soap operas can’t do a decent murder mystery storyline.
Episode 429: Destruction, Everywhere
Dark Shadows single-handedly invents slash fiction, plus: Barnabas comes up with his very worst idea ever.
Episode 430: Dark Conquest
At a certain point, either your show is going to do a two-part episode at Disney World or it’s not.
Episode 431: The Catcher in the Rye
Barnabas Collins, the eternal moody adolescent, moves back into his parents’ basement.
Episode 432: The Age of Kaiju
We’ve spent three months investigating Barnabas’ past. What’s his future going to be?
Episode 433: Law of the Jungle
It turns out that some TV shows know how to do trial scenes, and some just don’t.
Episode 434: Down Our Throats
Nathan lied. You want to know why. That question doesn’t get more interesting just because you’ve moved to the other side of the room.
Episode 435: Next Stop Kansas
This is the third trial episode in a row. I think it’s time for Dorothy to wrap things up and head back home.
Episode 436: Quivering with Emotion (Varney the Vampire, part 2)
I get a day release from witchcraft jail.
Episode 437: There’s Just Us
She’s female, she’s in a stressful situation, she’s expressing how she feels, and it’s 1968. What do you think happens next?
Episode 438: Drag Me to Hell
Barnabas opened up his Powers of Darkness membership kit, and found a bunch of new tricks for tormenting people he disapproves of.
Episode 439: Something About That Hate
It’s February 1968. The Beatles are going to India to study Transcendental Meditation. And yet the single most popular television show for young women is about a guy planning to assassinate a Reverend. How is that possible?
March 1968
Episode 440: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Vampires
Barnabas needs to learn one of the fundamental rules of crime: If you’re going to go out and attack people, leave your identifiable accessories at home.
Episode 441: Weekend at Maudie’s
The show goes from the ridiculous to the sublime — or, in this case, from the ridiculous to the even more ridiculous.
Episode 442: Cask Party
TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
Episode 443: Fan Club
I think the 1795 storyline is running out of characters. This episode is mostly just carrying props from one room to another.
Episode 444: Anatomy of a Speed Bump
They’ve got some time to fill, and unfortunately, they fill it with Noah Gifford, the world’s worst henchman.
Episode 445: Generation Gap
According to the rules of 1968, the kids should be spreading Love and Peace, and the aging tyrant should be closing his mind to the truth. But this is Dark Shadows, where the normal rules don’t apply.
Episode 446: The Son Also Rises
Joshua goes down to the basement, and finds Barnabas in his coffin. Let’s go out there and change some games.
Episode 447: My Family, and Other Crazed Animals
It’s day two of the Joshua/Barnabas conversation, with no end in sight.
Episode 448: Fight the Tower
We get some new architecture.
Episode 449: Something Nasty in the Woodshed
Rituals, locked rooms, vampire attacks and magical portraits — this episode has everything, except sense.
Episode 450: Scary Godmother
Her name is Bathia Mapes. Even that doesn’t make sense.
Episode 451: Exorcise in Futility
We now join this exorcism, already in progress.
Episode 452: The Great Escape
Oh, great! More of this.
Episode 453: Born to Run
Who’s up for a good old-fashioned teens on the run story?
Episode 454: Mission: Impossible
Vicki finally figures out that time is a thing.
Episode 455: Food and Medicine and a Plan
Vicki points a loaded gun at a ten-year-old for basically the entire episode.
Episode 456: An Illogical Explanation
It’s the final week in 1795, and the characters have moved into a new level of nonsensical behavior. There’s got to be an illogical explanation for all of this.
Episode 457: Misdirection
Today it’s Take Your Executive Producer to Work Day, as Dan Curtis tries directing an episode for the first time.
Episode 458: Don’t Love Me
Naomi takes a hit off her giant novelty margarita glass filled with poison lemonade.
Episode 459: Nathan Forbest Must Die
It’s time for a showdown.
Episode 460: Eats, Shoots and Leaves
We finally learn the true secret of the chained coffin, and it’s not what we expected.
April 1968
Episode 461: Leave Me Hanging
We come back to the present day, exactly where we left it four months ago. But how do we turn this broken storyline into a sustainable show?
Episode 462: No Place Like Home
The most important event in Dark Shadows since Barnabas climbed out of the mystery box: Julia gets a haircut.
Episode 463: Meanwhile, in the Past
We’ve got five female characters to mess with Barnabas, throwing him off balance in unpredictable ways. They’ve got him surrounded.
Episode 464: First Wife’s Club
Another lunatic joins the menagerie — the eccentric Professor Stokes.
Episode 465: The Best of All Possible Worlds
Q: Why doesn’t Barnabas remember Vicki from his past? A: What makes you think this is the same Barnabas?
Episode 466: Welcome to the Hellmouth
Barnabas and Vicki drive off the road, and into a whole new storyline. Introducing Dr. Eric Lang, played by the Worst Actor Who Ever Appeared on Dark Shadows.
Episode 467: Physician, **** Thyself
Dr. Lang chews on all of the available scenery.
Episode 468: The Odd Couple
Dr. Lang continues his reign of terror, taking a super creepy interest in Vicki.
Episode 469: Dr. No
Dr. Lang pretends that he’s smarter than Julia. There will be consequences.
Episode 470: Mad Men
It’s just Vicki and four guys today, each one nuttier than the last.
Episode 471: A Farewell to Arms
The post that answers the crucial question: Is Dark Shadows more like The Munsters, or The Addams Family?
Episode 472: Lethal Weapon
Barnabas and Julia finally have a conversation that isn’t about Barnabas and Julia. Also: a harpoon attack.
Episode 473: The Twin Dilemma
Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce to you the new Mrs. Collins.
Episode 474: You Only Live Twice
This isn’t the silliest thing that Angelique has done — she turned a dude into a cat last year, which is hard to beat — but it’s in the top three.
Episode 475: Witch Doctor
Professor Stokes is loud, and disruptive, and he plays to the balcony. Not this balcony, naturally; I mean the balcony in the theater next door.
Episode 476: Monster Mash
Dr. Lang offers Barnabas the opportunity of a lifetime. Two lifetimes, actually.
Episode 477: We’ve Warned You
Angelique introduces the next thrilling storyline: a Dream Curse!
Episode 478: What Dreams May Come
The Dream Curse begins!
Episode 479: Face/Off
So, okay. Jeff’s crotch. Let’s start there.
Episode 480: One More Life
This episode asks the crucial question: can Julia Hoffman be nerfed?
Episode 481: Remember Someone
There’s a high stakes, dramatic cliffhanger that can be resolved with three words, and Barnabas trips up on word two.
Episode 482: Witches Be Crazy
More fashion, more shouting, more acting, more rummaging, more dreaming, more doors and more neckties. Mostly it’s neckties.
May 1968
Episode 483: Free Willie
Barnabas and Julia rewrite some history.
Episode 484: Chekhov’s Gun
It’s time for another turn on the Dream Curse merry-go-round.
Episode 485: A Huge Naked Dead Guy
Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for — it’s Experiment Day!
Episode 486: If They Both Live
The experiment was an unbelievable success; now all they have to do is prepare their Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Episode 487: Precious Moments
A time-wasting episode about a bunch of characters who are worried that they’re wasting time.
Episode 488: Pretty People in Terrible Trouble
It’s time for another Great Moment in Monster Medicine.
Episode 489: Bein’ Green
Look out — David’s back, and he’s got a Nehru jacket.
Episode 490: What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Well, God’s domain isn’t going to tamper in itself.
Sam Hall: In appreciation
A tribute to Sam Hall, the greatest Dark Shadows writer.
Episode 491: The Wonder Years
So here they are, the New Normal: a vampire, his mad scientist gal pal and their very own Frankenchild.
Episode 492: The Terrible Twos
Barnabas and Julia face their first crisis as new parents.
Episode 493: Revenge of the Baby-Sat
Of course you don’t raise your children yourself. That’s what servants are for.
Episode 494: To Your Teeth (Varney the Vampire, part 3)
We take one more trip back to 1845, to witness the strange origins of vampire fiction.
Episode 495: The Talking Dead
Dark Shadows finally picks a side.
Episode 496: Father of the Year
Sometimes there’s just no logical reason why this set of people would even be talking to each other. This is why you don’t see a lot of jolly soap opera writers.
Episode 497: Frid’s Big Week
We follow Jonathan Frid on a week-long promotional trip to discover the true darkness at the heart of America. Specifically, the Glenbrook Shopping Mall.
Episode 498: Diff’rent Strokes
The four words that can topple civilizations: Barnabas has a plan.
Episode 499: A Senior Moment
Cassandra ages to a crisp.
Episode 500: Really Big Brother
Willie faces his greatest challenge: Babysitter of the Damned.
Episode 501: Say My Name
Barnabas, Barnabas, you’re not thinking. Oh, Barnabas! Let him disappear! Barnabas!
Episode 502: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Oh, like you’ve never had a weird first date.
Episode 503: Lock Her Up
Ron Sproat: Threat, or menace?
Episode 504: The Ladykiller
We take a break from the show to look at the Dark Shadows romance novels, which exist in their own unique bubble of lunacy.
Episode 505: The Sinking Detective
Police officers on Dark Shadows combine the inadequacy of soap opera cops with the inadequacy of monster movie cops. Observe the technique.
June 1968
Episode 506: After the Fall
Carolyn recovers from last week’s ordeal, just in time for this week’s ordeal.
Episode 507: The Spirit of St. George
I’m holding out for a hero.
Episode 508: Dream Beater
Professor Stokes exposes the Dream Curse story as the extended knock-knock joke that it really is.
Time Travel, part 3: Blood Chemistry
A pre-emption special, watching episode 3 of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival. Hot tentacles stretch upwards!
Episode 509: Blind Date
Sam transforms into a magical charity elf.
Episode 510: Some Enchanted Evening
When a visitor appears uneasy, you should automatically assume that he’s planning to murder you. That’s just basic hospitality.
Episode 511: Séance Fiction
Professor Stokes makes a very big mistake.
Episode 512: Everybody Rise
It’s Jonathan Frid’s worst nightmare: he’s chained up and can’t see the teleprompter.
Episode 513: Thirty Two Short Films About Episode 513
Try not to panic, Mr. Peterson. The dreadful fact of the matter is that something has gone wrong.
Episode 514: That Endless Summer
In which it is proven that Dark Shadows is more complicated than The Sopranos.
Episode 515: When Adam Attacks
Police are looking for a tall, dark man with a limited vocabulary and an even more limited wardrobe. But, hey — who isn’t?
Episode 516: The Unimmured
Barnabas has disappeared, lost in an extreme home makeover, but Julia and Willie come to the rescue of their former tormentor and new best friend.
Episode 517: Burn Notice
Cassandra is determined to wreck Elizabeth’s day, but the spirit of Reverend Trask is on the witch’s trail.
Episode 518: In Memoriam
A meditation on death, loss, renewal and teleprompters.
Episode 519: Ex Wife
Cassandra and Reverend Trask go head to head in a full-on kaiju battle.
Episode 520: What Dead People Do
Barnabas and Julia talk about Cassandra and Trask’s title bout like they’re doing a post-game wrap-up on ESPN, while Liz’s drinking problem catches up with her.
Episode 521: Look Who’s Talking
Barnabas and Julia play junior detectives again, on the trail of the missing Cassandra, while Professor Stokes home-schools a Frankenstein.
Episode 522: Brother From Another
Nicholas Blair walks onto the set, and takes over. Who the Hell is this guy?
Episode 523: The Devil You Know
Nicholas struts around, and puts Reverend Trask in his place.
Episode 524: Dead Man Walking
The Jeff/Vicki storyline is wrapped up in twenty-eight seconds. Then it’s unwrapped again.
July 1968
Episode 525: The Blair Witch Project
Nicholas calls upon all the dark forces of daytime television production to aid him in finding the missing Cassandra.
Episode 526: Nothing But Vengeance
Nicholas walked into the woods and turned a pile of ashes into a person, and now he’s doing a performance review. Nicholas is a baller.
Episode 527: Ride, Car, House.
A performance art piece in one act.
Episode 528: This Tawdry Affair
Nicholas and Cassandra have a strategy session, which turns into a film noir sequence straight out of The Maltese Falcon.
Episode 529: Missing Adventures
It’s time for adventure under the sea, with the first issue of Gold Key’s Dark Shadows comic book.
Episode 530: Requiem for a Dream
The Dream Curse storyline hurtles towards a spine-tingling conclusion. Not really.
Episode 531: The Interpretation of Dreams
The girl from the dream is dreaming again.
Episode 532/533: In Darkest Hour
Barnabas makes Cassandra an offer to end the Dream Curse, and I really want her to take him up on it.
Episode 534: The Scene of the Crime
Carolyn finds Adam hiding in the root cellar, killing time between sprees.
Episode 535: The Point of Return
Clinical notes of Dr. Julian Hoffman, ABC Daytime. Session recorded on June 28, 1968, for broadcast on July 12th.
Episode 536: Advance Directives
Barnabas Collins is dead, and Julia and Willie dare each other to drive a stake through his heart. Also: an important lesson about televisual literacy.
Episode 537: Life Without Barnabas
Julia and Willie face an existential dilemma in today’s tragicomedy, the Dark Shadows version of Waiting for Godot.
Episode 538: The Shaggy Dog
Julia buried Barnabas yesterday, and now she has to dig him up again. This is not a scaleable business plan.
Episode 539: Grieve a Little Grieve
Barnabas is dead (not really), and Nicholas comforts Vicki (not really).
Episode 540: Mission: Inscrutable
The writers have had the better part of three months to figure out what they were going to do with Angelique after the Dream Curse storyline. They have not used that time effectively.
Episode 541: Death of a MacGuffin
In which we discuss Dr. Lang’s tape recording, the Maltese Falcon, the Ark of the Covenant, and the champion of all MacGuffins — the pen.
Episode 542: The Diary of Anne Frankenstein
Is Adam a vicious monster, or a sensitive grad student?
Episode 543: The Trouble with Harry
An episode focused on Mrs. Johnson’s son Harry, who’s played by the least likeable actor in Dark Shadows history.
Episode 544: The Facts of Life
Adam tries out the Green-Skinned Space Babe maneuver on Carolyn, using a classic reverse-Kirk formation.
Episode 545: Teacher’s Pet
Nicholas Blair has a new project to work on, while Angelique gropes for something substantial to do.
Episode 546: A Little Bored
A discussion of why General Hospital and Dark Shadows are basically the same show.
Episode 547: Justice in Hell
Part 2 of the compare and contrast exercise between Dark Shadows and General Hospital.
Episode 548: Bleak Lives Matter
For his next trick, the Great Nicholas turns his lovely assistant Angelique into a prune.
August 1968
Episode 549: Take What You Want
Adam’s homeschooling curriculum takes a dark turn.
Episode 550: The Afternoon After
Carolyn is assaulted by Adam, and she turns to Professor Stokes to figure out what to do about it.
Episode 551: Cruel World
As Adam continues to dominate the storyline, we do a review of what Barnabas has been up to since Vicki came back from 1795.
Episode 552: Hooked on Phonics
Adam’s got new things to say, and a new vocabulary to say them with.
Episode 553: What Not to Do
Vicki’s trapped in Adam’s room, and so are we, apparently forever.
Episode 554: Fresh Blood
What do you do when America falls in love with your vampire show, and you don’t have a vampire anymore?
Episode 555: All Tied Up
Nicholas and Adam stand around in a dirty room and talk about what they’re going to do with a kidnapped governess.
Episode 556: Apotheosis
A good-looking Deputy meets a seductive lady vampire, as Dark Shadows figures out what it’s for.
Episode 557: A Race of Monsters
Barnabas and Julia take time out from a busy storyline for a Junior Detectives meeting.
Episode 558: The Long, Hot Summer
I finally get around to writing about the Civil Rights Movement, and its connection to The Bride of Frankenstein.
Episode 559: Everything You Deserve
Nicholas, Joe and Maggie are locked in battle, fighting over who’s the most interesting person in the scene.
Episode 560: Messing Around with Dead People
Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord.
Episode 561: The Big Sleep
Angelique lures Joe into her clutches, in yet another scene that reminds me of The Maltese Falcon.
Episode 562: He’s Just Not That Into Being Supernaturally Controlled By You
We examine the show’s new “pretty boy in peril” motif, as vampire Angelique turns Joe into a hunk of meat.
Episode 563: A Sense of Themselves
A list of 32 things that I like about this episode, in order of appearance, with a special focus on pretty boys in peril, and introducing Miss Beverly Atkinson.
