DARK SHADOWS HISTORY! (merged with: The Original Ended 38 Years Ago Today!)

OK here we go, 38 years ago on april 2nd, 1971.......you know the rest! lets hear the stories for those of u who were watching that day. i had stopped watching in mid 1897 storyline because i had a paper route and maybe just caught a few episodes here and there. in late march 1971, a friend who never missed an episode informed me that friday april 2nd was going to be the last episode. i tried to catch a couple of episodes during that final week being totally confused of what was going on. still i planned to watch the final one. i refused to deliver the papers that friday untill i saw every bit of the last show with my friend and sister and mother. my friend filled us in on the details of [spoiler]why barnabas wasnt barnabas and angelique wasnt angelique etc[/spoiler] then at the very end, Melanie [spoiler]having bite marks on her neck [/spoiler] and i think to myself,"ok now this is the DARK SHADOWS i remember! but then looking at the clock and wondering how they are going to wrap up this story in just a few minutes. then the [spoiler]final narration comes on explaining it all and how it wasnt a vampire bite etc[/spoiler] and then it was all over. then the phone started ringing from people wondering where their newspaper was and then back to reality!

There are only two specific DS moments I remember from back then.  The first was when during the destruction of Collinwood in 1970, a visible canvas tarp came down from the ceiling and dumped debris onto the floor of the Great Hall.   My 12 or 13 year old self thought he must be hallucinating!

The second was the final moments of the final episode.  I wasn't watching regularly anymore.   I too was PT-ed out, and had reached my limit what with all the games of musical chairs having been played with all the actors and characters.   Somehow in some other world someplace, Julia was a Collins in 1841.   This either gives you a stroke when you hear it, or if you're youthful and cardiologically bulletproof, it just weirds you out just a bit.

Had I heard this was the last episode?  I can't remember.   I know that my already mocking self was highly disappointed but amused with the business at the end voiceovered by Thayer, where he said about the bitemarks, wait, no, they were made by an animal after all, what a coincidence, phew, hooray and huzzah.

The end was something of a bummer, but I was a disaffected pre-teen viewer at this point.

Has it really been that long!
I never thought I'd see it again after that sad day.......

David

To be honest, when it did end, I was already a "sophisticated" high schooler - LOL! Also, by that time, DS was jumping around so much, it was getting difficult to muster much enthusiasm. However, as you said, I, too, felt I'd never see it again. After all, it was before the era of the VCR, so we never had the luxury of taping it. Imagine my sheer delight when PBS in New Jersey started airing it. I was able to get the channel, if fuzzy, and devoured the show. My love was reborn. Then, when Sci-Fi began airing it, I despaired. My cable company didn't run Sci-Fi. When they finally did acquire the channel, I was ecstatic. I taped every single episode again and again. Stupidly, though, I never kept those tapes. I kept taping over them. That's when I began acquiring the series on VHS, beginning with the Collector's Series. OK -- another blunder. I should have waited for the DVD's. I now have the entire series on video but must begin, once again, with the DVD's. Do I hear Blu-Ray lurking? Hope not!

I hated the show's final three months~~still do!
1840 began beautifully but ended as a muddled, senseless mess.
1841PT was a different show entirely, one that I felt no connection to,
Yet I was crushed when DS ended.

Now,  many parts are of the show are still wonderful:
Barnabas kidnaps Maggie, 1795, 1897, the Quentin/Beth ghost story, 1995, the first Laura Collins story:
all DS at it's best, and all of those stories hold up beautifully after all this time!

David

 

I uttered the very serious threat (mostly to the trees around our house) to blow up ABC studios with an atomic bomb if they didn't bring DS back, but on my allowance at the time, I couldn't afford enriched uranium.

I agree. There are so many wonderful storylines and subplots. I was hooked right from the beginning -- Vicki arriving on the train. Now, whenever I see the episode again, it still thrills me to this day.

Actually, a Blue Ray player will play all your DVD's so you dont have to replace any of them.

1840 turned into a mess when they decided to have a witch trial ina time period far too removed from the witch hysteria days.  Perhaps Judah Zachary placed a spell on the townspeople.  The summer of 1970 indicated the townspeople knew Gerard was the bad guy all along judging from his tombstone (which actually has the correct year of his death- 1841).

I remember well this sad, sad day.  It seems very odd but I recall tuning in every day for those final months expecting that at any moment, they would return to 1971 and show us what Barnabas, Julia, and Prof. Stokes were up to!  I kept wondering what was happening at the REAL Collinwood during that time.

At the same time, I did get involved in the new PT 1841 story.  I remember how my heart went out to Melanie in particular, and how fascinating the new costumes were, and the mystery around the locked room (very Horace Walpole/Ann Radcliffe-ish!).

For the final weeks, one of the ABC affiliates in Washington started showing the episodes in the evenings, in an 11:30 pm slot, I think.  For many years, these wound up being the only DS episodes that I had gotten to see TWICE.

G.

This is a great thread. Thanks for starting it. I'm really curious if anyone has a story about when they actually heard that DS was going off the air. When was that announced and where was it reported? What was it like watching the show knowing it was going off the air? I've heard all the explanations for DS' demise, but what was actually the word at the time?

Sally

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite the dedicated DS viewer as I thought I was. While rewatching all the episodes, I found I only remembered a handful and I think I fully stopped during that parallel time line (Angelique and her twin sister). The only memories I have of my origina watching were - and this is weird - Angelique wearing the same wild printed dress about 5 days in a row, Maggie baring a shoulder getting ready for bed (she was married to Quentin), [spoiler]the zombies coming out of the ground and Gerard waving the flag from the window to signal the destruction of Collinwood.[/spoiler] Funny how selective your mind is in remembering stuff 

Some of my fav. storylines - Barnabas/Maggie/Josette story, 1795, and almost any other story set in contemporary time. However, the costumes towards the later part of the series were outstanding (as Gothick mentioned).

Going backward, I have started watching the Beginning episodes and am enjoying them so far. What a little devil David was! 

I had also stopped watching sometime after the 1897 storyline or, at least, not regularly.  I got involved in after school activities that ran about three days a week usually.  When I was home I turned on the show but didn't know what was going on most of the time.   When I heard from a classmate that the last episode was going to be aired on April 2nd, I faked being sick from hockey practice to see it.

nancy

I saw an article in the local paper, The Baltimore Sun, stating that it was going off the air.  I think there was an item about the cancellation in those typewriter-printed looking yellow pages that used to be at the beginning and end of TV Guide--the "New York Report" and the "Hollywood Report"--DS news would have been in the New York pages, of course.

I would try to describe how the news made me feel, but it would all sound absurdly melodramatic.  I do remember turning on the following Monday half hoping that it would show up as usual, only to have PASSWORD thrown in my face--a show I had actually enjoyed.  Until that moment.

G.

The two good things that came out of the show being cancelled in my world was having an extra half hour to my "television viewing allowance" my parents had us on.   PASSWORD was a show I came to love and didn't have to give up a half hour to because my parents thought it was "educational."   I remember feeling very nostalgic about DS being gone and thinking that would be the last I would ever hear about it.

Nancy

I cried my eyes out at the end of that last episode, not wanting it to end.  On Monday, I ran home and turned the TV on, hoping beyond hope, that a mistake had been made and it would be back.

Gerard