Dark Shadows: Bloodlust - The Post Mortem Interview

BY JUSTIN PARTRIDGE

Our coverage of the epic re-release of Dark Shadows: Bloodlust might have wrapped up, but I still had a few lingering questions about the sprawling tale. Luckily, I was able to sit down with the impossibly nice and wildly talented Joe Lidster and get him to answer some of them! I figured with him being one of the company’s most prolific writers and directors he would at least have SOMETHING to say. Thankfully I was right! We talked about all sorts of great stuff, including the production of Bloodlust, the wonderful cast and characters of the franchise, and what we can expect from the upcoming sequel series Dark Shadows: Bloodline.

The Collinsport Historical Society: Just to start, how did Bloodlust come about? Was there a want on the production side to do more larger scale stories?

Joseph Lidster: It was a combination of things really. Stuart Manning decided to step down from producing the full cast series so we knew we wanted to do something to follow on from Kingdom of the Dead. David Darlington, my co-producer (the one who makes it all happen, basically) was very keen to do something that would re-capture the serial aspect of the television series and I was very keen to do something that didn’t just follow on from the cliffhanger at the end of Kingdom. There was a five-year gap between the two series and we’d spent a lot of time on the Dramatic Readings range trying to find ways to make the series more newbie-friendly so we didn’t just want the opening scene to be Carolyn and David in Collinwood possessed by Petofi. I also wanted to give the series lots of “wow” moments. If you know Dark Shadows then you know who the characters are but if you don’t then I wanted each of the supernatural characters to have a big entrance and so on. The House of Despair through to Kingdom of the Dead had lots of brilliant stuff in them but they kind of assumed you knew who everyone was and why the stuff that happened was important. I wanted to strip it right back – in a similar way to when Russell T. Davies brought back Doctor Who– so it was both a relaunch as well as a continuation. David’s idea of doing this as a 13-episode serial fitted with that perfectly so that’s what we pitched to Big Finish.

CHS: How did you go about choosing the characters that would be included?

J.L.: We knew we had to have the characters who were still there at the end of Kingdom of the Dead. So we had to have Isaiah Trask, David, Carolyn, Maggie Evans, Ed Griffin and his mother, Jessica. Although Quentin, Barnabas and Angelique had all been sent away at the end of Kingdom there was no way we wouldn’t be bringing them back. The main character we did bring back was Amy Jennings. We’d re-introduced her into the Dramatic Readings’ range and we’d fallen in love with Stephanie Ellyne who played her. We also wanted to create a “next generation” of the Collins family so we worked out that Amy was the character we could do this with. The 2003 audio Return to Collinwood had made it pretty clear that neither David or Carolyn had had children so we worked out how Amy could bring us some teenage characters. Soap operas rely on there being more than one generation but Dark Shadows – through a combination of the last couple of years of the television series being more about Barnabas and Julia travelling through time etc and Return to Collinwood being a reunion special rather than setting up new storylines – had stagnated with regards to continuing the present-day Collins’ family. We worked out that Amy was just old enough to have a baby and that if she was married then she could have a step-son. We quickly worked out that we wanted the husband to be killed off so she wasn’t tied to a man and that we could find some supernatural way to age up her baby so we’d have a nice family unit.

We then looked at exploring Collinsport some more. We wanted it to feel like a proper serial drama – with different family units in different locations in the community. As research, we watched how a lot of first episodes of soap operas did this, as well as watching the first episode of Twin Peaks – which was obviously a big influence on Bloodlust. We decided that we wanted to focus on the community and build up the supernatural elements so they felt big, so we created the Blue Whale group – Jess and her son Ed. We moved Trask into being a drunk who was often at the Blue Whale and brought back Ed’s wife Susan, as a ghost. We knew we wanted to look at how a murder affects a community so we knew we wanted to bring in a regular Sheriff, a doctor at the hospital, the editor of the Collinsport Star and so on. We wanted there to be a new everyman character – the new Joe Haskell – so created Frankie who also served as giving the editor of the newspaper a boyfriend. We also used Frankie to give Ed a friend as I’d always found his character to be a bit one-dimensional and non-sympathetic. We looked at the characters we could give children to and decided on the Sheriff and the Doctor. By doing all this, we could create a community of different generations living in different locations who would gradually start to interact with each other. It was actually quite a scientific process. One of the things I’m proudest of with Bloodlust is that I think it feels natural rather than extensively plotted but every character was designed to fulfil a specific purpose. There were a lot of Excel spreadsheets working out their interactions and what purpose they served.