Episode 564: Dig Dug
Barnabas, Julia and Willie have a family outing at the cemetery.
Episode 565: Weird Science
Barnabas and Julia argue about which storyline to care about.
Another New Beginning (Bloodlust)
An irresponsible troupe of time-travelers has been fooling around with the seals and sigils, recklessly summoning a fresh nightmare into our world.
Episode 566: The Hangover
Barnabas tries to figure out what’s happened to Julia, who’s the latest vampire victim.
Episode 567: The Show Goes On
Adam throws Jeff head-first onto a part of the set that you shouldn’t be thrown at, and I spend the rest of the episode wondering if he’s okay.
Episode 568: Do You Want Vicki to Die
Jeff finds the secret murder lab in the Old House basement, and winds up in an involuntary late-night job interview.
Episode 569: Liz Misérables
Elizabeth is cursed and Julia is vampire-bitten, so they organize an intramural spookiness competition.
Episode 570: Fridspeak Friday
Barnabas tracks down one of the rogue vampires in a particuarly error-prone episode.
The British Invasion (Bloodlust)
Here are some more thoughts about Big Finish’s new Dark Shadows audio drama, because I have some and you might as well hear about them.
September 1968
Episode 571: Raising the Stakes
Barnabas fights Tom in another unfortunate case of Drac-on-Drac violence.
Episode 572: Junior Detectives
Barnabas and Julia get to play their favorite game, as they investigate the spooky happenings at the House by the Sea.
Episode 573: This Strange Way That You’ve Been Behaving
Strung out on vampire feedings, Joe asks Maggie to help him kick the habit.
Episode 574: Trade Secrets
A look at the gum cards, which offered precious fragments of Dark Shadows’ life force for only five cents, plus a stick of bubble gum.
Episode 575: Crazy Talk
The show just goes nuts again, with vampires, Frankenstein monsters, time travelers and grave-robbers.
Episode 576: When They Think I’m Dead
Those scaredy-cats at CBS move The Secret Storm out of the 4:00pm timeslot, so that it doesn’t have to compete with the unstoppable ratings juggernaut that is Dark Shadows.
Episode 577: Artificial Intelligence
Carolyn doesn’t know what to do with Adam, and neither do the writers. Bad planning is kind of an epidemic around here.
Episode 578: The Understudy
Something terrible has happened to Carolyn.
Episode 579: Sproatinger’s Cat
It’s one of those episodes where Jeff’s in the basement talking to Barnabas about Vicki, and Vicki’s upstairs talking to Julia about Professor Stokes.
Episode 580: Temporary Sanity
Jeff is forced to help build another Frankenstein monster.
Episode 581: Light My Fire
It doesn’t look like a Frankenstein movie, and Lord knows it doesn’t look like a soap opera, so why does Angelique’s life force experiment look so familiar?
Episode 582: The Can’t Let Me Know What Scene
Barnabas wants an explanation.
Episode 583: Every Woman We Know
“I have decided,” Barnabas says, “the body who gives the life force will be…”
Episode 584: The Fugitives
Life in the Dark Shadows studio is even more fraught than usual; this is the one where they had to tape the dress rehearsal.
Episode 585: The War on Halloween
With the Bride of Frankenstein story dragging on, we ditch the show and spend the day playing the Dark Shadows board game.
Episode 586: The Invisible Woman
Adam tries to murder Vicki, without much success.
Episode 587: In Which I Just Can’t Even With This
How do you even begin to explain why a Frankenstein monster is playing a heated game of passive-aggressive solitaire while a vampire describes his victim selection process?
Episode 588: Maggie Evidence
Willie and Maggie are stuck in the mausoleum, reviewing old business.
Episode 589: In the Fewest Words Possible
Vicki tries to explain things to Roger, without much success.
13 Reasons Why You Should Buy “Bloodlust”
Explaining why Big Finish’s Dark Shadows audio drama miniseries should be a part of your life.
Episode 590: This Old House
The entire episode today is people arguing about whether they should go upstairs or downstairs.
Episode 591: The Sound of Science
Barnabas and Julia run the Bride of Frankenstein experiment all over again, this time with Carolyn in the lead role.
October 1968
Episode 592: And the Walls Fell Down
Adam tries to tuck Carolyn’s life force back inside her body, but it’s like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. It’s a one-way street.
Episode 593: Missing Persons
Adam is on his way to massacre the entire family. Springing into action, Barnabas drinks a glass of water.
Episode 594: Weak Shoddy Adversary
Nicholas summons the most evil woman in history to be the Bride’s life force, and uses the Satanic power of anagrams to cover his tracks.
Episode 595: Electric Ladyland
Julia flips some switches, twiddles some knobs, and brings Adam’s mate to life.
Episode 596: The Spook Fortress
Eve opens her eyes — the experiment is a success! — but Professor Stokes has a disturbing newsflash from the refrigerator door.
Episode 597: The Three Faces of Eve
Professor Stokes is suspicious of Eve, but she refuses to answer his questions; she just stands around looking unhinged.
Episode 598: The Great Sproat Caper
Carolyn, David and Professor Stokes are caught up in a whirlwind of post-plot development retcons.
Episode 599: Live, Die, Repeat
Maggie escapes from the mausoleum, and the show makes a mad dash for the reset button.
Episode 600: The Mate That Fate Had Me Created For
Eve resents Nicholas’ plan for her and Adam, because she’s awesome, while Barnabas, Julia and Stokes hold a seance, because ditto.
Episode 601: The Last Days of Ron Sproat
There’s chaos on screen and off, as Dan Curtis, Ron Sproat and Sam Hall play tug-of-war with the show.
Episode 602: The Neuralyzer
Nicholas stabs a table, watches TV on his smartmirror, plays a prank on Jeff and generally acts like a boss.
Episode 603: Television Without Pity
Roger smashes Elizabeth’s toy mausoleum.
Episode 604: The Sedating Game
Elizabeth dies temporarily, and everybody gets all uptight about it.
Episode 605: The Crazy World
We take another side trip into 1968 pop culture, with a one-hit wonder wearing a flaming hat.
Episode 606: The Late Mrs. Collins
It’s Barnabas’ worst nightmare — his ex-wife wants to get back together.
Episode 607: In a World of Turtlenecks
Adam, Joe, Tom and Jeff are displayed on a sacrificial altar, as Julia performs the ritual that ends the tyranny of turtlenecks forever.
Episode 608: You Are My Someone
Angelique summons Barnabas, her new blood slave, and orders him to dispose of the guy he’s replaced.
Episode 609: Nobody Understands Dark Shadows But Me
Eve tries to remember why she knows about seasons.
Episode 610: Inexplicable You
Eve recognizes Jeff as Peter Bradford, who she loved in the 18th century, apparently.
Episode 611: The Love Object
Eve comes over to give Jeff a good stalking-to.
Episode 612: Reflections on the Golden Eye
The Saturday Evening Post explains Dark Shadows to America.
Episode 613: Joe Haskell Must Die
Julia catches Barnabas in the act of feeding Joe poison, and Barnabas explains that he didn’t realize what time it was.
Episode 614: Curtains, Foiled Again
It’s Halloween 1968, and the young children of America are watching a half-naked Joe throttle Barnabas with a rope.
November 1968
Episode 615: The Truth About Cats and Dogs
Sheriff Patterson’s investigation hits a dead end as usual, but Julia makes a startling discovery that leads into the third act of the 1968 saga.
Episode 616: The Great 1968 Wrap-Up
Barnabas is buried in the earth again, as Ron Sproat kicks off a new phase of narrative house-cleaning.
Episode 617: Roger to the Rescue
Roger catches Jeff and Eve having an intimate moment in the garden, and Jeff touches his face a lot. Not Roger’s face, his own face.
Episode 618: Stop Trying
Angelique’s planning to turn Barnabas into a vampire, like she ever does anything else.
Episode 619: The Gunslinger
Julia walks right up to the Devil, pokes him in the eye, and then asks why he’s being such a dick about it.
Episode 620: Sets and Violence
Vicki brings Barnabas to the one place where nobody will ever find them — the west wing of Collinwood.
Episode 621: Better Than Medicine
Julia wants to save Barnabas from Angelique and make the story more interesting, not necessarily in that order, and Nicholas is determined to be no help at all.
Episode 622: Heated Arguments on Somebody Else’s Lawn
You think that you’re seeing two noisy women in gowns, standing outside somebody else’s house and arguing about reincarnation and time travel. You think that this is something that was written and filmed by grown-ups, and then broadcast on ABC television at four o’clock in the afternoon. But it isn’t real.
Episode 623: This Is Happening
Eve travels back in time to 1795, because she is crazy and reckless and there is no excuse for her behavior.
Episode 624: Lost and Foundling
Vicki and Liz prepare for a traditional, sentimental soap opera wedding, which means that they are utterly doomed.
Episode 625: Cold Feet
Before we get to Vicki and Jeff’s wedding ceremony, there are just a couple questions that we need to ask.
Episode 626: The Amazing New Phenomenon
Jeff digs up his own casket, and then decides it’s time to skip town.
Episode 627: Bad Moon Rising
The Great 1968 Wrap-Up puts on a new burst of speed, as Dark Shadows ushers one cast member out the door, and lets a new one walk right on in.
Episode 628: Horrible Bosses
Angelique descends into the underworld, to tell the Devil that Nicholas is being totally mean to her.
Episode 629: In Many Somber Colors
And now: the Dark Shadows View-Master set is proud to present the craziest show on Earth, in three dimensions.
Episode 630: Vicki Ruins Everything
The part of Victoria Winters will be played by Miss Betsy Durkin, whether you like it or not.
Episode 631: The Goat
Is the new Vicki really a bad recast, or is there another reason why Dark Shadows fans don’t like her?
Episode 632: The Owl, the Raven and the Bat
Dark Shadows goes just about as crazy as they possibly can, presenting a Black Mass wedding ceremony, which is interrupted by a werewolf kill.
Episode 633/634: All Our Dead Have Turned Into Skeletons
You say you want a revolution?
Time Travel, part 4: I Was Just Noticing Your Harpoon Collection
Another Dark Shadows pre-emption Thanksgiving special! We watch episode 4 of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival, which is the one with all the lady fire demons.
Episode 635: One Damned Thing After Another
It’s Adam’s last stand, and he goes out the way that we always knew he would, in a hail of bullets, shouting and sedatives.
December 1968
Episode 636: The Missing Link
So whatever happened to Adam, anyway?
Episode 637: Bury Me a Little
After Jeff marries Vicki, he’s tugged back into the past by a mysterious “They”. Who are They, and what do They want?
Episode 638: Win a Date with Jonathan Frid
Fall ’68: The fourth estate takes notice of Dark Shadows, and Jonathan Frid is offered up as a contest prize.
Episode 639: Vampire Excites Wives, Young Set
Homeless badass Amy Jennings busts out of an asylum in the middle of the night, and makes a beeline for the biggest house she can find. Plus: an introduction to Danny, age 14.
Episode 640: Bad Wolf
Chris Jennings is a handsome and charming bad boy with a heart of gold and a secret sorrow. He’s also a serial killer, but only occasionally.
Episode 641: Left Behind
A week of ghost stories begins with Vicki clutching a broken wristwatch, and trying to commune with the spirit world.
Episode 642: Mind Over Manners
As Ghost Week ’68 continues, Professor Stokes leads a seance to contact Jeff, but they get a wrong number and end up contacting a different spirit.
Episode 643: Interceding with Oscar
No, they didn’t have a plan about Quentin and Chris and the werewolf curse. It’s Dark Shadows, they never have a plan.
Episode 644: Phoning It In
David and Amy spend the entire day locked in a room, which means they’re still letting Ron Sproat write episodes.
Episode 645: Spirited Away
Everybody says that the Quentin’s ghost storyline is based on The Turn of the Screw, but, as sometimes happens, everybody is misinformed.
Episode 646: The Turning
Quentin Collins appears on Dark Shadows for 42 seconds, and the show will never be the same.
Episode 647: The Wire
David sets a trap for his father, as the first step in Quentin’s descendant extermination program.
Episode 648: Astral Disturbances
Freelance eccentric Madame Findley investigates the strange goings-on at Collinwood, using spirit guides, psychic readings, and extravagant hand gestures.
Episode 649: The Rise and Fall
Madame Janet Findley: The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
Episode 650: Happily Ever Before
Victoria Winters makes a wish on a wristwatch, and it comes true, just in time for a happy ending.
X1: Barnabas Goes to the Circus
I’m away this week, so to tide you over, I’m presenting some odd little things that I can’t fit into a regular post. Today: two short stories from The World of Dark Shadows.
X2: Everything That Julia Says in Episode 361, in Alphabetical Order
If you’ve always wanted to see everything that Julia says in episode 361, in alphabetical order — today is your lucky day.
X3: Barnabas Collins and the Poetry Slam
A very literary entry today, as we study and catalogue the three major schools of Dark Shadows poetry.
X4: An Uncertain and Frightening Journey
I use a Markov chain text generator to create the perfect Dark Shadows opening narration.
X5: That Troublesome Problem
Today, we answer burning questions, like what’s up with Sarah and London Bridge, what happened to Tony, and how did Barnabas get injured in a car accident.
Episode 651: Mother’s Little Helper
Julia’s dispensing sedatives right and left, as Liz gets gloomy and Chris tries to hide from the full moon.
Episode 652/653: Kill the Moon
Chris transforms into a savage beast, saving the audience from being buried alive under Elizabeth’s depression.
Time Travel, part 5: Consider Rhoda
It’s another Dark Shadows pre-emption Christmas special, where we discuss The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Obviously.
Episode 654: Half-Hour of the Wolf
Joe fights off a brutal werewolf attack with a pair of scissors and a reckless disregard for the young set. We make a quick list of what’s so great about werewolves, and then the guys all take their shirts off.
Episode 655: Accidentally Yours
An introduction to a new supporting character, Barnabas the butler.
Episode 656: Unspooky
David and Amy participate in the least spooky “spooky kid” routine in history.
Episode 657: The Unpacking
David and Amy try to trick the grown-ups into thinking that their actually haunted house is actually haunted.
January 1969
Episode 658: Did He Fall, or Was He Pushed?
Saying goodbye to Joel Crothers, as Joe gets packed off to Windcliff.
Episode 659: Gone Girl
Once again, Victoria Winters follows her prime directive, causing as much damage to space-time as she possibly can. We take the opportunity to consider some important questions about ghosts, and orphans, and plane crashes, and the true meaning of “time bomb”.
Episode 660: The Secret to Time
Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes stand around and argue about how time works, in an extremely Dark Shadows-y episode of Dark Shadows.
Episode 661: Greatest Hits
In a graveyard, Barnabas tells Julia the story of the time Dark Shadows tried to make a clip show.
Episode 662: This Is the Night
Barnabas uses his magical vampire powers to travel back to 1796, where he meets an old enemy and a new friend.
Episode 663: Being This Way Again
Barnabas takes some time out for a bite, as the writers figure out what they’ve done wrong, and where they want to go next.
Episode 664: Sproat’s Last Stand
The good writers take time off to figure out what they’re going to do with the show, leaving Ron Sproat behind to babysit.
Episode 665: Vicki Ruins Everything (Reprise)
Vicki and Peter finally get their happy ending, leaving Barnabas and the audience stranded in the wrong century.
Episode 666: The Second Coming
Julia and Willie bring Barnabas back from the past, by clapping their hands and wishing really, really hard.
Episode 667: Take the Actors, Please
A TV Guide critic watches a week of Dark Shadows, and writes a review. Unfortunately, it’s not one of the good weeks.
Episode 668: The Aristocrats
David and Amy dress up in other people’s clothes, and nobody has a single interesting thing to say about it.
Episode 669: My Boyfriend’s Back
Mrs. Johnson cleans up the caretaker’s cottage, and Quentin Collins finally shows up for work again.
Episode 670: Small World
Chris moves into the caretaker’s cottage, which is far away from other people, but maybe not quite far enough.
Episode 671: The Phone Book of the Dead
Liz has been lying in a coffin for three weeks, which obviously means that she knows everything that’s going on. Also, the werewolf does his famous mirror routine.
Episode 672: Werewolf By Night
The wolf man stalks his girlfriend through the woods until she reaches the tomb of her mostly-dead mother, and then all Hell breaks loose.
Episode 673: The Shambles
Barnabas and Julia grab all the weapons they can find, and go out looking for trouble.
