How come no Burke Devlin in any of the DS remakes?

[IluvBarnabas]

Perhaps Tim Burton and Johnny Depp never caught the show until Barnabas came on so that would explain why there wouldn't be any Burke in the 2012 movie, but Dan Curtis was the executive producer of the 1991 version and the original show...what he didn't think Burke was noteworthy enough to feature in the nighttime show?

Much credit has been given to the appearance of Barnabas supposedly saving the show from cancellation, but be that as it may, Burke had been a very important character during the first year. Did Curtis think NO ONE would even remember Burke? That doesn't hold ice with me because he was even still prominent during Barnabas' first few months of the show, though Anthony George had assumed the role by then.

I never saw the 2004 pilot but I understand the character of Burke was absent from that as well. For such a complex character, Burke has been totally ignored in ever single one of the remakes of the show. I don't see why DC at least couldn't have worked Burke into the 1991 revival.

[Gerard]

I also thought the omission of Burke from the remakes was a mistake.  Having some competition with Barnabas for Vicki would always make things more interesting.  Maybe, if the '91 version had continued, he might've been introduced.

Gerard

[Gothick]

If Quentin had come on the scene as planned in the Fall 1991 season, he might have become Barn's competition for Vicki, at least for a time.  He was to be played by a very attractive Scottish actor whose name I am forgetting... Adrian Paul?  That man could set one of his own kilts on fire...

I think the thing with the remakes is that all of them focus on the original Barnabas storyline; Burke was part of it in 1967, but not a part that has attracted the attention of people who seek to extend the "franchise".  It's a little surprising that Burton/Depp didn't work in a reference to Burke since they apparently wove in a number of other references only diehard fans would get. 

G.

[Gerard]

And, supposedly, in the '91 second season, Laura Collins (the character, not the actress who played Phoenix in the OS), the estranged wife of Roger and absent mother of David, returns to Collinsport from England, but as what?  A witch?  A phoenix?  The reincarnation of Angelique or Angelique herself?  Well, whatever, to add intrigue in a very Dallasesque way, Burke Devlin would also arrive and it turns out there was some very nasty business years ago involving him, Roger, Laura and maybe others with Burke seeking revenge, getting romantically involved with Vicki who Barnabas still has his eye on, with Laura playing them all against each other and Barnabas getting hostile with Laura, plus David acting weird and doing strange things because Mamma's come home and all sorts of Dynastyesque plot twists.  Meanwhile, as things start to reach the boiling point, Julia is dealing with a little girl named Amy Jennings in foster care who's obsessed over her older adult brother Chris who refuses to have anything to do with her until Julia tracks him down but in the meantime she asks Elizabeth to take Amy under her roof where she and David, with his residule strange abilities, using a Ouija board, make contact with a spirit named Quentin.....

Gerard

[KMR]

I also thought the omission of Burke from the remakes was a mistake.  Having some competition with Barnabas for Vicki would always make things more interesting.

At least in HoDS they had Jeff Clark as a rival for Maggie's affections.  In fact, the original script played that up a bit more than the finished film did.  But I think in the 1991 series and the 2012 movie, Vicki arrived at Collinwood at the same time as Barnabas, so adding a romantic rival probably would have made the plot a bit more complicated.

[IluvBarnabas]

But I think in the 1991 series and the 2012 movie, Vicki arrived at Collinwood at the same time as Barnabas, so adding a romantic rival probably would have made the plot a bit more complicated.

I can buy that for the Burton/Depp film, but I still don't see why Burke couldn't have been part of the 1991 revival. Heck, Curtis wouldn't have even have had to tie him in with Barnabas and Vicki...he could have just revamped the rivalry between Burke and Roger with some new twists.

[Uncle Roger]

Perhaps both remakes regarded Burke as a superfluous character for the abbreviated story that they wanted to tell. Professor Stokes isn't in either version either, although his place in the 1991 version is filled by Michael Woodard and, later, by Maggie Evans.

[Gerard]

I also thought the omission of Burke from the remakes was a mistake.  Having some competition with Barnabas for Vicki would always make things more interesting.

At least in HoDS they had Jeff Clark as a rival for Maggie's affections.  In fact, the original script played that up a bit more than the finished film did.  But I think in the 1991 series and the 2012 movie, Vicki arrived at Collinwood at the same time as Barnabas, so adding a romantic rival probably would have made the plot a bit more complicated.

