Dark Shadows 1970-71?

[Zahir]

What if Dark Shadows hadn't ended in 1970?

Bear with me for a moment.  Suppose the series hadn't been cancelled.  One reason folks often said the show ended was that they'd run out of ideas, or classic works of gothic/supernatural literature to rip off.     But is that true?  Really?  I invite you all to suggest...sources of inspiration...the show might have used and how they could have played out.  Consider also that the last time we saw Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes they'd returned from the past having changed history quite a bit (duh--Edith died a young woman!).  We know Elizabeth and Roger were still around, and methinks we can presume David and Carolyn as well.  But at the very least we might find another branch of the family somewhere, descended from Quentin and Daphne maybe?

So here are some suggestions on my part:

The Haunting by Shirley Jackson.  In this wonderful (and terrifying) novel, a scientist who's longed all his life to find some kind of proof of ghosts persuades the owners of a New England mansion with a bizarre history to let him bring in a couple of real psychics for a week and see the results.  If this isn't tailor-made for DS I don't know what is!  One possibility that comes to my mind is that Barnabas might agree to let such an experiment at the Old House in hopes of contacting the spirit of Angelique!

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, about a melancholy female vampire who visits a lonely person her own age and begins feeding, almost against her will.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see another reluctant vampire, one who successfully hid their tracks even from Julia and Barnabas?  Yet we'd all be rooting for them to connect because after all Julia does have a cure!  She could turn this young woman back into a human being!

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.  This has enormous potential for humor, frankly.  Suppose a pretty young woman came to Collinwood expecting to find all kinds of gothic mysteries and dark secrets--then utterly misinterpreted things!  She might obsess about a perfectly ordinary object, thinking it cursed, or become convinced a natural death was in fact murder, or try to find the 'code' to decypher an old document whose real meaning she totally misses!  Oh, and let Quentin fall in love with her.  That'd be a nice touch, don'tcha think?

So many possibilities...Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Rappacinni's Daughter, The Great God Pan, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Mummy, etc. etc.

What would YOU like to have seen?   

[Uncle Roger]

A mummy story might have been fun. But I would have loved to have seen Carolyn and Jeb in a Rosemary's Baby storyline

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Uncle Roger, I don't know if the daytime world would have been ready for that in 1971!   

[Uncle Roger]

True enough! Although they somehow were able to air the episode where Nicholas Blair performs a black mass to prepare Maggie for her new residence in hell. And, as I recall, this episode aired the day before Thanksgiving. Quite the holiday episode!

[Nightfall59]

A mummy story might have been fun.

Yes, but a "cousin" in rotting bandages might have been hard to explain. 

[Gerard]

Uncle Roger, I don't know if the daytime world would have been ready for that in 1971!   

Oh, I don't know.  Look at the PT1841 storyline that involved something about a bundle of joy.  Pretty heady stuff for DS.

Gerard

[Cousin_Barnabas]

All very true and valid points.  1973 saw the first legal abortion on AMC, so you never know!

And, yes, the Black Mass certainly was quite the extravaganza!   

[Lydia]

There's The Flying Dutchman, though that might have come across as being too similar to the 1967 Barnabas storyline.

[Nightfall59]

Hasn't Alexandra Moltke said that one of the reasons she left DS was that she was afraid they would write her real-life pregnancy into the show as a Rosemary's Baby storyline?  She may have been joking, though.

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Although it may have been somewhat similar to the Leviathan storyline (what with Jeb Hawkess as the leader of some evil race of beings), perhaps the Dark Shadows writers could have "borrowed" the concept of the newborn "Anti-Christ" from "The Omen" series of films?

Then again, maybe the writers could have adopted author John Fuller's nonfiction book, "The Interrupted Journey" (dealing with the alleged abduction of Barney and Betty Hill by ET's in New Hampshire, way back in 1961), and have had both Barnabas and Dr. Hoffman abducted by the "greys" in a storyline, entitled "The Interrupted Sojourn to Widow's Hill"?      

[ClaudeNorth]

The sense I get is that DC and Company were pretty much burnt out from doing five years of DS. If the show continued past April 1971, I suspect there would have been a significant turnover in cast and crew, which wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing.

Also, I think the show would have found new life as a result of the 1971 publication of The Exorcist, which spawned a heightened awareness of, and interest in, the occult.  Those who remember the 1970s will recall the large number of supernatural- and occult-themed made-for-TV movies and theatrical films.  I can imagine DS morphing into a more "realistic" exploration of these themes and developing a grittier feel.  (Hints of this can be seen in the John Yeager-Buffie Harrington storyline.)

[PennyDreadful]

Lot No. 249 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have been the perfect way to bring a mummy into the DS storyline.

"Lot No. 249" (published in 1892) is a short story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story tells of an Oxford college student who, through the use of Egyptian magic, manages to reanimate an ancient Egyptian mummy (called "Lot 249" for its number in an auction sale), which he then sends to attack all the people against whom he holds a grudge. Written in the wake of the late-19th-century fascination with Egyptology, "Lot No. 249" was the first story to depict a reanimated mummy as a sinister, predatory figure and had a profound influence on the horror movie genre throughout the 20th century.

[DarkLady]

A "Lot 249"-type story would have been fun! If Desmond could bring back the head of Judah Zachery from the mysterious Far East, surely some other Collins must have thought of bringing back a mummy. 

[Brandon Collins]

There was definitely a lot of other material that DS could've mined for inspiration to continue the story. Part of the charm, for me, of Dark Shadows was that they used the same actors to play a number of different characters and every now and then a new actor would join the show. If there had've been a major cast change, I wouldn't have liked it, but I'm sure the show would've continued nonetheless. Just look at the numerous occasions viewers are expected to ignore such things on today's soaps. I know there have been several times when I was watching General Hospital that there would be two even three actors playing the same character within the same week. Or even two actors in the same episode (which I only remember once, a long time ago).

[arashi]

Lot 249 sounds like a great idea for a Mummy storyline!

With Laura and Quentin's ties to Egypt I'm surprised they didn't somehow work that in there.