TUNE-IN TUESDAYUnearthed Television Treasures, Restored for the Righteous📀 This Week’s Pick: DARK SHADOWS — THE REVIVAL (1991)“Where the undead wear Armani, and brooding comes standard.”

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Somewhere between soap opera and shadow play, Dark Shadows: The Revival (1991) clawed its way onto prime-time like a bat out of syndication purgatory. Dismissed at the time, canceled too soon, and now exhumed for the home video haunt—this one-season wonder is a slick, Gothic fever dream that dares to ask: What if Dracula was also a moody uncle with a fondness for fog machines and tortured monologues?

💀 THE PITCH:
A remake of the legendary 1966–71 daytime vampire soap, Dark Shadows: The Revival condenses and reimagines the Barnabas Collins mythos with cinematic flair, thanks to The Night Stalker’s Dan Curtis returning for one more moonlit ride. It aired on NBC, burned hot and fast, and was buried by the Gulf War. Now it plays like a cursed VHS from an alternate timeline where Twin Peaks bled into The Hunger.

🧛 WHO’S WHO IN THE COFFIN CREW:

• Ben Cross (as Barnabas Collins) is less lovable-ghoul and more tragic-Byronic vampire, a haunted portrait of regret and shadowed cheekbones.

• Joanna Going (as Victoria Winters/Josette) delivers the sort of wide-eyed intensity you’d expect from someone living in a time-slip love triangle.

• Jean Simmons, Barbara Steele, and Lysette Anthony round out the ensemble with elegance, menace, and several pounds of chiffon.

🕯️ THE AESTHETIC:
Think: fog-drenched graveyards, candelabras in slow motion, and lightning that always knows when to strike. It's what would happen if Interview with the Vampire slept in the same bed as Dynasty and had night terrors.

There’s a luxurious theatricality here—sometimes too much—but that’s the point. This is not minimalist horror. This is maximalist gothique with its collar popped, fangs polished, and string section swelling at every cliffhanger.

🩸 STANDOUT EPISODES:

• Episode 1: A deliriously fast origin story that doesn’t so much pace itself as it does leap into a coffin and slam the lid.

• Episode 5 (“Episode 1795”) classic time travel!: Where the show veers into costume-drama madness and proves it could've rivaled Hammer if NBC had let it breathe.

• Any scene with Barbara Steele, who walks in like she owns the genre—and, let’s be honest, she kinda does.

📼 DVD FEATURES (OR LACK THEREOF):
Sadly, most releases are barebones—no commentary, no featurettes, not even a whisper from the crypt. Which is a shame, because this series screams for a retrospective. Someone get Shout! Factory on the line. This deserves a haunted box set shaped like a mausoleum.

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👁️ FINAL VERDICT:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 out of 5 ravens)
A lush, misunderstood gem. Perfect for rainy nights, velvet robes, and deep sighs. If you like your horror beautifully sad, your romance tragically doomed, and your TV forgotten by network execs but loved by the dead, this one’s for you.

💿 Now streaming in your nightmares—or better yet, grab the DVD before it vanishes again like a ghost at dawn.

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🕰️ NEXT WEEK ON TUNE-IN TUESDAY:
"They Came From Outer Space" (1990) — what if stoner alien twins with a Corvette were your after-school babysitters?

Until then, stay rewound, stay bewitched.