1968: The Great Year of Two Daily Doses of Dark Shadows!

[Bob_the_Bartender]

Hey gang,

I remember when I used to be able to watch the same episode of Dark Shadows twice back in 1968.  At the time, my family lived along the ocean on the beautiful New Jersey shore.  As a result, we could pick up Channel 6, the local Philadelphia ABC affiliate, which aired Dark Shadows at 3:30PM every weekday. 

At 4:00 PM, Channel 7, the local New York ABC affiliate aired that very same episode.  Let me tell you, what great joy it was to see Dr. Eric Lang (portrayed by the late, great Addison Powell) interacting with his young lab assistant Jeff Clark (portrayed by the irrepressible Roger Davis) during the Adam and Eve storyline.

Just to watch Dr. Lang, on a twice daily basis, telling Jeff that he was going to give him "a 'treatment' for your problem," was an absolute treat to see!    (And let's not forget Jeff Clark's immortal Dark Shadows moment, when he showed up at Dr. Lang's laboratory, with that all-too-phony arm, packed in a box of ice!)

I wonder if any other Dark Shadows fans across the country had the opportunity to see the same episode of Dark Shadows twice back during those halcyon days?  For example, perhaps Maine fans of the show were able to pick up Dark Shadows on both the Portland and Boston ABC stations during 1968?

Bob

[Uncle Roger]

Yeah, Bob, I had that experience also. We were visiting relatives in Massachusetts in June of 1968. I caught the regular episode on the Boston station. Then I got to see it again the following day on a station from, I think, New Hampshire. The signal wasn't as clear but I don't think it was a kinescope. In any event, seeing Cassandra go after Adam with an ax twice was an experience to savor.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Back in the fall of '68 I was able to see DS twice a day - though not the same show. But the unfortunate thing was that I was rarely able to see DS at all then because it was on at 8:30am and 2:30pm, times when I was in school - and the time change was all because of some radical parents' group's protest that the show was warping children's minds.    But thankfully they only got their way for 4 months because the huge outcry from DS fans convinced the stations to return DS back to 4pm. 

However, there was another time when DS was on twice a day in my area, and that was during a large portion of '70. One station showed DS at its regular 4pm time, and then on the following day another station would show the same ep at 3:30pm. So, fans either got to see the same ep twice - or if they missed it one day, they got the chance to see it the next day. It was great while it lasted. 

As for Dr. Lang and Jeff - if only Lang had given Jeff "a treatment" - just think of what we might have been spared!    But alas... 

[Uncle Roger]

As long as we're on the subject, does anyone have memories of watching the show on kinescope during the original run?

[MagnusTrask]

I believe a kinescope is a crude copy made by pointing a camera at a monitor, or TV during a broadcast, in case the original is lost.   Would any station that had rights to the real broadcast show an inferior copy just to have it at a different time?

[Gerard]

I watched the show from the very first episode.  The thing is, the local affiliate aired it, even from the pilot, the day after the original broadcast because it had its own cooking-or-something show on at the later of time of, I believe, back then, of 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, central time.  It also shifted any other soaps to a morning slot the day after.  So I watched DS the day after at 11:00 a.m.  The local affiliate must've made the shift to the original afternoon time sometime later that summer, because I recall watching it after school let out once September came around.  However, I think it was still a day delayed because I watched it at 3:00 p.m. central time, even though it should've been at (I think - I say that so much, because I'm fuzzy on the broadcast history) 2:00 p.m. central.  I think (there I go again) that when ABC moved it up to four p.m. eastern time to cash in on us kids, thus making it 3:00 p.m. central time, we had two back-to-back broadcasts on one day, and the following it was in the usual 3:00 p.m. slot.  Anyway, after all that (I think), I never remember the delayed broadcast being in the fuzzy kineoscope version.  It was always crystal clear (well, as crystal clear could be back then with rodors and antennaes and scraggliness happening when my mom turned on the vacuum cleaner or the mix-master or a plane flew overhead). 

I think.  Hey!  It's not like I'm a nine-year-old anymore!  I forget some things.  Anyway, I watched the show from the very first episode.  The thing is...oh, never mind.

Gerard

[Bob_the_Bartender]

In the days before the advent of vcrs and dvd recorders, it was great to see "Dark Shadows" on a twice daily basis.

I understand that some fans actually tape recorded episodes of "Dark Shadows" in order to help maintain a sort of audio diary of the show.  (Some fans even took Polaroid shots of the various DS actors for posterity's sake!).

When ABC aired the final episode of "The Fugitive," back during 1967 (I think?), I had to attend my aunt's wedding reception that night, so I had a friend tape record that final, dramatic episode to see how it all turned out for Dr. Kimble, Inspector Gerard and the notorious "one-armed-man." 

