Hi MB, I almost wonder if DS was a victim of its own success on Netflix.  There were a lot of reports of the discs breaking--this was back before streaming became as common as it is now.  I think if they want to stream they have to go through WorldVision and the cost of their rates are up the wazoo. 

I think in general Netflix doesn't work all that well with cult TV shows.  I don't know how it is with Star Trek--from what I understand, those are being streamed all over the place now, though.

G.

Thankfully, I do not watch via Netflix.  I actually haven't watched the show regularly in a very long time. I have all the discs and I tell myself that when I retire, I will finally watch the whole thing from episode one to the end (which I never have done, ever).  This of course is presuming that the discs will play on whatever is available to the typical citizen by the time I retire (if THAT ever happens).

Episode 160 could mean the *actual* 160, or 160 counting forward from Barn's release (which was really episode 207? somewhere around there).  But I don't think anyone now is using the old "let's count Barn's release as episode 1" numbering system.

G.

I found some of the episodes where Barnabas has Maggie prisoner in the Old House and is trying to brainwash her into being his "new Josette" to be among the creepiest, skin-crawlingly disturbing things ever done on the series.  It's the period where Frid was basically walking off a cliff every day with feeling overwhelmed with the pace of it all and the nervousness kicks up this disturbingly realistic look of mingled craving and hysteria in Barnabas' eyes in some of his scenes with her.

Later on when she finally escapes and he hasn't realized it yet, he's going down to kill her and he's soliloquizing "I could have loved you... but now you must die!" and through the melodrama there's a vein of sick psychodrama that's chilling.

Later on they repeated the Maggie kidnapping a couple of times, notably with Pennock in his Yeagar persona, and even when Yeagar was obsessively licking Maggie's jewelry it wasn't as disturbing as the original Barnabas scenario in 1967.

G.

I am very intrigued by David Selby's new stage show. Wonder if he'll be performing it elsewhere? I would love to see it.

Looking forward to reports, if anybody who posts here is actually attending.  The logistics make my head hurt.

G.

Happy Birthday Doctor, and K-9 too!

G.

in related news, I read somewhere that the issue of Video Watchdog with the lengthy "round table" featured dedicated to Dark Shadows won some type of award--best theme issue of a magazine perhaps?

It's nice to see the series so well represented!

G.

Gerard, I would always get so excited whenever I would hear a cue from DS on another program, after the show went off the air.  I don't remember the music from Night Stalker so much, but I do remember the string of productions DC did for that ABC late night slot that were dramatic adaptations of Dorian Gray, Frankenstein, and others.  They all had the old DS cues which he recycled for the score.  Even when DS was still on, he did the same thing for Dead of Night/Darkness at Blaisedon (a personal favorite in my home).

The strangest instance of this was at some point in, I think, the early 1990s, all of a sudden DS cues were being played during some Saturday Night Live skits.  I didn't watch often enough to be able to report how frequently this happened, but the one or two times I experienced it, it was a very strange thing to see and hear on the TV.

G.