It would be interesting, if somehow we could see through a parallel time room, how DS would have progressed story-wise if the Barnabas plot had followed its original course, with him getting staked and leaving the show forever. What would they do afterwards? Would there have been a mad scientist creating a Frankensteinian monster? A werewolf?
I don't think it would have been interesting, myself. If things went the same way as with the Barnabas-staking, I think various monsters would have come along, they'd be evil and vanquished, and so on. However, I don't think that spree of typical television would have happened as the staking didn't happen, because of the writers... and because Dan Curtis left the country occasionally.
The payoff for the Barnabas story was to be his staking by Burke & Dr. Woodard and we all know that never could have happened once Barnabas became popular.
As you said that, I got a flash of what I would have wanted to see... Barnabas learns of their plans (how could he not?), and decides to have a fun night out by getting to Burke first, in bed I suppose, putting him in a coffin, waking him up, and then driving a wooden stake through Burke's heart! You know we'd get one of those rare moments I like where Barnabas is actually seen to be enjoying himself, because that only happens when he revenges or retaliates, the more ironically the better!
The thing is, I want all that because I'm (historically*) for good-Barnabas-lurking-within-bad-Barnabas, so I want him to win and for his enemies to perish... yet in this alternate storyline "he" doesn't exist, especially if he does something that bloodthirsty. Okay, GBLWBB did bloodthirsty things (no pun intended strangely enough, that one fell right into my lap), but once you make a bloodthirsty act into such an overwhelming display of horrific, ironic theater, the audience can't really be on your side anymore. So that kills GBLWBB as an on-air concept, even if GBLWBB would actually do stuff like that, which he would, and I want to see it.
Let's film it. I'm starting pre-production work in my living room this afternoon. Have your agents call me.
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*-- These days, 1968/9 is undercutting my empathy and identification with Barnabas as a protagonist a little bit more with each day of viewing. It's going to take a long, long time to dig myself out of this trough and like Barnabas again. His goodiness seems forced.