One character I personally had to fight for was Kate Ripperton. I adore working with Asta Parry and felt she’d given an amazing performance in Beyond The Grave. Kate was pretty much the one character in that story who didn’t really get any kind of closure. The rest of the writing team were – quite rightly – worried about bringing back a character with so much baggage but I fought for her and I do think the character really works. Frankie was a hard character to get right, though, because when we were writing him, he was just coming across as nice and dull. I then remembered Roger Carvalho and realised he’d be perfect for the role so I sent his showreel to the other writers and said “This is Frankie” and we went through his dialogue and made it much more in Roger’s voice. Roger also meant we increased the number of people of colour in the series which I felt was very important. I also wanted there to be some out gay characters because I think representation is so important.

The original idea we had was that we would tell some kind of murder mystery and that it would all be a smoke-screen for what David and Carolyn were doing. We also knew that we wanted the series to open with a new character arriving in town and we would discover the characters and locations through them – as they did in Episode One of the television series. We decided that we’d open with Amy and her family arriving in town as she would have been away for ten years. We then started to work out who the murder victim would be and we kept coming back to Amy. The character you think is going to be the main character is the one who gets killed off at the end of episode one. But… we loved Amy. We loved Stephanie. We didn’t want to kill her off. Hence, the creation of Melody Devereux – who is so blatantly a Victoria Winters-type character. Melody arrives in town and then she becomes the victim. Then, episode two could open with Amy arriving in town.

With regards to making the characters more “wow” we then moved Angelique into a whispering cave because, again, I didn’t just want to cut to her in a house muttering about wanting revenge. It was all about building interesting soundscapes, making the supernatural characters seem big and exciting again, and creating a community that the listener would become invested in.

CHS:  Where there any characters that you wanted to include that you couldn't fit in?

J.L.:  I can’t think of any in particular. We didn’t want to bring back Cyrus and Sabrina at that point as they wouldn’t really have fulfilled a role in the series and we knew every character had to have a reason to be there. In fact, that’s why we killed off Isaiah Trask. We knew that Melody, Andrew and Deputy Eric would die (Melody would be our Laura Palmer, Andrew would be a baddie and his death would make the character of Amy stronger, and Eric was… cannon fodder). We pretty quickly decided that Kate and Frankie wouldn’t be long for this world as they were perfect “everyman” characters to kill off. Isaiah’s death wasn’t planned at all. We hadn’t fully worked out where he would go – in fact, I think the Excel spreadsheets for the later episodes pretty much had “Isaiah helps Angelique or something”. I was writing the episode and just found myself thinking “He’s served his purpose to the plot… he could just get shot now?” and I just wrote the scene and sent it to the others and they loved it. So sudden and shocking. I had also found the character slightly woolly – was he a Trask? Was he born there? Who were his family? Obviously, Jerry Lacy is an amazing actor so I knew we would bring him back in some way but that particular character just felt like he no longer had a function, now that we knew who the woman in the whispering cave was and so on. His death also served to highlight the madness that was engulfing the town.

CHS:  What was the discussion of how this particular story fit into the Big Finish mythos, or as I like to call it the Big Finishverse, like?

J.L.:  There wasn’t that much discussion really. We knew it would follow on from our Dramatic Readings and from Kingdom of the Dead and we knew that it was set roughly twenty years before Return to Collinwood. I’ve now got a huge a timeline of “things that need to be done.” So, the two “things that needed to be done” in this were to write out Angelique and to wipe Maggie’s memory of the supernatural. In the Dramatic Reading Path of Fate, Angelique is said to have lived in a cottage in the woods for ten years (c1993) and Maggie, in Return To Collinwood, has no knowledge of the supernatural at all. I also wanted to write out Angelique because I felt, in the previous full cast audios, she had become an easy way to end stories – she’s so powerful that basically she could just do a spell and that’s the problem resolved. Also, with Maggie, in Return to Collinwood it’s stated that Joe died ten years before after being happily married to Maggie – so we knew we wanted to get her out of town so she the marriage could take place and they could have a few years happy together. So, yeah, lots of continuity stuff that hopefully doesn’t feel too plotted.

