I was surprised to see some paragraphs devoted to Dark Shadows in the entertainment section of the Burlington County Times.  It's nice to see DS recognized.   

Despite most of the same characters living different lives (because of that making-different-choices thing), it appears that over-all, it's not really that different in that particular band of Parallel Time from Normal Time.  Geographical locations are the same.  And even though no mention is made, it seems that history and even current events are pretty much identical.

I mean, no one said anything about America being a British dominion, so I take it that George Washington was the first president of the USA in that time.  And he was probably married to Martha and spent his days in Mount Vernon.

To that end, I think it woulda been kinda interesting to have some of the characters being virtually identical, almost indistinguishable in personality, attitude, lifestyle, etc.  It seems that the one who comes closest to that is, despite a different last name, Amy. 

Since this topic was posted on May 19th, I think Patti was referring to Karlen's absence from the show prior to his return in the Leviathan story line.

According to Karlen himself (DS Companion, 25th Anniversary book) he had moved his family to California and was lured back to New York by Dan Curtis after Curtis got the two-picture deal with MGM. Karlen really wanted to do the films.