A New Dark Shadows?

Yeah there was precious little continuity in the original series, but there are established character facts. Barnabas, Quentin and Angelique are all immortal. They'd somehow have to explain their eternal youth to the family. There'd be their backtories alone to explain to new viewers, not to mention the histories of both houses.

I'm not saying it's impossible, just highly unlikely that if there WAS to be a new series that it would not feature the introduction of Barnabas, the retelling of 1795, etc. etc.

The TNG approach is tricky, I'll give you that. But this is how I've approached it in my TNG story that I'm working on:

David is master of Collinwood.
Barnabas has aged, and has a child. They both turn up at Collinwood after years of absense, disappearing in the 80s.
Quentin is still young (haven't figured out how to 'splain that yet).

I haven't worked Angelique in yet, and I don't know if I plan to just now.

But, the continuity from the original series can easily be worked around. For example, if you take major plot points from the original series like Barnabas being turned into a vamp in 1795, at age 25, etc, and only use a select few. You could always say that the deviations from the original story in the pre-Barn and early post-Barn eps were simply PT universes that the people got transported into unknowingly when they went back in time, and that everything pre-Barn was the PRESENT time DS universe.

THAT would provide a great story to look into--someone or other in the family could make a discovery about this that would change the way they think about their family forever.

 

Yet another retelling (I didn't know until recently that the 2004 pilot was like this) would be an admission of a severe lack of imagination, though the writers wouldn't realize it.   If a new series can't cultivate new characters (a 50 or 60 year old David would be a new character) then it won't be able to create new dialogue, situations, or plots either, and therefore will die.

Zahir... where's your name from by the way?    Anyway, there is a certain vague overall continuity that can be adhered to.   I'd want a new DS to avoid the screw-ups of the original.    They'd have to devote a bit of time and effort to coming as close as possible to reconciling them---  as much as anyone could.

Actually, as of the series finale, Quentin is the only immortal.  Angelique, when last we saw her, was a mortal woman again.  Barnabas was no longer a vampire.  Quentin could easily have gone off somewhere to not explain his aging.  He's done it before.  Maybe he's had plastic surgery, even!

The advantages I see in TNG approach is that it is a polite and respectful nod to the original fans without getting bogged down (at least not too much) in former continuity.  Frankly, a few flubs that way are to be expected.  TREK did it.  The original series did it all the time.  With a little care those can be kept to the minimum.  On the other hand, many of the iconic things about DS would of necessity go by the wayside.  No Barnabas/Josette/Angelique triangle.  No Julia Hoffman.

A true re-imagining gets around that, by pulling a BG (Battlestar: Galactica).  Or if you will, imagine the story as another thread of Parallel Time, another continuity altogether (like Marilyn Ross's novels).  Then you can not only tell an old story in a truly refreshing way, but put upon elements from all of canon--not only 1969 but 1895 and 1797 and 1840.  Among other things, this might mean more members to the Collins family.  Quentin might be Roger and Elizabeth's brother.  There might be a branch of "poor cousins" who live in Collinsport.  Etc. Etc.

"Zahir" btw is my dance name.  A former girlfriend of mine was into Middle Eastern Dance.  She got me into it, and I found it was a lot of fun.  Traditionally, dancers (usually but not always) take "Dance names" to perform.  Zahir is Turkish for "the blooming flower" (the feminine version is Zahira).  My given name is David.

In other words, I am a male belly dancer.  Yes, there are such things.  No, I do not dress up like Barbara Eden.  

i voted for a retelling of the original series...with a slight retooling.

the reason for this is simple,

1) introduces new fans/ppl to the DS story.

2) Retells the story for fans

3) Helps to establish continuity for a Next-Gen show.

the original was such a great show and had so many great stories that they should be retold, plus create some new ones that would fill in gaps from the original.

plus after a few seasons we could spin-off a NG show with some of the new show actors, i.e Barnabas and Quinten playing their imortal selves with new actors playing the older charoline and adult david.

One of the problems with "slight retooling" is that in many ways DS (in terms of plot) is just a fusion of different genres and previous horror stories.  Take all the Victoria Hold novels of the 1960s, toss in Dracula with a few dashes of the Boris Karloff film The Mummy, add The Wolf Man and a few good haunted house movies and there you have it.

More, the original was quite frankly dated.  Not so much by being set in the late 1960s but by being broadcast then.  The conventions of a daytime serial in 1969 are not condusive to a successful weekly program in the early 21st century.  We have grown used to a different kind of story-telling, in the wake of such shows as Alias and Thirtysomething and ER and Law & Order.  For a new Dark Shadows to attract a large new audience (which is the only way for it to survive) then it must take that into account.

We won't accept Victoria Winters as such a waif-like innocent who never once connects the dots.  We expect surprises, twists and turns in the plot as more details are revealed.  We have grown to expect edgier characters in dynamic relationships.

That is why my own preference would be for a true re-imagining.  In the version I put together (for my own fun, frankly) Victoria has a criminal record, Roger is in a wheelchair a la Gabriel Collins, David has been replaced by an autistic teenager named Daphne, and when they find the coffin in the secret room of the mausoleum its chains are long-since broken, with a decades-old corpse drained dry next to it.

But the advantage of a spinoff (a al Deep Space Nine) is that you'd be able to give something to the DS fans without trampling on any cherished images, characters, etc.  The writers and producers would have the freedom to create their own world, rather than trying to adapt a forty-year-old set of stories and characters to 2007.