It's PARTY Time!!

[JosettesMusicBox]

C'est Fini !!!

I watched the final episode last night.  YEAH!! 

It was kind of sad for me because Dark Shadows has become a big part of my life - like reading a long book, or watching a very LONG movie - you get into the characters so much that they feel like friends or even family. 

I have really enjoyed this forum.  Thank you my cousins for all of your messages - many times you all have helped me better understand why/how things happened as they did.  And THANK YOU for "Caption This!"  I get such a laugh every day because of everyone's comments.  Some of them are just priceless.  And a special "Thank You" to the forum administrators (well... you know you are DS Gods...)

I'm sure there are folks out there that only watch on DVD and won't get to see the final episode until box 26 is released.  But since I own the entire tape series, I feel lucky to have seen the end before the whole world knows how it ends...  I buy the DVD's for my collection - I enjoy the interviews and the extras and also so I can watch on my computer when I'm traveling.

My family and I have decided that I'm going to bake a Dark Shadows Cake to celebrate and have a little party!!   I will post a photo when it is done! 

I believe it has taken me about 2 years to watch from start to finish.  How about you other cousins...??  Have you watched from start to finish, and how long did it take you? 

Please let us know.

~ JosettesMusicBox

[Gothick]

Hi Josette, I've been a DS fan for 38 years and I've STILL never watched the whole thing from start to finish.  There are episodes from 1966 and 1967 that I have yet to see.

I'm not sure when I will ever be able to watch the whole series starting from episode 1 and ending with 1245.  Maybe when I retire if that ever happens (I find it doubtful).

Would love to see your cake. Enjoy your party.  It's nice that the whole family enjoys the show!

G.

[Charles_Ellis]

Lucky you, JMB!!  I first got started watching DS in reruns in 1982 and didn't get all of the episodes until over a decade later.  Mind you, this was pre-MPI, when fans were at the mercy of syndicated and PBS stations, and 2nd/3rd-generation bootleg tapes that we got from fellow fans (believe it or not, I saw the "Dream Curse" story on tape before I saw 1795 on PBS!).  With PBS I saw everything from Barnabas' arrival (1983) to mid-1970PT in 1986.  Thank God for Kathy Resch's Concordances for 1970PT and 1840.  Also, the Festival began showing unsyndicated episodes from 1966-67 and where the syndication left off.  Then in 1989 MPI began with the videotapes of DS, and I remember going every month to J&R Music World in Manhattan to buy a 4-pack of 40 episodes for $64.95- way below the MSRP.

A few years down the line came the day when MPI put out the first 1970PT episodes on tape after the 3rd year of syndication ended- I felt like I was watching something very exclusive, and it made me more anxious that the remaing year of episodes came out.  By this time, the Scf-Fi Channel was running DS, but were behind MPI, which soon released Vol.200 with the final episode.  Next came the much-wanted "Collector's Series" with the pre-Barnabas episodes.  And after so many years, I finally had seen practically every episode.  A long, strange trip indeed.  And now it's deja vu as I wait for September and the final 1841PT episodes to come on DVD, with the promised pre-Barnabas shows to be digitalized for early 2007. 

[JosettesMusicBox]

OMG!

I just realized - My husband and I finished the last episode after midnight last night!!! How COOL is this - that means that we finished the entire series on the 40th Anniversary of Dark Shadows!!!

I couldn't have planned that any better if I had tried!  (Although it was purely coincidence!)

[Lydia]

OMG!

I just realized - My husband and I finished the last episode after midnight last night!!! How COOL is this - that means that we finished the entire series on the 40th Anniversary of Dark Shadows!!!

I couldn't have planned that any better if I had tried!  (Although it was purely coincidence!)

You can call it coincidence if you want.  I myself believe that the Hand of Dan Curtis was involved.

[Pansity]

C'est Fini !!!

I watched the final episode last night.  YEAH!!

<snip> I believe it has taken me about 2 years to watch from start to finish.  How about you other cousins...??  Have you watched from start to finish, and how long did it take you?

Please let us know.

Congratulations on seeing the whole series!    As to your question, I came in originally as a kid during the Chris werewolf/Quentin's ghost storyline, and missed a lot here and there between that and the end. 

Years later when Scifi ran it, I would tune in to episodes here and there when I was home from work. (For some reason I kept catching Jason and Barnabas in the mausoleum and Vicky and Jeremiah in 1795 every time I tuned in!  NOT enough of a draw for me to make a special effort to timeshift to see the rest.).  When I was out of work in the summer of 2001 I was lucky enough to catch the reconstructed episode, knew the series was near the end, and, when ep 1 came up, I timeshifted every day to see it from beginning to end.  I didn't dream then that it was more than curiosity and playing catch up -- I WAS WATCHING AND TAPING OVER THE EPISODES EACH DAY    (No comment please!).  I only got hooked enough to start keeping the tapes when Quentin and Carl had their confrontation in the mausoleum.

As for how long it took, I think the run took from early summer of 01 to December of 03 (and take time out of that for megasagans of preemptions of all kinds).