CHS:  What was the hardest part to write for you? Was there as particular scene or episode that proved a tough nut to crack?

J.L.:  The hardest scenes to write usually involved the deaths of characters. We fell in love with Kate and Frankie and it would have been so easy for us to change our minds and let them live. Also, Andrew’s death was incredibly difficult because we couldn’t have too much time pass before the next episode and the plot had to keep going but we also had a teenage boy losing his father - so we really had to keep that in mind with Harry’s scenes. He couldn’t just forget his father had died but, at the same time, we couldn’t really spend too much time exploring the grief process. Anything involving the Petofi storyline was also difficult because we knew that – for new listeners – the character and his backstory would be new information, so we had to find ways to make him relevant to our characters rather than just “here’s an old villain from the TV series” – so the book about him came from Michael’s university days with Amy and Carolyn and so on.

Technically, possibly the hardest thing to do was to ensure that Barnabas was there as a character. He’s a vampire so can only be up and about at night, so we had to find ways to move time on so that episodes would quickly be set after dark – but it’s tricky to resolve an exciting cliffhanger by the next episode cutting to the following evening and having characters talk about what happened. One of the later episodes has David and Amy talking and he’s doing a spell so she doesn’t realise how much time has passed just so that we can quickly get to night and have Barnabas join in!

CHS:  I see that you are also directing some of these stories. Tell me about the transition from writer to director.

J.L.:  I’ve been directing for a while, really. It came about just because it was convenient really. So, with the Dramatic Readings, I would come in and just guide the actors while David (Darlington) does all of the technical stuff. It then became much more important with Bloodlust because it was so complicated and so few of the actors recorded at the same time, so my main job was just make sure everything fitted together performance-wise. And I think it does so I’m happy with that! Frankly, with actors as good as what we have there’s very little direction needed.

CHS- Were you pleased with the reaction to the story?

J.L.: We were so so thrilled. The way the story was released – two episodes a week – meant that people really got into trying to work out who the killer was. Everyone was talking on forums about the various clues and so on. It was really exciting to watch that unfold over the weeks it was released. And yeah, it seems to have really clicked with the audience. To this day, we still have people telling us how exciting it was and how well the series works. Which is nice!

CHS: Were you a fan of the show before getting the job?

J.L.: I became a fan through working on it, really. Stuart Manning introduced me to the show and I started to fall in love with it. I then wrote an audio for him and fell in love with it a bit more. Then I started producing the series and began to really realise just how glorious Dark Shadows is. It’s genuinely something so different to anything else there’s ever been on television and it’s genuinely a huge honour to be involved in keeping the series going. To actually have some control over the fates of these amazing characters is just really weird and brilliant.

CHS: Team Barnabas or Team Quentin? Or other?

J.L.: Oh, well I started with the 1897 storyline so it was all about tall, evil, silent, sexy Quentin so he’s always going to be my first love but they’re both just brilliant. But, genuinely, I’ve fallen in love with all the characters. It’s an over-used word these days but I think 90% of the characters in Dark Shadows are iconic – often because of the actors playing them.

CHS: Finally, is there anything you can tell us about Bloodline? And if not, is there a dollar amount you will take in order TO tell us something about Bloodline?

J.L.: Ha! Well, we’ve announced that it’s about the wedding of Amy and David and that whereas Bloodlust was a story about a mystery, this is a mystery about a story. What else can I tell you? I let slip at a Big Finish convention yesterday that Jessica Griffin and Sheriff Rhonda are back. This time next week we’ll have completed the UK recording – our final session is with two new actors playing the new characters of Bonnie and Jamie. Chris Pennock has revealed that he is back – which I’m SO happy with so… new fact – a character will be born who will have a huge influence on the town.

Dark Shadows: Bloodline releases in April of 2019, but is available for pre-order now, while Bloodlust, and all the other deliciously evil stories mentioned here, are available now in both digital and physical formats at BigFinish.com. 

Ratings Battle: Dark Shadows Vs Twin Peaks, 1991

By WALLACE McBRIDE

Before FIREFLY came along, TWIN PEAKS was the poster child for great television shows cancelled too soon. The David Lynch/Mark Frost joint debuted to stellar ratings in the spring of 1989, but had lost much of its audience during the following 12 months. A television series hadn't lost its luster so quickly since BATMAN in the 1960s.

