jonathan.e

To see it is to love it - One of the most bizarre daytime shows ever made is listed up here for a 28th May release at the fantastic list price of $59.95. DDD discount brings that down to $43.19 - a little more than a dollar an episode.

I can’t tell you how jazzed I am about this awesome news.

Ashirg

Amazon lists MSRP as 69.99

Studio: Mpi Media Group
DVD Release Date: May 28, 2002
Run Time: 960 minutes

Unfortunately, no specs available...

Supermallet

This is excellent news! I've loved Dark Shadows since I saw it years ago on the sci-fi channel.

jimmywong

It may be a good idea to pre-order from DDD if they have they MSRP wrong. You can always cancel it later if you get a better price!

John Sinnott

Good idea Jimmy, I did it.

-Videophile who has is having a hard time believing that he has just ordered a soap opera on DVD.

spongo

So now dvdfile has a release news blurb about this.
It says "first season", but do you think this will start at the intro of barnabas or what?

Josh-da-man

I've never seen Dark Shadows, but I've always been curious. And that price certainly makes it tempting...

cynthia

From ShadowGram, the official Dark Shadows newsletter:I guess once they've released all the episodes, they will go back and release the pre-Barnabas ones.

spongo

Wow... great.
So lets see. (1200 episodes) / (40 episodes/set)
= 30 sets.

30 sets * $60/set = $1800 full price of the series.
30 sets * $42/set = $1260 at DDD prices.

(30 sets*3 months) = 90 months = 7.5 years to release
~$168 a year for my fix.

So quick question for the more die-hard fans... I got hooked
on the first 15 volumes or so at my local blockbuster which had them for rent. I liked what i saw, so i'm sure to pick up the first few sets, but I'm curious if there's a point at which the show started to go downhill? or are all 1200 episodes worth watching? ;-)

JDF5244

I used to watch that show in 1975 when I was 5 and lived in Cleveland. At that age, I can recall being quite scared quite often.

spongo

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...1.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Vampyr

This could begin to get very expensive as they release all episodes......But then again I'm so happy with the news I hardly care! Woopie!!!!!!!!!

BTW: Just ordered it from DDD!!!!!!

RobCA

Amazon already has Set Two up for pre-order, with a release date of July 30th.

Just two months after Set One!

spongo

I saw set 2 on amazon too. I'd love to see a picture. It seems like set 1 does not have any obvious signs that it is the first box. That's sort of lame.

EDIT: duh. i see it now. It's towards the bottom in White.
still, I hope there's a big #1 on the side panel

jonathan.e

RobCa please edit out the referral in your link.

RobCA

Sorry, I didn't even know that it put that in there. It's fixed now.

Rob

Vampyr

I just spoke with DDD customer service and asked if they will soon be adding Set 2 to the pre-order list. The CSR said that she would send a request to have it added if there is enough interest.

It may be a good idea if everyone interested calls them to ask for it to be added.

Just my .02

garmonbozia

Were the pre-Barnabas episodes boring?
how many seasons was this show on before Barnabas shows up?

I'm just curious because I haven't seen this show since the mid 80s when it was airing on PBS. This was my favorite show when I was about 10 years old, I just have no idea what part of the show I was watching then.

I do remember the last episode I saw vaguely.....someone, I think Angelique, was trying to summon/conjure/whatever Satan and the episode ended with the doors flying open and she looked at whoever was there with horror......
for some reason I never saw from there on......maybe PBS stopped airing it....I do remember they got a lot of angry letters from silly parents who didn't think PBS should be showing such an evil show....

I did catch an episode on the scifi channel when I went to visit my mom in January.....she watched the show after school when she was a kid. We both laughed at how horribly bad the show looks now. The production values were really poor: zooms that go out of focus, actors tripping over lines, etc (at least in that one episode I caught).......definitely very dated, but I know I can still get hooked on it. I am anxiously awaitng my dvds.

