BIG FINISH’s DARK SHADOWS-BLOODLINE Episode 13

 

BIG FINISH’s DARK SHADOWS-BLOODLINE

Episode 13

 

Boy Carl asks to see baby Quentin and loving Anna lets him. Geoffrey worries he will wake Quentin. We hear the Quentin theme, a new version of it, under the scene. Carl says they will be really good friends, he stutters, not like stuffy Edward or boring Judith. Carl thinks Quentin will be his very best friend until the day when he will die.

 

NOTE: this is sad and morbid for a number of reasons, one of which focuses on what awful people both Barnabas and Quentin both are, for both conspired toward Carl’s death when Carl found out, as an adult, about Barnabas being a vampire. Barnabas killed Carl outright and Quentin made it possible by locking Carl in the mausoleum, I believe. It was one of the worst things both of them ever did.

 

And Carl, somewhat of a goofy and camp character, was not evil and not bad but a good man mostly. Not sure the mini series does any favors by pointing all this out in the worst way possible. Highly negative.

 

Another thing to point out is that Julie Newmar as Julia is terrible and one way to focus on that is to start the narration with …Grayson Hall as Julia. It is the SAME narration from TV episode 291.

 

Which we also are treated to hearing Julia meeting Barnabas in her room at Collinwood from that same episode. In it, Julia says, “Good evening, Barnabas Collins. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. A long, long time.” When he asks why, she says, “Because I know what you are!”

 

Old music. New music? Double shock? No, not really. Uhm…no. No, and no.

 

https://darkshadows.fandom.com/wiki/291

 

 

Frid’s voice is also heard in that scene.

 

THEME. It goes a time before the narrator tells us this is DARK SHADOWS! EPISODE 13! BY ALAN FLANAGAN!!!!

 

Duncan wants Vernon Monroe to Jackie to the courtroom if he wants him to save Sarah. Vernon calls him a despicable man. “I’m not a man. I’m a god,” Duncan declares. Sigh. “I have the power of life and death in these hands.”

 

Jackie tells Vernon to take her and she thanks him. Jackie asks, “What if this is it? What if this is the end?”

 

Julia asks the same thing and brings up when they first met. She asks Barnabas to believe she might have been lying to him all this time, all along. Sheh claims her life has been destroyed because of him and now she wants to see him suffer. He asks her if she would like a drink. “I may be a monster, I may be the vampire but I’m still a gentleman.”

 

“I don’t understand,” she says.

 

 Barnabas knows it is not Julia in control and knows whatever is happening Julia is not responsible. He asks her if she would like a brandy.

 

Julia was possessed before with the ghost of Gerard. On the tape, Julia looks for a clue: the box –the crate containing her body. In flashback, Julia gets a I just don’t know, twice. Julia passed Tom on the way to his room. She went to Lela who was typing. Not sure who the man is that came to her when she mentions some of them came to her. Willie? Cyrus? David? Then, Jackie? The magic she used she was able to do in full view of all of them.

 

She reveals her name is Lilith, a small town girl with a big dream. Julia goes to sleep when she takes control. Barnabas wonders how he can hurt Lilith without harming Julia. She taunts him about him possibly feeding on Cody and hopes he will regain consciousness before Barnabas feeds on him.

 

 

Julia Hoffman reveals that the woman who's body she's been in is named Lilith, and has been the cause of all the trouble.

 

Lilith sabotaged the experiment so that Julia would be inhabiting her body. Confused? Me, too.

 

 

A man with a suitcase offers her magic for a small price. He knows she wants revenge on Barnabas. The man is one of the disciples of Diabolos. The Dark Lord. Lilith accepted the Traveler’s offer.

 

When Julia’s brother Julius died, Julia dedicated herself to medicine. Lilith thinks Julia must have been pretty when she was younger. Lilith thinks Barnabas never once asked Julia about her life. They look at Julia’s body (and the strange music sounds like blinking, wtf?).

He could easily kill her but it would kill Julia as well.

 

 

 

Lilith gets an IDK, “And I still don’t know for sure just how much you really care for her.”

 

“Julia Hoffman is my greatest friend,” he claims.

 

When asked, Barnabas says he only ever loved one woman: Josette.