But there was another television show cancelled in 1991 that managed to hold a grip on its audience long after it left the airwaves: Dan Curtis' reboot of DARK SHADOWS. If you were to compose murder ballads for DARK SHADOWS (1991) and TWIN PEAKS, the verses would be almost identical. Both had incredibly strong openings, but fell victim to network uncertainty, shuffled schedules and multiple preemptions by news coverage of the Gulf War. Each production fought like hell to keep their audiences engaged, but were foiled by the inability of their respective networks (NBC for DARK SHADOWS, ABC for TWIN PEAKS) to provide them with ideal timeslots.

Those ballads, however simplified, are also accurate representations of what happened ... more or less. After reviewing the ratings for both programs, though, I was shocked to see that DARK SHADOWS, the little television show that could, had consistently stronger ratings in 1991 than its spiritual counterpart, TWIN PEAKS.

(Before I go on, let me stress that this is merely an amateur comparison of the ratings of two television shows. None of this is meant to suggest that these ratings make either show better or worse than the other. Good ratings do not automatically equal quality. In other words, there's no reason to fight.)

From the very start, the DARK SHADOWS "revival," as it would come to be called, was being compared to TWIN PEAKS, a show that arguably owed a debt of gratitude to the original 1960s gothic soap.

"NBC is expending a large amount of its attention on promoting 'Dark Shadows,'clearly hoping it can be the 'talked about' show this winter, the "Twin Peaks" of 1991, wrote Bill Carter for The New York Times in January, 1991. "Even the show's own producer, Dan Curtis, described it as a 'gimmick' show."

Unfortunately for TWIN PEAKS, though, when it broadcast its first episode of 1991, the series was already hip-deep in its creative nadir. "The Black Widow" aired Jan. 12 to approximately 10.3 million viewers, which is among the lowest ratings of any show broadcast that night. The following evening, DARK SHADOWS aired the first of its three-part debut, with 23.6 million people turning in. (A "thank you" to tvaholics.blogspot.com for providing a terrific archive of A.C. Nielsen ratings for 1991.)



Now, it's not entirely fair to compare a series premiere to a random installment of an established television series. But it's worth noting that TWIN PEAKS began the year on already unstable footing. And this footing would become more precarious throughout the rest of the season as it was shifted to different days and times before finally getting axed after its June 10 finale. By June, DARK SHADOWS had already been mothballed, having aired its last episode March 22 ... despite pulling in ratings consistently better than TWIN PEAKS.

A look at the ratings for both shows illustrates just how far TWIN PEAKS had fallen. NBC killed DARK SHADOWS after two months of episodes averaging a viewership of 12.5 million people. During its final months, TWIN PEAKS failed to reach even 10 million people, bottoming out for two consecutive weeks in 1991 with 7.4 million. The lowest-rated episode of DARK SHADOWS fared better than the highest rated episode of TWIN PEAKS.

So, when ABC brought TWIN PEAKS back from the dead for one week in June to air its final two episodes, its was an act of kindness. Even though the Lynch-directed finale was an amazing piece of work (and one of the best episodes of the entire series) it was incredibly unlikely that ABC would bring the show back for a third season. After all, at least once in April, TWIN PEAKS was the lowest-rated show broadcast by any network that night (April 18, 1991.) It finished out the year #100 on a list of 134 shows.

Below is a chart comparing the ratings between DARK SHADOWS and TWIN PEAKS during 1991. I've tried to group these episodes by their closest weekly counterparts, but schedule changes made that a challenge. Also, none of these ratings identify which episodes were preempted by news alerts.



KEY: A ratings point represents 921,000 TV households. Shares are the percentage of sets in use. Number of viewers is in millions.

TWIN PEAKS is returning in 2016 ... but should it?

"The owls are not what they seem."

Yes, TWIN PEAKS is coming back. We've pretty much known that since David Lynch and Mark Frost shared identical (and appropriately cryptic) tweets on Oct. 3:

Dear Twitter Friends: That gum you like is going to come back in style! #damngoodcoffee
— David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) October 3, 2014

The Internet quickly went batshit, just as it should have. TWIN PEAKS was a series ahead of its time in so many ways andhas only gotten better with age. Its inventiveness ultimately proved toxic to its narrative, though. When the second season began, a television show built on the pretense of a finite mystery ("Who Killed Laura Palmer?") suddenly had to justify its own existence in prime time. How do you resolve a show's central conceit without bringing everything to a crashing halt?

