Fans, professional writer Daniel McGachey, who lives in the UK, was discussing with me his love of DS, which he originally learned about thanks to a 1980s TV broadcast of NIGHT OF DS. He was only able to start watching the series when the UK Sci-Fi channel starting showing it in the 1990s, though I think he mentioned getting hold of at least one videotape before that.
Daniel shared this synopsis of a short DS pastiche serial he wrote for a teenage girl's magazine (or possibly, a parody of a teenage girl's magazine), back in 2002. All the characters were named after actors on the show.
I'm pasting in the synopsis below.
Best wishes, Gothick
The Mansion of Strange Shadows - Bunty Annual 2002
Illustrated by Keith Robson
Chapter One - The House Through the Woods
Lara, Kat and Alex are amongst the class who have been taken to view the restoration work being undertaken on Nightshade Mansion. Legends have it that in 1795, mad Lord Jonathan, the 13th Lord of Nightshade Mansion, put a curse on the house and vanished, spiriting away the family treasure as he went.
In the basement, beneath the slabs, the museum team have uncovered a massive metal door with no keyhole but spaces for carved symbols to be placed.
As the girls break off from the school party, they find themselves in a room full of dusty old ornaments, before Kat seems to vanish into thin air.
Chapter Two - Cold Comfort
An amnesiac girl finds herself wandering toward the old house through a snowstorm. The house's inhabitants insist she is their cousin, Miss Kathryn, and all seem under the influence of their butler, Mr John. The family are prisoners for, every time the try to leave, there is a loud rumbling and a storm that shakes the house. Could the answer lie in the room full of precious things, amongst the ornaments and crystals and snowglobes?
Chapter Three - The Ghastly Gallery
Still looking for Kat, Alex and Lara split up and Lara finds herself in the family portrait gallery, where certain portraits seem more than lifelike. And when a mysterious artist restores the portrait of a young girl, Lady Denise, she begins to escape from her picture. But, if she escapes, she'll need someone to take her place. And why does the artist want to keep Lara away from the covered portrait of Lord Jonathan Nightshade?
Chapter Four - Out of Time
Alex follows a winding staircase up to the clock tower, where the ancient mechanism has been frozen for centuries. But, when she removes the strange metal symbol that has become trapped in the gears, the clock starts running... backwards. Phantom figures come and go as Alex is taken back, as a ghost, to the very night when Lord Jonathan Nightshade, fleeing a mob accusing him of witchcraft, places his curse on the old mansion, leaving it trapped within his evil shadow. He then disappears into the vault beneath the house, his power becoming complete and trapping Alex in the past.
Chapter Five - The Vault of Shadows
Having both recovered mysterious symbols during their adventures, Kat and Lara slot them into the huge door in the cellar floor, opening two of the locks and weakening Lord Jonathan's power so that Alex is restored to her rightful time. With the third key, they open the vault and descend to face the strange shadows within!
