There are 1246 episodes and by the 59th, absolutely nothing has happened really. So it goes without saying that Dark Shadows certainly started off slowly.

ABC was going to cancel it but they gave Dan Curtis six months to turn the ratings around and he gave us Barnabas Collins.

Yes, nearly a year in, Willie Loomis broke into the chained coffin of the vampire Barnabas, and the fortunes of Dark Shadows shot up.

A few months before that, the introduction of Laura Collins the Phoenix was the beginning hint of mysterious happenings at Collinwood; before that, it was mostly routine soap opera stuff.

The late, lamented John Karlen once said that when his character, Willie Loomis, broke into the Collins Family Mausoleum and tore off the chains on Barnabas Collins’ coffin in April of 1967, the powers at ABC would only let Barnabas bite Willie on the wrist and not on the neck.

However, as DS progressed, Barnabas was allowed to bite several other men on the neck. Similarly, both Maggie Evans and Julia Hoffman were victims of the female vampire, Roxanne Drew. In fact, poor Maggie and Julia were repeat-vampire-victims, with Maggie having been first bitten by Barnabas and Dr. Julia Hoffman having been vampire Tom Jennings’ first and only victim.