So as many of you know I finally finished the original Dark Shadows series. I've seen a lot of people complaining that there is no real ending. I don't think I agree with that. I believe there are three endings. And maybe four. If Peter Jackson added in Frodo's return to the Shire and his battle with Saruman and Wormtongue for Hobbiton, he might have beaten out how many endings Dark Shadows had.
Oh yeah, spoilers, if you haven't seen the show.
So the first ending: Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes coming back up the stairway into the future. Honestly, this is where the show should have ended. I believe their actions in . . . well . . . ah fuck it. It's super complicated, and I'm not sure I get it. So way back, Barnabas and Julia went back in time, and when they came forward in time to the present(-ish) they discovered the Collins family had been torn asunder, and Collinwood had been burned to the ground. They went back in time to fix the problem and discovered why the Collins family has such bad luck. Turned out they killed a sorcerer during the times of the Witch Trials, and he cursed them forever and ever. Except they repaired that bit and went back to the future to discover a very happy and untroubled Collins family. An uncursed Collins family. On the one hand, I hate that it undid nearly the entire show. Hell, probably the whole show. But they succeeded at their plan, and that makes for a great stopping point. It is, at least, *an* ending.
The second ending: The forced ending. So back in the past Lamar Trask gets shoved into a parallel universe by Quentin Collins (kind of) where he dies before the eyes of a parallel 1840s Collins family, and they are still cursed but in a much different way. Everyone thinks it was a spurned lover whose body doesn't decompose and is displayed in an evil room in Collinwood. The family has a lottery as to who must go in that room and spend the night, and no one has ever survived sane. They've either died or gone crazy. Sure enough, the two who go in there come out bonkers. Gabriel comes out a stark raving murderer, and Morgan isn't even himself; he's possessed by the spirit of the spurned lover. And it turns out, that guy didn't curse the family. Brutus Collins was disgusted by the weakness of his own family and curse them himself! It takes a stranger, Kendrick, who is only there to find out who killed his sister, to break the curse. And everyone lives happily ever after, right? Well, no. Because one of the family is carried into the parlor with an obvious vampire bite on her neck. So they really did plan to continue? Probably. But before it aired, they knew they were canceled, so they added in a quick voiceover explaining that it was just a coincidence. A mere animal bite. No vampires here. The end.
But . . .
The third ending: Sam Hall's epilogue. He was asked after the show ended what became of the characters he'd written for years, and he gave very specific answers. One of them was granting my biggest Dark Shadows wish of all. Barnabas finally acknowledged Julia's love for him, and they got married. Poor Quentin never did find the answers he was looking for and walks the earth a tortured man/werewolf/Dorian Gray. Roger doesn't live long after that final episode. And so on. I found that ending to be the most satisfying because even with the curse lifted, Quentin is still fucked. Nothing changes for him.
And then the fourth ending: the comic book series. Honestly I see no reason for Dynamite's series to exist. For some reason they decided that the story had to be finished. A story that had been finished no less than three times. But I'll say I enjoyed it. Even though Angelique (or Miranda, if you prefer) sacrificed her life to save the Collins family, she's back and evil in the comics, and she and Barnabas continue their love/hate relationship even though it ended in a very cool way on the show. Eh, it was a fun read, but you can skip it in my opinion.
I've seen all Dark Shadows has to offer. The original show, the two movies, the remake show, many novels (the best of which are written by Angelique herself, Lara Parker), a bunch of comic books (the original Gold Key books!) and even a few books written by the cast about their experiences and an album of the score. What I have not seen is the Tim Burton movie, and I dread ever seeing it. It looks like a parody of the show. Dark Shadows may have been unintentionally funny a lot of times, but the key word there is "unintentionally." They took their material very seriously. There were very few purposeful jokes in their scripts. I'm told there's a blowjob scene in the movie, for fuck's sake. On Dark Shadows, NO ONE HAD SEX. Was there romance? Sure. But as far as the show goes, sex is completely alien to the characters. I suspect it might have been in the bible for the show, like in the Batman bible it says that he's a virgin.
But yeah. I guess someday I'll see it. As I understand it Jonathan Frid has a cameo, and it would be nice to see him again. But the joke goes that he was so embarrassed by the movie that he promptly died just before it was released.
*sigh* Yeah, yeah. I'll watch it. Just not anytime soon, okay?
PS: If you like Barnabas Collins, and you like Carl Kolchak, you should probably read "Interview with a Vampire." I remember enjoying the short story more than this comic book, but they're both good.
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