DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '11 I => Topic started by: Gothick on April 03, 2011, 02:46:27 AM
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Just a line to mark the occasion forty years ago of the last episode of Dark Shadows. I literally could not believe the series was going off the air and actually tuned in the following Monday at 4 p.m. to see if the familiar crashing surf and music that seemed like a scream turned into a melody would blast across the airwaves with more stories from our beloved Collinwood. But alas, it was gone for good, and instead that following Monday, April 5, 1971, we got the annoyingly chirpy and misplaced intro to Password (a popular game show moved into the DS slot by the ABC suits).
One of the most frustrating things about the final weeks of the series was that every day, I would tune in wondering if they were going to switch away from Parallel Time 1841 and show what was happening with Barnabas, Julia, and the family in our own time band of 1971. But they never did. Evidently I wasn't the only one who wanted to know how the story of the people we knew and loved best in our own time at the Great House continued; a few months after the show went off the air, Sam Hall's article offering a possible wrap-up of the various "present day" storylines was published in TV Guide.
Happy memories to all,
G.
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What got me at the time was Thayer announcing that the animal bites really were animal bites this time! Anyone notice Gordon Russell inserting himself into DS at the very last minute?
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We duly marked the anniversary of the ending show on DS in our household yesterday. Sadness was felt all around. But just the thought of getting a new DS has been very uplifting. It seems incredible to me that Dan Curtis would have stopped the show just because he wanted to move onto other things. I really believe that the ratings was the true cause of the shows ending when it did.
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Actually, the ratings were still quite satisfactory. That's one of the reasons why, when it came time for the next ABC board meeting after the cancellation, many on the board were not at all happy that the decision to cancel DS had been made.
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MB, I'll thank you not to make me cry.
One of the most frustrating things about the final weeks of the series was that every day, I would tune in wondering if they were going to switch away from Parallel Time 1841 and show what was happening with Barnabas, Julia, and the family in our own time band of 1971.
Is it known whether there was any discussion among the producers and managers as to whether the show should return to 1971 before the end? Now that we have DVDs and fan fiction, I'm glad that 1971 was left so very much up in the air.
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I used to think that they'd set off too many land mines destroying history and thus the "present" that B&J knew, and could never return to 1971. The present would be very different, including the fact that B&J wouldn't even have been at Collinwood in the first place. Now though, I realize that that would never have stopped them. They'd have just ignored they damage they'd done.
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Barnabas and Julia had already been recognized at 1971 Collinwood before the series ended, although so briefly that all sorts of possibilities still remained.
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Yes, they writers hadn't intended to destroy the present through 1840, the writers wanted a happy ending for 1971 with B&J in it, but perhaps they came to realize that with what they'd done to history, trying to write that sort of 1971 beyond that one brief scene would present too many insoluble problems.
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I doubt it - they never really cared about a little thing like Causality. [snow_wink] They would have picked up 1971 with some brief explanation of what had gone on for the months the show had been in 1841PT. And as with Quentin's haunting, some characters would have probably remembered Gerard and Daphne while other wouldn't. The big question is how they were planning to bring Angelique back because they definitely intended to. Would she have been a ghost? Flesh and Blood? A witch? Or a mortal? And we could probably speculate for days on all that and possibly never hit on what they would have actually done...
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Barnabas and Julia had already been recognized at 1971 Collinwood before the series ended, although so briefly that all sorts of possibilities still remained.
That's the part of that brief glimpse of 1971 that contains the most fascinating unanswered questions, imo anyway. If Barnabas had been free of the curse since 1841, and was not in his coffin for Willie to release in 1967, then why did Elizabeth recognize him? Why was Julia even there, since she would have had no reason to be at Collinwood if not for Barn's attack/abduction of Maggie Evans?
My personal spin--which I suppose is as good of a guess as anybody's since we've never know--is that Barn was still a vampire (he was under the Leviathan curse, not Angelique's curse when he entered 1840). And the only events changed by B&J's foray into the past, were that Gerard and Daphne had never haunted Collinwood, and Roxanne had never existed as a vampire in 1970. Ah, the reams of fanfiction created by all the inconsistencies and unanswered questions of that return to 1971! [6184]
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Actually, the ratings were still quite satisfactory. That's one of the reasons why, when it came time for the next ABC board meeting after the cancellation, many on the board were not at all happy that the decision to cancel DS had been made.
