Received my copy of Darker Shadows. It's a very interesting read. Scott Young was an old friend of Jim Pierson, which explains how it got as far as it did.
The story picks up approximately twenty years after the Leviathan era. It ignores parallel time and all that came afterwards, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The most important developments are that Maggie has remained at Collinwood as Elizabeth's personal assistant/companion and David has married and left Collinsport.
Angelique seems to be the central character here. She has been sent back to hell for some reason. She returns to Collinwood with vengeance on her mind and her first target is Elizabeth. She is abetted by a sexy, swarthy chsrnamed Anton Rakosi who may or may not be related to Magda and Sandor.
Maggie is attracted to a new employer at the cannery named Seth Martin. In an earlier draft, he was called BEN Martin which was just a little too cutesy. Seth is as nice a guy as Joe Haskell but, like all good Collinsport residents, he suffers from a curse. He turns into something that sounds like The Creature of The Black Lagoon. The only way to rid himself of the curse is to make the devil a counter offer.
David returns to Collinwood with his wife Susan, who functions as the ingenue here. The family likes Susan who is promptly seduced by Anton.
That's the basic set up for the first season. Definitely intriguing. But there are some continuity glitches that stick out. When we last saw Angelique in the present, she was Mrs. Rumson. She had become an acquaintance of the Collins family, if not an actual friend. Her utter ruthlessness needs to be explained better. A lot can happen in 20 years but everyone now seems to know the truth about Angelique and Barnabas.
And what about Barnabas? He's there but definitely a supporting character.
Most of the core cast appeared to be interested in signing on. They would need to recast David of course. But even Alexandra Isles expressed an interest, depending on the script.
But I think that the new characters would need to be played by recognizable tv names. DS alumni might not be enough to pull big ratings. Young William Devane would have the right amount of menace and sex appeal to play Anton. And Pamela Sue Martin or Heather Locklear would work as Susan.
Other characters would include Dr. Melissa Stokes, the daughter that no one knew about. She takes the place of Eliot and Julia, at least in the beginning. There's also Armand, a white magician who is an ally against Angelique. The char description describes him as black but he sounds like a possible place holder for Quentin..
It's certainly an interesting set-up and it's nice to see an attempt to do something different.
The cover lists Diana Millay as a contributor. But, aside from a brief statement (My son is not an alcoholic!), I don't know what other input she had.
As Patrick mentioned earlier, the letters from the original staff and actors are great reading. TLATKLS wrote a brief sentence about the project and a paragraph touting Scrapbook Memories. The response from Sam Hall came from attorney Richard Blumenthal who later became the Attorney General here in Connecticut.
The big mystery is why it took so long to find out about this. It has a copyright of 2016 but wasn't printed until this year. Legal matters, I suppose.
It's on Amazon and it's reasonably priced. I do recommend it.