Episode 674: Donna of the Dead
Handsome, moody serial killer Chris Jennings is caught in an awkward social situation that can only be resolved in pain and blood.
Episode 675: The Unscooby Gang
Barnabas and Julia travel around, protecting the monsters from those meddling kids.
Episode 676: Murder Club
Barnabas invites Chris to join Murder Club, his social network for monsters who kill people because sometimes you just can’t help it.
Episode 677: Lycanthropology
Dr. Hoffman catches up on some back issues of the Journal of Werewolf Medicine.
Episode 678: Chris Jennings Must Die
Chris has been poisoned, and Barnabas and Julia are on the scene. It’s not really a whodunnit; it’s more of a whythehelldunnit.
Episode 679: The Not Happening
Amy tries to blow the whistle on the haunted-house story, but she runs into a couple of unfortunate speed bumps.
Episode 680: The Room
We take time out from the ghost story to look at all the cool stuff David has in his bedroom. Seriously, that’s we’re doing today.
February 1969
Episode 681: Could He Talk?
It’s time for Quentin to stop skulking in the shadows, and take his place as a major character. Is he ready?
Episode 682: The Four Maggies
Maggie turning into Vicki is not the problem. Dark Shadows actually has four Maggies, and most of them are Vicki.
Episode 683: The Very Last Ron Sproat Episode
We reach another crucial turning point in the Dark Shadows history — the day writer Ron Sproat finally leaves the show, and leaves my life.
Episode 684: Barnabas Collins and the Mysterious Ghost
A new era of Dark Shadows begins, as they always do, with Barnabas Collins opening up a mystery box.
Episode 685: A Fish Called Ezra
There’s miscommunications and mistaken identities as Dark Shadows discovers the second most important thing about Quentin.
X1: What Does Barnabas Say After He Bites a Girl?
I have to go away this week for a conference, so instead of episodes, I’m going to post excerpts from Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein. I apologize in advance.
X2: Why Did Barnabas Become a Vampire?
Another sampling of jokes from Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein. This post has a lot of jokes about blood banks. I’m trying to think of how that could sound enticing.
X3: What Does Barnabas Use in His Coffee?
It’s day 3 of our continuing coverage of Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein. Today there are some jokes about Wolfman, if that sweetens the pot.
X4: Does Barnabas Ever Drink Milk?
In today’s look at Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein, Barnabas breaks free from the Dark Shadows aesthetic, and basically becomes a one-man Addams Family.
X5: Why Did Barnabas Sell Fangs for a Dollar?
We conclude our week-long examination of 1969 novelty joke book Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein with the most brain-scrambling jokes ever written.
Episode 686: The Case of the Lifted Ledger
Another stranger has expired in the Collinwood drawing room, and the Junior Detectives swing into action.
Episode 687: You Remind Me of a Man
A new friend shows up at Collinwood, with an old face.
Episode 688: Mostly Charmless
Time stands still for a series of awkward social encounters, as Barnabas, Julia and Maggie try to cope with another in the series of tedious Roger Davis characters.
Episode 689: The First Theremin Era
It’s time for a hot new single to drop: “The Barnabas Theme from Dark Shadows (An ABC TV Network Series)”.
Episode 690: Laugh Like a Man
“Boys just don’t like jigsaw puzzles,” and other thoughts from the haunted house.
Episode 691: The Bechdel Test
The final phase of the Siege of Collinwood begins, as Quentin openly declares war on the family. They don’t take it well.
Episode 692: The New Mischief
Maggie falls in love with Barnabas, David and Amy are possessed by demons, and Collinwood falls under the sway of one of the Beatles, probably George Harrison, in the Paperback Library novel Barnabas Collins Versus the Warlock.
Episode 693: Sticks and Stokes
Professor Stokes leads an exorcism of Collinwood, to cast out the spirit of Quentin Collins and save a young boy’s life. It is a huge success.
Episode 694: The Surrender
For the first time in two centuries, the Collins family has abandoned Collinwood, leaving it to the mad, the cruel and the aimlessly eccentric.
Episode 695: Exile
Quentin’s ghost has taken over Collinwood, and the living Collinses are all living elsewhere.
Episode 696: House Hunters
Quentin’s ghost has taken hostages, and Barnabas and Willie mount a rescue attempt, armed with nothing but flashlights and good intentions.
Episode 697: The Young and the Restless
The ghost of Quentin Collins is dressing up the inhabitants of Collinwood and playing with them, and the good guys have no idea what’s going on.
Episode 698: Sister Act
Ned Stuart is going to help his sister Sabrina recover from a werewolf attack, even if he has to rub his face all over her to do it.
Episode 699: The Player
In the dying days of a fading storyline, it’s time for a ritual to bring about a rebirth for the show, with some help from Jim Morrison and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Episode 700: I Ching the Body Electric
Professor Stokes introduces the iChing, Apple’s new disruptive divination technology.
March 1969
Episode 701: The Most Important Thing About Quentin
Eccentric millionaire Barnabas Collins takes an astral trip to the late 19th, where mad gypsies plan a jewel heist, Young Danny falls in love, and we meet a surprising black sheep named Quentin.
Episode 702: The Vampire Strikes Back
Barnabas makes a new friend, Jamison gets a new boat, and Quentin starts recruiting new employees by strangling people.
Episode 703: The Problem of Beth
The Barnabas/Julia chemistry works even when Julia wears brown makeup and pretends to be someone else, while the Quentin/Beth story sputters on the launchpad.
Episode 704: It Just So Happens
Quentin grabs a sword off the wall and threatens to kill Barnabas, which is the Collins family’s way of saying “nice to meet you”.
Episode 705: Prisoners of Emily Post
Judith interrupts one of Quentin’s murder attempts for the second time in two days, and Barnabas gets some long-overdue face time with Edith.
Episode 706: The Cliffhung
Trapped in 1897, Barnabas meets more members of the Collins family, each one nuttier than the last.
Episode 707: Another Jane
Another governess arrives at another house, filled with romance and furniture and terrible secrets.
Episode 708: Will Power
Engaged in a high-stakes deep cover operation in the 1890s, Barnabas antagonizes Edward, Magda, Jamison, Quentin and anybody else who happens by.
Episode 709: Forget You
Barnabas explains to Quentin that a spirit with unfinished business can linger to haunt a house, which is one hundred and eighty degrees counterproductive.
Episode 710: Been Caught Stealing
All Quentin did was steal his grandmother’s will, and now everybody’s being a total jerk about it.
Episode 711: Let’s Twist Again
Quentin and Evan summon Angelique out of the fireplace, and back onto the show where she belongs.
Episode 712: The Neverending Story
Angelique claws her way back to the surface world, just in time to see Barnabas hand another music box to the latest iteration of Josette.
Episode 713: The Staff Meeting
In this episode, Barnabas shares all of his secrets with Magda and involves her in all of his plans, which means that they’re friends now and she’s basically Julia.
Episode 714: Inherit the Win
The foundations of the great estate tremble, as Edith throws a golden apple into the middle of the drawing room and makes her grandchildren fight for it.
Episode 715: The Secret of the Mysterious Clue
Rachel tries to get into the tower room, because she’s a cross between Jane Eyre and Nancy Drew, in a love triangle with Count Dracula and Abigail from The Crucible.
Extra: An Interview with Violet Welles
An extra Sunday treat — the full 1991 interview with writer Violet Welles from The World of Dark Shadows, offering an amazing backstage glimpse into the lunatic life of a Dark Shadows writer.
Episode 716: The Generation Gap
Barnabas Collins finally appears on prime time, although it’s not really the Barnabas from Dark Shadows as much as the Barnabas from Barnabas Collins In a Funny Vein.
Episode 717: Mommy Weirdest
The Bride of Frankenstein camp diva femme fatale is back as Mad Jenny Collins, armed with a pair of scissors and looking for trouble.
Episode 718: Other Than My Wife
Angelique reads the episode guide aloud, Quentin calls on Baal out of the blue, and Magda completes her transition to Julia with a wig on. Plus, the first appearance of a new cast member: slow doorknob.
Episode 719: Haunt You
Magda tells Quentin that he’s going to be stabbed with a knife in two days by a woman whose name begins with J, but she probably says that to everybody.
Episode 720: Halfway
The blog reaches the halfway point on this strange and terrifying journey through Dark Shadows, and to celebrate, we’re reading another issue of the Gold Key comic book: “The Fires of Darkness”!
Episode 721: Dead Again
The late Quentin Collins is on the floor and covered in gore, while other characters stand nearby and deliver about sixty percent of their dialogue.
Episode 722: Uncle Deadly
Quentin’s nearest and dearest mourn their loss in the only way they know how — by shouting, and playing records.
April 1969
Episode 723: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Vampires
Quentin is back from the dead, just like every other soap opera character ever.
Episode 724: Exquisite Corpse
Zombie Quentin picks up the governess and carries her away, which it turns out is not actually a thing that zombies do.
Episode 725: The Unrest
Zombie Quentin goes back to the graveyard and passes out, which is another thing that zombies don’t do.
Episode 726: The Comeback
Reverend Trask puts Quentin’s spirit back where it belongs, just in time for Quentin and Barnabas to have another passionate discussion about their relationship.
Episode 727: Nick and Jane
Here they are, doing a simple time travel prequel to The Turn of the Screw starring Count Dracula, when Reverend Trask busts in, and brings two other novels with him.
Episode 728: The Pacer
Quentin comes back to life, and Barnabas bites a new victim, and Nora draws hieroglyphics, and nobody explains anything.
Episode 729: Good Night
Edward and Beth have a secret, Nora has a bad dream, and nobody has anything interesting to say.
Episode 730: How I Met Your Mother
An exploration of the uncanny similarities between Laura Collins and The Tomb of the Cybermen.
Episode 731: Mrs. Burns
Laura was sacrificed on a burning pyre by the fire priests of Alexandria, and now she’s standing in the drawing room. This raises an important question, namely: what the hell is a fire priest?
Episode 732: Rules of Engagement
Barnabas finds Angelique standing over Quentin, who’s out cold on the carpet and on the borderline of death. Angelique sees this as a romantic opportunity.
Episode 733: Pretty People Are the Devil’s Playthings
Minerva Trask shows up at Collinwood, with a new shipment of backstory for Rachel.
Episode 734: The Tragedy of Tim
Don Briscoe reappears on the show as the deeply unromantic Tim Shaw, which means it’s time for our backstage guessing game: Did He Fall, or Was He Pushed?
Episode 735: The Punishment Book
Laura lights a candle, while Reverend Trask curses the darkness.
Episode 736: All About That Vase
Quentin finds the magic urn and douses the eternal flame, as New Jersey Network picks up the check and the Third Year begins.
Episode 737: The Sacred Bull
The flame in Laura’s magic urn has gone out, but instead of dying like a normal person, she attaches herself to a passing groundskeeper and asks the Sun God for a miracle.
Episode 738: The Little Games
Quentin tries to explain to Jamison why killing his mother seemed like a good idea at the time. It doesn’t go that well.
Episode 739: Another Weird Afternoon
Barnabas sees an old flame, Angelique offers dating advice, and Reverend Trask sees many things.
Episode 740: Local Parlor Tricks
Barnabas carries an oil painting around, so he can spring it on people as a surprise.
Episode 741: Lunch Date with Destiny
Barnabas wants some information from Quentin, and Quentin responds the only way he knows how: by flirting outrageously.
Episode 742: Home Alone
Special guest star Joe Lidster writes today’s post, and tells the truth about truth-hugs, smirking, and what happens when all the adults go out for the evening.
Episode 743: Stand Next to Barnabas
It’s date night for Quentin and Barnabas, and they play their first round of Junior Detectives.
May 1969
Episode 744: Crazy Little Thing
Jenny’s on the loose again, and she’s taking advantage of Collinwood’s most plentiful natural resource: murder weapons.
Episode 745: Rendezvous at the OK Corral
Quentin and Beth have a romantic moment at gunpoint, and Magda makes a shocking, ridiculous and wonderful discovery.
Episode 746: The Love Lives of Unhappy People
Magda has a plan to save Jenny and solve everybody’s problems, so naturally she needs to be stopped at all costs.
Episode 747: Die Laughing
Barnabas and Judith come up with a plan to capture Jenny, and we ask the crucial question: Why can’t Quentin take anything seriously?
Episode 748: The Misunderstanding
Poor little rich boy Quentin Collins has spent the last week telling everybody that he’s going to murder Jenny. Then he murders her, and all of a sudden he didn’t mean to do it.
Episode 749: The Big Break
In which David Selby is discovered by 16 Magazine, and is haunted forevermore.
Episode 750: Gypsy Ascendant
Magda puts a curse on Quentin, and then stands back to enjoy the ensuing carnage.
Episode 751: Day of the Dorcas
There’s a new monster loose on the great estate of Collinwood, hunting for redshirts.
Episode 752: The One Where Evan Ruins the Carpet
Quentin comes back home after a long night, with a headache and a ripped-up shirt and no idea what happened. Everybody blames the gypsies.
Episode 753: Dog Days
Jamison’s locked in a closet and Beth takes refuge in a pentagram, as the werewolf runs around in the woods looking for a midnight snack.
Episode 754: The Hunger Games
Edward struggles to cope with Barnabas, this lunatic in a cape who thinks he can beat up werewolves.
Episode 755: This Means War
Laura decides that she has a new made-up deadline for when she’s going to burn up her children, and it’s “soon”. This is not soon enough.
Episode 756: I Know You Are But What Am I
Laura and Barnabas have a schoolyard battle over somebody’s diary, making mutual vows to destroy each other.
Episode 757: Drunk HIstory
Angelique pulls together her skilled team of drunk kaiju operatives to rescue Barnabas.
Episode 758: Give Me the Strength to Crush My Enemy
Quentin and Angelique call upon Ra, Sutekh and the Mara to fight the phoenix, while Young Danny has an awkward moment at home.
Episode 759: Kill Me Maybe
Angelique dies in a fire, for almost seventeen minutes this time.
Episode 760: Light Fuse and Get Away
Barnabas issues baffling instructions, Edward bristles his mustache, and Laura’s pilot light finally goes out.
Episode 761: After School
Barnabas deliberately pokes holes in Edward’s belief barrier, and troubled teen Quentin has an afterschool moment.
Episode 762: Dark Shadows’ Agents of THEY
A chance remark offers new insights into They, the dark and shadowy organization manipulating events from behind the scenes. Who was the old lady in Providence? What was Paul Stoddard really doing on his last night at Collinwood? And why does Charity Trask have blue eyes?
Episode 763: The One Where Magda Finds Out
The werewolf story snaps into focus with one more devastating twist.
Episode 764: Straight Outta Collinsport
Barnabas, Julia and Quentin travel to far-off places, as we listen to two recent Big Finish audio plays, and try to figure out whether Dark Shadowsness is portable.
Episode 765: Rabbit Season
Barnabas and Magda go werewolf hunting. This must be one of those extreme sports you hear about.
June 1969
Episode 766: You Have to Admit She’s Got a Point
Quentin makes one of the classic blunders: never get involved in a land war in Asia, and don’t mess with Dorcas Trilling.
Episode 767: Elegy for David C
Dr. Julian Hoffman offers some dream analysis, as Jamison wakes up with a fantastic idea for half a poem.
Episode 768: Number One with a Bullet
Barnabas and Quentin argue, as Jonathan and David make their long-playing dreams come true.
Episode 769: Crazy Ex-Boyfriend
Dirk Wilkins puts on a one-man show about revenge, secrets and little pulsing things.
Episode 770: Clockwork
Barnabas, Jamison, Edward and Beth walk back and forth between Collinwood and the Old House, spreading confusion and panic everywhere they go.
Episode 771: The Mentalist
Carl interrupts the vampire hunt to introduce Pansy Faye, his unsuitable Cockney chorus girl fiancee, direct from Blandings Castle.
Episode 772: Nothing Lasts
We take a moment to note the passing of Star Trek, which was cancelled in June 1969 and never heard from again.
Episode 773: The Persecution and Assassination of Minerva Trask as Performed by Tim Shaw Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade
Tim watches calmly, with an amused smile on his face, as the woman he’s murdered struggles for a last painful breath.
Episode 774: What’s Up Dirk
Freshman vampire Dirk tears through the supporting cast like a buzzsaw; he must be the hungriest vampire in history.
Episode 775: The Winner
It’s Dirk vs Barnabas in an all-out battle for the title of coolest vampire on the show. Luckily, Barnabas has a plan.
