DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '12 I => Topic started by: Ronny G on February 27, 2012, 02:57:33 AM
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At the end of each episode there would be a cliffhanger.
The next day, they would usually repeat the ending at the beginning of the show as a teaser before the credits.
Were these "teasers" newly filmed a second time-- or were they merely reruns (i.e. footage taken from the previous episode)??.
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I can't speak for Dark Shadows -- but on most soaps, the teasers are re-taped. And, they are always re-taped, if the directors for the two episodes are different.
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In very early DS, which the Watching Project is on right now, usually there's no repeated scene at all. Later, the repeated scene was almost always re-shot, since apparently making the actors do it all over again was cheaper than editing in a copy of the previous day's scene. Much later as the budget went up a bit, there were more edits in the show in general, such as during Parallel Time, where the concept demanded it, and I think there were fewer re-shot openings then.
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I always enjoy the reshoots, as sometimes they improve upon the scene that closed the previous episode. One notable exception occurs in 1840, when Lara Parker's performance as V'angelique is FAR more subdued for her second performance, plus she makes a wee booboo when referring to Roxanne: "Why don't you want her to live?" She blinks, then corrects herself: "Why DO you want her to live? Why don't you want her to die so you can spend eternity together?"
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Other notable examples-- when amnesiac Maggie wanders into the Blue Whale and Barnabas thinks he's going to be given away. They were changing to color, so version one was b&w, and version two was color! Sort of a psychadelic experience, watching the change...
Also, there was Barnabas in the hospital room, being told by Lang that he's not a vampire any longer. Everyone's words and movements are different, the second time.
It's nice getting a chance to see another take of the same scene. The actors choose different readings of the lines, sometimes.
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It depends. Sometimes they just used what had been taped the day before. On other occasions, the re-stagings (as I think of them) could have dramatic differences. I remember once when Thayer David was in a scene at the end of Day One, and suddenly not in the same scene's finale when repeated on Day Two.
G.
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Things like that were aggravating. But then we know DC and his rule that only so many actors were allowed in each ep.
One of the things I often find interesting is when the teaser is completely restaged from the cliffhanger, with the actors starting off standing in completely different places and then moving throughout the scene completely differently. And of course there are the ones where characters are wearing completely different clothes. But then DC probably thought we were all too dumb to ever remember what they had previously been wearing...
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Oh yeah. Different costumes, sets rearranged, people appearing and disappearing...
I think they worked under the assumption that we all had amnesia from one day to the next. Eventually, I guess they learned better, but never well enough to keep it all consistent.
I still maintain that given the pressures, time-frame, and sheer unbridled insanity with which the average workday there was interlaced, the shows maintain an extraordinary level of quality... which is why it IS my all-time favorite TV show EVER...
G.
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During Laura storyline #1, there's a cliffhanger involving Dr. Guthrie which is made to happen differently in the re-shoot of that scene the next day, so differently that the two versions just can't be reconciled. I guess I'm avoiding this being a spoiler by wording it that way... There must have been a nearly last-minute revision in how the story was to go, that day.
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Really? I haven't come to that in my viewing yet, and I don't remember what you're talking about so I'm intrigued to see it...
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David and Sarah are standing in different places in the finale where she shows him the secret room for the first time and the teaser of the next episode.