 

Lilith reveals that she has some sympathy for Julia, as Barnabas has never returned her love. Barnabas claims that he only ever loved Josette, but Lilith reminds him of: Maggie Evans, Victoria Winters, Roxanne Drew, and Angelique - all of whom he professed love for at one time. “Though what did they have that Julia didn’t?”  She goes on to say they were young, pretty.

 

His voice changes as he starts to choke the life out of Lilith, starting to kill her which will kill Julia, too. She recites London Bridge is Falling Down and invokes his sister’s death, “Everyone dies because of you.”

 

Rhonda arrives to stop him and finds Cody chained up. “You really are a sick bastard, aren’t you?” she directs toward Barnabas.

 

Lilith as Julia lies to Rhonda, telling her that he did this. He tries to explain the truth, “Dr. Hoffman is possessed.”

 

“Of course she is and I’m a damned goblin!”  Rhonda has a stake. She tells him about Bonnie Sands, dead in a phone booth and blood on her hand.

 

Barnabas explains that Lilith burned down the hospital to deprive him of his blood supply and sent his family back in time to change him. Barnabas says this is not his fault. He starts to tell her about a daughter he thinks she has. Lilith/Julia hits Rhonda over the head and is not sure she is still alive. Lilith in Julia’s body shoots Barnabas because it makes her feel better. We don’t hear the shots (silencer?).

 

Lilith tempts him with Rhonda and Cody. She whistles London Bridge and traps him somewhere in the basement near them, which puts them in danger from him.

 

In 1967, Lilith's sister was one of Barnabas's first victims in the 1960s and she has never forgiven him for it. From what I remember, NONE of the girls he attacked in 1967 EVER died.

 

Lilith’s sister was a young girl sitting on a bus in Bangor, an aspiring artist riding to an advertising agency called Dantons for a job to do artwork. She has 17 sketches. She uses her older sister as the model for a housewife using cleaning products. She stepped off the bus and the sun has just dipped down. She is all of 21 years old. She passes an alleyway and her body is found the next day.

 

Lilith asks him her name if he wants her to stop all of this. He can see her face.

 

AGAIN, no girl ever was attacked in 1967 who died from what I recall.

 

She keeps taunting him about why he never attacked others around him.

 

He tries angering her by asking her if she remembers the steak she had two weeks ago. He talks about the whimper, the chase, the teeth sinking. He wonders if her sister was awake for it all. She shoots him again. He never fed on Cody.

 

Julia does something with the lab equipment. Something to Julia. She shocked herself. Lilith is gone Julia says. Lilith is not gone but back again. He apologizes for her sister but she thinks he feels about as much guilt as the rest of them do when they forget to tip at a restaurant.

 

Lilith brings up that Julia killed Dave Woodard. Barnabas killed Dave, Julia’s only real friend. Julia blames Barnabas.

 

It started the moment Julia laid eyes on Barnabas Collins. Lilith makes Julia second guess herself. She chooses to help him. Lilith reminds her that she could not save her brother and that Barnabas used that to turn her into a creature as dark as he is. His defense of himself is sickening and self important and fails. And it really is. And does.

 

“Her name was Kathy, you son of a bitch. My sister’s name was Kathy.”

 

Barnabas tries to stop himself from feeding. He say, “I won’t,” over and over again.

 

Julia feels guilt over Dave and what he did to Maggie Evans and what she did herself to Maggie’s memory, risking Maggie. She feels guilt over her brother’s death. Julia admits she loves Barnabas and knows he will never love her like that.

 

Julia tells Lilith that Lilith killed Cody’s father and she names others who died in the fire (I can’t hear them because the sound is distorted). Newmar’s acting reaches a pinnacle of poor here IMO. The names sound like Matthew Micheals? Alice Chen. Jerry Gersh. Gelly something? Lou Ellen? What? A list of the dead, who died in the fire that Lilith started. Julia makes Lilith take a look at herself.

 

The writing goes bad again. Julia recounts what might happen. Revenge for the killing and somehow she mentions the Collins family might take revenge on her somehow by drowning her dog? WTF?

 

She mentions innocents caught up in the crossfire and the innocent’s family seeks revenge and on and on it goes. Julia asks her to just let it go. “Can’t you see, you have become Barnabas Collins.”

 

Julia asks her not to take revenge. Julia’s dialog is sickening as she recounts other sisters and brothers out there. She asks Lilith to bring the others back. Lilith wants him punished and justice. Julia thinks she was a good person before her sister died. Lilith chooses life and decides to save them.

