Dearest Chester.....

I'm so grateful to you for burning me a copy of the very first disc in the Dark Shadows series. However, the audio track is conveniently faster than the video, or something, so the words never match the mouths. I was worried I wouldn't get any giggles out of this, considering my dour nature.

XXOO Grumpy

I'm So Heavy!

This is going to be a bit tedious. Chester was correct about needing only one eye and/or ear on this show at any given moment. I just can't keep my face on it for too long at a time. The acting isn't bad, but so far it isn't worth actually watching yet. There's an awful lot of really loaded statements being made by people who aren't revealing any details of themselves so much as behaving like they're carrying something extremely important on their shoulders:

[Deliver line in low, slowly paced voice with just enough of a stuffy, faux British accent to sound, you know, "continental", and with a touch of indignation so everyone believes you really, really mean it. This works best if you speak only to someone's back or with your own back turned to them. Take several paces across room and repeat. And remember, that trench coat or cocktail dress you are wearing is soaking wet and made of wool.]

I must add here that the show is set in Maine, just outside of Bangor. These people apparently don't ever leave their town and rarely talk to anyone but their own clan, and everyone gathers on the phone every night for vocal lessons from Douglas Fairbanks.

Thoughts so far...

It's tough to say whether or not the show will be good 7 episodes in. That is, so little has happened that one can only speculate. Since it was a soap opera, (ABC not BBC, btw), it was designed to allow the viewer to shingle the roof, disinfect the pool, change a diaper, and still be following the plot. Thus, all we have is character introductions and a lot of tension.
A lot...
lot...
lot...
of tension.

"A watched pot never boils...

... to coin a phrase!" The show begins tonight...

Dark Shadows: The Math

The decision to watch "Dark Shadows" seemed innocuous enough. A British vampire soap-opera from the late 1960's sounds entertaining, right? But 1225 episodes?! That might make two people hesitate. At 30 minutes each, that's 612.5 hours of television goodness. Four episodes a week amounts to roughly three years of commitment!

That's when we decided to start a blog.

The point of this blog is to chronicle the quest of watching "Dark Shadows" in its entirety. It will include brief synopses as well as opinions and random thoughts. It is purely self-serving, but hopefully it will be entertaining to others as well. Comments are always welcome.

So, here goes...