Episode 776: Blood Sports
After dominating the show last week, vampire Dirk makes three fatal mistakes, all of them staffing related.
Episode 777: All Points
Updates from the 1897 police blotter.
Episode 778: Pocket Full of Kryptonite
Magda comes back from her field trip to visit the King of the Gypsies with a wonderful treasure that will solve everything: a mystery box!
Episode 779: Blood and Thunder
Barnabas thinks everyone is Josette, Angelique announces a deadline, and Quentin passes his final initiation into Murder Club.
Episode 780: The Establishment Vampire
Barnabas is currently being hunted by villagers wielding torches and pitchforks, but don’t worry! He has a plan.
Episode 781: The Hunt
Reverend Trask learns how to not catch a vampire, in nine easy lessons.
Episode 782: Don’t Leave Home
We check in with the Paperback Library again for book 14, Barnabas Collins and Quentin’s Demon. It’s the first book to include Quentin, plus there’s a waltz, a dead bat, a fat police chief and a long series of socially awkward meals.
Episode 783: A Helping Hand
Barnabas and Magda huddle in a cave, trying to persuade a magical severed hand to fly across town and heal the sick.
Episode 784: Things People Say When They’ve Run Out of Sensible Things to Say
Well, your psychic abilities seem to have failed you!
Episode 785: We Interrupt This Program
Judith has some news for her brothers that’s so startling, it temporarily turns Dark Shadows back into a soap opera.
Episode 786: The Blog Post About The Original Music From Dark Shadows with The Robert Cobert Orchestra & Featuring Jonathan (Barnabas) Frid and David (Quentin) Selby
The Dark Shadows soundtrack album drops, and it’s full of vampire brainwashing fantasies, dramatic stings, poetry, percussion, werewolf attacks, and fanservice for the desperate housewives.
July 1969
Episode 787: The Dog Pound
Barnabas gets caught trying to spring the wolf man out of jail, plus somebody stole his magical hand. It’s a bad night for Murder Club.
Episode 788: Mrs-taken Identity
Judith is haunted by the first Mrs. Trask, who doesn’t let being dead get in the way of her crackpot revenge schemes.
Episode 789: My Wife and My Dead Wife
Worried about the possibility of Minerva’s ghost haunting Collinwood, Evan and Trask make a brilliant plan: conjure up a decoy ghost!
Episode 790: A Tale Told
We check out another writer’s take on the current storyline.
Episode 791: Sign the Paper
As Judith prepares for her summer vacation, we do some storyline forensics work to determine what happened to the original plan for 1897.
Episode 792: Dances with Wolves
Just as Quentin thinks he has the upper Hand, in walks Aristede and his Dancing Girl.
Episode 793: The Puppeteer
Faced with the problem of kick-starting an extended storyline, the writers do what they always do under these circumstances: they summon Angelique.
Episode 794: Victor and the Wolf
A mysterious stranger comes to town. He’s more mysterious than anything we’ve seen before, and a hell of a lot stranger.
Episode 795: The Pits
As Quentin is strapped to a table, we consider the question of what the hell Edgar Allen Poe was talking about that whole time.
Episode 796: Death and Taxes
Obviously, Quentin isn’t going to die under that swinging pendulum, so we’re free to look at something important, like Barnabas and Angelique talking about their feelings.
Episode 797: Meanwhile, in the Present
Desperate to save Quentin from fulfilling an oncoming prophecy of doom, Barnabas hatches a plan so baffling that even a Dark Shadows fan can’t explain it.
Episode 798: Everyone You Love Must Die
We mourn the passing of Sandor Rakosi in the only appropriate way for a soap audience, namely: enjoying the funeral.
Episode 799: When Halloween Decorations Ruled the World
Magda thinks that she can solve everything with a hatchet and a fireplace, but the Legendary Hand has ideas of its own.
Episode 800: Sitting in a Tree
There is only one thing in the world worse than being written about, and that is not being written about.
Time Travel, part 6: One Giant Leap
As Apollo 11 reaches the moon, we watch another episode of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival, and try to figure out why the show fizzled on the launchpad.
Episode 801/802: You’re a Crook, Captain Hook
The wolf man and the gypsy witch unmask a mad god from a fairy tale kingdom that nobody knows how to spell.
Episode 803: What Fresh Hell
Edward returns from a hard day at work, and into a hard day at home.
Episode 804: The Other Puppeteer
Young Jamison Petofi pulls the strings and makes the puppets dance, for a hand-picked audience of brand new grown-ups.
Episode 805: It’s In His Kiss
Big Finish producer Joe Lidster appears in my fireplace, so we can watch an episode of Dark Shadows together and talk about cocktails, Cockneys, kisses and the terrible dangers of playing Scrabble alone.
Episode 806: FML
Jamison is possessed, Charity is annoying Quentin, and Reverend Trask is haunted by a thunderstorm that isn’t there.
Episode 807: Dickens Without Poor People
Quentin’s portrait changes into a werewolf, as seen in The Picture of Dorian Gray and its many action-adventure cliffhangers.
Episode 808: Twisting
Count Petofi, the true hero of the show, comes up with a whole new set of plot points to explore.
Episode 809: Twice Burned
Charity figures out that Quentin is the werewolf, just so that Count Petofi can stroll onto the set and fix all of Quentin’s problems.
August 1969
Episode 810: The Most Dangerous Game
As the show gets darker and more murdery, the Milton Bradley Company offers a different kind of Dark Shadows experience.
Episode 811: Deadbeat Dad
Lenore is ill, and Quentin rushes to her aid, because obviously he is the world’s most devoted father.
Episode 812: While You Were Out
Tim Shaw comes back to town, with a new girl that he picked up on Broadway.
Episode 813: Happy Haunts
Meanwhile, in the other spooky old mansion of the American imagination, 999 restless spirits open their creaky doors and invite us in.
Episode 814: Another Thing Coming
There’s thunder and lightning and a child’s life at stake — as Barnabas, Quentin and Aristede await the birth of a Bond villain.
Episode 815: The Time Television
With Count Petofi’s legendary hand back on the legendary wrist, he opens up his magic cupboard and invites Barnabas to watch Dark Shadows.
Episode 816: Midsummer
Count Petofi walks downstage, stares directly at the fourth wall, and shows us why it’s impossible to remake Dark Shadows.
Episode 817: A Night in Casablanca
The Amazing Count Petofi and His Magical Hand reveals the terrible secret at the heart of the 1897 storyline. Also featuring: a rare in-coffin conversation.
Time Travel, part 7: Here We Go Again
It’s another Dark Shadows pre-emption special, where we watch an episode of the 1991 revival and try to figure out what it all means. This time, Vicki’s been thrust back in time to the 18th century, to take another shot at rebooting the reboot.
Episode 818: The Green Light
We reach the final major turning point in the Dark Shadows story — the day that MGM greenlights House of Dark Shadows. This is not the good news that you might expect it to be.
Episode 819: War and Peace
As an Aquarian Exposition of Peace and Music breaks out on a dairy farm somewhere, Count Petofi waves his legendary hand and shows people visions of their own death.
Episode 820: The Hand Shakedown
The gypsies are looking for the legendary Hand of Count Petofi, so there’s only one thing to do: dig up a grave, and make a legendary decoy.
Episode 821: The Big Switch
Magda is brought to gypsy justice by King Johnny and his huge, partially-dressed companion Istvan.
Episode 822: A Giant Evil Force
We journey into the Second Dimension, to check in with the residents of trading-card Collinwood.
Episode 823/824: The Deadly Tambourine
Quentin comes up with another bright idea to free Barnabas from Petofi’s clutches, and it involves closing doors and opening windows and drinking brandy and looking at clocks.
Episode 825: The Watched Pot
Quentin’s plot goes off without a hitch, except that it’s a half hour late and somebody got poisoned.
Episode 826: Hungarian Crime Story
King Johnny Romana brings Magda to a tribunal, conducted before a jury of deceased killer pirate gypsies from Boston.
Episode 827: A Cloud of Bats
Barnabas appears and saves the day, by murdering somebody and then hosting a fashion show.
Episode 828: It’s My Skeleton
My friend Stephen Robinson joins me today, to watch Dark Shadows and talk about time travel, live theater, Vietnam, Abe Vigoda, and why everybody on the show is so stressed out at work.
Episode 829: Things That Happen When Count Petofi Isn’t Around
Everything goes entirely back to normal.
Episode 830: The Book I Wrote
The story of another impossible, time travelling book — my 1986 notebook of Dark Shadows synopses.
September 1969
Episode 831: Crash of the Kaiju
Five villains are left alone in Collinwood for the evening, so they try to kill each other with silver bullets and mind control and strangling and set design.
Episode 832: The Triangle Factory
It’s a good day for Quentin — he beats the curse, pisses off Trask, and racks up his third consecutive love triangle.
Episode 833: 3D Printing – The Early Years
The sinister Count Petofi accomplishes something that no other Dark Shadows character has ever done, namely: make a plan six weeks in advance.
Episode 834: The What’s-Thatters
A young heiress explores a haunted house with a pair of professional ghost-disturbers in the pilot episode for Dead of Night, Dan Curtis’ first attempt to bottle the Dark Shadows magic.
Episode 835: Meanwhile, in the Future
Meanwhile, Barnabas plans to go to the future to learn what he needs to prevent in the past, in order to save the present. He also writes a letter, and hides it in a desk for seventy years.
Episode 836: Murder, She Wrought
After six months, Barnabas still hasn’t fixed the Quentin’s ghost problem, so Julia finally steps in and takes over.
Episode 837: The Trip
Julia Hoffman opens up the doors of perception, expanding her mind and connecting her to all living things through the universal consciousness. She also travels back in time and meets some new cast members.
Episode 838: Just Shoot Me
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: the death of Quentin Collins, probably.
Episode 839: The Gods Laugh Sometimes
We finally get what we want — Barnabas, Julia and Quentin, all in the same room, with Angelique waiting back at Collinwood. This is the Dark Shadows best-case scenario.
Episode 840: The Grown-Ups
Count Petofi threatens to touch Julia’s face, Charles Delaware Tate smashes up the decor, and Romance Quentin writes checks he can’t cash.
Episode 841: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
Count Petofi throws the I Ching wands and opens the doors of perception, but his vibrations are bad, his head space is wrong and he’s got too many hang-ups.
Episode 842: Graduation Day
Julia walks away from a gunshot, invents a new theory of time travel, cures vampirism and gets all the funny lines.
Episode 843: I Can Make You a Man
Charles Delaware Tate spontaneously creates a human being out of thin air and graphite, but not one of the good ones.
Episode 844: Those Meddling Adults
Meanwhile, on Saturday mornings, a new creature is born. It has five heads and twelve legs, and it will run forever.
Episode 845: Barnabas Collins Must Die
He’s been asking for it.
Episode 846: Plan Meets World
The show’s main character is dead, so today we get a handful of secondary characters, arguing about who belongs in which storyline.
Episode 847: … And Carry On
An information management episode, where characters find out that Barnabas is dead, and start making plans for the afterlife.
Episode 848: Drawn to You
Quentin tells Amanda that he loves her. Then he meets the in-laws.
Episode 849: Here Today
Barnabas goes to Illinois to become a professional tennis player, Rachel gets shot and goes on safari, and Amanda’s headed for London. Doesn’t anybody show up for work anymore?
Episode 850: Proof of Your Perfidy
A full episode of Trask trash talk. You will see, Quentin. YOU WILL SEE!
Strange Paradise, Episode 1: Dry Ice Burns
We’re taking a week’s vacation from Dark Shadows to watch Strange Paradise, the 1969 Canadian knock-off that’s full of secrets and thunderstorms and portraits and mice, with a cameo appearance by literally the worst actress that you will ever see.
Strange Paradise, Episode 2: Crypt Kicker
Continuing our week trapped on the mysterious island of Strange Paradise, the whiny main character is possessed by the spirit of a guy who’s way more interesting than he is, and somehow that’s a problem.
Strange Paradise, Episode 3: Church and Estate
It’s day 3 of our special week watching the Canadian supernatural soap Strange Paradise, where we get a little old-time religion mixed with old-time soap tropes.
Strange Paradise, Episode 4: The Cryonic Woman
As our week with the continuing saga of Strange Paradise continues, we ask some pointed questions about plot development, cryogenic suspension, and the correct way to dispose of a malicious oil painting.
Strange Paradise, Episode 5: When Raxl Attacks
Our week with Strange Paradise concludes with a question that we never thought we’d ask: What Would Sproat Do?
Episode 851: Everybody Hates Quentin
Quentin goes six rounds with his enemies, otherwise known as the entire rest of the world.
Episode 852: Who’s Afraid of Violet Welles?
Two unhappy couples, on a collision course involving alcohol, insults and a quick round of Get the Guests.
Episode 853: Head Games
Three years in, Kathryn Leigh Scott finally finds her light.
Episode 854: Positively Like a Beatle
David Selby is taken to Baltimore, where he sits on a convertible and waves to the crowd, and thinks about what he’s doing with his life.
Episode 855: The Ring
Count Petofi is finally ready to reveal his master plan for Quentin Collins. Not today, obviously, but pretty soon.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 1: The Tortured Undead
I’m out of town for a couple weeks, so instead of regular episodes, we’re going to look at the Dark Shadows comic strip, which provides a chilling answer to the question: what happens to the Collins family, after the TV show is over?
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 2: A Forever Death
It’s day two of our special feature on the 1971 Dark Shadows comic strip, where we find Barnabas Collins vibrating, ominously.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 3: The Bite of Love
Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of nature and magic, seeks the resurrected soul of her husband Osiris, and you’ll never guess where she finds it.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 4: Ptainted Love
The Dark Shadows comic strip tells the classic boy-meets-ancient-Egyptian-goddess story, and Barnabas Collins takes a tour of Frids Through the Ages.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 5: Try to Forget
There’s a werewolf loose in the Dark Shadows comic strip, and we ask the crucial question: are Dark Shadows stories cursed?
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 6: The Thousand-Year War
Continuing our special feature on the 1971 Dark Shadows comic strip, we witness the return of a brand-new age-old archenemy.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 7: Swipe Left
Barnabas and Angelique team up to battle the forces of Evil, for some reason.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 8: The Ballad of Big Boy
A strange visitor arrives at the great estate of Collinwood, and threatens all who live there, even the pets.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 9: The Treachery of Images
The Dark Shadows comic strip killed the TV show, and now it’s coming for us. There’s only one thing to do: unwrite the comic strip, and make sure that it never exists.
Dark Shadows Comic Strip, part 10: The Do-Over
Our special feature on the Dark Shadows comic strip wraps up, with an impossible rewrite of a false history that never happened.
October 1969
Episode 856: The Switcheroo
Count Petofi reveals his stunning master plan, as Quentin changes his mind once again.
Episode 857: All Of Him
Quentin Collins and Count Petofi have swapped bodies, which raises the question: Aren’t they basically the same person anyway?
Episode 858: The Woman Who Wasn’t There
Quentin digs a hole, Angelique plans a wedding, and Julia shouts at the soundtrack, in an avant-garde reprise of fall 1968 story points, done right this time.
Episode 859: If I Were You
Dressed up in each other’s bodies after a particularly freaky Friday, Quentin Collins and Count Petofi learn what it’s like to see the world from the other guy’s point of view.
Episode 860: Mesa of Lost Women
Kitty Hampshire walks around, asking everybody why she feels drawn to things. They aren’t sure.
Episode 861: The Unvisited
Back from her summer vacation in the sanitarium, Judith Collins walks straight into a full-fledged Time War.
Episode 862: Z-Jay
For two centuries, the unresting spirit of Jeremiah Collins has been haunting the great estate, and it’s not working out. Where does he go from here?
Episode 863: Sin and Sincerity
Judith’s come home from the nuthatch, which means trouble for Trask, in a well-loved plot twist of a kind that Dark Shadows doesn’t really do anymore.
Episode 864: Down the Hatch
Angelique opens up a trap door in the world, and enters a mysterious netherspace where people build brick walls in the middle of caves.
Episode 865: Things People Say While They’re Waiting for Barnabas to Come Back from Vacation
“I’m just trying to point out the absurdity of it all!”
Episode 866: The Briar Patch
Count Petofi locks Angelique up in a cave, and tells her every single thing that he knows.
Episode 867: Nothing Up My Sleeve
Barnabas Collins, in a cave, in a coffin, with a stake through his heart. And all you have to do is Find the Vampire…
Episode 868: A New Man
A storm-tossed Frid washes up on the shores of a doctor’s office, with the same old face and a fishy new backstory.