 

 

 

Julia pleads with Lilith to return the members of the family to the present time, and after Barnabas apologized for all of his failings.

 

Embarrassingly, Tom howls in the cave. Suddenly, Angelique’s body burns in Collins House. Her spirit is returning to the Dark Lord’s domain. She remembers that Tom and Sarah were both kind to her. “I just…I just think people should be nice.”

 

Angelique tells him, “Then let me be kind to you.”  She makes the tape recorder be preserved forever so that others can find it. She also seems to prevent him from transforming into the werewolf. She ---her spirit---is being dragged down but has tricked the Dark Lord once more by doing good. She laughs as she vanishes.

 

Tom says, “I really wish I knew what was going on.”

 

Tom hears Lilith---I think. Or Carolyn?

 

Trask interrogates Lela to tell her, asking her if she will tell who helped her avoid him capturing her in the past. “You bet your damn ass I won’t,” Lela says. Lela fades away. Lela calls it the Lord’s work and says bye bye.

 

Duncan (or someone?) tells Loomis that he knows Loomis knows what he is doing so Loomis must die. Where did Willie end up? What’s going on? Willie vanishes.

 

Jackie pleads not guilty but vanishes, and as she does, she tells Vernon to make sure Duncan can never kill again. What? Did he save Sarah?

 

Anna finds David alive, a bullet in his arm. Geoffry is about to place one in his head but David starts to disappear. David vanishes saying Quentin is going to be amazing.

 

Jenny is going to make the family suffer. Charity asks her to forgive. Jenny vanishes. Cyrus vanishes, too, going home.

 

“Everyone hands in the air!” The sheriff tells only Viv in 1925. Viv admits to running the speakeasy. She has a head for business. Viv vanishes. The sheriff says she will pay for her crimes. She claims she hasn’t paid for anything in years. She vanishes.

 

Sabrina goes back to the cave, feeling strong. She will find Cyrus and they will be together and make the best of things. Sabrina vanishes. “If I get home, it’s time to make some changes.”

 

Harry is about to warn Richard about the fire. Richard stops him and asks if his son Cody is going to be okay. “Yes, he’s going to be brilliant,” Harry answers.

 

Richard tells Harry not to tell him. Richard didn’t tell Harry about any of this so he feels Harry should not tell him. Harry starts to fade away. Richard says goodbye for now. “Tell my son, tell him I’ll always love him.”  Harry will.

 

Ed is about to tell Susan but tells her to go home and sleep sweet dreams. She calls him a big softy and kisses him, tells Jess it was nice to meet her. Jess and Ed vanish as Ed says to Jess, “I love you, mom.”

 

Quentin begs Amy not to warn Harry. Even though she hasn’t given birth to him, she can’t stand by and see him get hurt. Quentin, who should know better, says, “You can’t change history.”

 

Quentin and Amy vanish. Amy wants to save Harry the pain. Quentin, stupid as hell, says, “And that helps make him the exceptional young man he is today.”  He’s a jerk.

 

“Will it ever end?” She asks. “The pain, the darkness.”

 

“Who knows, Amy. Who knows.”

 

Carolyn gets an IDK as she talks to Sabrina. She vanishes. “You and Amy, it might take time but you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be brilliant.”   Someone’s been watching and swallowing RTD’s modern day DOCTOR WHO, using the word brilliant as if it marks a character’s worth. Sigh. And cringe.

 

Lilith and Julia remember all of them. Lilith says she is sorry. Her kindness shown to him gives him hope.

 

Enough of this for now. Time to stop for a bit and pick the ending up later. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Silly, stupid, meaningless at times and in parts as if stories were rushed and forgotten and pointless while also expounding on hope, love, family, forgiveness and more. A mixed bag.

 

More later…time for a break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still, Lilith does as he asks. The members of the family are returned to the present time.

 

Barnabas tells Lilith she has done enough and to relinquish the power the Dark Lord has given her but she asks when will he learn that women do not like being told what to do.

 

“He truly is a relic from the past,” Julia offers.

 

“Dr. Julia Hoffman, I have one word for you: Restorayyyyy!”

 

Annoyingtoray!!!!

