Ubiquitous
2020-08-17 13:42:28 UTC
https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2020/08/14/time-travel-part-13/
Less talk, more crowbar!
Stop me if youve heard this one: A man walks into a crypt, looking for
buried treasure. He crowbars his way into a mystery box, and what does he
find? A pain in the neck.
Today is Christmas Day 1970, happy holidays by the way, and the show is
taking the day off. On pre-emption days, the blog is visited by the Ghost of
Dark Shadows Yet to Come, often to our great and lasting regret. During
previous pre-emptions, we watched the 1970 movie House of Dark Shadows, the
1971 movie Night of Dark Shadows, and the 12 episodes of the 1991 NBC
revival. The short version is that they werent very good, because trying to
catch lightning in a bottle is difficult, especially when youve already used
that bottle a couple of times. Lightnings funny that way.
Today, were taking a look at the next chapter of that story: the 2004 pilot
for a new prime-time Dark Shadows, prepared for and rejected by the WB, which
used to be a television network.
You see, Dan Curtis Dark Shadows creator and executive producer never
gave up on Dark Shadows, except while he was making it, when he definitely
did. Having tasted the thrill of unexpected success in 1968 and 1969 as the
shows popularity reached its peak, he decided to make a movie version, using
the same cast, crew and writers, while the television show was still on the
air. That left the show coasting for months on ABC-TV with the B-squad
characters, and when Dan finally came back to the series, all he really
wanted to do was make another movie, and thats why the show came to a
gradual, disappointing end.
In 1991, Dan decided to try again, making a 12-part prime-time series for NBC
that used a lot of ideas from House of Dark Shadows, and it didnt work out,
for lightning/bottle reasons. And then he just kept on trying to remake the
remake for the next 12 years, finally managing to convince the WB to spend
five million dollars on a pilot that nobody liked.
I asked you to stop me if youve heard this before, but frankly, its no use
trying. The only way that Dan could stop retelling the story of Dark Shadows
was to die, and even then, I bet hes up in Heaven, pitching Saint Peter on
another series. Im kidding, of course; executive producers dont go to
Heaven.
Now, you may be wondering, how do you spend twelve years trying to get people
to let you make more Dark Shadows? This is how. In the 2012 book Dark
Shadows: Return to Collinwood, Jim Pierson listed Dans many attempts to get
Barnabas back on the screen.
1993: A proposed feature film that was essentially a remake of House of Dark
Shadows, which Miramax briefly expressed interest in.
1997: A daytime show for the Fox network, who were considering expanding into
daytime soaps and then decided not to.
1998: Warren Littlefield at NBC invited Dan to make a series of occasional
TV-movies. Dan said that the series wouldnt work without being a serialized
show, and instead prepared an outline for the first season of a new prime-
time show. NBC passed.
2000: A Broadway musical, with music by Robert Cobert and lyrics by Rupert
Holmes, who wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
2001: A prime-time weekly series for Fox, produced by Aaron Spelling. Fox
passed.
2001: A Spanish-language daytime show, using the original shows scripts.
Yeah, Im amazed by that one too.
2001: A prime-time weekly series for TNT.
2001: An animated series for adults, to be aired on HBO.
2002: Another shot at a feature film.
And through it all, Dan never wavered in his belief that the correct way to
make Dark Shadows is to do it just like he did in 1970 and 1991, but with new
actors, which never worked.
Dan wanted to recapture that thrill of 1968, when he was full of new ideas
and lunatic plot contrivances, and storyline twists just appeared in his mind
without even trying. Some of them worked and some of them didnt, and he just
kept going dodging, weaving, pivoting on a dime with his gaze always
locked on what the audience was responding to. Dark Shadows in 1968 was a
television jazz combo played in tune with its time, in an unrepeatable act of
joyous collective improvisation.
You dont get that thrill by playing a cover version of the same song,
thirty-five years later. Heres what you get instead.
A CGI train winds through the woods on a moonlit night, en route to romance
and danger. The camera follows the train as it curves through the night, and
then swoops in to focus on a single, lighted window
where we find our haunted heroine, lit sporadically by unspecified flashes of
ghost light. Its raining, apparently, not that you could tell from the first
shot, and this is the character were stuck with.
My name is Victoria Winters, she says in voice-over narration. Its
October 31st. The date didnt even register when the train tickets arrived.
This assertion is provided at no extra charge.
https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2020/08/14/time-travel-part-13/
--
"It took a worldwide pandemic. It took a 35% plunge in the stock
market. It took quarantining. It took many small businesses closing. It
took canceling practically everything, to bring the USA economy back to
the Obama high mark."
