Sad Fates of 1966 Characters

 I'm watching the Pre-Barnabas episodes right now, and it's kind of surreal knowing that most of the supporting characters (and some leads) are going to suffer terrible fates later on when the "monster mash" begins.  I bet the writers and Dan Curtis must have had fun conjuring up creative ways to "off" some of these characters...

[spoiler]  Good-natured Joe - will be victimized by a vampire and will go insane after seeing his cousin turn into a werewolf.

  Mr. Welles the Inkeeper - Will be torn to shreds by the same werewolf.

 Our intrepid heroine, Victoria Winters - will be pushed to her death from Widow's Hill by the Leviathan creature Jebez Hawkes

  Revenge-driven Burke Devlin - Will die in a fiery plane crash.

  Wisecracking Maggie Evans - Will be carted off to the insane asylum after being victimized by yet ANOTHER vampire.

  Drunken painter Sam Evans - Will be blinded by a witch then mortally injured by a Frankensteinian monster.

  Manager of the Collins' fleet Bill Malloy - Will be pushed to his death off Widow's Hill and come back as a ghost

  Caretaker Matthew Morgan - Will be scared to death by a ghost[/spoiler]

  Creepy.

   ~Penny Dreadful~

good point penny...the way the original characters deteriorate has been one of the most heartbreaking elements of the show for me.

i think that the writers could have gone foreward with the supernatural storylines that had become popular without turning the main cast into mincemeat.

I have to agree with that.

It's sort of ironic to me that my favorite character results in one of the things about the show I truly never cared for - the dumbing down and misuse of people like Victoria and the core Collins family members. I think that's why my favorite present day storyline is when Barnabas first arrives, because he's the supernatural character set against the rest of the regular characters. That formula worked best, IMHO.

it's even more ironic that even though the popularity of the barnabas character is indirectly responsible for the misuse of the 1966 characters he's not actually the one doing most of the damage.except for his early victimization of maggie it's the assorted and sundry monsters that come after him that really chew these people up.
barnabas loved vicki and his family so it would have pained him as much as anyone to have them suffer so.

[spoiler]i haven't actually seen the episodes where jeb hawkes throws vicki off widow's hill yet.but i have a question.
why would they "kill off" a character who had already left the show?how does vicki factor into the leviathan plotline?weren't the producers always hoping that alexandra moltke might be lured back to the show?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Mr. Welles the Inkeeper - Will be torn to shreds by the same werewolf.
...
Drunken painter Sam Evans - Will be blinded by a witch then mortally injured by a Frankensteinian monster[/spoiler]

Loved Mr. Wells the Inkeeper...but, though Barnabas is my favorite character I wished they hadn't made "monsters" the most important aspect of the show. The fate of Sam Evans was especially ridiculous for such a complex and interesting and well acted role.

it's even more ironic that even though the popularity of the barnabas character is indirectly responsible for the misuse of the 1966 characters he's not actually the one doing most of the damage.except for his early victimization of maggie it's the assorted and sundry monsters that come after him that really chew these people up.
barnabas loved vicki and his family so it would have pained him as much as anyone to have them suffer so.

[spoiler]i haven't actually seen the episodes where jeb hawkes throws vicki off widow's hill yet.but i have a question.
why would they "kill off" a character who had already left the show?how does vicki factor into the leviathan plotline?weren't the producers always hoping that alexandra moltke might be lured back to the show?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]that is the only time Vicky and Peter are referred to in the Leviathan story.  The ghost was to be Paul Stoddard, but Dennis Patrick was unavailable, so in their infinite wisdon they decide to use Peter Bradford and the death of Vicky as an alternative!  They either could have used an unseen ghost of Paul or another actor playing it instead.[/spoiler]

It is sad what happened to the 1966 characters.  The show should have remained with one supernatural character at a time after 1795 ended with some regular soap opera story regarding the supporting cast.  The show would certainly have lasted longer and they wouldn't have run out of stories so fast.