Episode 869: Schrodinger’s Vampire
What happens when Schrodinger opens the mystery box, and the cat refuses to play along?
Episode 870: The Collapsing Cat
There’s box Barnabas and bed Barnabas, a quantum superposition that refuses to resolve. Who’s going to help us pull reality back into shape?
Episode 871: Give Me Back My Talent
Four weeks into an insanely accelerated production schedule, the Dark Shadows crew fantasizes about making duplicates of themselves, to do all the extra work.
Episode 872: Tick Tock
Count Petofi’s got the portrait, the suitcase, the map, the money and the 49th hexagram, and he’s ready to head for the future. What could go wrong?
Episode 873: The Violent Majority
Supernatural serial killer Barnabas Collins visits another great estate, to frighten underprivileged children at Tricia Nixon’s Halloween party.
Episode 874: The Rape of Kitty Soames
All Josette wants is for Kitty to stop existing, so that Josette can have sex with her brother-in-law, using Kitty’s body. Is that really too much to ask?
Episode 875: Switchback
Quentin Collins goes back where he came from.
November 1969
Episode 876: The Curse of the Caffeinated
As the villains of 1897 settle their differences in the Thunderdome, we check in with comic book Barnabas, who’s tussling with his usual foe, an Angry Person from the Past.
Episode 877: The Killing Club
Still overstressed with an accelerated production schedule, Dark Shadows indulges in another workplace fantasy: killing your staff.
Episode 878: Flight of the Conquered
Beetle-browed undead chain-wielding maniac Garth Blackwood stomps onto the set, establishing a new standard for daytime television.
Episode 879: Old Business
Aristede’s in the bedroom with a revolver, Judith’s in the parlor with the poison, and Tim’s in the west wing with a trowel and a pile of bricks. Someone should probably check the conservatory for loose candlesticks and lead pipes.
Episode 880: The Further Adventures of Other People
With the 1897 cast dropping like flies, we take another look at some recent Big Finish audios, to see what happens to the Dark Shadows characters that manage to survive.
Episode 881: Sunny Day
A new suspect emerges in the “Who Killed Dark Shadows” murder mystery game. He’s eight foot two, yellow, and he doesn’t know how to count.
Episode 882: The Don’t Sleepover
The alert goes out — Quentin’s in trouble! — and all his little woodland friends rush to his aid.
Episode 883: The Tate Murders
The reign of Count Petofi ends in fire and vengeance and pain, right on schedule.
Episode 884: Widow’s Hell
The 1897 storyline concludes with the traditional parade of ruined lives, as the widows and orphans sift through the ashes, trying to find some kind of peace.
Episode 885: Not in Canvas Anymore
Barnabas goes even more back in time than he already was, and tries to stop an unstoppable tragedy.
Episode 886: The Sacrifice
Dark Shadows cleans house as we prepare for the dawn of a new lunatic scheme, adapting an H.P. Lovecraft story of unseen cosmic horrors for a daily television soap opera.
Episode 887: Whatever Comes Next
Barnabas falls in with a gang of gloomy grad students, Julia hears voices, Carolyn’s skirt declares war, and a man walks around wearing shoes. This is the new storyline.
Episode 888: Little Shop
Carolyn and Julia visit the new antique shop, and meet a friendly couple who just arrived from the uncanny valley.
Episode 889: It’s From the Past
They’ve turned Barnabas evil again, and he perpetrates the most fiendish of soap opera crimes: resisting a recap.
Episode 890: The Curious Belief
Barnabas leads them through the mysteries that will make them respond.
Time Travel, part 8: She’s Me
It’s a pre-emption day, so we watch another episode of the 1991 revival series. In this episode, the epic tragedy gets even more epically tragic, as a team of new writers struggles to fix the dreadful mistakes of the past.
Episode 891: Curious People
Two reckless antiquers find the perfect object to complete their stockpile of hazardous material.
Episode 892: Welcome to Dunwich
The Leviathans had countless centuries to decide on a couple of Chosen Ones, and they landed on Megan and Philip. How do you account for something like that?
Time Travel, part 9: Frequent Flyers
It’s the second pre-emption special of the week, watching another episode of the 1991 revival series. This one is about witch hunters and zombies and diaries and eyebrows, and ends with the welcome return of an old friend.
Episode 893: The Night of the Big Lie
Carolyn Stoddard meets her father for the first time, and it turns out Dark Shadows is a soap opera after all.
December 1969
Episode 894/895: Love of Chair
Barnabas reveals that he’s the secret boss of the Leviathan people, and then re-reveals it, and re-re-reveals it.
Episode 896: Help Wanted
After two weeks, the global Leviathan conspiracy is falling to pieces, so they turn to the only person who can help them: a thirteen-year-old shoplifter.
Episode 897: You’re the Worst
Megan Todd sits alone in the antique shop for five minutes, jumping at noises and ruining the show.
Episode 898: Executive Child
Megan and Philip are on the verge of destroying each other when they suddenly get a new supervisor, just in the nick of time.
Episode 899: The Fam Dram
With cosmic tentacle monsters waiting in the wings, the Stoddard family makes their case for Dark Shadows as a soap opera.
Your Lies and Spells (Blood & Fire)
Big Finish sends Angelique back in time to destroy Dark Shadows, just in time for the 50th anniversary.
Episode 900: The Long Con
Barnabas presents Paul Stoddard with his final notice of payment due, in the sequence that makes the Leviathan story worthwhile.
Episode 901: Sympathy for the Devil
The 1960s ends abruptly during a Rolling Stones concert, an event which offers an ominous warning about the future of Dark Shadows.
Episode 902: Bringing Up Baby
Another excerpt from Child Rearing for the Criminally Insane, by Dr. Spock, Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Phibes.
Episode 903: Sentences Taken at Random from H.P. Lovecraft Stories That I Have Not Read
The thing must have happened at about three-thirty in the afternoon…
Episode 904: Watching the Detectives
Elizabeth knows too much about the unseen horrors menacing her family, and there’s only one thing to do. Cue the dream sequence!
Episode 905: Waiting for Quentin
Quentin kept us waiting for three weeks, and when he finally shows up on set, he gets knocked unconscious and forgets who he is. This is not the appropriate team spirit.
Episode 906: Little Caesar
A new kid blows into town, calls himself Alexander. He’s got plans for Carolyn, big plans, and that means Paul Stoddard is through. Savvy?
Episode 907: Barnabas v Julia: Dawn of Justice
Barnabas and Julia are on the outs; he refuses to participate in her storylines, and goes off to have scenes with other people. This is intolerable.
Episode 908: Jim Henson’s Gaslight Babies
Miniature mob boss Alexander visits Collinwood for a playdate with a broken man.
Episode 909: Another Alias
Julia tries to get Quentin to remember that he’s Quentin, or at least participate actively in the process.
Episode 910: Epistemology of the Portrait
We offer a critical analysis of the structured binary opposition between the signifiers “Quentin Collins” and “Grant Douglas”.
Episode 911: Is a Joke
Julia sneaks Public Enemy #1 into Collinwood, for a discussion about time travel and how it doesn’t work.
Episode 912: Blink
Barnabas Collins and Julia Hoffman have an intense, dramatic confrontation over who’s going to get a glass of water.
Time Travel, part 10: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
It’s another Christmas pre-emption special, in which the 1991 revival disappears, once again, up Ben Cross’ nose.
Episode 913/914: Death and Taxidermy
The Leviathan child has another growth spurt, adopting the new identity of a spoiled rich kid in a sweater.
Episode 915: The Walkback
The Leviathan story is tanking, so the producers throw together an emergency episode that retcons the last six weeks and still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Episode 916: The One of Us
The Leviathans are dropping in the polls, so they make a desperate pitch to the public: “What do you have to lose?”
Episode 917: The Spoon
Paul Stoddard patiently explains exactly what’s been going on.
January 1970
Time Travel, part 11: Trial’s an Error
It’s New Year’s 1970, and we ring in the new decade with another installment of the 1991 revival show. In today’s episode, time-twisted Victoria Winters is on trial for her life, while Barnabas stands outside and makes animal noises.
Episode 918: Too Big to Fail
The Leviathans scheme to get rid of Julia, for the third time this week.
Episode 919/920/921: The New Neighbors
A new soap opera appears on ABC’s daytime schedule, and heads are gonna roll.
Episode 922: To My Fans, the Audience
Paperback Library offers an intimate look at Jonathan Frid, at work and at play, in Barnabas Collins: A Personal Picture Album.
Episode 923: Probably Her
Quentin’s thirteen-month storyline comes to a shattering climax that he doesn’t realize is actually happening.
Episode 924: Pretty Woman
Can Angelique find happiness as the wife of another multi-millionaire?
Episode 925: The Wolf of Wall Street
Michael comes over for a play date, and discovers the real purpose of board games.
Episode 926: The Shark, and How to Jump It
A pretty girl is trapped in a secret room that doesn’t exist, while a monster that isn’t there tells her not to be afraid.
Episode 927: A Limited Number of Tomorrows
And meanwhile, in 1986, New Jersey Network cancels Dark Shadows, and it is ruined and gone forever.
Episode 928: Another Day in the Uncanny Valley
Michael dies, Megan cries, Philip whines, and Mrs. Hutchins talks to her parakeet.
Episode 929: Les Disposables
Everybody says that the problem with the Leviathan story is that Barnabas is evil, so now he’s not evil anymore. This fixes everything.
Episode 930: Man with Feelings
The Dark Shadows writers sell their new storyline pivot the only way they know how: with facial expressions, backacting and thinks.
Episode 931: MPOV
In which we ask the question: Does a television show have to involve things that you can actually see on television?
Episode 932: The Gates of Heck
Quentin gives Amanda a locket to forget him by, and she responds by jumping off a bridge.
Episode 933: King Kong vs Godzilla
Quentin and Amanda pick their way through the treacherous netherworld underneath ABC Studio 16, as Paul Stoddard shudders to a stop.
Episode 934: The Pet Detective
Another unstoppable monster commits another unspeakable murder, and Julia Hoffman calls the police. What is she thinking?
Episode 935: The Monster at the End of This Week
Jeb Hawkes, the dark angel of Altamont, says: Please allow me to introduce myself.
Episode 936: The Dynamics
A man is dead, and this time, we’re actually allowed to have some feelings about it.
Episode 937: The Predator
Jeb makes an enemies list, which includes his supporters. We cannot allow this man to become president.
Episode 938: The Dunwich Cuckoo
Barnabas finally tells Julia exactly what didn’t happen at the end of 1897.
Episode 939: My Father’s Killer
In which a zombie rises from the grave to witness an unsuccessful marriage proposal.
Episode 940: Those Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Give an Ascot
The new handsome alpha monster has arrived, and Quentin Collins struggles to stay relevant.
February 1970
Episode 941: When Something Happens
Jeb and Barnabas try to figure out where everybody is.
Episode 942: A Vast White Ring Conspiracy
You caused something to happen to me! Why?
Episode 943: From Within
Maggie is missing again, which means everybody needs to walk in circles and talk to police officers over the phone.
Episode 944: Essence and Intelligence and Werewolves
Another chapter in the aeons-old war between the ancient slime gods and their sworn enemies, the werewolves. Seriously.
Episode 945: My Sweet, Sweet Moves
Jeb Hawkes shows us how to treat a lady.
Episode 946: Universal Monsters
We take another trip to Paperback Collinwood, to see if the spinoff novels can do anything useful with Barnabas, Quentin, Maggie and a slow-burning supernatural threat.
Episode 947: A Helping Hound
A werewolf is battling a space octopus in the living room, and as always, the only one who can save us is Jonathan Frid.
Episode 948: War Games
In which they retcon the retcon, this time with a seance and a flappy bat.
Episode 949: The Last Days of the Guthrie Brothers
Dr. Guthrie and Inspector Guthrie have a few questions to ask you about the Stoddard case.
Episode 950: Flappy Bat for the Win
Barnabas, Quentin, Carolyn and Jeb stand around in the drawing room, shouting secret plans and drinking passive-aggressive cocktails. Then there’s kissing and running and a dream sequence, and we open another mystery box.
Episode 951: Into Darkness
In their only worthwhile achievement, the Leviathans turn the vampire back into a vampire.
Episode 952: Something Evil People Are Afraid Of
As the antiques shop smolders, we check out another moment when Barnabas was revamped — “The Vampire Trap,” from the Gold Key comic books.
Episode 953: Walking Around and Pretending to Have a Plan
Just when we thought we were getting somewhere, along comes Nicholas Blair, the demonic speed bump.
Episode 954: Irreconcilable
A publishing tycoon with a grotesque and horrifying secret marries his dream girl, who has several. It doesn’t last.
Episode 955: Once Again
Angelique returns to the things she does best: casting spells, flirting with boys and talking to Barnabas about their relationship status.
Episode 956: The Way We Feel
Quentin and Maggie suddenly find themselves desperately in love with each other for no particular reason, just like every other soap opera couple.
Episode 957: The Sad Song of Sue Agatha
Willie Loomis is back, but he can’t stay, he just can’t!
Episode 958: The Not Normal
A tyrannical monster is taking over, and Collinwood is divided, as never before. Roger is scared and confused, and he turns to his werewolf cousin for help.
Episode 959: Do No Harm
The new masters of Earth are rattled by a standard Dark Shadows haunted-house sequence, including darkness, a candle blowing out, and a chill.
Episode 960: Time and Temperature
Bruno was strangled by a ghost yesterday, and now he’s got a pet zombie with a gun waiting for a guy to turn into a werewolf. Life is full of surprises.
March 1970
Episode 961: Protagonizing
It’s an all-singing, all-dancing, all-villains spectacular, featuring werewolves, zombies, betrayal, blood loss, and lots of opening and closing doors.
Episode 962: The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Carolyn, Jeb, Quentin and Chris confront the inevitable heat death of the Dark Shadows fictional universe.
Episode 963: The Golden Key
Barnabas feels a sudden and inexplicable desire for blood, which can only be sated by turning the show into a comic book and never letting it turn back.
Episode 964: Julia Fixes Everything
Once again, Dr. Julia Hoffman examines an ailing storyline, and says, yeah, I could do something with this.
Episode 965: Wedding Crashers
Jeb Hawkes struggles to find a way to survive the disastrous end of his disastrous storyline.
Episode 966: A Happy Ending
Jeb destroys the Leviathan box, the Leviathan altar and the whole goddamn Leviathan storyline.
Episode 967: Vicki Ruins Everything, part 3: The Way It Happened
Jeb and Carolyn run away from the Hanged Man, as young Danny enters the world of Dark Shadows.
Episode 968: The Only Weakness
Jeb Hawkes is on the run, besieged by a long line of villains just itching to take advantage of any of his three only weaknesses.
Episode 969: PTED
A random guy with dark eye makeup intrudes on a scene between Elizabeth and Hoffman.
Episode 970: A Less Rational Explanation
Barnabas and Julia walk into an empty room, and start tossing postulates around.
Episode 971: The Cleanup Crew
Roger wakes up on the floor, and finds Julia standing nearby, admiring the architecture.
Episode 972: Gold-Hatted Lover
Barnabas is standing at the threshold, watching trailers for the upcoming storyline, when someone chucks him a copy of the novelization.
Episode 973: Groundhog Day
Carolyn’s new husband is afraid of his own shadow.
Episode 974: Your Declining Days
The Leviathan story is almost over, so Angelique walks around and tells everyone to go to hell, which they will.
Episode 975: Bruno Dies at the End
A tribute to the amazing Bruno, and his accomplice, the Ralston-Purina lamp.
Episode 976: Another Another World
On the day that Barnabas changes the channel and enters Parallel Time, another story begins, with familiar faces making different choices, like what show to be on.
Episode 977: Things That I Already Like About Parallel Time
Everyone’s buzzing about the new Parallel Time storyline, opening this Friday.
Episode 978: What’s Cooking
The Dark Shadows Cookbook helps to feed a hungry audience, for the last time.
Episode 979: Jeb Hawkes Must Die
The Leviathan storyline reaches a conclusion with a dream, a threat and a big, wet thud.
Episode 980: Next Stop Keystone City
Barnabas breaks on through to the other side, as we play a few rounds of Parallel or Not Parallel.
Episode 981: The Clone Wars
Barnabas has washed up on a foreign shore, where everyone has better clothes and lighting and dialogue.
