I was at a friend's house one day several years ago and we had the TV on Sci-Fi, waiting for my favorite show "Earth 2" to come on. I saw some old, black and white, extremely cheap, video-taped show on beforehand and asked him what this was. He said he thought it was "Dark Shadows" but he'd never watched it.
Later that night when I went home, my curiosity about that show was still with me so I went online and read about all about "Dark Shadows." I must've spent two days straight reading Mr. Juggins' site. What a cool friggin' show! I checked the Sci-Fi schedule online and found out they had recently started over from the beginning. I don't remember anymore which episode it was that I'd seen, but I remember it had Bill Malloy in it. I didn't get the Sci-Fi Channel myself, so I went to Amazon and ordered the first volume of the Collector's Series VHS tapes. I watched it when it came and instantly fell in love. I was so disappointed that I didn't have more episodes, so I ordered all the way up to Volume 10!
While waiting for the next batch of episodes to arrive, I kind of forgot about the show for a bit, but when they came, I quickly gobbled down those episodes and when it ended with Bill's body being found at the foot of Widow's Hill, I vowed never again to let myself catch up to the number of episodes I've got purchased. After the Collector's Series ran out, I naturally switched over to getting the DVDs... and the rest is history!
I guess the reason why I like the early episodes so much is because I was one of the fans lucky enough to actually see the show from the beginning their first time.