 

Apparently without me knowing it, Rhonda was possessed by Rhonda, too. I didn’t realize until she was back in her own body. Sigh.

 

Barnabas thanks Lilith. What are Julia/Lilith and Barnabas talking about (see below)? The demon Strix. Lilith in a weird voice recreates Barnabas Collins? WTF?

 

Julia and Barnabas regain their former bodies. Barnabas's former host body takes the name of Bramwell but is unable to communicate fully.

 

Barnabas’ current body crumbles or something? Is still breathing? He is still breathing. But the true face of Barnabas Collins returns in his former body.

 

 

David has a meeting. “I know we’re all still a little bit shaken by what’s happened.”

 

Jackie says, “You can say that again. I still can’t believe I almost bit the big one.”

 

Lela says something equally cliché and Jackie awwwwws that she remembered her name.

 

Gosh.

 

“Do we really need another speech?” Quentin asks.

 

Defrosted left overs from the wedding that wasn’t. Sabrina reveals Maggie has asked Sabrina and Cyrus to run the Collinsport Inn (wasn’t someone else doing that or am I thinking of Dale Clark’s serial?). Why are they asking Amy permission to stay in Collinsport? Amy tells them they can but on one condition: they take the son of the Dark Lord with them, “I don’t want him cluttering up the basement here forever.”

 

NOTE: the idea of the son of the Dark Lord is a brilliant one but I feel it’s wasted in these audios. There is a good story in there somewhere.

 

Lela asks Quentin how much he missed her. She wishes she knew what happened to Trask. Quentin will tell her.

 

Viv asks her son Harry for a word in private. She apologizes to him for having left him. She wants to change and asks for his permission to stay in Collinsport to be a mom. He says, “Of course, I missed you so much and I’ve realized that my dad, my life it’s all been so quiet…look at them all, they’re all so brilliant and exciting.”  SO the writers keep telling us. It’s obnoxious and boring already. Plus, they’re all really not. “Even my little brother’s a grown up baby werewolf. Oh, you didn’t know that, did you?”

 

Harry wants to be more like Viv and he thinks he’d be more fun. Viv thinks he is perfect. Harry thinks she is hard on herself. In the past, she flirted with men and had fun. He tells her she started a business that had nothing to do with men. Her business made money and she put it in a bank account and it’s now made her rich here in the present.

 

“It’s a madhouse, I love it,” David says. Amy claims, “Me, too.”  As they talk, we hear a low key and brilliant DS theme playing.

 

Amy and David determine that their relationship is better suited as friendship than lovers and end their engagement.

 

Amy realized a couple of days ago or a couple of years ago, depending on how you look at it.

 

He loves her but…they both thought there was something there that isn’t. He wanted this…this family.

 

He will her best friend forever. Amy: “David, just because I don’t want to marry you, doesn’t mean I can’t still boss you around.”  Gag me. No, wait, gag her.  

 

She doesn’t want him doing things to make his father happy so she wants him to let her run Collinsport Enterprises, both knowing Roger would have a fit. She gives him a university prospectus (?). The man he wants to be isn’t a doctor or a business man. When he asks what he is, she says “Madagascar.”  WHAT THE ACTUAL F? What is she talking about?

 

The archeology courses are on page 17. Sigh.

 

This is a line from Laura to David from episode 140 of the original TV series. WTF?

 

  https://darkshadows.fandom.com/wiki/140

 

NOTE: Collins Enterprises and Jessica all hark back to the earlier audio play (and fan theater play) RETURN TO COLLINWOOD, which oddly, is supposed to take place AFTER this and after the 1990s, so long after this mini series, say 2003.

 

https://darkshadows.fandom.com/wiki/Jessica_Loomis

 

https://darkshadows.fandom.com/wiki/Return_to_Collinwood

 

https://darkshadows.fandom.com/wiki/Collins_Fishing_Fleet_and_Cannery

 

Harry tells Cody that he didn’t realize that all those hobbies he had, he was always trying to fill in a gap left by his mom and always felt like an outsider. What a bunch of nonsense that is. He goes on and on about how Jackie is crazy (again) and his little brother is all rich (he is?) and Cody is so clever and funny and looks like he lives in the gym.

 

This rant is boring. Plus, Harry is a better character than all of them put together.

 

Cody says, “I don’t go to the gym.”

