Trivia: A prominent first-season character, Burke Devlin was originally portrayed by actor Mitchell Ryan. However, Ryan was abruptly fired from the show in 1967 due to his alcoholism. Actor Anthony George assumed the remainder of the role until Burke Devlin's death (in a plane crash) in 1968.
Trivia: Barnabas is typically seen wearing a gold ring with a large black onyx stone on his right hand (as also depicted in both of his portraits). However, depending on the requirements of the camera shot, the ring occasionally appeared on his left hand (as when Barnabas reached from his coffin to strangle Jason McGuire, for one example).
Trivia: Exteriors for Collinwood were shot at what was then known as "Seaview Terrace" in Newport, Rhode Island. Now known as the Carey Mansion, the building has recently been made accessible for group events, and now hosts an annual gathering of Dark Shadows fans.
Trivia: In the opening lines of episode 286, when Victoria Winters admits that she feels very close to the late Josette Collins, Barnabas says, "It's very easy for me to believe that you are descended from Josette." Except that Barnabas knew very well Josette had no descendants; Josette died childless in the late 18th Century (a suicide). The implication is that Victoria is a reincarnation of Josette. Later in the series, however, Victoria travels back in time and actually meets Josette, but the two characters share no closeness at all, even though they share the same soul.
Trivia: Actor Dennis Patrick brilliantly portrayed the cruel, manipulative character of Jason McGuire in the first and second seasons of the show. In the story line, Jason McGuire was blackmailing Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard for the death of her husband, Paul Stoddard, 18 years earlier. Deservedly, Jason McGuire was murdered by Barnabas Collins. Two years later, Dennis Patrick returned to the show, this time portraying Elizabeth's long-lost and very-much-alive husband Paul Stoddard.
Trivia: When Dark Shadows was cancelled in 1971, several storylines were left incomplete, not the least of which was the fate of Barnabas Collins. Was he doomed to remain a vampire for all eternity? The definitive answer is no. In a 1971 TV Guide interview, the head writer of Dark Shadows, Sam Hall, revealed that the series would have eventually ended with Julia permanently curing Barnabas of his vampirism, and that Barnabas and Julia would live happily ever after in the Far East.
Trivia: Of Dark Shadows' 1225 videotaped episodes, the master tapes of 30 episodes were inadvertently destroyed by the time the series went into syndication. Of the 30 episodes destroyed, 9 were black and white (from the series' first year) and 21 were full-color. Fortunately, 29 of the destroyed episodes were recovered, but only as black-and-white kinescope copies. Thus, when watching the entire original series today, the sequential episodes occasionally switch from color to black-and-white and back to color, with much lower image resolution in the black-and-white kinescope copies. The last episode (number 1225) was lost and the video was never recovered; only an audio backup existed. So, the final episode can only be seen today as a slideshow of production stills accompanied by the audio backup.
Answer: It's probably episode 193 (even though the slate at the beginning says 58). It's the episode with Sam demanding that Roger return his paintings. Three clues from the Dark Shadows Companion and from the comments of Kathryn Leigh Scott and Louis Edmonds all agree that 1) Scott is in the episode and is done for the day prior to Edmonds without his pants; 2) Edmonds is wearing a smoking jacket, and 3) Edmonds is leaning on the mantle (which is actually the cabinet where the liquor is, because the fireplace mantle is too high to lean on and the bench in front of it prevents getting too close to). There are several "breaks" in the lengthy scene where commercial were probably inserted, and all of the shots are above the waist. The previously mentioned episode 54 has Edmonds in a suit and Scott isn't in the episode; episode 54 doesn't have Edmonds or Scott; and episode 86 only has Edmonds in a suit.
Lou Edmonds was a consummate actor and would not forget that he had a lengthy scene to perform. Rather, in Episode 86, Edmonds more understandably forgot that he had to perform one last 15-second scene (a simple toast). He had removed his shoes and pants before he was reminded of the final, brief shot, and he hurried back to complete it.
Charles Austin Miller