Episode 982: Bad Marriages
A new literary crime wave breaks out, as the Dark Shadows writers walk into the library and help themselves to some plot points.
April 1970
Episode 983: The Terror of Tarrytown
The Dark Shadows cast heads upstate to make a Dark Shadows movie, instead of staying home and making Dark Shadows.
Episode 984: What We Know
We’re joining a story already in progress, as people usually do with soap operas, forcing us to use our televisual literacy to figure out what we’ve missed.
Episode 985: The Cassandra Complex
Violet Welles is leaving the show, but there’s time for one last surprise: the mystery of the witch’s twin sister.
Episode 986: Down in the Science Dungeon
Dr. Cyrus Longworth has a few things to say about good and evil and rabbits and apparatuses, and how many people a man is.
Episode 987: Truly Two
Quentin needs to figure out whether Alexis is the good twin or the evil twin, except there isn’t such a thing as good and evil, and he doesn’t really care anyway.
Episode 988: The Staggering Weirdness of Bruno
Bruno calls the shipping office, and reopens a lot of the past.
Episode 989: Scientific Progress Goes Boink
Dr. Cyrus Longworth synthesizes a bunch of chemicals he probably shouldn’t, and invents the world’s first hate potion.
Episode 990: Let It Burn
My friend Randall joins me today, to talk about what’s wrong with Sabrina, the dubious value of re-enacting things, and my foolproof plan for the next year of this blog.
Episode 991: Parsing Sabrina
Sabrina invites herself over for a mandatory late-night party game at Collinwood, and then she just stands around and talks about how evil everybody else is.
Episode 992: Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t
A squad of devoted Angelique truthers follows Alexis around, trying desperately to figure out if she’s herself or her twin sister.
Episode 993: All I Know Is Danger
There’s a ghost loose at Collinwood again, opening drawers and playing the piano and dripping blood on things, so Quentin calls in the craziest person he can think of.
Episode 994: Polterguest
The show interrupts its murder mystery to introduce a different murder mystery, featuring another misbehaving ghost.
Episode 995: I’ll Bite Anything
Newsweek offers a comparison between Dark Shadows and Sesame Street, as the lost children of the early 1970s are gently redirected down another path.
Episode 996: Love Potion No. 9
Dr. Longworth takes a swig of his magic de-jekylling potion, and heads downtown to see what life is like when you don’t have to sit around and take phone messages.
Episode 997: Fifty Shaves
Spare a thought for the bored housewife today, who tunes in for the first time and witnesses Yaeger and Buffie’s courtship.
Episode 998: The Absence of the Disturbances
It’s another day in this haunted town, where ghosts set fires and mad scientists drink their fiendish concoctions.
Episode 999: The Dead Wife
Quentin tries to figure out whether his dead wife is dead or not, and then something about Twin Peaks.
Episode 1000: Back From the Death
Angelique Collins has been sleeping in her crystal coffin for six months, patiently waiting for true love’s kiss.
Episode 1001: Wife Swap
The sinister witch switches with her twin sister.
Episode 1002: Ordinary Circumstances
John Yaeger, the personification of the evil impulses in man’s soul, goes out for the evening and personifies.
Episode 1003: The Way We Live Now
Angelique is back from the dead, mostly, and she needs a new source of energy. But who doesn’t?
Episode 1004: The Way Home
Quentin, Daniel and Amy are visited by spirits of the show that was, and will be again.
Episode 1005: People Trying to Talk Sense to Dameon Edwards
They can bring you here because they have control over life, and they can send you away again because they have control over death.
May 1970
Episode 1006: Too Big to Do Anything But Fail
Cyrus Longworth drinks some juice, puts on a false mustache, and tries to open a bank account, which brings up the question: Why is Jekyll and Hyde supposed to be scary?
Episode 1007: Saving Dark Shadows
And meanwhile, in 1986, New Jersey Network pulls the plug, and puts the kibosh on the Fourth Year.
Episode 1008: This Terrible Truth
Dark Shadows is saved from the scaffold, thanks to hard-working fans, a bunch of audiotapes and the amazing power of Star Trek slash fiction.
Episode 1009: The Great Train Robbery
Quentin and Angelique touch fingers and fire up the candles, hoping to get a shred of useful intel out of the dead.
Episode 1010: The Larry Parts
Another doomed investigator takes full responsibility.
House of Dark Shadows: Let’s Not Play Insane Games
A special journey through the 1970 film House of Dark Shadows with film critic David Edelstein, which involves Hammer movies, overstuffed sets, inadvertent love triangles, how you can tell it’s daytime, cameos, cannons, the color of blood, and the age-old war between actors and scenery, and ends with the extermination of everything that you love.
Episode 1011: The Cast Came Back
Will releases Barnabas from his coffin all over again, which is bad for his book, but good for the show.
Episode 1012: Trapped in a World (Not Mine Own)
Barnabas Collins and Captain Kirk are trapped in the Mirror Universe, where Bond villains rule the world, and Barnabas comes from Peru.
Episode 1013: What Does a Crazy Woman Want
Quentin gets a postcard from Paris, and Angelique struggles to focus.
Episode 1014: Are You the Quentin
Quentin can’t figure out why he’s feeling the way that he’s feeling.
Episode 1015: You Were Murdered
The Angelique/Quentin story gets itself into an unruly tangle that can only be resolved by Hoffman, the blood specialist housekeeper family historian.
Episode 1016: Fire Is Not a Friend
Angelique uses a voodoo doll to give Quentin a heart attack, and then she’s shocked when he has a heart attack. Also, she talks to candles.
Episode 1017: The Struggle
Barnabas tries to act like a mature human being, for just one night.
Episode 1018: Diagnosis Murder
Dr. Longworth gives Quentin the bad news that he’s in perfect physical condition and everything is totally fine.
Episode 1019: Peer at a Prop
Angelique and Hoffman take another step in their diabolical plan to annoy and puzzle Quentin and Maggie.
Episode 1020: To Serve Man
Let us prey.
Episode 1021: Five Things
Dan Curtis is back at work, so Barnabas gets bitey as the show begins a week-long Dark Shadows quality improvement program.
Episode 1022: Suddenly Shipping
Another character falls under the spell of the beguiling Parallel Maggie.
Episode 1023: Rage Against the Machine
Maggie has a night out with John Yaeger.
Episode 1024: The End of Love
Maggie gets caught catching up on other people’s correspondence.
Episode 1025: Rebecca to the Rescue
The week-long Dark Shadows quality improvement program concludes by turning into the weirdest possible version of Rebecca.
June 1970
Episode 1026: The Seventh Level of Witchcraft
Angelique challenges the gods, and faces a nemesis she never knew she had.
Episode 1027: The Winds of War
Trapped in another world, Barnabas declares another world war.
Episode 1028: Can’t Stop the Trouble
Sabrina stands up to a psychopath serial killer who she is still unaccountably in love with.
Episode 1029: There Is a Spirit Here That Means to Harm Your Wife
Maggie visits the argument clinic, as the spirits line up for the chance to harm her.
Episode 1030: A Room of One’s Own
It’s another setback for women’s lib, as Maggie gets locked up and London Bridge falls down.
Episode 1031: The Last Day of Parallel Time
Barnabas rounds the turn, and sprints for the finish line. Hurry, Barnabas! Hurry!
Episode 1032: The Curse of Blinovitch
Barnabas has to choose between Julia and Hoffman, and picks the wrong side.
Episode 1033: Follow the Money
It’s all sets and violence today, as Barnabas runs in circles, Liz has someone else’s dream, and Sabrina learns an important lesson about fiscal responsibility.
Episode 1034: Mistakes in Justice
It’s another visit to the Paperback Library, where Carolyn, Liz and Roger are afflicted with another gaggle of unspeakable houseguests.
Episode 1035: Elegy for the Truly Two
As Cyrus Longworth’s experiment comes to a swift and violent conclusion, we ask: What, if anything, have we learned?
Episode 1036: I’m Not Hoffman
And just when all hope is lost: Julia Hoffman, expressing the sentiment “you have made the wrong parallel-dimension life choices” through the medium of a fire iron to the back of the head.
Episode 1037: The Things That Have Been Happening
In which we challenge Maggie’s status as the only sane person living in Collinsport.
Episode 1038: The Spy Who Loved Me
Special Agent Julia Hoffman from the Federal Bureau of Instability reports for work at someone else’s job.
Episode 1039: Barnabas, Julia and the Lady in the Back Parlor
Julia stands by, as Barnabas finds another ingenue to project his needs and desires onto.
Episode 1040: Stupid Mystery Theater
An inspector calls, but everyone’s too busy incriminating themselves to call back.
Episode 1041: Westworld
Quentin partially-strangles another victim, which gets him in trouble with the Cylon police.
Episode 1042: Still Another Murderer
Carolyn tries to forget about all the terrible things that have happened, to no avail.
Episode 1043: The Heat Death of the Universe
Quentin’s on vacation, so Barnabas, Julia, Will and Carolyn desperately hunt among the hatpins for a new source of narrative energy.
Episode 1044: Weekend at Barney’s
Barnabas and Will break into Stokes’ place and steal his unconscious lady, as they workshop another potential story direction.
Episode 1045: We Belong Dead
Angelique corners Will in the tower room, where he stars in a one-man version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Episode 1046: Woke
Barnabas manages to get the lady in the back parlor up on her feet, but after that, she refuses to participate.
Episode 1047: The Invention of Feelings
Barnabas tells Carolyn that her husband is dead, and her fury burns down the show.
July 1970
Episode 1048: Claw North
Barnabas delves into the mystery of Claude North, and comes up with a handful of loose props.
Episode 1049: All the Secrets
Carolyn drinks her way across the great mansions of the Eastern seaboard.
Episode 1050: The Fault in Our Stars
Three characters, an unconscious lady and a pair of mystery feet keep themselves occupied for the afternoon.
Episode 1051: PTED: Destroyer of Worlds
The real main character of Dark Shadows finally shows up: our hero, Claude North.
Episode 1052: Ouroboros
Angelique tells Julia to follow Barnabas, and Barnabas tells Julia to follow Angelique, and we all go round in circles.
Episode 1053: Whodidn’tit
The detectives have given up, so the murder mystery solves itself.
Episode 1054: Another Day in the Desert
Quentin, Maggie, Angelique and Roger spend another day standing around in the world’s most hazardous house.
Episode 1055: Famous Last Words
But the man who murdered Angelique deserves a very special punishment!
Episode 1056: The Parallel Sky
Angelique falls, and this world falls with her.
Episode 1057: Infinite Jest
In which we consider the consequences of parallel universes, with specific attention to how many characters is too many characters.
Episode 1058: When I Am Not With You
We are invited to feel something about Roxanne, a simple-minded Jungle Girl who only knows one- and two-syllable words.
Episode 1059: World Beyond the Doors
Barnabas and Maggie shutter the windows, lock up the hatpins, and close down Collinwood forever, as we learn what parallel universes are for.
Episode 1060: Dreams of Manderley
It’s the final showdown of Parallel Time, where old scores are settled with pistols and fire as our hero hides behind the drapes.
Episode 1061: I’ll Be There For You
Two friends struggle to make it in the future world of 1995.
Episode 1062: Don’t Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)
The doctor and her companion trespass in someone else’s adventure, as we ask once again: Who is They?
Episode 1063: Wonderwall
It can’t be very dangerous, because music is seldom used to frighten.
Episode 1064: Here Comes the Hotstepper
Introducing the Big Bad of 1995, who needs to be Big Worse than anything we’ve ever seen before.
Episode 1065: You Oughta Know
Barnabas and Julia need to learn the secrets of 1995, before 1995 destroys soap operas forever.
Episode 1066: This Is How We Do It
The house party goes sour, as the ghosts play a baffling mix tape that drives all the guests away.
Episode 1067: No More I Love You’s
Julia turns traitor as we explore the most important question of the 1995 storyline: Is Gerard hot?
Episode 1068: Just a Girl
We look at two possible futures for Carolyn Stoddard: the mad old bat from 1995, and the aimless rich girl from Big Finish’s The Flip Side.
Episode 1069: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
1995 clatters towards a conclusion, as Quentin loses his mind, Julia loses her soul and Barnabas loses his voice.
Episode 1070: Gangsta’s Paradise
Barnabas and Julia fight the future, to a draw.
August 1970
Episode 1071: Back from the Future
Barnabas and Julia return to the present day, and brace themselves for the terrible disaster that’s about to occur.
Episode 1072: Something Terrible
We try to come to grips with the ungrippable Hallie Stokes.
Episode 1073: Steer the Stars
Elizabeth enters the Age of Aquarius with a visit to the local astrologer, who’s determined to explain all the things that he isn’t.
Episode 1074: Future So Bright
Barnabas takes another flash-forward time trip into the future, searching for the monster that stole his soil.
Episode 1075: The Night of the Sun and the Moon
Everyone worries about the moon, the playroom and the astrologist.
Episode 1076: Say Yes to the Dress
It’s the second time around the track for this unfaithful adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, and it looks like we’ll be racing in circles for a while.
Episode 1077: The Scent of Lilacs
For the second time in a month, a romantic lead falls in love with a pale, mute woman with no personality, just because he likes the way that a flower smells.
Episode 1078: Everyone Must Leave This House at Once
The ghost of Daphne Harridge scatters journals and toy boats and hypnoclothes around the house, enchanting everyone but me.
Episode 1079: Carry a Big Stick
The countdown to calamity continues, as Daphne considers stabbing Quentin, Hallie apologizes for something she didn’t do, and Quentin abjures the spirits, to no avail.
Episode 1080: What’s in Store
Liz sits around and looks at her horoscope all day, while Carolyn goes out and tries to get some kind of storyline to happen.
Episode 1081: Born to Rock
David and Hallie and Tad and Carrie spin in circles around the carousel.
Episode 1082: You Don’t Have to Put on the Red Light
Barnabas finds his Roxanne again, and invites her out on a chronologically impossible date.
Episode 1083: Your Dark Shadows Horoscope
Astrology is for chumps; the only way to truly understand yourself and your destiny is to watch the episodes of Dark Shadows that aired on your birthday.
Episode 1085: Our Ignorance and Folly
Quentin, Julia and Daphne play a game of plot advancement tug-of-war.
Episode 1086: A Sense of Something
The ghosts make a pretty compelling case for why we should just let them take the kids, and move onto something else.
Episode 1087: Stranger Things
Gerard returns, and does what a good villain always does: he makes the show better.
Episode 1088: Our Summer of Discontent
Barnabas and Carolyn are exiled from Collinsport for a week, to promote a movie they don’t like.
Episode 1089: Standing on Graves
David explains a series of made-up legends, as they polish up a brand new gun for Chekhov’s wall.
Episode 1090: Today’s Ten Things That Make No Sense
Gerard changes his mind, David needs to change his clothes, and somebody needs to clue Maggie in on what’s going on.
Episode 1091: You, the Living
While we’re waiting for a catastrophe that may never come, Dark Shadows offers us a nice old-fashioned slice of vampire melodrama.
September 1970
Episode 1092: The Tenterhooks
Everybody waits around for something that isn’t going to happen.
Episode 1093: The Shrinking Shares
Two kids trapped in a playroom, doing a master class on giving the hell up.
Episode 1094: An Evening of Champagne and Whist
The ghost of Gerard Stiles takes over another member of the Collins family, to no real effect.
Episode 1095: The Hallie Parts
Hallie doesn’t know, and she doesn’t want to know.
Episode 1096: Rose Cottage Was the Sled
With a hundred and fifty episodes to go, Dark Shadows and I ask: why are we still doing this?
Episode 1097: Dawn of the Honey Badger
David and Hallie are Tad and Carrie, and Carolyn is Leticia, and I’m bored and nobody cares.
Episode 1098: The Lie Lock
Barnabas discovers that the children have been possessed by utterly incompetent ghosts.
Episode 1099: Damsel of the Damned
Heaven must be missing an angel, because here she comes: Daphne Harridge, going undercover as an alive person.
Episode 1100: Gang Aft Agley
Daphne, Tad and Carrie try to part the veil and bring a savage vengeance demon into the world, and they can’t even do that right.
Episode 1101: The Super Determined
A lesson in quantum physics, as represented by a dollhouse, a fire, a letter and a bunch of ghosts.
Episode 1102: More Than Just Sleeping
An overview of Maggie’s new role as a very relaxed vampire snack bar.
Episode 1103: The Center of the Light
Julia fights for control of the show, armed with a hypnotic medallion and a series of impertinent questions.