The minds behind TWIN PEAKS never adequately answered that question. By the time they unmasked the killer, nobody much cared anymore. Today's the show's cult following has glossed over that bit of history, but it's important to remember that TWIN PEAKS died with a whimper, not a bang.

This is the 100,000th website to use this image during the last 24 hours.

So, is it good news that TWIN PEAKS is returning to the air waves in 2016? Suggesting they've learned from past mistakes, Lynch and Frost quickly explained their earlier tweets, announcing this week that TWIN PEAKS would be returning as a nine-part "limited series" on Showtime. (For those of you keeping score, TWIN PEAKS aired only eight episodes during its first season.) That certainly solves the original riddle of TWIN PEAKS' open-ended narrative. But that's hardly the only problem facing an attempt to bring back a television series after more than two decades.

Frost and Lynch have spent the last few days in pitched combat with the media, which has been aggressively pursuing information about the show. So far, the two men have let very little slip. Frost revealed he and Lynch have been edging closer to a TWIN PEAKS revival since the release of the "Gold Box" DVD collection a few years ago, and that their occasional interactions gradually led to inspiration. Frost also told The Hollywood Reporter that the new series will eschew "binge watching" by taking a traditional weekly broadcast schedule, as opposed to the full-series dump favored by Netflix and Amazon.

 Then, on Monday, Kyle MacLachlan shared the following via Twitter:

Better fire up that percolator and find my black suit :-) #Twinpeaks
— Kyle MacLachlan (@Kyle_MacLachlan) October 6, 2014

We can assume this means that MacLachlan will be appearing in the new series. Besides that, we don't know much else about the TWIN PEAKS revival.

Except we sorta do.

Ignoring the reality that revivals tend to satisfy nobody (90 percent of all online discussions about STAR WARS devolve into arguments about THE PHANTOM MENACE, according to statistics I just made up), neither Lynch nor Frost are the people they were back in 1990. Lynch's work has only grown more Lynchian over the years, and he's hardly made anything resembling a traditional film since THE STRAIGHT STORY in 1999.

And then there's Mark Frost. While he's done some good work since TWIN PEAKS ended, none of that success has migrated to the screen. His novels, such as THE LIST OF SEVEN, are great fun. But his work on the two FANTASTIC FOUR screenplays have created the kind of karmic stain that will hopefully follow him through several reincarnations.

There are other factors at play that are almost certainly working against the revival. The original series ended in a way that will make it difficult to resurrect TWIN PEAKS in a recognizable way. By all rights, much of the principle cast should not be returning. The TWIN PEAKS that was cancelled looked very little like the TWIN PEAKS of the pilot, but the show's early episodes are what people generally remember. The show's many catch phrases are still part of popular culture, but what about Windome Earle? Or Denise/Dennis Bryson, the cross-dresser/transvestite/transgender DEA agent played by David Duchovny? Or that Agent Cooper, when last we saw him, was possessed by the spirit of Killer Bob? Is Lucy still working as a receptionist at the sheriff's office 25 YEARS LATER?

Because Lynch hired adults to play teens on the original series, the entire cast looks disproportionately older today ... which is fine. I've always admired how MacLachlan flaunts his gray streaks, but he's a man and will be judged by a much lower standard than his female co-stars. And what about the show's phantoms? Are we to believe that Laura, the Giant and the diminutive "Man from Another Place" have been subject to the ravages of time in the Black Lodge? Will we see them at all?

And, without these elements, is the show still TWIN PEAKS? There's a very real threat that a new series will spend more time answering "What ever happened to ...?" questions than in telling a story.

This column isn't meant to be an exercise in parade pissing, but fandom has a habit of throwing victory celebrations before the contest even begins. (Remember all those cosplayers who trotted out TRON LEGACY costumes in advance of the film's release?) We tend to raise our expectations to grotesquely unrealistic levels, leading to the inevitable conflagration of disappointment on the Internet. And the Internet is something the original TWIN PEAKS never had to deal with.