[spoiler]i haven't actually seen the episodes where jeb hawkes throws vicki off widow's hill yet.but i have a question.
why would they "kill off" a character who had already left the show?how does vicki factor into the leviathan plotline?weren't the producers always hoping that alexandra moltke might be lured back to the show?[/spoiler]

 Her death is spoken of, but not actually shown.  From what I've read, Dan Curtis was actually trying to lure Alexandra Moltke back to the show at this point.  Maybe if she had come back, they would have explored this strange add-on to the plot.      

I think for me the chief problem is not that terrible things happened to the so-called "normal" characters. On a soap, that's par for the course. The problem for me was that they were totally watered-down. Some of the best moments on the show for me were when the supernatural characters had to deal with the "normal" people.

To me the fact that they mostly were dumbed-down caricatures of themselves by the end of their respective runs was partly sloppy writing, partly stupidity on the part of TPTB, and partly just standard soap shortsightedness.

As many of you know, shortly after DS went off the air on Sci-Fi, I started watching DS from the beginning (Vicki and Burke's arrival on the train in Episode #1) on tapes and DVD's which I purchased.  The last episode I watched was #310.

After watching all of the pre-Barnabas episodes for the first time, and now well into the post-Barnabas episodes, I find it quite dismaying that the 1966 characters were given less screen time when Barnabas arrived.  I agree with Joeytrom - I believe the show WOULD have lasted longer and been more interesting had the 1966 characters been given their OWN storylines.  The dumbing-down of those characters (and killing many of them off) did not do those actors justice.  I particularly enjoyed watching Burke Devlin and Sam Evans in those early episodes - it's too bad their characters were  [spoiler]killed off.[/spoiler]

I remember really enjoying watching DS when I first started watching the Barnabas episodes all those years ago at age 11.  But now that I have seen it from the beginning, I miss those supporting characters and yearn for storylines including them.  Don't get  me wrong - I am STILL enjoying these episodes immensely - I just wish that there were OTHER storylines. 

It truly was a shame that the 1966 characters were treated the way they were.  It was a TOTALLY different soap at the beginning. 

I hope you are making sense of this post, and I am not confusing you.  I tend to go off on tangents and not explain things very well.  If you need me to clarify anything, please don't hesitate to ask - don't worry, I won't be offended - at least I don't THINK I will be!!

----- Sally -----
 

I am not a nitpicker, but please don't use that green color for the text as I have to click and shade what you write to read it.  Its really hard on the eyes.

     I know what you mean, EmeraldRose.  There was so much left unexplored.  All soaps then and today had multiple stories going on at the same time.  I felt they kept ripping off old classics without being creative enough to give Quentin something to do in present time.  How about a romance for Liz without supernatural elements?  Julia could have had a fling with someone.  Prof Stokes could have brought in colleagues from the college to take part in Collinwood intrigues but NOOOOO that would have required spending money and hiring more actors.
     I don't have a problem with green posts unless they are on the light background.  I can never read red or royal blue post.

   While I do feel bad for most of the early, well-developed supporting characters that get turned into "mincemeat" later, I don't necessarily dislike what the DS writers and Dan Curtis did to them.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the early storylines and people, but if you look at it, Dark Shadows went through several different "phases" as it progressed - from the atmospheric semi-non-supernatural Pre-Barnabas episodes, to the insane 'out there' plotlines of the final year.  It was a fun ride that changed course every few months/weeks. Stephen King described DS as a "Mad Hatter's tea party," and I think the show has that distinct reputation partially because it got wilder and stranger as it went along.  IMO, these shifts were organic and part of the show's charm.

  For me, the best way to enjoy DS is to think of it in terms of sections in an anthology.  I enjoy each section for what it is.  Some sections are better than others, depending on your preferences, but once a DS phase is over it's over and you get to enjoy a new, usually crazier, phase in the development of the mythos.  Some aspects of the prior phase get left behind, while new aspects become more prominent.