Thanks for that bit of fact. As I have said before when I think I have heard it all....;0)
I will always maintain that DC had a lot to do with DS ending and he was the catalyst for the show ending. In my opinion, if he would not have been so bull headed he would have turned the show over to some wonderful staff continued and made even more money. Alas....
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Yes, I had read that the ratings were going up again but not enough to satisfy the suits at ABC. Could DC have been possesive enough to not let DS keep going on its own without his guidance all along the way? That seems pretty selfish to me but alas.....will the truth ever be known.
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Besides Angelique, there was Barnabas. Did Jonathan still want to play him? What would happen if you lost one of the Stars? Would Grayson stayed if Jonathan left? Julia without Barnabas, that would be an interesting storyline. What would have happened with the chemistry of the show.
You are correct about fan fiction has come up with many different endings and continuation.
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Lori, my understanding is that Frid still wanted to play Barnabas; he just wanted to play other characters as well, the way other actors on the show did. And I'm sure that Grayson Hall would have stayed, for a while anyway, even if Frid had left, because she and Sam had a kid to support. Julia without Barnabas should logically have turned to Stokes, but I don't think Thayer David was around enough for that to happen. Maybe Julia would have been killed off (an idea that Sam Hall had suggested) and a new character for Grayson would have been created. But, as I said, I don't think Frid was planning to leave in the near future.
I used to think that they'd set off too many land mines destroying history and thus the "present" that B&J knew, and could never return to 1971. The present would be very different, including the fact that B&J wouldn't even have been at Collinwood in the first place. Now though, I realize that that would never have stopped them. They'd have just ignored they damage they'd done.
It occurred to me recently that there needn't be much of a problem, if the following happened:
1. 1840 Quentin and Daphne have no offspring.
2. Tad dies in the Civil War, bravely falling alongside his cousin Thaddeus.
3. 1840 Quentin dies sometime after 1840 but before 1870 or so.
4. Daphne raises Judith, Edward, 1897 Quentin, and Carl when their parents die: “Great-aunt-aunt” instead of “Grandmamama”.
5. I Ching, possibly even more devoted to Barnabas than Julia is, cleans up the mess created by the fact that Barnabas, having arrived in 1840 via I Ching, leaves via the staircase. Thanks to I Ching, there is a Barnabas in the coffin in 1967 for Willie to discover.
I agree, however, that the writers would never have given us these details.
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Oops, I forgot that Daphne doesn't know the Secret. But does it really matter?
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I had stopped watching the show around the time of the David & Hallie/Gerard & Daphne story (my mom put me in some after-school program from the fall of 1970 onward, so I lost touch with DS from that point on). Months later, when I heard the series had ended recently - I was back east visiting the old neighborhood during Easter in '71 - I remember how devastated some of the kids were: suddenly it was 4pm on a Monday, and they were at a total loss. Sure they could play on the swings or go buy some candy at the corner store, but for the last 3-4 years, they'd been sitting faithfully in front of that TV set every weekday afternoon, tuned in to ABC, waiting for Barnabas to swoop along.
There was another short-lived soap or two I had followed prior to DS' departure ("The Best Of Everything", also on ABC, and "Hidden Faces" - I think on NBC), so that softened the blow about Dark Shadows: I was already seasoned at saying goodbye to axed daytime stories I'd been watching by age 8!
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I remember that I was not as regular a viewer sometime after 1897 though now I don't remember how much longer after that. The after school activities was a big lure for me so about three afternoons a week I was off involved in all that. I remember being home for the very last episode though and watching it, recalling how I would never ever miss an episode for the first two or so the show was on!
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In the biography that Julia99 did, it states that DC was totally against the idea of killing Julia. I suspect Grayson would have stayed at least five more years had the show continued. If Joan had left she probably would have filled a sort of matriarchal role in the Collins family, even if she and Barnabas didn't marry. I am actually kind of playing with that idea for a story....
:)
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That is an interesting idea. Julia would have made a great matriarch for the Collins family. She really does know where a lot of the bodies are buried. :)
What name do you write stories under, Taeylor do you have any that are on the web?
