‘Dark Shadows’ Literally Lost an Episode You’ll Never Get to See

Dark Shadows, the one horror cleaning soap opera of the swinging ’60s and grandparent to the paranormal romance, developed a cult traditional mythos that outlives its five-year run. Airing 5 days per week on ABC from 1966 to 1971, creator Dan Curtis‘s Gothic story focuses on the mysterious, reclusive, and prosperous Collins household, who reside excessive atop a hill of their gloomy mansion abode overlooking the equally gloomy seaside city of Collinsport, Maine. Waves crash over rocks, candelabras flicker, trains billow steam, and costume hems flutter. But for all its comforting Gothic trappings, the collection did not discover success till it supplanted its human foremost characters with a 200-year-old vampire. Including the supernatural — an remarkable growth — catapulted scores into the stratosphere. Darkish Shadows scored roughly 18 million viewing households per week, in keeping with Rosemary Guiley‘s The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters. Youngsters raced house from faculty to catch the subsequent plot twist. Even First Girl Jacqueline Kennedy proclaimed herself a fan.

From there, Darkish Shadows sinks its pointy enamel into horror. Nothing’s off limits, and all the things inside that boundless sphere of creativeness is a camp lovers’ dream: ghosts, werewolves, witches and warlocks, time journey, and remixing Victorian literary classics. Three movies, a 1991 tv revival, a canceled CW reboot, and an lively fanbase adopted. In 2016, for its fiftieth anniversary, the Academy of Tv Arts & Sciences recognized the series as “forward of and earlier than its time, current, previous or parallel time” (that may make sense later).

Past fusing pulpy sensibilities with transcendent eerieness, a part of Darkish Shadows‘s legacy consists of “the Misplaced Episode.” The cleaning soap produced 1,245 complete episodes. Just one — Episode 1,219 — is misplaced to time, which is fairly outstanding given the last decade’s unreliable archival methods. A replica pairs the Misplaced Episode’s audio monitor with nonetheless imagery and narration, however no different remnant exists. Nada, zero, zilch. A fan’s actions are the one cause the audio survived.

How Did ‘Darkish Shadows’ Lose an Episode?

Though stylistically dated by at present’s requirements, Darkish Shadows‘s goofiness holds an irresistible attraction. All these melodramatic music stingers, actors somberly turning towards a zooming digicam, and episodic cliffhangers keep participating as a result of they needed to be. Resting on their laurels would lose viewers, and Sixties community funds could not match Darkish Shadows‘s groundbreaking ambition as a nationwide phenomenon and — per The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Different Monsters — the primary cleaning soap opera “to draw a big younger viewers [and] use particular results.” Dan Curtis employed artistic options to the conundrums of shifting viewers pursuits, a decent filming schedule, and a severely under-budgeted manufacturing.

An add-on downside was the archival course of or lack thereof. Preservation practices had been restricted as a result of know-how was restricted. It wasn’t uncommon for collection to lose their analog episodes, particularly because the prevailing perception was that present media would not keep related. Re-broadcasts had been uncommon and often reserved for made-for-television films. The VHS revolution was years away. It is why dozens of Doctor Who episodes from the Sixties now not exist in any type. Gizmodo explained:

“The BBC didn’t have a concrete coverage on archiving its packages till the late Seventies. Earlier than then,
the BBC’s Movie and Engineering departments destroyed or recorded over a lot of their archived programming
frequently. And completely different teams stored completely different recordings — Engineering stored the unique 2″ videotapes (generally known as quadruplex videotape) the episodes had been shot on, whereas Movie stored the 16mm Movie variations that had been “telerecordings” — generally known as kinescopes in America, actually simply movie recordings of the unique videotapes transposing the footage right into a extra extensively used format — to be offered to worldwide broadcasters.”