Episode 1104: The Burning
Barnabas squares off against Gerard in a thrilling anticlimax that breaks the ancient truce, once and for all.
Episode 1105: The Burning Question
As we head into the final turn, we ask the question: how does a soap opera run out of ideas?
Episode 1106: Lady Is a Vamp
The stakes are raised again, as Julia and Willie come over to slay.
Episode 1107: You Must Stop What Is Happening
Gerard pulls the strings, as this macabre puppet play draws to an uncertain close.
Episode 1108: The Way Out
With nothing left to prove, Maggie Evans makes for the sunset.
Episode 1109: The Last Straw
Gerard wins, as we close this timeline down and hope for better days.
Episode 1110: Attack of the Clones
Lock up your Gungans; it’s time for another prequel.
Episode 1111: The Healer
Julia emerges into the world of 1840, where she finds an insane patriarch, a silly novelist, and the destroyer of Collinwood: the Healer, himself.
Episode 1112: The Boy Friend
Julia safecracks Barnabas’ old crib, and learns some valuable lessons about playing with wild animals.
Episode 1113: The War Doctor
Cross-time traveler Julia Hoffman survives the opening skirmish of the Second Great Time War.
October 1970
Episode 1114: The Unshakeable
In which we meet the third Roxanne in four months.
Episode 1115: The Gun Runner
Gerard enters the room, and demonstrates the value of a road not taken.
Episode 1116: That’s Us In There
Barnacle Crawlins tries to keep the show on the air, with the help of his werewolf cousin, Quinine.
Episode 1117: Meanwhile, Again
Barnabas Collins races to save his best friend, three days from now and a hundred and thirty years ago.
Episode 1118: Getting Ahead
Desmond Collins returns from the Far East with a severed head in a glass box, and he can’t understand why everyone’s being such a dick about it.
Episode 1119: Why Are We the Way We Are
Daniel Collins asks the important questions.
Episode 1120: House of Hurt Feelings
We know that Gabriel has to win and that everything he’s saying is true, but we hate him anyway, so screw Gabriel.
Episode 1121: Quentuplets
Another Quentin arrives, but unfortunately it’s not one of the good ones.
Episode 1122: The Lost World
Everybody refuses to tell Quentin anything about the multiple mysteries hiding just behind the curtain.
Episode 1123: Jay-Z
Desmond is contacted by a mysterious disembodied head lurking in his living room, and he absolutely refuses to do anything sensible about it.
Episode 1124: We Had Faces
Trask speaks urgently to Roxanne, as we pull in for an extreme close-up that takes us a full minute to extricate ourselves from.
Episode 1125: Things You Say to Otis Greene, Deceased
The noose, the noose, the unmarked stone, and then — what was it, again?
Episode 1126: To Your Head
Desmond goes underground and finds another mystery box, filled with Incan gold for some reason.
Episode 1127: The Unexplainable Happenings
Desmond switches sides, and asks Quentin how they can put right what he just did wrong.
Episode 1128: As Rome Burns
There’s a monster movie going on outside, but I only have eyes for Gerard.
Episode 1129: Windmills, and How to Tilt at Them
Barnabas and Quentin go out to hunt for a headless creature in the woods, until they get bored and go back inside to do something else.
Time Travel, part 12: Nevertheless, They Persisted
In the last episode of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival, Vicki is hanged and something happens to Abigail, and I don’t really remember the rest of it.
Episode 1130: Time and Tantrums
Angelique spends forty-five years walking in circles, looping back to Collinwood every year for another anniversary.
Episode 1131: The Perils of Memory
It’s a day of reunions, as Barnabas and Daniel catch up with their dead wives.
Episode 1132: An Armed Society
Arriving at Collinwood, Daphne gets access to the man she’s planning to kill, and vice versa.
Episode 1133: Low Clearance
Quentin struggles to cope with his most cunning enemies: props, dialogue and doorframes.
Episode 1134/1135: The Graveyard Smash
With an electrical storm on the way, Julia Hoffman single-handedly redecorates her secret underground mad science lab.
November 1970
Episode 1136: Waiting for the Storm
Julia pulls the threads, and brings something terrible to life.
Episode 1137: It’s Alive, Sort Of
Lightning flashes, and the mad scientist wakes a sleeping horror, who rolls over and hits the snooze button.
Episode 1138: The Trouble with Tulips
The spell wears off and everything goes back to normal, which is great for everybody except the 17th century florists.
Episode 1139: Nothing on Earth
Barnabas and Julia talk about their problems, Angelique expresses herself in voodoo and fire, and the Quentin substitute yells at the props, just like always.
Episode 1140: You’re a Miranda
Gerard calls Angelique by the wrong name, and inserts a prequel into her backstory.
Episode 1141: 13 Reasons Why
The playroom, the zombies, the unfinished horoscope, the diary, the bust, the model ship and seven more clues that never showed up.
Episode 1142: The Golden Moment
Decapitated warlock Judah Zachery takes control of Gerard’s body, which we all wanted to do but never had the guts.
Episode 1143: Viva Droopy
There’s a knock at the door, and in walks Señor Droopy, from Guadalupe.
Episode 1144: The Merry Widow
Angelique’s got Julia locked up in a lighthouse, doing a rerun from four months ago.
Episode 1145: The Unearned Curse
Quentin shows his new time machine to an evil warlock, who nods and smiles, and thinks about something else.
Episode 1146: A Dark Horse
Gerard explains the sum of the substance, and other matters of importance.
Episode 1147: The Strain
We finally see Daphne in a schoolroom with Tad and Carrie, and the path is not paved with love.
Episode 1148: After This Afternoon
Quentin and Daphne talk things over.
Episode 1149: Wicked
Barnabas, Flora, Randall and Trask walk in and out of rooms until everybody believes in vampires, and then they go and kill Roxanne.
Episode 1150: The Strange Goings-On
The monster craze comes to an end, with an uncomfortable bump.
Episode 1151: Wherever You Will Be
And then suddenly we’re in Gerard’s bedroom, which works for me.
Episode 1152: The Truth of You
Barnabas has left the studio for a couple weeks, so it’s up to Angelique and Julia to team up and save the day, sort of.
Episode 1153: How to Explain the Doll
Quentin and Gerard row up the Amazon to find a West African voodoo doll by way of Haiti, Louisiana, medieval Britain and the State of New Jersey.
Night of Dark Shadows: The Haunted Horse
It’s Thanksgiving 1970, so we take the day off to write an unbelievably thorough analysis of Night of Dark Shadows, with assistance from the cast of commenters, the shooting script, Famous Monsters of Filmland, H.P. Lovecraft, a couple podcasts, the Tappan Zee Bridge and a very haunted horse. “Kill Doubloon!”
Episode 1154/1155: The Fall of Man
Herd of cows? Of course I’ve heard of cows.
Episode 1156: The Framing
Randall is finally dead, and all anybody can do is complain.
December 1970
Episode 1157: The Last Sheriff
Collinsport law enforcement tries one last time to successfully make an arrest.
Episode 1158: When One Deals with Judah Zachery, There Is No Margin for Error
Gerard begins an epic streak of episodes, and takes over 1840 for good.
Episode 1159: This First Unhappy Experience
While the 1840 Quentin is locked up for witchcraft, we take a look at a Paperback Library novel about Quentin starting a black magic cult at Collinwood and then not really doing very much with it.
Episode 1160: Look Who’s Walking
Gabriel takes an important step forward.
Episode 1161: The Monster of Collinwood
They finally decide, screw it, Gerard’s the only interesting character on the show, we might as well give him Collinwood.
Episode 1162: The Tribulations
And then, just when we least expected it, the tragic story of the Worst Actor Who Ever Appeared on Dark Shadows, and his character’s life after death.
Episode 1163: Love in the Afternoon
A boy follows Carrie home from a funeral, which on Dark Shadows counts as a meet-cute.
Episode 1164: Almost Helping
Barnabas finally shows up for work, and comes dangerously close to doing something productive.
Episode 1165: In the Haze of History
Faced with another witch trial, we check out Gold Key’s alternative tale of Barnabas Collins visiting Salem, the infamous city of witches.
Episode 1166: The Proceedings
Quentin sits quietly in the dock while five other people spend the day shouting at each other on his behalf.
Episode 1167: The English Way of Death
The clever boys at Big Finish take a stab at defining the future of Dark Shadows with their new 13-part serial, Bloodline.
Episode 1168: How I Long to Be Wrong
In the Old House basement, Gerard and Trask excavate the past, while upstairs, Barnabas and Julia face a finite future.
Episode 1169: This Wonderful Little Gathering
Barnabas, Angelique, Julia and Gerard get together for an anachronistic discussion of plot points they don’t know about.
Episode 1170: This Place Is Not a Place of Honor
A desperate warning for the future, in response to the CW’s announcement that they’re making a new Dark Shadows TV show.
Episode 1171: He Schemes, He Scores
In which Gerard Stiles demonstrates that he does not have a coherent testing and tracing strategy.
Episode 1172: The Deck Chairs
Lara Parker strikes her first blow in The War for Dark Shadows, with the 1998 publication of Angelique’s Descent.
Episode 1173: The One Where Everybody Finds Out
More characters discover that there might be something suspicious about Gerard, moving us ever closer to the possibility of plot development.
Episode 1174/1175: Merrie Gentlemen
As Dark Shadows approaches its final Christmas, we take a look at who’s on the naughty list.
Time Travel, part 13: Total Blood Volume
For a Christmas Day pre-emption special, we cast an eye over the unsalvageable 2004 WB pilot, which begins the terrible cycle all over again.
Episode 1176: The Week Between
They’ve got one week to save the show, before the final 13-week cycle. The strategy: surprise returns of characters you thought were gone, and explaining the storyline again.
Episode 1177: The Unfinished Dream
Julia generates new cover stories, as Professor Stokes contemplates a crossword puzzle that he is not destined to solve.
Episode 1178: The Mary Sue Extrusion
Barnabas Collins battles Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries for possession of Victoria Winters’ very soul, as we delve into the 1999 novel Dreams of the Dark.
Episode 1179/1180: Communication with the Dead
And then, just to prove that it can still be done: our hero, Barnabas Collins, special guest star and counsel for the defense.
January 1971
Time Travel, part 14: It Is What It Is
We ring in the show’s last New Year by watching the 2012 Tim Burton movie, as it gradually topples over backwards, and falls to a messy death on the rocks below.
Episode 1181: You, Again
Just when you thought that you’d seen the limit of Dark Shadows’ decline, along comes Joanna Mills, a resurrected boat-anchor that Quentin thought he’d shaken off months ago.
Episode 1182: I Feel Ya
Samantha breaks into a mental hospital to confront a doomed leading lady, on loan from the Globe Theatre.
Episode 1183: Damn Daniel
Today’s episode aired on the day that I was born, and the end of Dark Shadows is entwined with my beginning. Things just got personal.
Episode 1184: The Graham Crack-Up
It’s time for another meeting of the Paperback Library book club, featuring Barnabas, Quentin and the Scorpio Curse, a tale of murder and mental health care.
Episode 1185: Meanwhile, in 1971
Meanwhile, in 1971, we find a mad, miserable Carolyn in the shack at Findley’s Cove, along with Phyllis Wick, Claude North, Dr. Julian Hoffman and the eleven women from Fort Wayne, and we finally decipher what They is really up to.
Episode 1186: Fuck, Marry, Kill
They’re wrapping up the 1840 storyline, so they begin the now-traditional massacre of all secondary characters, starting with the one person who we thought was definitely safe.
Episode 1187: I Presume You’ve Never Heard About Something Called Parallel Time
Out on the wiley, windy moors, Daphne makes a discovery.
Episode 1188: Don’t Panic
A narcissist psychopath has taken us all hostage, and tells us his entire secret plan, like a Bond villain.
Episode 1189: Action in the Afternoon
There’s a karate chop, a jailbreak and a shooting, and then we all have to stand around and explain things to Joanna.
Episode 1190: The Years of Time
And deep within the Brooklyn Marriott, a reasonable fraction of the original cast of Dark Shadows breaks ground on a Big Beginning.
Episode 1191: The Great 1840 Wrap-Up
There’s only a week and a half left in the 1840 storyline, so it’s time to start pushing villains off the roof.
Episode 1192: The Weissman Theory
Quentin and Daphne elude the police, and then get stuck in another situation that they need to elude.
Episode 1193: Already Dead
Joanna Mills reveals her true face, and conceals it again, as we keep on sprinting toward the finish line.
Episode 1194: No Exit
Quentin, Daphne and Leticia execute their top-secret escape plan, which everybody knows about and doesn’t seem particularly urgent.
Episode 1195: The Trask Parts
A bloodthirsty creature of the supernatural! Burn, witch, burn! Give me the power to step upon the serpents and scorpions which inhabit her! The Devil is at work here, and he has deceived you, as he has so many others! Victoria Winters, your name is now known to fire!
Episode 1196: The Dark Creatures of Nature
Judah Zachery thinks that he can take away Angelique’s powers. He will learn otherwise.
Episode 1197: The Night I Sang My Song
Angelique stops the execution by running in with a stolen head, and confessing to everything she can think of.
Episode 1198: Goodbye to All That
Dark Shadows winds down nine weeks early, offering happy endings to anyone left standing.
Episode 1199: The Wuthering
We find ourselves trapped in 1841 Parallel Time, with nothing to look at but a spooky door, some crazy gowns and Julia Collins’ facial expressions.
Episode 1200: The Woman in What?
Dark Shadows decides to scrap its existing characters and storylines, and start over with a new set of characters that aren’t very interesting.
February 1971
Episode 1201: Willie Loomis Must Die: The Movie
Slipping quietly away from the lottery, we look at Hawkes Harbor, a 2004 novel by S.E. Hinton that demonstrates what happens when people encounter Dark Shadows unexpectedly.
Episode 1202: The Leftovers
With Barnabas and Quentin abandoned by the show, we check in with the Paperback Library gothics, to see what they plan on doing with the characters they’ve inherited.
Episode 1203: Frocks and Violence
Melanie goes on the attack, charging at Catherine with the cutlery, and nobody can think of anything more helpful to do than offer her some hot cocoa.
Episode 1204: Minimum Security
The Collins family crime syndicate notches up another felony.
Episode 1205: The Bad Behavior of Bramwell, or Romance and Rape and Why Nobody Seems to Do Anything About It
A meditation on Catherine’s consent, and the emotions of women in Parallel 1841.
Episode 1206: The Eyes of Children
We check in with the young set via Gold Key’s Dark Shadows comic book, and learn some valuable lessons about good and evil, squares and pentagrams, and how it’s totally okay to miss your deadlines.
Time Travel, part 15: Dark Shadows Without Dark Shadows
For the final pre-emption day, we look at Sam Hall’s “Here’s What Really Happened to Barnabas & Co”, to learn about the long-range plans that they didn’t have for the characters.
Episode 1207/1208: A Duel’s House
Morgan and Catherine have a shotgun wedding, with Bramwell being the one who gets gunshot.
Episode 1209: Birdland
The Collins gang hangs around the hideout, wearing outrageous clothes and saying ridiculous things.
Episode 1210: The Night We Met
Before it’s too late, we circle back to take one last look at The World of Dark Shadows, and the poetry it unleashed upon an unsuspecting fandom.
Episode 1211: Plague, Die, Plague, Die, Plague, Die, Plague
Reporting live from a very specific moment in history, we ask, does a blog post about a vampire soap opera really need to be “timeless”?
Episode 1212: Once in Every Generation
We return to the Parkerverse with Lara Parker’s second novel The Salem Branch, which involves several possible Angeliques, a mystery vampire, a muck monster, a witch trial, a pack of savage Wampanoags, a crystal decanter, various Salem tourist attractions, another glimpse at Paradise Lost, the ineffectual use of dead leaves as a murder weapon, the end of my sanity, and a terrible sacrifice that only I can make.
Episode 1213: Violent Femmes
Gabriel goes out the window.
Episode 1214: Begun Again
Bramwell and Catherine discuss how it feels to be part of all that, what Morgan will think when he sees us, and would he know that you want me to touch you now.
Episode 1215: The Not Gabriel
In which Gabriel Collins asks the ghosts who are killing him to hold on for a minute, while he lets his friend in and takes off all of his clothes.
Episode 1216: Return to Return to Collinwood
Hoping for some new surprises, we take a look at Dynamite’s Dark Shadows comic book, and learn how not to write for Angelique.