   I think this is why some fans of the show actually tend to complain about it a lot, or dislike large sections of the series.  There are so many episodes, and several different shifts in the story.  Some folks dig the whole series, while others only like certain sections, and despise others.  It's an interesting phenomenon, and I wonder if this is the case with other long-running cult shows.  I'd guess something like Dr. Who, which spans decades, probably has the same issue in terms of "phases" and fans who detest certain large segments of that series' storylines.

~Penny Dreadful~ 

  For me, the best way to enjoy DS is to think of it in terms of sections in an anthology.  I enjoy each section for what it is.  Some sections are better than others, depending on your preferences, but once a DS phase is over it's over and you get to enjoy a new, usually crazier, phase in the development of the mythos.  Some aspects of the prior phase get left behind, while new aspects become more prominent.

As someone who's watched a lot of serialized television, soaps and other programs, I don't think the supernatural stuff and the more traditional elements were mutually exclusive. I never have. Whether or not you view it as an anthology, I've always seen the later arcs as declining in quality and energy. The show got damn near incestuous toward the end--everyone was living at Collinwood and they were recycling the same plot devices over and over again.

it is tempting to view the show as an anthology(not a serial)but even as such you hope that as one phase of the anthology progresses to the next it will maintain the same level of quality.

i've only seen about half of the show's run but when i was watching the earlier storylines like laura collins,early barnabas/julia and 1795 i knew intellectually that what i was seeing was unrealistic,implausible,preposterous but the level of storytelling and characterization left me with the feeling that i was seeing something excellent.

i've been slogging my way through 1968 because i love the characters,sets,music and mood of the show but in truth it's never been as engaging for after 1795.i intend to watch 1897 because everyone says it's so good but after that i'm going to step back and reassess the situation.storylines like leviathan and 1841pt don't hold much interest for me.

i think dan curtis and co. took the easy way out when they saw that supernatural elements brought in big ratings(for a while)and didn't really care how they treated the show's characters.

As someone who's watched a lot of serialized television, soaps and other programs, I don't think the supernatural stuff and the more traditional elements were mutually exclusive. I never have.

 I agree.  Nevertheless, that's not the way it played out on the show.  The series moved progressively away from the regular plots.  I mean, sure, it was the same series but it just became different in terms of the focus.   

Whether or not you view it as an anthology,

 I view it as an anthology only in the sense that the series shifts from one phase to the next.  It moved from non-supernatural (or rather, implied supernatural) gothic romance to supernatural gothic horror.  It's still a serial of course with a connected underlying mythos, but watching an 1840 "Judah's head" episode is going to be a very different experience from watching a 1966 "bleeder valve" episode.  You can tell it's the same show by the music, sets and atmosphere but the shift is still very notable.  I happen to enjoy it all - I like each section for what it is, but I realize it's all connected.   

I've always seen the later arcs as declining in quality and energy. The show got damn near incestuous toward the end--everyone was living at Collinwood and they were recycling the same plot devices over and over again.

  Right, I see what you mean.  The best example of the recycling is probably the Summer 1970 Gerard/Daphne hauntings being a near-copy of the Quentin/Beth haunting from 1968/69.  The writers, Dan Curtis and the cast seemed to be growing weary of the whole thing towards the end.  Still, I couldn't help but enjoy the Summer 1970 storyline too.  1840 had lots of great stuff happening.  1995 was a unique and interesting batch of episodes.  I agree, these weren't near the quality of 1967 Barnabas, 1795 or 1897.   However, I enjoyed these storylines a lot too.  Maybe I'm just crazy for gothic horror - or maybe I'm just crazy..  .. but I really liked every DS storyline from 1966 to 1971.  The 1841PT plot was probably my least favorite because there was no connection at all to the RT characters... still... I loved that crazy lottery!  I found myself getting into all of it.

   Anyway, I have taken this thread somewhat off topic.  Sorry.

~Penny Dreadful~