 

“Exactly.”  Harry goes on to say he felt so rubbish and boring and rubbish (yes, twice) and that’s why he dumped Cody. He realized some day Cody would dump him so he did it first.

 

Cody kisses him. Harry thanks him. Cody professes his love for Harry, who thinks he can say it every day and professes it back. Cody wants to get some champagne and get out of here. He also wants Harry to tell him all about his dad.

 

Some female talks about someone else being sweet? Who is this? Barnabas tells whoever this is that his name now is Bramwell. What? WTF? Barnabas would never change his name.

 

Whoever this female is recounts the room upstairs that goes into a parallel universe. Is this Rhonda and Jackie? Or Lela? Barnabas came back from 1840 and (what does 1840 have to do with the parallel time and Bramwell?). Barnabas apparently saw that universe after he came back (but Barnabas did not see the Bramwell 1841PT-- not on the TV show anyway).

 

“Good evening,” someone said he is from the Windcliff sanitarium.

 

“I am Bramwell,” Barnabas says again and again. He is not well and Dr. Hillary Cooper (a man) is going to take Bramwell away to look after him. He specializes in memory loss.

 

Quentin says Bramwell is very dear to them. The new board of directors has turned the place around. They can visit whenever they like. This and Hilliary are sort of arch and sinister.

 

SO, there is Bramwell who is the body we had Barnabas in throughout this and BLOOD LUST? And there is the original body of Barnabas who is now Barnabas now? Is that it? Did I get this confusing shit right?

 

Tom listens to the tape of Sarah singing. Here is the song.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_and_Boys_Come_Out_to_Play

 

Tom has found Sarah Katherine Filmore’s grave. Amy joins him, needing a walk. Jackie is with them, too. 1752 to 1821 is the date on her grave. Jackie tells Tom she loved him. Amy tells Tom his hurt will get better. Jackie says, “She was brilliant.”  Please stop with the brilliant shit! Somebody stop EVERY writer from ever using this brilliant crap again to describe a character. It worked in 2005 to 2008’s Doctor Who but no more, ever again, please. Stop the cliche!

 

 

Jackie wishes she could have done something which is why…she abandons what she was going to say. Which makes me think a sequel was in someone’s mind. One which will probably never happen now.

 

Tom thinks her grave should not be like this.

 

Carolyn will stay a few more days. David says it is good to have her here. David needs to find Carolyn a boyfriend and she  says, “You can stop that right now,” and laughs, wishing mother and Uncle Roger were here. “It would be just like old times.”

 

Quentin gives them a drink each and they toast to Roger and Elizabeth.

 

Tom tells them Barnabas, Julia and Jackie are gone. Quentin laments they never said goodbye, “Typical Barnabas.”

 

David scolds him. “Oh yeah, and how many times have to left without saying goodbye?”

 

He says he is charming and that makes a difference.

 

Tom plays their goodbye on the tape recorder. Tom calls Barnabas uncle.

 

Lilith is gone. Tom knew Barnabas was going to go away, maybe forever. Barnabas knew he was not always going to stay forever.  

 

As if the brilliant is not enough of a cliché, Jackie calls Tom “a clever boy.”  Stop, stop and stop. The DOCTOR WHO cliches must stop (see BLINK for the “clever” cliché before it became that).

 

Tom meets the original Julia body now which is the body Julia is in. What happened to the Lilith body? Her proper face. “It’s nice to meet you again,” Tom says.

 

Julia says, “Good evening.”

 

Barnabas asks Tom for a drink: port. Jackie thinks Tom is too young to drink that. Marina Lane’s spirit is gone. She came to say goodbye to Jackie just after Jackie was in the graveyard.

 

Jackie finally knows what she wants to do with her life: be a doctor. She wants to be with Julia. They seem to be using Grayson Hal’s voice. There’s a storm on the tape distorting the distortion. It’s hard to hear it all. Julia knows Jackie a short time but has become very fond of her. Barnabas says, “You see, Dr. Hoffman is a very unique doctor.”

 

And Jackie has to learn from the very best (gosh, Dark Shadow, the original series had many faults but one of its faults was NOT going on and on about how brilliant, unique, clever and the very best every character was…that is the sign of bad fan boy and gurl writing, the realm of bad fan fic and it’s here in this episode in bundles, no pun intended).

