Happy Thanksgiving, pilgrim!

Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins. From Wikipedia.

I spent a good portion of the American Thanksgiving holiday celebrating exactly how some of our Puritan forebears did: Eating too much turkey and standing idly by while our friends and neighbors were accused of witchcraft.

In other words, I caught up on several episodes of the 1960s gothic soap, Dark Shadows. I have been watching (slowly) the early black-and-white the return of Barnabas Collins episodes on Netflix, but my dear sister had purchased volume 5 of the DVD collection, covering part of the seminal 1795 storyline.

This is one of the major storylines of the series and probably my favorite era for the show. It goes like so: In the present day (1967), governess Victoria Winters (played by quintessential '60s beauty, Alexandra Moltke) has participated in a séance at Collinwood and has been accidentally transported back in time to the year 1795. There she meets the pre-vampiric Barnabas (Jonathan Frid), who is about to marry the love of his life, Josette du Prés (Kathryn Leigh Scott), fresh off the boat from Martinique with her family and scheming handmaiden, Angelique Bouchard (played by the frostiest of frosty blondes, Lara Parker), a real witch. No, really, she is a real witch. Except everyone thinks that Vicky is the witch--and she's about to be accused of such and tried by the evil, sanctimonious Reverend Trask (Jerry Lacy).

I know, I know: "It's a soap" you say. But it is a brilliant one. Despite the bumps and burps in the production, I still think it's one of my favorite TV series of all time. The creative forces behind Dark Shadows knew what it was about, and they did it well for a number of years. The costumes, the stories, the writing, the sets, the acting (yes, the acting)--all were focused on conveying a vision of this perfect, mesmerizing, frightening universe.

The contemporary American soaps--what's left of them--could learn a lot from a show that only lasted on air for five years and yet still commands an audience--on DVD, on Netflix, and in dreadful remakes--almost 50 years later.