Steve Phillips

DARK SHADOWS started to go downhill for ME about episode 700...the earlier ones are very fun but by that time the stories started getting repetitious and some of the best characters were gone. However, the later ones are still OK. It took me ELEVEN YEARS to watch all 1225 shows! Now, I'm starting over with the great new DVD sets. By the way, I think that MPI will follow the pattern they did on VHS and release 40 shows every 2 months, making it take 4.5 years for the whole thing, or exactly how long the show was on the air (5 shows a week).

I'd also like to see the 1991 Ben Cross revival series on DVD, but rest assured it will happen at some point.

boc4ever

I received this e-mail from mpi this morning -

http://www.darkshadowsdvd.com/dvd.asp

The summer BBQ season is drawing near and MPI is cooking up some special savings for you! Through June 14th, you can get up to $35 off all purchases through www.mpihomevideo.com. Simply visit www.mpihomevideo.com and input the appropriate coupon code below during the checkout section to enjoy the savings.

Coupon Code: "hv0600" for $5 off $25
Coupon Code: "hv0601" for $15 off $50
Coupon Code: "hv0602" for $35 off $100

not bad with the coupon!

garmonbozia

I got my dvds last night. I posted my initial reaction in the thread in the DVDReview forum.

Steve Phillips (or anyone else who might know),

Do you know when the show started to be filmed in color? about what episode number? The episodes I saw when I was a kid were in color and I was just curious.

Also does anyone know about what episode number...


thanks for any help.

jbannow

Anyone know anything about the Dark Shadows Special Edition DVD listed there? Is it included with the boxset?

- Jeff

Dimension X

Sorry, I don't remember when they switched to color. I would guess late in '68.

I tried searching online for some info, but gave up on it. There is a very good book containing everything you could ever want to know about DS called The Dark Shadows Companion: 25th Anniversary Collection.

Hondo

Hello!

I have been lurking here for a while and I have finally found a thread where I can make a contributution. I am by no means an expert, but I think I can answer a couple of questions.

The pre-Barnabas episodes are still very gothic, but they much more resemble a traditional soap. The only supernatural phenomena are some "ghost" visits. It mostly revolves around a murderous child (David) and his father (Roger). The series definitely picks up after Barnabas' introduction and really hits its pace in the first extended flashback, which shows how Barnabas came to be a vampire.

I seem to recall that they switched to color not too long after the Barnabas introduction. My guess would that the last few eps of the first set or the first few of the second set should start the color run.

As far as when the show started to go downhill, that's a pretty subjective thing. For me it wasn't until maybe the last couple years or so. Probably starting with the introduction of Quentin Collins and continuing through the "parallel time" eps. If you can hold out to the end, it is interesting to see how they end the show. It's very obvious that they were cancelled abruptly. They have a voice-over that wraps up the plot of the current arc. A kind of "...and they all lived happily ever after" thing. And that's it. We never find out what happend to the original characters or anything. Bizarre.

Garmonbozia, you are right about the production values, but for me it actually makes it better. It's very camp. I can recall entire lines of dialog that are completely inaudible because of an extended offstage coughing fit. I guess video tape was expensive then.

Also, I have a question. Many of the eps shown on Sci Fi were on B/W film. Was it (is it) customary to do a show on tape and on film? I will also be interested to know if any of the eps on the new sets are film. They are easy to discern (aside from the "film" look), because the soundtrack is poor compared to the reqular eps.

I hope this is of some help.

Cheers,

Hondo

Dimension X

Are you sure about this? Each set of 40 episodes equals about 2 months. The second set will only bring us 4 months into the Barnabas episodes.

I remember the first time travel story arc being B&W. I think the whole Barnabas being cured by Julia story (used as the basis for House of Dark Shadows) was also B&W, but I might be wrong.

The first Angelique episodes are in color aren't they? These are the ones with the flashback to Barnabas becoming a vampire (I think). I would guess that we have closer to ten sets of B&W episodes before the color ones start.