 

[Gothick]

I am revisiting the mid November conclusion of the "1968" storyline and just watched episode 624 (which aired on Nov. 14, 1968).  I was surprised to find what must surely have been the very last reference to the Foundling Home whence Victoria Winters began her momentous journey.  Vicki has received [spoiler]two wedding gifts, and one of them proves to be a necklace that had been a family heirloom from a favorite nurse at the Home (her name sounds like Norris or Norridge).  Vicki reflects that she always felt so alone when she was at the Home, when in fact there were people all around her who cared about her.  It's a very poignant moment, and Liz is present.[/spoiler]

One or two episodes later, there's an episode where Vicki is studying the old Collins Family History and she tells Liz:  "I want to understand."  "You'll NEVAH understand," declares the Mistress of Collinwood.  Another poignant moment in the saga of Victoria Winters....

I'm really sorry that the writers did not allow [spoiler]Vicki and Jeff to go off to a happy ending in time for Moltke to finish out the storyline. Moltke's departure is so abrupt, I always think that she must have had a bad episode of morning sickness and simply been unable to come to work.  Curtis took her departure as a fait accompli.[/spoiler]

I also always think of Lara Parker at a 1990s Festival informing fans who asked why Moltke left:  "She didn't want to be on the show!  She REFUSED to wear make-up!"

Memories light the corner of my mind....

G.

[Sandor]

I appreciate those scenes between Vicki and Elizabeth at the end of Alexandra Moltke's run all the more, because as Gothick points out, the change was quite abrupt - given that the character of Victoria was in the thick of the storyline at that stage.

My hunch has always been that Moltke read some of the upcoming scripts and realized that - in her first months of a real-life pregnancy - being slapped and thrown to the floor, then scooped up and carried out to be strapped to a torture chamber (Barnabas' basement) by Robert Rodan - and collapsing on the floor in despair after "Peter/Jeff" disappeared into the past - a lot of physical effort was going on. To her credit, Betsy Durkin (the 2nd Victoria) took her lumps in her first episodes with the finesse of a lady wrestler.

As to the thread topic - 2 doses of DS in one - when the show was on SciFi, if a particular episode struck my fancy, I'd whip out the VHS version after the SciFi channel broadcast, just to savor the flavor.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I believe a kinescope is a crude copy made by pointing a camera at a monitor, or TV during a broadcast, in case the original is lost.   Would any station that had rights to the real broadcast show an inferior copy just to have it at a different time?

I never remember the delayed broadcast being in the fuzzy kineoscope version.  It was always crystal clear (well, as crystal clear could be back then with rodors and antennaes and scraggliness happening when my mom turned on the vacuum cleaner or the mix-master or a plane flew overhead). 

I think.  Hey!  It's not like I'm a nine-year-old anymore!  I forget some things.

The kinescopes were made specifically for affiliates that wanted to show DS at a different time. And I know that whenever I originally watched DS other than when it was on its rightful day at 4pm, it was always the kinescope that was shown. But now that you bring it up, Gerard, they didn't seem as blurry as some of them are today. I wonder why that was? 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I also always think of Lara Parker at a 1990s Festival informing fans who asked why Moltke left:  "She didn't want to be on the show!  She REFUSED to wear make-up!"

Yes, if the way Lara Parker explained it was true, it certainly seemed like AM did practically everything she could to get off the show. Though because DS had been shifted to 8:30am and 2:30pm during her last three months, I never saw most of her eps during their original airings. I didn't finally see them until something like Feb.-Apr. of 1987 (and I never saw any of Betsy Durkin's eps until '87 either). But I can't say that when I finally did that AM looked anything but appropriate for what Vicki was going through at the time in the story. So, if AM was pulling the stuff that LP claimed, it actually worked on the show.

[michael c]

alexandra may certainly have wanted to exit the series but in terms of her "REFUSING" to put on makeup parker was just spinning a yarn...


the video evidence just isn't there. as a great moltke aficionado there was never an episode where she looked ungroomed. unkempt. or unmadeup.


for obvious reasons the character never wore heavy makeup. but alexandra always looked polished right up until her final episodes. in fact alot of the time she wore rather elaborate eye makeup albeit with a nude lip.

and her hair was always immaculate.

[Gothick]

I agree michael.  In her final episodes Alex looks really quite stunning. 

For obvious reasons, Lara Parker, particularly in her "Vampilique" phase, did get fairly lurid makeup.  So did Humbert Allen Astredo as Nicholas "Snidely Whiplash" Blair. 

G.

[DarkLady]

That heavy eye makeup with nude lipstick was the fashion in those days. Girls my age tried our best to emulate it, but I'm sure we looked more like raccoons.