Does anyone have info about Dark Shadows - if it will ever come back on TV?? I miss the show and would love to see it again on TV.

There were a couple of attempts to relaunch it but they all failed.

The best you can hope is reruns. SoapNet passed, SciFi channel ran through and move to other types of shows.

Buy the dvds.

Never heard anything about it coming back, for some time now. Sci-Fi stopped playing it back a couple of years ago and never brought it back. The last attempt at a revisted series, updated and such, was canned by the WB before that channel merged to become the CW.

I collect the dvd sets, already have the first ten,

Wait so they have DVDs of Dark Shadows? Why don't they do that for all daytime soaps?!

Every episode of Dark Shadows exists in one form or another except for one lost episode. (There's an audio-only taping of the lost episode.)

That isn't the case for most other soaps of that time.

I sort of think Days exists, and later, Y&R, but I'm not sure.

But a bunch of others either aired live and there was no tape or most tapes were wiped or taped over for many episodes. ABC trashed most of theirs for their NY-based shows sometime in the late 70s or early 80s.

But Dark Shadows is somewhat different because it appeals to a wider audience. There was more interest in the expense of launching videos, then later dvds, because they knew people who would never watch normal soaps might purchase them.

Also a lot of the other shows for which the episodes exist ran much longer so there would be many more episdes to put out. So far nobody has thought there would be a wide enough paying audience.

On the bonus footage of the Dark Shadows dvds there are actually 2 mentions by actors that they worked later on in the 70s on Proctor & Gamble shows which were still airing live. I'm not sure if that's true about that late date but it was 1975 for one of the shows. Could the networks still have been running some live tv as late as 1975?

The reasons are obvious, Psychofan.

Could the networks still have been running some live tv as late as 1975?

Both As the World Turns and The Edge of Night aired live until 1975, when ATWT expanded to an hour and EON moved to ABC.

Every episode of Dark Shadows exists in one form or another except for one lost episode. (There's an audio-only taping of the lost episode.)

That isn't the case for most other soaps of that time.

I sort of think Days exists, and later, Y&R, but I'm not sure.

But a bunch of others either aired live and there was no tape or most tapes were wiped or taped over for many episodes. ABC trashed most of theirs for their NY-based shows sometime in the late 70s or early 80s.

All of DAYS and Y&R are believed to exist. All of DS, except for that one episode, exists. All of "Ryan's Hope" exists. AMC didn't start saving their episodes until 1976. ABC wanted to expand the show to an hour, but Agnes refused. The only way she would go through with it was if they were to start saving the episodes. They started saving in 1976 and AMC expanded on April 25, 1977.

It would be extremely hard to make DVD's of an entire soap like they do a primetime show. They make 250 episodes a year, "Friends" had what close to 200 episodes total over their entire ten year run and the whole DVD series cost close to $200 dollars. And special episodes of classic moments like weddings and what not the people in charge wouldn't see as a money making venture since on average 2 1/2 million people watch a soap.