Happy 60th Birthday to DARK SHADOWS!

On June 27, 1966, I was at my grandparents' house in Gainesville, Georgia, and I saw a commercial for an upcoming TV show called Dark Shadows. The advert made it look kind of creepy. Seven-year-old me was already into all kinds of creepy, so this new soap seemed just the ticket. I recall watching that first episode and a few more while we were in Gainesville. Then, when we came back here to Martinsville, Virginia, much to my horror, our nearest ABC affiliate (WGHP-8 out of High Point, NC) wasn't running Dark Shadows. Well, as you might imagine, I was heartbroken. After a while, I learned that some of my friends were able to watch the show because they already had cable TV and could pick it up on WLVA-13 out of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Sadly, we didn't get cable at our house until three years later. So, young Mark frequently invited himself over to cable-equipped friends' places to watch the show. My viewings were too sporadic to keep up with the storyline, but I didn't care. Dark Shadows was Dark Shadows, and that was all that mattered.

 

Somewhere in those episodes, I discovered Barnabas Collins, vampire, and however smitten I might have been with the show... well, now it was mad, feverish love. Then a werewolf. Trips into the past. This was pure magic, and I couldn't get enough of it. Yes, I begged and pleaded with my dad day and night to get cable TV, but he kept holding out... until one incredible day in 1969.

 

Now, I could watch Dark Shadows every single day. And I did. I didn't go outside to play or roam the neighborhood or torment my friends with my existence until the day's episode was over. Then came House of Dark Shadows, which I saw at the drive-in theater, thanks to my folks being sporting enough to take me. This just made the love affair more poignant.

 

And so it went until that catastrophic Friday in April 1971, when the show went off the air. I couldn't believe it. I'm pretty sure I cried my eyes out. On the following Monday, I tuned in at 4:00 p.m. as usual, just to make sure this wasn't all some cruel, belated April Fools joke.

 

Nope. The fuckers were showing Password. Mind you, I'd always liked Password until it occupied the Dark Shadows time slot, so from that moment, that show was dead to me.

 

During my school years, I wrote little Dark Shadows pastiches, especially for creative writing assignments. Later, portions of the show came back in syndication, so I glued myself to the screen again. This was very satisfying because it allowed me to see some of the storylines I'd missed in those very early years. For decades, to me — and vast numbers of fans — Dark Shadows never lost its allure.

 

Then, after I'd been writing professionally for just over a decade came the opportunity I'd been dreaming about since I'd written my first word of fan fiction: a genuine, official Dark Shadows novel, which I co-wrote with friend and fellow writer, Elizabeth Massie. HarperCollins released Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark in October 1999, following series star Lara Parker's first novel in the franchise, Angelique's Descent. At this point, it looked as though there would be more novel opportunities ahead, but much to my chagrin, HarperCollins shuttered their media tie-in division, and other than Lara's subsequent novels, there would be no more by other authors (S.E. Hinton had written one for the series and ended up excising the DS-specific elements and releasing it under the title Hawke's Harbor).

However, Big Finish, an audio production company in the UK, soon created a line of Dark Shadows audio dramas featuring the talents of many of the show's stars. I was fortunate enough to write the scripts to three of them: Path of Fate, Curse of the Pharaoh, and Blood Dance. These featured series stars Lara Parker, David Selby, Nancy Barrett, Marie Wallace, and Lisa Richards. All of these were beautifully performed and produced, and I love the fact that the Big Finish products are considered part of the show's canon. For me, these represent a true highlight of my love affair with Dark Shadows. 

In recent years, Dark Shadows fan and event organizer, Bob Issel, whom I'd met at the 1999 Dark Shadows Festival in New York City and have remained good friends with ever since, produced a trio of volumes titled Our Shadowed Past, featuring essays, interviews, and photos by both the fans and the stars/crew of the franchise. I contributed essays to all of them as well as created the layouts and graphics for the first and third of the books. And a few years back, author Jim Beard produced a lovely volume of essays to which I contributed titled Running Home to Shadows.

Yes, it is safe to say that Dark Shadows has been a pivotal, inspiring force in my life, going back almost as far as I can remember, both personally and professionally. Who knows whether I'll have more opportunities to contribute to Dark Shadows lore in my remaining years, but if so, I'll probably jump on them. And if not, I feel I can be pretty damned proud of the work I've done for the franchise. In my book, that makes me luckier than freaking lucky.