I'm cautiously, maybe even foolishly, optimistic about the return of TWIN PEAKS. If Lynch has an original, independent concept in mind that's connected -- but not dependent -- on the original series, that might be interesting. But there are some incredibly high hurdles to clear, and Lynch's long-standing refusal to revisit the town of Twin Peaks, Washington, has only built them higher.

Screening: TWIN PEAKS, FIRE WALK WITH ME

David Lynch is among the few directors to take a direct role in creating the soundscape of his movies. His name appears deep in the credits of many of his films as sound designer, which suggests he thinks the sounds an audience hears are at least as important as the images they see.

None of his audio work was on display during last night's screening of his movie FIRE WALK WITH ME at Conundrum Music Hall, though. Billed as "an experimental blend of icy electronica and darkly gothic rave-pop," the film was "re-soundtracked" by artists Ghost Cop and a place both wonderful and strange (the small caps are intentional, I presume.) Strip away the pretension and what you had were two people creating a new soundscape to replace the one used in the film. Gone were not only the film's music and sound effects, but the spoken dialogue, as well.

To preserve the film's story, the subtitles were left on for the duration of the film, but there were additional bits of dialogue and vocals added live by Ghost Cop. As the DJ kept an eye on the laptop streaming the film's surrogate soundtrack, GC read from THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER and provided live vocals for many of the songs selected for last night's engagement. Her voice was so sharp and clear that some of those in the audience might not have been aware they were being performed live, under cover of the darkened venue.

The songs provided breaks from the often atonal noise of the "new" soundtrack, even if the selections were sometimes bizarre. "Wicked Game" was performed over top of the scene featuring the song's original performer, Chris Isaac, as was a re-mix of David Bowie's "Hallo Spaceboy" during his cameo. There were tracks from Screaming Jay Hawkins, The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" and a pitch-shifted version of "As I Lay Me Down" by Sophie B. Hawkins that sounded like it was being performed through a Valium haze. Some of these selections were a little obvious, but they still managed to work within the context of the presentation. The score was haunting, beautiful, repetitive and occasionally obnoxious, which are also criticisms occasionally leveled at FIRE WALK WITH ME.

Was it fair to rip away the soundtrack to another artist's work without their consent? Probably not. I've also got my doubts about the legality of last night's presentation, which used a DVD of FIRE WALK WITH ME probably rescued from the $5 bin a Wal-Mart. Lynch's moribund attitude toward commentary tracks, deleted scenes and the other ephemera associated with post-theatrical releases makes me think he'd be unhappy with someone tinkering with his work ... especially in public.

Those are all valid concerns for the rights holders. As a fan, I saw last night's performance as a love letter to an under-appreciated movie. The Dionysian nature of the show makes it something to be enjoyed momentarily, creating the rare opportunity to experience a film from someone else's perspective.

I was especially interested to watch how the event tested the audience's patience. A few people left the venue, which could have been a rejection of the "re-soundtracking" concept, or just a negative reaction to the ass-punishing folding chairs provided to us. Most people stayed for the duration, though, even hesitating to leave after the musicians halted their performance mid-way though the credits. Ghost Cop and a place both wonderful and strange (yes, it feels ridiculous to refer to them that way) had nothing to say to the audience afterward. After watching the two-hour degradation of Laura Palmer, most of us wanted nothing more than a few moments of peace before heading out, so the silence wasn't unwelcome.

The duo next takes their FIRE WALK WITH ME experiment to Atlanta, Ga., appearing tonight at the Highland Inn Ballroom and Lounge.

- WALLACE McBRIDE

Commentary: SOMETIMES DEAD IS BETTER

Much like the products of the Tyrell Corporation, television shows aren't built to last. It's something the British figured out a long time ago, often molding the structure of their programming to fit content, as opposed to the American practice of doing the exact opposite. BLACKADDER produced only 24 episodes across a four-year span and people are still clamoring for more. By comparison, THE X-FILES produced more than 200 episodes, and people were praying for its quick death during the show's final seasons.

BUNHEADS is the latest series to be cancelled before its time. It's not a show I paid much attention to, but I understand the many stages of grief its fans will be experiencing in the weeks ahead. Denial, Depression, Anger and Bargaining will all lead to the inevitable online petitions (which will be roundly ignored by the network heads.) Acceptance will probably not make an appearance in this particular melodrama.

