Here I am, writing my first post in a blog of my very own! (All other blogs that I have participated in have been class-discussion blogs created by professors.) My name is Katie. I am a fourth year college student majoring in English with a minor in Art History. Fun fact: I completed most of my minor while studying abroad in Rome, Italy, through a program offered by my school.
Although I could regale you with exciting tales of being locked in the bathroom at an Italian McDonald’s, for my first post, I want to talk about my must-see TV shows. Rather, I want to talk about my only must-see TV show. It’s an obscure little soap opera that ran from 1966-1971 called Dark Shadows. I would describe myself as a nerd, and my love for Dark Shadows is one of the reasons why. The show is set in the fictional fishing village of Collinsport, Maine, and revolves around the lives of a 175-year-old vampire, Barnabas Collins, and his wealthy shipping-magnate family.
First of all, I love that the show is set in Maine. I’m a fan of quite a few shows from the sixties, but most of them seem to take place in generic cities, the tropics, the Old West, space, out on the farm, etc. I just love how random and specific of a location that Maine is as a setting.
Secondly, and more importantly, I love the characters of Barnabas Collins and the Collins family. He’s angsty, they’re rich, everyone is dysfunctional, and gothic madness ensues. This show was full of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, witches, disembodied hands, damsels in distress, and foppish-fathers-turned-into-cats well before the supernatural craze seen in today’s pop culture. (Lucky for me, today’s pop cultural interest in the supernatural has spawned a new
Dark Shadows movie, starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton, that is set to debut in May.) Numerous classic gothic tales appear as
Dark Shadows plotlines. The original tales are classic, and I love them even more as played out in the familiar confines of Collinsport with the well-loved members of the Collins family as the characters.
Although I love the setting and plots of
Dark Shadows, the most important reason why I am so glad to have been hooked on this show for almost five years is that watching
Dark Shadows is an experience that I have always shared with my mom. As a pre-teen, my mom would race home from school to catch the latest episode of
Dark Shadows every weekday. Now, as an adult, she has rediscovered the show while her daughter has discovered it for the first time. I can’t count the number of times we’ve screamed or cracked up at the delightful, campy horror of it all while sitting on our living room couch. Watching a half-hour episode of
Dark Shadows provides some perfect mother-daughter time that I always look forward to. I’ve been a fan of many TV shows in my life, but none of those have provided me with the opportunity to share something special with my mom. It is for this final reason that
Dark Shadows is my must-see show and easily takes the cake as my all-time favorite show, disembodied hands down.
As a special treat for whoever reads this post, I am including the link to my favorite
Dark Shadows fansite from over the years. The site has a forum, pictures, wallpapers, and other goodies that make
Dark Shadows fans like myself scream:
http://www.collinwood.net/
Another class of great personal interest to me in which I am currently enrolled is about the Beatles. I have been a Beatles fan since elementary school. My parents and I saw Ringo in concert when I was 13, and I nearly cried when I visited Abbey Road Studios in London and took pictures of the loving grafitti on the walls outside (left).
