Dark Shadows – The Beginning: Collection 6 (MPI DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C+

 

 

In continuing our coverage of MPI’s Dark Shadows - The Beginning sets, we are now up to the final set 6, which includes episodes 179-209 and ran March of 1967 until April of 1967.  After this, Barnabas Collins arrived and the show would never be the same again.

 

I recall years ago working in a video store and getting VHS copies of Dark Shadows in, we were one of the few places to have them at the time.  There were three episodes to a tape and people would pay upwards of nearly $20 per tape!  Insane!  However, these tapes were hard to come by and at the time the Internet was still in its infancy, so there weren’t many outlets to get them.  Since that point in time, Dark Shadows has started making its way to DVD in strong volumes that fans will clearly be happy about, especially since you can get more bang for your buck now than you ever could on VHS, and the quality...well, Dark Shadows was never exactly the most amazingly produced show, but even the DVD’s fare better than the gritty days of tape. 

 

The technical specs are quite similar to the previous sets with the 1.33 X 1 black and white image from the NTSC video reels still showing their age, but the Dolby Digital 2.0 mono still holds up quite well with all things considered here. 

 

The bonus features here are the real treat, especially for fans as we get some extra footage from episode 191 and a restored version of episode 211, which is Barnabas’ arrival that also comes with the original 1967 commercial and is a real hoot!  There are also some promotional materials included here, plus the Sci-Fi commercials and Joan Bennett’s newsreel footage, but the real gem is the new interviews that many die-hard fans probably have not seen before.

 

 

-   Nate Goss