The episodes I've been rewatching are from 1967. Dark Shadows started in 1966 as a glacially paced Gothic soap opera with occasional forays into the supernatural (a ghost, a phoenix). It couldn't quite find its footing, and it wasn't surprising that its ratings were lousy. When it seemed certain the show would be canceled, producer Dan Curtis decided to go out with a bang: a vampire story. He hired Jonathan Frid to play Barnabas Collins, and suddenly the show was a hit.
Curtis had intended to kill off Barnabas rather quickly, but soon it became apparent that was impossible. Frid, a Canadian stage actor who was literally on his way out the door to begin a teaching job when his agent called about the soap opera gig, had a hard time memorizing the vast swathes of dialogue he was given. He frequently stumbled over lines and mangled them. Somehow he managed to transmute this difficulty into the character of fish-out-of-water Barnabas, resurrected after nearly two hundred years chained in a coffin. Curtis had planned for Barnabas to be a typical creature of bloodlust, and Frid could certainly play cruelty to the hilt--but his Barnabas was conflicted and vulnerable in a way that vampires typically were not, in popular culture, for another few decades.
Another terrific cast member was John Karlen as Willie Loomis, a swaggering young thug turned into a tormented Renfield when he inadvertently frees Barnabas from his coffin. Then there's Grayson Hall as Dr. Julia Hoffman, who plays a cat-and-mouse game with an increasingly disconcerted Barnabas when she figures out his vampire secret; she wants to experiment on him to see if she can, via blood transfusions, make him human again. (This goes spectacularly wrong when he abruptly ages nearly two hundred years, courtesy of Dick Smith's stellar makeup job.) Plus there's Joan Bennett, and some fascinating character actors (Thayer David is a favorite of mine).
A little later, the show made its first foray into period drama as it traveled back in time for Barnabas' origin story in 1795, allowing much of the cast to play different characters. At this point Lara Parker joined the cast as the witch Angelique, in an electrifying performance...and I could go on all day, but I'll stop here.
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Curtis had intended to kill off Barnabas rather quickly, but soon it became apparent that was impossible. Frid, a Canadian stage actor who was literally on his way out the door to begin a teaching job when his agent called about the soap opera gig, had a hard time memorizing the vast swathes of dialogue he was given. He frequently stumbled over lines and mangled them. Somehow he managed to transmute this difficulty into the character of fish-out-of-water Barnabas, resurrected after nearly two hundred years chained in a coffin. Curtis had planned for Barnabas to be a typical creature of bloodlust, and Frid could certainly play cruelty to the hilt--but his Barnabas was conflicted and vulnerable in a way that vampires typically were not, in popular culture, for another few decades.
Another terrific cast member was John Karlen as Willie Loomis, a swaggering young thug turned into a tormented Renfield when he inadvertently frees Barnabas from his coffin. Then there's Grayson Hall as Dr. Julia Hoffman, who plays a cat-and-mouse game with an increasingly disconcerted Barnabas when she figures out his vampire secret; she wants to experiment on him to see if she can, via blood transfusions, make him human again. (This goes spectacularly wrong when he abruptly ages nearly two hundred years, courtesy of Dick Smith's stellar makeup job.) Plus there's Joan Bennett, and some fascinating character actors (Thayer David is a favorite of mine).
A little later, the show made its first foray into period drama as it traveled back in time for Barnabas' origin story in 1795, allowing much of the cast to play different characters. At this point Lara Parker joined the cast as the witch Angelique, in an electrifying performance...and I could go on all day, but I'll stop here.