In my humble opinion, the '91 version needed a bit more of complication.  The whole schtick of a murderous vampire (unknown to all but just one) showing up and causing massive mayhem, and then dismissed, was simply ludicrous, the failure of the revival.  The OS used a great deal of subtlety, and even the first use of word "vampire" wasn't first uttered until well into the 1795/96 flashback and not until close to the end of the plot.

Gerard

[KMR]

In retrospect, I sort of agree that the way the modern day vampire story was handled in the 1991 series could have been much, much better.  (Although I still love the series...)  I do think the 1790 flashback was by far the best part of the series.  But unless the show had been structured differently, adding in a love interest for Vicki in addition to all of the existing plot elements would have been just a bit too much to take in for a weekly primetime show, unless the whole thing were slowed down and spread over a greater number of episodes.

[tragic bat]

I like the fact that 1991 was going to bring Laura in (note there was also going to be a Jeff Clark/Chris Jennings type character played by the same actor who previously portrayed Joe Haskal and Peter Bradford who would probably have been a love interest for Viki.)  But it seems understandable that if you are going to focus on Barnabas, Angelique, and other horror elements, the manslaughter storyline is too long and too banal to include.  Of course he wasn't in the Burton film!  Neither was Pansy Faye, Nicholas Blair, or dozens of other characters we could name from the over one thousand episodes that couldn't all be crammed into a two hour long film. 

Maybe if any remake lasted long enough, it could be brought up in some way as character development for Roger, but it would probably be a very different Burke Devlin anyway.  But I don't see him as film-fodder either. 

[michael c]

on the OS burke was already a well established character when barnabas was introduced and a romance between him and vicki was being setup since the series' premier. so when barnabas set his sights on vicki a rivalry was instantly established. and at this point angelique had not yet been introduced and vicki was not really the "present day" josette variation per se in the same way she is in other variations on the story.

however in the 1991 series with vicki the josette incarnation they decided to launch into the barnabas/vicki romance right out of the gate. and with angelique introduced almost immediately that became the romantic triangle. had the series progressed to a second season it looked like a peter bradford storyline was being set up so in terms of a romantic rivalry in season two again burke would have been superfluous.

again with the film with vicki established as the "josette figure" from the outset and angelique already onboard the josette-barnabas-angelique triangle was the conflict...even though this part of the story was, for whatever reason, much more underplayed than in previous tellings.

[IluvBarnabas]

As I've said, for the 1991 show, they didn't have to throw in Burke with Barnabas and Vicki, just give him his own story. The revival neen't have just focused on the Barnabas/Victoria as Josette angle.

I know one of the complaints about the OS was that once Barnabas came aboard, the other characters/actors were given the short end of the stick at least as far as the present day stories went. I can't deny there is truth to that. But the revival was almost exclusively the 'Barnabas Collins Show co-starring Victoria Winters, Julia Hoffman and Willie Loomis' from day one. Burke or no Burke, the revival really needed to concentrated more on the other characters without having it be all about Barnabas.  And in truth I have to admit the OS probably would have been better off having done so as well.

[IluvBarnabas]

I don't know, I guess I'm just griping too much. I know we can't have everything or everyone from the OS into the remakes, but rewatching the first year I've really come to appreciate and enjoy the character of Burke (the Mitch Ryan version that is) even more than before that I just feel it's a shame DC didn't think enough of him to include him in the 1991 show, even just as a minor character for an episode or two.

I just read that DC had little to next to nothing to do with the 2004 pilot and that the pilot was directed by someone who was totally unfamiliar with anything to do with Dark Shadows, so that does explain better why Burke was omitted from the 2004 retelling.

[michael c]

yes the 1991 series greatly shortchanged most of the collins family to focus almost entirely on the barnabas storyline. characters like liz, roger and david were more part of an important "establishing presence", like collinwood itself, than fully realized characters. a situation largely repeated with the recent film.


i would rather have seen the "present time" characters and situations fleshed out much more than the hasty and ill-conceived 6-episode 1790 sequence.


so with characters like liz and roger sidelined, and references to the cannery and other family businesses virtually nonexistant(was the cannery ever even mentioned?), burke's other purpose, aside from his romance with victoria, would have made absolutely no sense...

but i agree he was an important OS character that's been notable by his absence in subsequent retellings. i'd have liked an appearance somewhere but it never seemed to fit into the context of the story the producers at hand were trying to tell.

[Gerard]

I don't remember - was the cannery ever mentioned in the '91 remake?  Just what did the Collins family own or do to pay the electric bill?

Gerard