The setting is a small fishing village, Collinsport, Maine. High on Widows Hill stands Collinwood, the brooding family mansion. It's a home of dark mysteries and intrigue. Within its great halls stalk the tormented residents of the estate... ghosts, witches, werewolves... held captive by spells reaching out from the depths of time.
Young Vicki Winters has come here to be the governess of 10-year old David Collins, heir to the family fortune... and also to be companion to Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the inscrutable mistress of Collinwood. To Vicki's surprise, ominous events unfold, not only in the present but in the past.
The supernatural is commonplace at Collinwood, home of the family's 175-year old resident vampire, Barnabas Collins.
The Dark Shadows TV show is a fantasy/horror series with a "soap opera" twist about a Vampire and other supernatural characters who preyed on the poor residents of a town called Collinsport. Multiple and parallel time streams allowed the cast members to portray multiple roles. There were a total of 1225 episodes from 1966-1971.
Dark Shadows Cast:
Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins (1967-1971)
Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (1966-1970)
Alexandra Moltke Isles as Victoria Winters Clark (Bradford) (1966-1968)
Grayson Hall as Dr Julia Hoffman (1967-1971)
Louis Edmonds as Roger Collins
David Selby as Quentin Collins (1968-1971)
David Henesy as David Collins
Lara Parker as Angelique Bouchard Collins DuVal Rumson (1967-1971)
Jerry Lacy as Reverend Trask
Kathryn Leigh Scott as Maggie Evans
Dark Shadow Movies:
In 1970 Dark Shadows became a feature length motion picture in "House of Dark Shadows". It was heavily adapted from the TV series plot lines with one major twist, Barnabas Collins is destroyed at the end of the film. "House of Dark Shadows" was followed in 1971 by "Night of Dark Shadows", the film adapted some elements from the TV series but also contained a great deal of new story. It is widely believed that far too much material was edited out of the final version, making a rather confusing film that leaves you wondering what the characters' motivations were. Plans for a third Dark Shadows film were made but it never materialized. In recent years Dan Curtis has once again shown interest in the possibility of a new Dark Shadows film, however nothing firm has developed.
DVD SETS
The 1991 Series
Dark Shadows crawled back to life(briefly) on NBC in a completely new series with a new cast which took many plot elements from the original series. However, this incarnation of Dark Shadows was darker, and the production was more extravagant than the original series. After a very short run, the series was canceled. Dark Shadows aired on NBC From January 13th to March 22nd 1991.
Opening Narrative:
(First Episode)
"My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning-a journey that I hope will open the doors of life and link my past with my future. A journey that will bring me to a dark place to the edge of the sea high atop Widow's Hill; and a house called Collinwood. A world never known, with people I've never met. People who, tonight, are still only shadows in my mind but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrow ..."
In the beginning, Dark Shadows was not successful with viewing audiences. When a "Ghost Story" twist was added to the TV show, ratings picked up significantly. The producers realized that the audience wanted more supernatural plots and about nine months into the series, the vampire "Barnabas Collins" was released from his captivity in the Collins familie's mausoleum and the ratings really took off.
When Dark Shadows went on the air in 1966 it was Black & White. However, starting with episode #295 the program was videotaped in color. Now at this point you may be saying, "That's not true. I've seen later episodes and they're in Black and White!" What happened is that in addition to taping the series, kineoscope films were also made in black & white. Kineoscopes are films made by pointing the camera at a television screen. They did that because many of the affiliate stations didn't have videotape players as they were still very expensive. They could still broadcast the shows though using the kineoscopes. Well, many of the color videotapes are missing but the black & white films have survived. ABC stopped making the films in 1970 and one episode of the last season's run is totally missing.
At first, the cast members would refer to the Barnabas Collins character as "undead", "not alive" or some other such term. It was more than 1 1/2 seasons before the word "Vampire" was used.
There were 1225 episodes of Dark Shadows but they were numbered up to 1245. Twenty episodes were pre-empted and, for some reason, the producers decided to give those dates episode numbers!
There were two Dark Shadows movies. House of Dark Shadows" was released in 1970 and "Night of Dark Shadows" in 1971.
There was an attempt to bring Dark Shadows back to television as a new series. It only lasted from January 13th, 1991 to March 22nd of the same year.
The original shows returned to television in 1975 in syndication on local television stations and on PBS. Then in 1990 the SciFi Channel bought exclusive rights to the TV show.
TV 