We were once given a gift of a weekly sci-fi western starring Bruce Campbell AND WE SQUANDERED IT.

The fact is, few shows ever return from the dead. For every FAMILY GUY that pulls the Resurrection Trick, there are a hundred others like THE ADVENTURES OF BRISCO COUNTY JR., PUSHING DAISIES and 1991's DARK SHADOWS that never emerge from their metaphorical crypts. Even the patron saint of untimely television deaths, FIREFLY, only managed a post mortem spasm in the form of the SERENITY feature film. TV shows are hard to make, and even harder to revive once a network loses faith in them. It's not a coincidence that the few programs that manage the Resurrection Trick usually do so in another forum. VERONICA MARS, cancelled by UPN, is returning in the form of a crowd-funded feature film, while ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, killed by Fox in 2006, returned this year as a Netflix series.

I have a stoic attitude about television cancellations. Yeah, I'm disappointed, but I usually manage to move on with my life. Things like the DARK SHADOWS comic series from Innovation helped to ease the cancellation sting, but the death of one series actually motivated me to move my ass off the couch ... at least for a day.



TWIN PEAKS.

The fall from grace experienced by the DAVID LYNCH soap set a speed record for pop culture phenomena. Launched in 1990 during my final weeks of high school, the show was America's Favorite New Thing for about 15 minutes. All of that came to a crashing halt in the end of the final episode of the first season. Expecting some kind of resolution to the mystery of Laura Palmer's death, audiences were instead treated to seeing one of the show's main characters gunned down. Fans and critics began to get the feeling that Lynch and his creative staff were jerking us around for their own cruel pleasures, and the second season saw a greatly diminished audience tune in for its premiere. TWIN PEAKS took steps to remedy the audience's frustrations, but it was too little, too late. The show slowly limped toward cancellation in its second season.

Sure, we got the FIRE WALK WITH ME feature in 1992, but I'm about the only person who seems to have liked it.  Since then, TWIN PEAKS has been dead dead dead, save for the pieces of pop culture nostalgia that sometimes rise to the surface.

Bowie makes everything better.

When PEAKS was taken off the air, there was an incredibly rare "rally" for the show at a sports bar outside Charlotte, N.C. And by "rare," I mean things like that generally didn't happen here in the South. We could rally/protest/whatever, but who would notice? With nothing better to do with my time (seriously, I used to watch satellite block feeds of TINY TOONS ADVENTURES on the weekend because fuck you, life) a friend and I decided to join in the festivities.

And the rally was a blast. Even though we all gathered together because of the death of something we loved, there was a celebratory feeling about the event. Even better, the "Save Twin Peaks" rally was dominated by young women dressed as Audrey Horne, with a few log ladies added for local color. It was like an Irish wake, only with more cosplay.

But TWIN PEAKS died, anyway. When you consider that networks usually treat successful TV shows the way Barnabas Collins treated women, maybe it was for the best. For television programs, it's better to live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse, because the alternative is to go out like SCRUBS.

There was once a time when I didn't want to punch Zach Braff in the throat

Believe it or not, we're actually lucky the original DARK SHADOWS had the luxury of wrapping the shitty "Bramwell Collins" story before Collinwood was mothballed. We even got a sweet postscript read by THAYER DAVID explaining what happened to most of our favorite characters after the end of the series, which is more than shows like TAXI received. NBC pulled the plug on TAXI in 1983 after the cast filmed its last episode, meaning they didn't even get to write a farewell show to tie up loose ends. Instead, the cast had to made a final bow on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE during an episode hosted by DANNY DeVITO.

Had the 1991 DARK SHADOWS continued into a second season, it probably would have improved. I liked where the show was going, and there was enough talent involved to eventually right its many wrongs. But, while the writers were beginning to find their collective voice, there was still the problem of network meddling. NBC clearly didn't understand how the show functioned, insisting on a ridiculous "contemporary" subplot as a device to remind audiences that the 1790 storyline wouldn't last forever. Maybe things would have improved, but maybe they wouldn't. We'll never know.

And that's OK. When a show leaves the air and has us wanting more, it's done its job. It shouldn't matter if that exit happens after one season or a dozen. The lesson of BLACKADDER is that more isn't always better. More is just more, and quantity never makes up for quality.