It's a safe bet I watched a couple hundred episodes of Dark Shadows with my mother before my earliest memories even set in. I don't remember any of them. But I know it was on in the afternoon and she watched it. Since I was a toddler and didn't have a job yet I was most likely there watching right along with her.
In 2000 I decided I had enough of working in the service industry and just wanted to start anew, so I ran up a lazer eye surgery on my credit card, withdrew all the cash I had in the bank, and drove to Evanston in an ice storm to live with two feminist professors at Northwestern who thought it would be a hoot to have a misanthropic poet living in the basement of their enormous 150 year old home.
I had a nice egg of a few thousand dollars saved up, and I naturally assumed by the time the money ran out I'd have figured out what I was going to do with my life on my thirties. All I figured out was I was going to get on the red line at the Dominicks at Chicago Avenue, get off in Wrigleyville, and drink like a fish. Also, I was going to eat almost nothing but oriental flavor Maruchan Won Ton soup and drink Tab Cola. To further complicate matters, the surgeon had botched my lazer surgery and I couldn't see a thing. In short, it was a blast and I wouldn't trade those few months for anything. During that time Dark Shadows was on Sci Fi Network, and I watched the story arc with Judah Zachary's disembodied head.
The disembodied head of Judah Zachary could make people do things. Bad things. I really disliked the disembodied head of Judah Zachary because it seemed to be screwing around with Quentin Collins, who I think I liked. Slowly I ran out of money. And the whole damn thing looked like an Impressionist painting. I wondered many times if my mother had seen these episodes. I wondered if I had. I really developed a taste for the show. But after I left I haven't picked it up again. I see some of the early seasons are on Netflix, but my understanding is these were stories done before the whole vampire/horror element was added. Eventually I will slog through every episode of Dark Shadows after Barnabus Collins appeared. I've seen the two motion pictures Dan Curtis made, House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows. I read somewhere in all the seasons of Dark Shadows they never turned the camera off once. I find that amazing. I look forward to seeing the entire run.
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| And to seeing the disembodied head of Judah Zachary vanquished. |
