I'm somewhat ashamed to admit I still watch one of the few remaining daily soaps. 'the bold & the beautiful'...


like DS and in typical soap fashion a single show "day" can last for weeks. however unlike DS they have a special Thanksgiving and Christmas episode every year. on the Thanksgiving show the entire cast gathers at the home of one character for dinner. on the Christmas show they all volunteer at a homeless shelter.

the get around the continuity bugaboo by making these "stand alone episodes" that can get inserted into the week on the correct day but doesn't really effect the overall progression of any of the storylines. the actors are "in character" but for the purposes of those episodes characters that normally cannot stand each other "put their differences aside" for the day and focus on their good works or the "spirit of the holiday". so regardless of what's happening with the plot they can produce these episodes and acknowledge the holidays without really throwing anything out of whack.

there's no "cliffhanger" and the next day they can all go back to lying to, hating and backstabbing each other.

given the perceived "failures" of the 1991, 2004 and 2012 version of the story I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for another take on it...


and the "rights" to the property might still be tied up with the deep/burton deal even though it's obvious by now they have no intention of any further expansion of the franchise.

the book 'dark shadows. the first year' does a breakdown of each show "day" during the first year...

given the snail's pace it moved during that period it wasn't a lot of "days". the "night" of Victoria's arrival in Collinsport lasted a week. her first full, action packed "day" lasted a staggering sixteen episodes. the entire bleeder valve/car crash incident occurs on that one "day" even though it was actually three full weeks of episodes. that mystery was solved on "day three".

all in all only 52 "days" passed until a certain "cousin from England" shows up at the front door.

as I recall the recently married Jeb and Carolyn was the first (and only?) time we actually saw a couple in bed together on the show. 

by the time they started mentioning "claude north" (every five minutes) the time period was winding down anyways...


it was really much ado about nothing. 

Dark Lady, I actually love PT 1970.  It is the last storyline with a plot that has a coherent development, and a finale that draws together all the loose threads in a satisfactory conclusion. Granted there are speed bumps--notably Aunt Hannah's abrupt disappearance once Hoffman comes back (she was evidently viewed as a surrogate for Hoffman, as Alexalique's co-conspirator), and the whole Claude North thing (I wonder if Brian Sturdivant just failed to show up for work one day--that's what happened with Craig Slocum).  I also enjoy getting to see Edmonds, Bennett, Thayer and others play such way-out characters.  John Karlen played an alcoholic writer, but Will H. Loomis was still more with-it than his previous characterizations--though I will always love Willie best of all his roles.  The Jekyll/Hyde plot isn't all that interesting to me, but every storyline has something that I feel the urge to fast forward through (in 1795, it's the Vicki/Peter stuff and Vicki's endless trial scenes).

The final weeks of Leviathan are memorable for that awful "Shadow" "special" effect.  Ah well.

as you know I'm also a great fan of 1970PT. it's planned brevity made for a nice, tight, concise little moment. it was visually very appealing and had it's own unique atmosphere. as I recall they even employed a different set of musical cues to heighten the effect of being in a "different" universe.

for me it was the last truly original storyline (if "original" is a word that can really be applied to heavily cribbed material) before the whole thing started to devolve into retreads. except for the brief jaunt to 1995 it was the last storyline/time period I was actually engaged in.

certainly 1968, and one could argue much of 1897, were told from a rather "adolescent" sensibility. it was the stuff of lunch boxes and bubble gum cards...


the introductory weeks of 'leviathan'...a young couple establishing an antique shop in town, paul stoddard's return from the abyss...definitely had a more "adult" sensibility. there were days when it seemed more like an episode of 'edge of night' than a show that had become synonymous with monsters.

which is actually what I liked about the period. it was wonderfully dark and atmospheric before it started to go off the deep end. and the todds were great, epically tragic figures in the whole thing. unlike some other figures in the story they didn't "sign up" for any of it but paid the ultimate price for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.