 

Jackie reminds Barnabas of a letter they found (huh?). He gives it to Tom. It says if found please return to Daphne Collins (are they setting up another sequel?). Barnabas wants Tom to take this letter to (I can’t make out what the fuck he says).

 

Tom asks Jackie if she will write to him. She says of course. “Oh, Tom, we’re both going to be having such amazing adventures.”  SHUT UP! SHUT UP! Someone writing this is a modern Doctor Who fan and needs to stop watching that right now to elevate their writing and not lower their writing into these awful cliches.

 

END now!

 

Jackie is going to see the world (another cliché! Kill her now!). And Jackie says Tom is going to be the most annoying historian. No, Jackie, he’s not annoying, YOU are!

 

Jackie admits the tape recorder kinda saved their lives. Kinda? To Tom, Barnabas says, “The Collins family are very fortunate to have you around.”

 

They also have a toast to the past –Barnabas makes the toast, “To the past in all its remembered glory.”

 

Julia thinks Tom, like some, looks forward to the future. Tom reveals he doesn’t have much of a past. He asks if they will ever see him again (again, modern DOCTOR WHO cliché; see one of the best stories DOOMSDAY). Barnabas is sure they will see him again.

 

What are they are they saying at 1: 02: 49? WTF? They toast.

 

DS classic music, calm.

 

Next we hear this poem:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45003/when-i-am-dead-my-dearest

 

When I am dead, my dearest

 

By Christina Rossetti

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

 

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

 

Who is reciting it? Cyrus? Barnabas? Bramwell?

 

Then he recites this wonderfully dismal bit of sadness:

 

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/when-i-am-dead-my-dearest/

 

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

 

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

 

I believe it is the same poem?

 

It does sound like Frid. Is it?

 

The narrator tell us what we’ve been listening to and who it is by: Alan Flanagan. And the entire rest of the cast (unlike how they DO NOT interrupt the theme music in Doctor Who audios).

 

DS is a BIG FINISH production.

 

Millicent or someone Nancy Barrett plays--reads a letter to Miss Collins. Your brother (Daniel) made him do something to his sister’s precious books (Millicent’s books were burned). He tried to save some of the books and wishes he could have done more. He did manage to fix that floor board in her room like she asked. “Be strong and please never give up hope. Yours and with the greatest respect, William Loomis.”

 

The floor board is still a little too loose. She thinks he failed to do anything at all. She hears it creak and calls him a wonderful man: the book is there hidden (?). It is Robinson Crusoe. She calls him a wonderful man. Millicent seems sane now. “wherever you are,” she says.

 

 

Thankfully and mercifully it ends.

 

Phew.

 

 

 

NOTE: the whole Willie thing is lost on me. Who was he? Where was he again? What happened? He was with Daniel? Wasn’t there another Loomis in this?    

 

These last few episodes were a bit of a slog through. Although I liked them more than the first time I heard this mess, it’s still a bit of a mess.

 

It just feels…wrong in parts, not in the whole of it.

 

I love Tom, Cody, and Harry and some of the characters surrounding their stories and while Jackie has her moments, she’s overall annoying. Cody and Harry are iconic and starters for DS for once has gay characters and young characters aptly portrayed by good actors and dare I say sexy ones at that.

 

And that seemed to be the end of DARK SHADOWS at BIG FINISH, despite answers given to when new ones will be released that they are still hoping for new DS.

 

I can’t recall the last DS release from BIG FINISH?

 

The last series was the excellent TONY AND CASSANDRA MYSTERIES which ended in October of 2019 after BLOODLINE came out in May of 2019. Tony and Cassandra also appeared in THE LAST STOP and THE PHANTOM BRIDE which the three box sets supposedly are set in between. An excellent and wonderful character study and supernatural set of mysteries with wonderful performances and some creepy and scary scenarios. Get them all!

 

That seems to be it. Nothing was released after October 2019 that I could find. I seem to remember trailers and art work for future mini series Windcliff but not Thirteen. See below:

 

Windcliff

A third 13-part serial was planned for release in April 2020, but was canceled. Written by Aaron Lamont, Rob Morris, Penelope Faith and Paul Phipps-Williams, it would have centered around Collinsport’s local sanitarium.

