by Valerie Schaal

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My mother was a big soap opera viewer—one of those often stereotypical 1960s housewives who never missed her stories. I can remember soaps playing on the TV throughout my childhood, my adolescence, my entire life at home. I’m happy to say that I was actually watching when Vicki rode that train into Collinsport on June 27, 1966. 

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I was quite young at the time—only seven years old in 1966—but there was something about this show that appealed to me: the dark and gloomy cliff-top mansion, the secretive people, the atmosphere. Here was something different from the run of the mill soap opera. And when Willie went jewel hunting in the mausoleum ten months later and unchained Barnabas…a vampire!

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I was in heaven. I was already a huge fan of the wonderful old Universal monster movies of the 1930s and 40s—Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, et al., which were constantly being re-run on TV at the time. Dark Shadows seemed the perfect combination of my two loves: soap operas and horror films. 

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I became one of those “ran home from school to watch” kids that you hear so much about. Barnabas and Julia became my particular favorites and I always hoped that they would end up together. My loyal viewing of the show never wavered until that final storyline when all my old favorites were disappointingly replaced with second-rate lookalike characters in parallel time, but I was still heartbroken when DS was cancelled in 1971. 

 

I didn’t see the original show again for more than 20 years until I happened to tune in to the Sci-Fi channel one day and saw that it was being aired again. An old love was renewed. I was pleasantly surprised at how many of the storylines I still recalled. When I first came online in 2001, I was delighted to see how many message boards, and fan pages were devoted to Dark Shadows, both to the show and to the various characters/couples/actors. 

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The Julia and Barnabas list at Yahoo became a favorite haunt. Eventually, I discovered the groups at Facebook and even started my own page, Barnabas and Julia—Never Without You. It was fabulous to know that I wasn’t alone in my continuing love for this wonderful series. I’ve never been lucky enough to attend a Dark Shadows festival or meet any of the actors, but the fact that DS is available on DVD makes it possible to bring it all into my home again and return to Collinwood whenever I choose.