Dark Shadows

[LessAspin]

The Social Network sequel was getting a lot of buzz yesterday. I forgot that David Selby, one of the stars of Dark Shadows, was in The Social Network..

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What a wild daytime soap opera Dark Shadows was to watch as a kid.

Created by horror master Dan Curtis, Dark Shadows concerned the wealthy, eccentric, and evidently eternal Collins family, who lived in the Collinswood Mansion in Collinsport, Maine. The clan is plagued by generations of dark secrets, supernatural curses and otherwise tragic fates, many of which came to head with the return of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid) some 200 years after he died.

Barnabas is now a vampire, and what began as a moody, mystery-based take on classic daytime soaps turned into a juicy, full-blown freak fest filled with vampires, ghosts, witches, time travel and parallel universes. The evolution mesmerized teens just home from school and also housewife mamas, who could now exorcise their demons with more than family foibles and business-related battles.

Introduced as a silent ghost in Dark Shadows‘ modern-day story line, Jackson’s Daphne Harridge was the former governess of the Collins kids and paramour of Barnabas’ distant cousin Quentin Collins (David Selby) during Shadows’ 1840 storyline. In a thread inspired Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, kind and gentle Daphne fell for the cursed and brooding Quentin, who genuinely loved her back. Quentin probably knew he was not an ideal boyfriend, even as he tried to convince Daphne otherwise.

When young Daphne died, she found a fine way to be with Quentin forever: She haunted the daylights out of him — and pretty much everyone else in Collinswood...

https://www.remindmagazine.com/article/31953/kate-jackson-daphne-harridge-dark-shadows/

[niyad]

1. I loved Dark Shadows. In college, it seemed you could find half the

student body in the student union when it came on.