Less talk, more crowbar!
Stop me if youve heard this one: A man walks into a crypt, looking for
buried treasure. He crowbars his way into a mystery box, and what does he
find? A pain in the neck.
Today is Christmas Day 1970, happy holidays by the way, and the show is
taking the day off. On pre-emption days, the blog is visited by the Ghost of
Dark Shadows Yet to Come, often to our great and lasting regret. During
previous pre-emptions, we watched the 1970 movie House of Dark Shadows, the
1971 movie Night of Dark Shadows, and the 12 episodes of the 1991 NBC
revival. The short version is that they werent very good, because trying to
catch lightning in a bottle is difficult, especially when youve already used
that bottle a couple of times. Lightnings funny that way.
Today, were taking a look at the next chapter of that story: the 2004 pilot
for a new prime-time Dark Shadows, prepared for and rejected by the WB, which
used to be a television network.
You see, Dan Curtis Dark Shadows creator and executive producer never
gave up on Dark Shadows, except while he was making it, when he definitely
did. Having tasted the thrill of unexpected success in 1968 and 1969 as the
shows popularity reached its peak, he decided to make a movie version, using
the same cast, crew and writers, while the television show was still on the
air. That left the show coasting for months on ABC-TV with the B-squad
characters, and when Dan finally came back to the series, all he really
wanted to do was make another movie, and thats why the show came to a
gradual, disappointing end.
In 1991, Dan decided to try again, making a 12-part prime-time series for NBC
that used a lot of ideas from House of Dark Shadows, and it didnt work out,
for lightning/bottle reasons. And then he just kept on trying to remake the
remake for the next 12 years, finally managing to convince the WB to spend
five million dollars on a pilot that nobody liked.
I asked you to stop me if youve heard this before, but frankly, its no use
trying. The only way that Dan could stop retelling the story of Dark Shadows
was to die, and even then, I bet hes up in Heaven, pitching Saint Peter on
another series. Im kidding, of course; executive producers dont go to
Heaven.
Now, you may be wondering, how do you spend twelve years trying to get people
to let you make more Dark Shadows? This is how. In the 2012 book Dark
Shadows: Return to Collinwood, Jim Pierson listed Dans many attempts to get
Barnabas back on the screen.
1993: A proposed feature film that was essentially a remake of House of Dark
Shadows, which Miramax briefly expressed interest in.
1997: A daytime show for the Fox network, who were considering expanding into
daytime soaps and then decided not to.
1998: Warren Littlefield at NBC invited Dan to make a series of occasional
TV-movies. Dan said that the series wouldnt work without being a serialized
show, and instead prepared an outline for the first season of a new prime-
time show. NBC passed.
2000: A Broadway musical, with music by Robert Cobert and lyrics by Rupert
Holmes, who wrote The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
2001: A prime-time weekly series for Fox, produced by Aaron Spelling. Fox
passed.
2001: A Spanish-language daytime show, using the original shows scripts.
Yeah, Im amazed by that one too.
2001: A prime-time weekly series for TNT.
2001: An animated series for adults, to be aired on HBO.
2002: Another shot at a feature film.
And through it all, Dan never wavered in his belief that the correct way to
make Dark Shadows is to do it just like he did in 1970 and 1991, but with new
actors, which never worked.
Dan wanted to recapture that thrill of 1968, when he was full of new ideas
and lunatic plot contrivances, and storyline twists just appeared in his mind
without even trying. Some of them worked and some of them didnt, and he just
kept going dodging, weaving, pivoting on a dime with his gaze always
locked on what the audience was responding to. Dark Shadows in 1968 was a
television jazz combo played in tune with its time, in an unrepeatable act of
joyous collective improvisation.
You dont get that thrill by playing a cover version of the same song,
thirty-five years later. Heres what you get instead.
A CGI train winds through the woods on a moonlit night, en route to romance
and danger. The camera follows the train as it curves through the night, and
then swoops in to focus on a single, lighted window
where we find our haunted heroine, lit sporadically by unspecified flashes of
ghost light. Its raining, apparently, not that you could tell from the first
shot, and this is the character were stuck with.
My name is Victoria Winters, she says in voice-over narration. Its
October 31st. The date didnt even register when the train tickets arrived.
This assertion is provided at no extra charge.
https://darkshadowseveryday.com/2020/08/14/time-travel-part-13/
--
"It took a worldwide pandemic. It took a 35% plunge in the stock
market. It took quarantining. It took many small businesses closing. It
took canceling practically everything, to bring the USA economy back to
the Obama high mark."