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I have yet to post any online. I am writing a story for my zine that is coming out in the fall. This story may not be in this zine but probably in the next one. The current story I wrote in the coming zine deals with Angelique and the how the Parallel Time room was created! :)
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In the biography that Julia99 did, it states that DC was totally against the idea of killing Julia. I suspect Grayson would have stayed at least five more years had the show continued. If Joan had left she probably would have filled a sort of matriarchal role in the Collins family, even if she and Barnabas didn't marry.
If Frid had left the show, as lori54 had suggested, Curtis might have changed his mind. I can't see Julia Hoffman becoming a Collins matriarch, but if Julia had been killed off, maybe Grayson Hall could have been cast as Aunt Katherine from Boston, who gets a mention in the summer of 1967.
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Who knows? She could have married another Collins that perhaps could have been brought into the picture? Endless possiblities. I would say MB should know. Didn't Frid sign four more years once they created Bramwell??? [snow_huh]
The story I am working on Carolyn basically appoints her honorary Matriarch after her Mother's death. I am still working on it though. I ha ve written in a while but I have my outlines and have already typed out a bout 10 pages of the story. It possible may turn into novel. It's kind of ambitious! We will see...
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Hi Taeylor,
I don't know whether this helps, but it was reported in one of the magazines in early '71 that Keith Prentice had been signed for a five year contract. Given that DC was notorious for stringing longstanding players along without any set contract at all, I am unsure how to evaluate this statement, even in a magazine publication. (It may have been that Prentice told a reporter he had been told he would probably be on the show at least five years and this was interpreted as his having a contract.)
Sam might have suggested killing Julia off because I can imagine that by 1970/71, Grayson was starting to complain frequently about how bored she was with playing that "straight-ass," Julia Hoffman.
I do think it's fascinating that after all this time and the deaths of Norma and DC, it's still not clear that DC must have made the decision to pull the plug on the series. But to me, that is the only interpretation of the events that makes any sense.
G.
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Who knows? She could have married another Collins that perhaps could have been brought into the picture? Endless possiblities. I would say MB should know.
I don't really know anything beyond what was written in Sam Hall's TV Guide article and what's been said at various Fests and written elsewhere. Nearly everything involving Julia in the TV Guide article would seem to be a fantasy outcome because it doesn't seem likely the show would have had Julia, Barnabas and Adam in some location in Asia completely separate from the action in Collinsport. Hall even makes some remark to the effect that much of what he wrote was merely signposts to where the characters' lives might have gone. But considering that ultimately it appeared that Hall would have liked to have seen Julia and Barn get together (which was also many in the audience own fervent desire, if the feedback letters from fans are any indication), it seems unlikely that they had any real plans in 1971 to kill off Julia (which would have caused an uproar from said fans that would have made the reaction to Leviathans seem like an extremely small annoyance).
Didn't Frid sign four more years once they created Bramwell??? [snow_huh]
I don't believe it was ever said just how long Frid's new contract was to last.
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Thanks MB. I wasn't clear about in the post. The who "knows" part was for Frid's contract. All the same thanks for your thoughts.
I truly beleive DC pulled the plug.
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According to the most experienced time traveller I know, time is not as we would imagine it. Rather he describes it as a "wibbley wobbley timey whimey" kind of thing.
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LOL Zahir! "Time Travel gives me a headache was there favorite line on Charmed..." I agree!!
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"Time Travel gives me a headache was there favorite line on Charmed..."
(I just saw that piece of conversation on a tape recently...)
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My personal spin--which I suppose is as good of a guess as anybody's since we've never know--is that Barn was still a vampire (he was under the Leviathan curse, not Angelique's curse when he entered 1840).
I prefer to think that Barnabas was human by the time he, Julia and Stokes came back to 1971, regardless of which curse he was under when he went to 1840. Besides, when we leave Barnabas and Julia for the last time, wasn't it in the daytime?
Besides, I'm still not convinced that Barnabas, Julia and Stokes didn't return to another sort of parallel time Collinwood, one where the rest of the family knew who they were, but no haunting ever took place...maybe other events hadn't happened as well, such as Quentin's haunting, the werewolf stalkings, the Leviathan conspiracy. If that's the case, then it would make sense that Barnabas WOULD still be human, having never been recursed if there had never been any Jeb Hawkes or Leviathans.