DavidK

The first 40 episode set of the 'Dark Shadows' TV series was supposedly released... anyone have any reviews?

Thanks...

Vampyr

I have it on order but haven't received it yet. I don't expect much in terms of restoration but will be glad to have this on DVD.

garmonbozia

mine shipped from DDD last week. I was hoping it would come today, but it was no show.
damn it....I really wanted to start watching it tonight.

garmonbozia

I posted this in another Dark Shadows thread yesterday, but figured I should post it here in case anyone reading this thread could answer my questions?

Does anyone know why they are starting the releases with the introduction of Barnabas? (I think the other thread said episode #210)

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 remember the name Quentin for some reason...he was a werewolf I believe......and there was a witch named Angelique.....and there was a boy and a girl and the boy was doing some evil stuff but I don't remember what, but I do remember one scene for some reason he was playing with a ring on his finger after he had done something malicious like cause someone to fall down the stairs.....

anyone have any clue what period of the show I saw?

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.

garmonbozia

I got my dvds last night. I've watched the first 11 episodes. I couldn't stop myself. I don't know how this show looked on vhs, but I think it looks pretty reasonable for a 35 year old daytime soap opera. I don't think any resotration was actually done, and don't really think it would really make sense to try and restore a show with this many episodes considering how much more that would make the discs cost. One episode looks rather bad (#211 I think) and there is a note on the insert that explains why.
They do start with episode #210 and on the first disc there is a 16 minute or so introduction of a few important things that happened in the first 209 episodes. I never knew this show existed without Barnabas so it must have been pretty lackluster.
Every now and then there is an audio glitch or a video glitch, but besides that the show looks reasonable. Let's just say, it was what I expected and for the price they are being sold I think it is a great buy.

garmonbozia

one more question.......

does anyone know when this show started to be filmed in color?

or


Thanks.

Dimension X

Thanks for the review. I was planning on getting this, but kept putting it off.

It sounds like the recap of the pre-Barnabas episodes is the same as on the old video tapes. The Sci-Fi Channel showed all of the episodes some time back starting with the first (Victoria Winters arrives at Collinwood). I watched the early ones every now and then just to get an idea of what they were like. "Lackluster" is a good description. The only pre-Barnabas story line I remember is the phoenix one.

Vampyr

Just received my set today............I'll let you know about the quality when I get a chance to watch some.