 

http://www.collinsporthistoricalsociety.com/2019/05/what-do-we-know-about-dark-shadows.html

 

Written by Penelope Faith, Aaron Lamont, Rob Morris and Paul Phipps-Williams, Windcliff sees as-yet unnamed characters making a night-time visit to Collinsport’s regional sanitarium. We now have a poster and a snazzy logo for the serial.

 

While the Dark Shadows audio productions are traditionally shrouded in secrecy (I was generously invited to provide the voice of the radio newscaster in both Bloodlust and Bloodline, and only allowed to see my own lines of dialogue) producer Joe Lidster shared a few details about Windcliff back in September, as part of an announcement of what to expect from the Dark Shadows range in 2019.

 

“All we’ll say for now is that we, again, wanted to do something we haven’t done before so Windcliff is very different to both Bloodlust and Bloodline,” Lidster said. “The writers are working on the scripts now and we’re looking forward to releasing more details in the future.”

 

In 2021 we'll get another 13-part serial titled ... Thirteen.

 

But what about Windcliff ? We'll, there's this ...

 

 

 

Thirteen

A fourth 13-part serial was planned for release in April 2021, but was also canceled. This serial would have taken place in real time.

 

I wrote a letter to them and it was featured in VORTEX 183. This was May 2024. The answer was that there was a hold up in the creatives working on the range and BIG FINISH were endeavoring to get to the bottom of this. Apparently, it was never worked out or found out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Return to Collinwood, Maggie Evans became a nurse at Windcliff, and Sebastian Shaw was one of her patients.

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y6QVY1COwk

 

And we had this:

And that’s not all from Collinsport! April 2020 will see the release of a further 13-part-serial – Dark Shadows: Windcliff.

 

Written by Penelope Faith, Aaron Lamont, Rob Morris and Paul Phipps-Williams, Windcliff sees many of our regular characters making a night-time visit to Collinsport’s local sanitarium.

 

“All we’ll say for now is that we, again, wanted to do something we haven’t done before so Windcliff is very different to both Bloodlust and Bloodline,” explains Joe. “The writers are working on the scripts now and we’re looking forward to releasing more details in the future.”

 

More stories are scheduled for September 2020 and April 2021. “September 2020’s story is something we’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” continues Joe. “And the following April will see the release of a further 13-part-serial provisionally titled Thirteen. What will happen? Who knows...”

 

Make sure you keep an eye out for more information on these upcoming Dark Shadows titles, plus Dark Shadows special offers in the spookiest month of year, October.

 

Okay so to wrap up:

 

BLOOD LUST still remains the superior mini series and modern DARK SHADOWS. BLOODLINE with all its faults and problems is still a good listen and superior to all Modern Dark Shadows. It is far better than the Johnny Depp PIECE OF SHIT (and I don’t care who gets mad at me calling it that; it is a piece of total shit), the WB/CW unaired pilot which was just okay (and BIG FINISH actor Alec Newman plays Barnabas in this failed pilot), and even the 1991 failed NBC 12 episode series with Ben Cross as Barnabas (a good Barnabas and this series had its moments but overall another remake and not a successful one).

 

BIG FINISH knew how to do DARK SHADOWS for modern audiences AND for fans of the TV series. They brought it up to the modern times and used classic and new characters, especially in the mini series BLOOD LUST and BLOODLINE and did it with intrigue, genuine scares and horror, and interesting and different, almost real world characters, who acted like real world people and behaved like any one of us might. Perfect? Not really but superior to most modern day horror and most classic horror, too.

 

BIG FINISH knew how to make DARK SHADOWS and with 50 or more releases, it was a success. I don’t know why it stalled and suspect it will NEVER return but I really and truly hope it does. We all deserve it to continue. I mean we all sat through that Johnny Depp JUNK and hoped against hope DS would return on a more permanent basis (even a Dynamite Comic Book with about 23 issues and A YEAR ONE and VAMPIRELLA cross over seemed to fade away after a year or two).

 

Thank you, Big Finish for keeping this show going for the years 2004 to 2019.  

 

And even though BLOODLINE seemed to have an endless supply of wrap up endings –at least it gave a top off for each character where we knew where they were headed next. It does go on far too long, that ending (15 minutes or more) but no one can say that it didn’t have a finality about it or that it left us confused as to where everyone was left (where they were and what they were doing back in time as well as the Barnabas and Julia body swap is another thing entirely and could have been handled better but at least it wasn’t a total disaster).