Episode 1217: The Next to Last
The writing team tries to kill the cast and burn down the show, but it doesn’t work; they still have to write Night of Dark Shadows.
Episode 1218: The Great Unwinding
Daphne asks Carrie to look into the future, and they make a new friend. This is probably the strangest thing that I have ever written.
Episode 1219: The Missing Step
There are 1,245 steps to complete the ritual. One of the steps is missing. The ritual has only been completed once.
Episode 1220: The Forsythe Saga
The Collins brothers take a rummage through the basement, searching for clues and talking utter nonsense.
Episode 1221: The Snatch
Barnabas and Quentin team up for a science-fiction adventure, battling three incredibly unskilled alien adversaries.
March 1971
Episode 1222: The Room Where It Happens
Morgan spends a quiet night in the locked room, while everyone else waits around and tries not to think about what’s not happening there.
Episode 1223: The Carrie Diaries
The Collins family has been so kind to Carrie and her father, so she’s always happy to help, if she can.
Episode 1224: Other People’s Problems
Dark Shadows launches a soap opera improvement project by recasting Morgan with the same actor.
Episode 1225: Strong to the Finish
James Forsythe finally confronts Brutus Collins face-to-face, and if either of them was a character on Dark Shadows, then that would be an exciting development.
Episode 1226: Eternal Invisible
Barnabas Collins is dragooned into joining a crew of immortal pirates and brought to an invisible tropical island, where he destroys everything and leaves no survivors.
Episode 1227: Bar the Shouting
Anger, despair, guilt and confusion, all delivered at top volume.
Episode 1228: The Unlovables
Just when you think we’re getting somewhere, in walks Flora Collins, this year’s human speed bump.
Episode 1229: Catherine the Not-So-Great
Catherine, Bramwell and Daphne inhabit the dystopia of Wuthering Heights, with extra murder weapons.
Episode 1230: Mortal Engines
The family gathers to exorcise the spirit of James Forsythe from Morgan’s body, except they do it using a seance, which is the exact opposite of what they’re trying to accomplish.
Episode 1231: The Curse of Collinwood, or How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
We flash back to 1680 for the true story of the Collins family curse, which doesn’t help as much as you might expect.
Episode 1232: My Coffin World
Barnabas and Quentin investigate the mysterious disappearance of two local teens in another Gold Key epic featuring marionettes, a birdcage, a very sharp pencil, and tuna casserole.
Episode 1233: You Make Me Sick
Daphne falls mysteriously ill, which instantly turns Bramwell into the weakest Heathcliff on record.
Episode 1234: Last Call
Carrie Stokes has one more vision, of plans that went awry and posts that remain undone.
Episode 1235: The Way That You Mustn’t Feel
Bramwell patiently explains to his wife that he’s not sad, she’s not dying, and their marriage is going great.
Episode 1236: Infrequently Asked Questions About the Collins Family Curse
Why is it still happening? and other important questions about our current circumstances.
Episode 1237: Chekhov’s Sword
The problem of Gabriel is solved once and for all, thanks to an unnamed knight in shining armor.
Episode 1238: The Mystery of Melanie’s Mother
We learn the identity of Melanie Collins’ parents, a bittersweet revelation which does not actually help us in any way.
Episode 1239: Dan
With the show coming to a close, we take a look at Dan Curtis: the kind of man that he was, and what he did for us.
Episode 1240: Today’s Lucky Lotto Picks
The Collins family gathers for one more lottery draw, just in time for the heat death of the universe.
Episode 1241: Frid’s Final Battle
To kick off Jonathan Frid’s last week of memorizing Dark Shadows dialogue, they gave him four conversations in a row, with predictable results.
Episode 1242: Cancel Culture
Dark Shadows, an ABC-TV daytime soap opera, passed away on Friday, April 2nd, 1971, at the age of two hundred and forty-nine weeks.
Episode 1243: The Dark Shadows Parts
The basis of your problem is the destructive nature of your blood cells.
April 1971
Episode 1244: Empire of the Loud
Barnabas and Angelique are locked up in a spooky room, to face whatever terrors this dumb storyline has left.
Episode 1245: Sunset at Collinwood
Barnabas Collins walks out of ABC Studio 16, and into the future.
Dark Shadows Every Day 
Well done!
Thanks, I’m glad you like it.
If you buy the DVD’s, you’ll be able to note that they are called “collections” and not “a series.” Also, not mentioned here are the sets which are labeled “Dark Shadows The Beginning” collections 1 – 6. They include episodes 1 – 209….. and, are worth mentioning because they tell the story of how Vickie Winters comes to be the governess, and, how Willie Loomis “entered” the picture. The “Beginning” collection also gives a bit of background on the Collins family, and, has many stories to tell. The “Beginning” collections are well worth watching for anyone who’s a ‘true’ DARK SHADOWS fan.
Glad you are back writing the recaps. I had to finish the series without your insight.
The wrap up, was crazy!!
Hi Danny,
Love your blog! Your commentaries are hilarious and it makes watching each episode even more enjoyable. Forgive me if you’ve already answered this question, but I was wondering if you’ve seen all 1,245 episodes and if so, will you be adding them to the episode guide? I did read where you said that Dark Shadows was cancelled in your area before it’s run ended but I couldn’t find anymore information after that. All of the hard work and research you’ve put into this is very much appreciated. Hope to see more of your reviews of the remaining episodes.
Thank you!
Terri
Yes, don’t worry — I’m going to episode 1245. I wrote about New Jersey Network cancelling Dark Shadows in the post for episode 927, but that was thirty years ago, when I was in high school. Now I’m grown up, and I have the whole series on DVD. 🙂 I’m glad you like the blog!
There are only 1,225 episodes, not 1,245. The faulty numbering is due to preempted airdates.
what is the season for each episode
They weren’t produced in seasons; it was a daily soap opera that aired all year round. Hulu uses the word “Seasons” because DS is the only soap opera they carry, and that’s the word they use for everything else. What Hulu is calling “Season 1” is actually the 40 episodes included in the first DVD box set, “Season 2” is the next 40 episodes, and so on.
Aw MAAAAN!!!! Caught up to DSE just when Hulu dropped season 17 and 18…where can I get my low cost DS fix now!?!
It’s hard to believe, but the lowest cost available is actually buying DVDs on Amazon.
For streaming, the lowest cost available at the moment is on YouTube; they’re selling every episode for $1.99 each or $40 for a 40-episode set ($1 per episode). The only subscription streaming is on Hulu, and they only carry 280 eps at a time.
But on Amazon, the DVD sets are going for about $20 each, which is 50 cents an episode. That’s a good deal, if you can handle owning physical objects.
Enjoyed your recaps! Soooo disappointing that these episodes beyond 492 isn’t streaming SOMEWHERE FREE or at least on Hulu for the price of a subscription. Wow that’s some change to buy all the DVDs and deal with the storage. Hmmm, wondering if starting up an exchange program with diehard fans would work and reduce costs? 🙂
The reason why Dark Shadows is still available in the world is because fans have been financially supporting the people who make it available. From public TV networks to video and DVD to streaming — we need to support the continued availability of the show.
I’ve had a convoluted viewing of DS. I saw the first 160 post-Barnabas episodes on Netflix during 2011-12. Then, collections 5-7 on Hulu in 2016. Collections 8-10 were dvds courtesy of the St Paul Public library. When the library didn’t have collection 11, I won an ebay auction for that set for $10.00. 12 to 14 saw more eps on Hulu, and, while waiting for them to add more eps, I couldn’t resist bidding and winning collection 15 on ebay for 8 bucks! Now, I’m at the last 14 episodes of collection 24, and then I’ll wait for Hulu to put on collections 25 and 26, the last 59 eps of the series. Hulu has stated that they will then show “The Beginning” episodes, and I’ll be able to say that I’ve seen the entire series.
I watch all seasons on Amazon Prime.
I’ve been watching the whole thing on Amazon Prime for the past couple months. I really enjoy reading this blog aftet watching the episodes.
Me too on Amazon prime. David did you ever do more recaps?
There were no seasons of Dark Shadows. It was a daily soap opera.
Amazon Prime
You must answer my question! You must! I fear you have been transported to another time and plot, and I will never have the answer I seek. Come back! Oh, please, come back! Question: What happened to Quentin and Maggie’s marriage? I wonder if I dozed during a late night binge-watch. I can’t be consumed by Quentin’s passion for Daphne and her ghost, as I assume I should be. David Henesy was a dang good actor, the best of them all.
I’m bingeing on it and following along with your guide. Some bloopers I have noticed. 1. Barnabas’ ring keeps changing hands. 2. In the painted portrait sometimes the ring is white. Or looks like it was “painted out.” 3. In the episode where Dr. Woodard changed actors, Burke Devlin inadvertently called him Dr. Hoffman.
I love this blog and sincerely hope you finish off all episodes. I loved the show, actually went to NY and had a studio tour and met Jonathan Frid when i was 16. It’s amazing how much I’d forgotten and yet it all came right back reading your episode guide.
Great blog! Thank you for doing it, we greatly enjoy it. We found the complete DVD set half price because someone had busted into (or out of) the cardboard coffin case.
I just stumbled across your blog. Bravo! At the age of 10 I would run home from school like the Devil Himself was chasing me so as not to miss a minute of DS. Thank goodness my mother didn’t arrive home from work till 5:30 or I would have been forbidden to tune in. I loved it the first time around and your blog has rekindled that excitement. All the funny extras you toss in have me ROFL and you point out all the little things I missed as a child which makes it even funnier. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
I used to get my information on the episodes from darkshadows.com, but it disappeared a few years back. Somebody managed to save it to the WayBack Machine before it went away.
Glad to see somebody pick up the torch since it was one of my favorite shows as a child. As the youngest of four children, the only time I had control of the TV was 1) when nobody else was home; 2) if nobody else wanted to watch whatever the limited choices were. I briefly owned the complete DVD set, but decided eating was more important than keeping it so I sold it for a fraction of what I paid for it. It’s on my list to get back.
Love your blog! The wife and I have been making one more attempt at watching all episodes and recently discovered your blog. Now we’ve caught up to the episode you just blogged! We collected the complete DVD series years ago, but now we are closer than ever to completing our quest. Your blog has soothed the pain enough to help us going! Thanks!
I’m really enjoying your blog! (I don’t quite understand everyone’s contempt for Vicky, but to each his own.) Seeing how these actors managed to keep their cool and recover from forgotten lines, mangled cues, and noisy crew members makes me think they deserve way more respect than most film actors today. This is performing on stage — live — in front of an audience in the millions. That thought is scarier than any DS plot.
I only watched a handful of episodes when it originally aired in the ‘60s — after Barnabas was fully ensconced — but it was far too scary for me at that age. I only watched those episodes due to the corrupting influence of a friend who was a year younger. I remember it was at her house because we weren’t allowed to watch it at home. She wasn’t allowed to watch either and quickly switched stations whenever we heard her parents nearby (the fear of getting caught was as scary as the show). I paid for my transgressions with horrific nightmares and a fear of vampires that only left me after I was 50. Many were the nights I couldn’t fall asleep unless my neck and wrists were covered — even as an adult! Crazy, I know, but I’m sufficiently cured now.
I was thrilled to find all the episodes streaming on Amazon Prime and have been binge-watching for a couple weeks. I only stumbled onto your blog a few days ago. I’m at episode 280 now and I still can’t seem to get enough of the show or your blog. Even though I remember virtually nothing about the show from my childhood (except for Barnabas and his fangs, and I vaguely remember Kate Jackson) it still makes me nostalgic. I feel like a kid again, but without the numbing terror.
Thank you for the time you spent preparing your entertaining and enlightening comments!!!
Will you be reviewing the rest?
Hi.
Two fun things I thought of while Sheltering in Place and watching Dark Shadows.
1) Try to guess what offbeat line Danny will quote in his blog. I just watched 348, and guessed “Where there’s life, there’s always fear”. Danny:“I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t dead.” I usually get them wrong, but not always.
2) Pretend that Danny’s recaps were published in a regular column in the New York Post at the time the episodes first aired. Edited for space, and to remove references to things that haven’t happened yet, and some of the nastier swipes at the cast, but with the fun intact. Wouldn’t you like to have followed that? He’d probably get some hate mail, but I’m afraid it might have affected the show for the worse – what is Dark Shadows without line flubs and technical foul-ups?
I loved Dark Shadows. I ran home from school every day to watch it! My friend and enjoyed Dark Shadows. Both of us grew up in Ohio, but met in the 2000”s. Both of us made up our lives with Dark Shadows! I have watched it many times over and over again. Now at age 61 watching and enjoying it again. I love Quentin Collins. I think I based the man I married from the dark eyes and dark hair!! Never blonde.
Dark Shadows is my very favorite show.
Yes… will you be reviewing the rest of the episodes? About Bramwell and Cathryn and the sister who died? There’s an episode that Lara Parker narrates of a lost video. Only the audio exists. What happened with that and when did she narrate it? Episode 1219, Season 25?
The episode is not in “season 25” since the show did not air in seasons–it aired daily for five years. The season numbers are an arbitrary grouping added decades after the fact.
I love it. Very witty. Nice to follow. Wish the whole series was on about 10 dvd’s.
I am back, I am entirely back. For folks who have been worried about my absence during most of 2020: I’m fine, thank you for your interest and concern, and I’m really glad you’re reading the blog. I started up again with episode 1171 after a very long weekend 🙂 and I’m still headed to episode 1245. Yes, we will reach the end, and there’s going to be a lot of fun extra stuff in the last 15 weeks, as I cover as many of the books and comics and other spinoff experiences as I can. Thanks for reading, and I love you.
Glad you are back. I was worried what happened to you. I was searching for your name on the internet lol.
I ended up watching the series until Julia, Stokes, Barnabas, when back to 1971 and were going to some event with Elisabeth. Last time we see them as those characters. I did not watch the rest as I had seen it before.
Hooray!!! Great to see you back, I’ve been checking this site for ages. 🙂
Extra happy since Dark Shadows From The Beginning has suddenly gone private and inaccessible 😦
I used to hurry home to watch Dark Shadows after school in Flushing, NY. My sisters and all my friends watched it too. I started watching it on Amazon Prime thinking I’d probably quit after a couple of episodes. I’m now on episode 557!! Hooked…
All of the episodes are available for free on Tubi on the Roku.
and on Amazon Prime
When will episode 1245 be complete?
I just learned that there are no recaps beyond 1228, and I’m heartbroken. 😦 Danny, I hope you’re OK.
Well, I just posted 1228 this morning, so yeah, everything’s fine. 🙂 I’m getting to 1245 soon.
The thing that happened to Melanie and the explanation at the very end of episode 1245 was unexpected at this point of the series….
I just found the beginning, episode 1. It’s even weirder because it looks almost like a movie. Maggie is blonde, and did I see Conrad Bain?? So I’ll keep watching from there to the end again. I look forward to rereading your reviews along the way and the new ones too. Thanks!
Love this site! It’s the funniest thing I’ve read in years. Before streaming tv I spent months binging on “Dark Shadows” DVDs before chugging off to work and while I noticed some of the flubs it’s nice to have them cataloged. It was a great show (if, like most soaps, a bit glacial in its movement) and a great site! Don’t go away!
One thing I always marveled at in “DS” was the fact that whenever anyone went visiting, they’d knock and if they didn’t get an answer they’d walk right in anyhow. Maybe that’s the way they do things in Maine?
I just finished watching the series on Tubi from May 2020 to August 2023. I was reading these entries as I went along and had great fun with it! I felt kind of sad starting the final episode, 1245. The “just a wild animal” postscript of 1245 is terrible! They should have left the vampire bite in place (even it it was only Parallel Time).
I have some of the Big Finish audio dramas, so will start in on those soon.
Is it just me, or did Kate Jackson as Daphne get kissed more than any other character on the show? There’s not really much kissing going on in this series for a soap opera, but someone decided to make up for it with Kate, I guess! Makes me wonder, did Dan or one of the writers have a crush on her?
Your recaps offer the most hilarious descriptions of this show. Have you ever considered writing recaps of the later shows, too? The remakes that came decades later offer some pretty goofy stuff, too. I watch these on Amazon and Tubi now, but originally saw this on TV when I was a toddler. Such a great show!!!
Your take on dark shadows is absolutely hilarious. How these actors kept a straight face proves they were great actors. Darling Lara Parker just passed away. Best Witch of all times. What would Claus von Bullow ever have done without Alexandra Moltke throwing him under the bus at his murder trial.?
There’s soap for you…. or maybe even a movie!