Dark Shadows Passing

It was on this date, 48 years ago, that my youthful world fell apart. As far as I was concerned, I faced a dismal future, bereft of hope and steeped in misery. I'm referring, of course, to the day the final episode of Dark Shadows aired, on Friday, April 2, 1971. For several years, Dark Shadows had been my holy grail, for in those days, in order to pick up the channel that broadcast the show — WLVA, Channel 13 out of Lynchburg, VA — you had to have cable. And we didn't get cable at home until 1969, more than halfway into the show's run. Prior to that, I would catch Dark Shadows as often as possible at certain friends' houses, or at my grandparents' place in Georgia when we went to visit them two or three times a year. I had seen the very first episode, and the couple that followed, on one of our visits south, and even though the show had yet to take on its overtly supernatural character, it had hooked me, as much as anything by composer Robert Cobert's most memorable score. The day we arrived back in Martinsville after our visit, I was all pumped to settle in with Dark Shadows permanently, only to discover that the ABC affiliate station we picked up — WGHP, Channel 8 out of High Point, NC — didn't carry the show. That was an error of omission for which I've never really forgiven them.

It was these sporadic viewings, though, that made the show such a magical mystery. When I could occasionally tune in, I had nary a clue what was going on in the story, but I became enthralled nonetheless. In late 1969, Dad saw fit to get cable for our house, and suddenly, Dark Shadows was mine, all mine. It was right at the beginning of the Leviathans storyline, which, sadly, many fans consider the beginning of the end. Not me, though. I found it scary as hell and, to this day, I have a soft spot for that particular subplot. I revisited it, as a matter of fact, in Curse of the Pharaoh, my second script for Big Finish's Dark Shadows audio series.

I think it was no more than a few days before the series' finale when I heard the news the great estate of Collinwood was being shuttered. I couldn't believe it. I was devastated. It's safe to say I was immersed in a love affair with the show that was unprecedented in my eleven somewhat less-than-worldly years. (We can discuss juvenile psychological health some other time, thank you very much.) On that day, as I watched the episode, my heart pounded, my palms awash in sweat. As the story neared its final moments — what's this? — they're setting up a whole new set of complications. This couldn't possibly be the end! There was a new vampire on the estate! But then, as the eerie theme rose, the familiar voice of actor Thayer David came on to say, "There was no vampire loose on the great estate. For the first time at Collinwood, the marks on the neck were, indeed, those of an animal." After a recap of the current crop of characters' fates, he says, in reference to Bramwell (Jonathan Frid) and Catherine (Lara Parker), "Their love became a living legend. And for as long as they lived, the dark shadows at Collinwood were but a memory of the distant past."

I'm pretty sure I bawled long and hard at the end of all that. And, like millions of youngsters around the country, on the following Monday, I turned on the TV at 4:00 p.m., praying it was all a mistake, a terrible April Fools joke. Something. Anything but the end of Dark Shadows.

Password, starring Alan Ludden, had taken over that sacred time slot.

Needless to say, time marched on, people grew up, Dark Shadows resurfaced in syndication, and then on home video. At this point, I've seen the entire 1,225-episode run at least twice, and considerable portions of the series many times more. I've co-written with Elizabeth Massie an authorized Dark Shadows novel for HarperCollins — Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark — and scripted three of Big Finish's Dark Shadows audio dramas — Path of Fate, starring David Selby and Lara Parker; the aforementioned Curse of the Pharaoh, starring Nancy Barrett and Marie Wallace; and Blood Dance, starring David Selby and Lisa Richards. Plus, I wrote a follow-up to Dreams of the Dark titled The Labyrinth of Souls that never made it into print due to HarperCollins shutting down its tie-in division HarperPrism. However, I have made the novel available strictly as fan fiction on my website. You can check it out here.

So, for me, Dark Shadows, thankfully, never truly died on April 2, 1971. Who knows, if it had continued, history might have gone very differently for me. Impossible to speculate. But for all the pain my poor little weenie heart suffered in those days, I can't complain much about the outcome.