That was a great scene between Barnabas and Will. Payback! Great dialogue.

Lovely to see Samantha today (with the back of Quentin's head turned at a really odd angle). Virginia Vestoff was superb--one of the most talented artists ever to work on the show. She was so believable at portraying Samantha's complicated depths and general unlikeableness that I don't think Vestoff has ever been very popular among fans. But whenever I get around to watching 1840 again, it is to her performances that I will look forward among the more memorable, and successful, elements of this troubled storyline.

G.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to a friend who was involved in the production of the 2004 pilot. (Due to the need for confidentiality, I am unable to say more about the person's identity.) He told me that the original director assigned to the production had to bail at the last minute, and the new director they brought in knew REALLY, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about Dark Shadows--or seemingly anything horror related. To give examples, the new director, who evidently had not read the script, was under the impression in an early production meeting that Willie and Angelique were both vampires. When brought to a meeting with Alec Newman in costume, the director snapped "get rid of that stupid cane and that ring." It was the task of some supremely tactful individual to explain to the director the significance of these accessories in the Barnabas costume.

My friend said that working on the pilot was very frustrating--and the director was not good even in what he demanded of Blair Brown (and we've seen the results of that). On the up side, my friend did quite like Alec Newman, both as a person and what he did in the role.

He also shared some insights into the makeup and costuming of the 1991 series--he agreed to me that the Barnabas makeup was awful, both Vampire Barnabas especially in the 1790 scenes, and Old Barnabas. He said the makeup people assigned were not up to date and did not know what they were doing.

G.

Halpern is DS fandom's answer to Skip E. Lowe.

G.

Finished watching the video tonight. There were interesting moments and sad moments and some great stories were told. Roger Davis told David Henesy that Don Briscoe was in love with David's Mom, who went on to become a successful writer of books on astrology. One can never tell if Roger is serious, about anything really.

Ansel Faraj encouraged people to write to WB home video demanding the release of the restored print of Dan Curtis's director's cut of NIGHT OF DARK SHADOWS, which film historian and curatorial expert Darren Gross spent years restoring. One can only hope that this will happen. Next year, of course, will be the 50th anniversary of the film's release (and it's hard to believe that for those of us who were there!).

Ansel also stated that the CW had "passed on" the Resurrection revival of DS but somewhat cryptically added that the project was still being worked on and that we could see a reboot. One of these days.

I really enjoyed hearing David Henesy's memories. Unfortunately he did not have a good internet connection (he lives in Panama) and he kept buffering and then Richard Halpern would start asking another question when David was in mid-sentence. Halpern did suggest that another of these online reunions might happen again in the near future. I'm glad this was saved for those of us unable to tune in last Saturday evening.

G.

Interesting article, Philippe! It's sometimes amazing to me what the DS writers knew about.

I wonder if Violet Welles, who wrote a lot of the Count Petofi scripts, was a fan of the Christopher Isherwood novel Mr. Norris Changes Trains. There are some scenes where Petofi speaks of his love of Mozart, and at least one where he's listening to an early gramophone recording of Mozart's music. Love of Mozart was also a trait of Isherwood's "Mr. Norris" character who was based on a real life individual, Gerald Hamilton. It's too long ago for me to recall but I think Hamilton had serious delusions of grandeur and was also described as wearing an ill-fitting wig... he's portrayed in a good film version starring Matt Smith as Isherwood.

Best, Gothick

Evidently, back at some point earlier in the century, somebody had the idea to do a re-boot of THE TIME TUNNEL which was another show of the Sixties I used to watch religiously. Unlike DS, I didn't think it aged all that well, but periodically I'll get out an episode to visit again.

I was just cruising you tube and noticed that this pilot was uploaded at some point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mETHT5npqOI

Haven't watched but I am curious. The pilot obviously wasn't picked up by whoever commissioned it.

G.

The premise of this show sounds ridiculous, but there should be some nice shots of our favorite house here:

https://whatsupnewp.com/2020/09/paranormal-investigators-from-travel-channels-ghost-nation-and-kindred-spirits-team-up-on-halloween-to-investigate-newports-seaview-terrace

These shows often use really spastic camera angles and absurd, repetitive jump cuts but perhaps they'll include some less manic establishing shots.

G.

If I remember aright, today's photo is from a scene in which Carolyn was possessed by Magda at a seance. Which was Magda's pre-debut moment in the show--a preview of coming attractions. And fittingly perhaps, though I'm sure nobody was aware of the circular movement of events, the last time Magda's voice was heard on DS was while Julia was standing in the drawing room in 1969. One of my favorite scenes--a Grayson in stereo moment.

G.