In Darkish Shadows‘s case, Rosemary Guiley and The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Different Monsters stories that “the video masters of a handful of episodes have been misplaced, however exist in kinescopes.” The fan web site Dark Shadows Every Day provides additional context, detailing how ABC “phased out the [kinescope] follow in fall 1970, when everyone switched to sending videotapes.” Earlier than 1970, if one thing occurred to the grasp tapes, syndication broadcasters may use the kinescopes. Episode 1,219 aired in 1971 on the tail finish of the collection’ run, leaving Darkish Shadows with no backups. “There was only a clean videotape within the [master] case,” Darkish Shadows Each Day recounts, “plus a bit tuft of black and white fur that no person may ever clarify.” How, then, do Darkish Shadows‘s DVD and Blu-ray units have knowledgeable reconstruction?

What Is ‘Darkish Shadows’ About?

Darkish Shadows Each Day stories that Wendy “Josette” Kernaghan, a fan who was blind, recorded many episodes’ audio throughout their preliminary ABC broadcasts. Josette had already circulated her copies with fellow followers earlier than loaning Episode 1,219’s audio tape out for official functions. Even her recording was incomplete, however editors compiled what remained with imagery from different episodes and a narration monitor supplied by Lara Parker, one among Darkish Shadows‘s mainstay performers and greatest recognized for taking part in the schrming witch Angelique Bouchard. The result’s the closest approximation followers have.

The Misplaced Episode takes place throughout Darkish Shadows‘s ultimate Parallel Time arc (and ultimate storyline interval, given its impending cancellation). Through the years, Shadows developed a pre-American Horror Story anthology fashion the place the cast played a rotating set of characters from completely different timelines and dimensions. Century-wise, Episode 1,219 happens in 1841 and opens with psychic Carrie Stokes (Kathy Cody) distressed over a troubling imaginative and prescient. She’s witnessed a headstone bearing the title of Daphne Harridge Collins (Kate Jackson), Bramwell Collins’s (Jonathan Frid) fiancée. Girls who marry into the Collins household meet unlucky fates, so this is not a great signal for Daphne’s longevity.

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The present provides the viewers an advanced romance they will sink their enamel into.

In step with Darkish Shadows, it is particularly unlucky as a result of Catherine Harridge Collins (Lara Parker), Daphne’s engaged sister, is pregnant with Bramwell’s youngster. The scandal! What’s a cleaning soap opera with no love quadrangle, and what’s Darkish Shadows with out a romantic entanglement predicated upon horror?

‘Darkish Shadows’ Modified the Vampire Style

The artistic family tree of popular culture giants like Anne Rice, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries traces again to Darkish Shadows, whether or not deliberately or by way of coincidental osmosis. Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a brooding determine endlessly mourning his misplaced love and trapped by the curse of his bloodlust, spends the collection shifting between villain, antihero, and protagonist faster than people change socks. Launched as a menacing killer, kidnapper, and gaslighter, Barnabas’s unexpected popularity with audiences — boosted little question by Frid, a Shakespearian-trained stage actor — compelled the artistic crew to develop his sympathetic attributes and invent a tragically romantic backstory. Barnabas’s angst, his wolf’s head cane, and his My Chemical Romance eyeliner are largely answerable for spawning the tormented vampire archetype. Dan Curtis stole from himself by repeating Darkish Shadows plot factors for his 1974 made-for-TV Dracula film, one among which could sound acquainted to vampire media connoisseurs: a reincarnated love curiosity.

Towards all odds, Darkish Shadows produced episode after episode with innovative aplomb and theatrical flair. It wasn’t only a scores battle that demanded such heft; Shadows‘s low price range meant the manufacturing filmed scenes in a single take. The bloopers stayed in regardless of how heinous, as a result of time, cash, and tape reels had been of the essence. Errors vary from actors flubbing traces or studying off the teleprompter, stray flies taking over residence on performers’ foreheads, and set items falling down. Likewise, The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Different Monsters cites “Curtis additionally by no means anticipated the present to outlive to reruns, not to mention worldwide syndication.” The joke is likely to be on him, however as a result of Darkish Shadows continues spreading pleasure 58 years later (conventions are still going strong) it is a innocent one.

Darkish Shadows is offered to stream on Prime Video within the U.S.

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