Dark Shadows featured in Video Watchdog # 169- on stands soon!

[Darren Gross]

The upcoming issue features a 34 page feature article on the classic Dark Shadows series, a roundtable discussion with several writers, including yours truly.

Click the link below for a glimpse at a few pages.  There's some great graphics in this one, including a few gorgeous illustrations.  It should be hitting newsstands and Barnes & Noble stores very soon.  Enjoy!

http://www.videowatchdog.com/home/HTM/Coming.htm

[Cousin_Barnabas]

Wonderful news!  I have been waiting to get this!  Thank you for the heads-up, Darren. 

[Uncle Roger]

I echo Cousin Barnabas' excitement. This can't come out too soon.

[Gothick]

Wow, wow, wow! I have lost count of how many times I have been checking the VW site to see when this would be posted.  THRILLED.  This one is going to be the ne plus ultra!  Can't wait to have it on my shelf.

I look forward to congratulating all involved once it is released!

G.

[jimbo]

What a wonderful surprise. Thanks Darren.

[Brian]

I'm glad I recently renewed my subscription, and I look forward to getting this latest magazine.

[retzev]

Can't wait to get my hands on this, but I hope those sneak-peak pages are not the final draft sent to press. The first page of the article states that Barnabas was introduced in episode 2, and that the original MPI DVD sets include 35 episodes each. Tim and Donna and their crew do top notch work. Surely they'll catch the flubs.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

I caught that too, retzev.  "Episode 2" was clearly a typographical error.  I guess they just omitted the last two numbers!  As for the DVD Collection episodes, I guess they were using The Beginning sets as their source.

[Gothick]

It's almost not a DS-themed publication if there aren't some errors... or so it would seem.

G.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

It's almost not a DS-themed publication if there aren't some errors... or so it would seem.

Definitely a sad truth. 

"Episode 2" was clearly a typographical error.  I guess they just omitted the last two numbers!

I have my doubts that it's merely a typographical error - and the reason I say that is because Frid as Barn does indeed show up in the second ep on DVD Collection 1.

As for the DVD Collection episodes, I guess they were using The Beginning sets as their source.

Yeah, I'd chalk that up to a bit of sloppy research by way of making the assumption that the same number of eps are on all the collections and merely checking out one of The Beginning sets for the number. And while I can see where that might have been an easy assumption to make, we all know what they say happens when someone decides to assume. 

[Brian]

It's a very good round-table discussion.  Kudos to Tim and his team for this excellent 24-page VW article.

[Uncle Roger]

Got my copy at Barnes and Noble tonight. Great article, with a few pictures that I hadn't seen before.

[Gothick]

I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to find a copy of this mag at the Harvard Coop a little earlier today on my lunch break.  The feature looks fabulous, and the issue includes some charming drawings by an artist named Belle Dee that have very much a Rankin-Bass flavor to them.  The 3 color cartoons depict Quentin and Angelique in 1897; Julia (really excellent work); and Barnabas, on the back cover of the mag.

My one complaint is there is NO shot of Thayer David anywhere in the article.  There are head shots of a number of the lead players:  Joan, Louis, Frid, Grayson, Nancy, and Joel Crothers are the ones I recall, along with production shots, candid shots outside the studio, etc.  There's an interesting photo of Frid with DC I don't recall having seen before.  It has a real Mad Men character to it--they're both smoking and both in dark suits.

Talking of Mad Men, somebody in the round table, possibly Darren, speculates that Louis' portrayal of Roger was the inspiration for another character named Roger on Mad Men.  I've seen the first season and I agree that the Mad Men Roger definitely seems to owe something to the DS Roger, except the Mad Men Roger isn't so colorfully arch and acid-tongued.

I will write more when I have had the chance to finish reading the entire round table.  Excellent, exciting work! And I am going to email Tim Lucas and request him to run a photo of Thayer David in the next issue of VW with a caption about how essential Thayer's contribution to DS was in making it as great as it was.

G.

[Gothick]

A short note to say I finished reading this amazing, and to my mind historic, round table discussion on DS.  Although there are a couple of brief references to house of DS, the 1991 remake, and the Burton/Depp film, these are in passing; the round table is focused upon the phenomenon of the original 1966-71 television series.  Perhaps the biggest surprise to me (and what a delightful one it was) was how much attention Joel Crothers got in the discussion.  The next biggest surprise was how *little* attention Angelique, and Lara Parker's performance as Our Favorite Witch, received.  Thayer David was not mentioned at all, except for in a special sidebar devoted to hoDS that is only available on the VW website (see link in hoDS/NoDS DVD release thread on the other board).  My nomination for the nuttiest moment, given these omissions, was when somebody spent a paragraph discussing Craig Slocum's work on the series.  It was great to see John Karlen receive very high marks from a number of critics for his work.  I thought Nancy Barrett's work should have been given more attention given just how much range she showed on the series.  I think only one of the participating critics had actually seen ALL the episodes.

I guess the last thing I would have to say is that I would have deleted all of Kim Newman's comments in favor of having the section on hoDS included in the print version of the article.  I ordinarily enjoy Newman's work, but he had only seen 2 or 3 weeks of the series and most of what he did was to express bafflement as to why anyone ever cared.

Despite my caveats, the issue is highly recommended and goes on my permanent DS shelf.

G.

[Gothick]

Oh yeah, another incredible omission--no mention AT ALL of the fabulous Clarice Blackburn. WTF???

Baffled in Beantown,

G.