Dark Shadows RETURNS!

According to Dark Shadows information resource The Collinsport Historical Society, Dark Shadows is re-airing in May, 2015. The Collinsport blog links to an even more detailed about the show's rise from the dead here, at Will McKinley's blog.

A basic description of Dark Shadows is it was a paranormal themed soap that ran on daytime TV in the late 1960s and early 70s. Since the show's original run there has been at least one attempted reboot (which I watched faithfully, and found somewhat disappointing) and a movie starring Johnny Depp which was fitfully amusing but mostly a fucking mess.

My mom and sister and brother watched Dark Shadows when it originally aired, and it somehow entered my consciousness as one of the first TV shows I was really aware of, even though I was not yet in kindergarten.

I really grew to love it, though, in the mid 1990s. My first wife and I had moved to Nashville after going to school together in other parts of Tennessee and I had a job at the city's public TV station with odd hours. Syfy (it was then The Sci-Fi Channel) aired Dark Shadows reruns daily about an hour before I had to be at work and over time I grew invested in watching the show. I loved everything about it--the bad camera work, the hilariously hideous mishmash of 70s and proto-Georgian styles, the ridiculous storylines... I made it a point to watch and was bummed if I missed it.

When (Sci-Fi) stopped airing it, thankfully after finishing the show's full run, I truly missed it. Not just the characters (Jonathan Frid's mournful Barnabas, the evil vampire who tries to be good, sometimes seemed like a misplaced creation intended for a show with a much larger budget and better writing), but for whatever imaginary mental respite it provided at a time in my life which was strangely fraught and stressful, in hindsight.

So I'm glad it's coming back. I'm going to find it and watch it. For the clunking cameras. The disrobing actors who accidentally walk into a closing credits shot. For weird music. For fun.