As it is probably not a surprise to you, I grew up reading books, watching movies and TV shows; taking in everything my greedy little eyes could grab hold of. Some of the earliest memories during my formative years are of sitting in front of the TV watching a soap opera with my Mom. That’s right… a soap opera. But not just any soap opera, oh nooooo. The one we’d watch had vampires, werewolves, witches and crawling hands. The show? “Dark Shadows.”

Those not familiar with “Dark Shadows” (and shame on you if you aren’t) should know that it used to be one if ABC’s most popular soaps during it’s 1966 - 1971 run. Nowhere else on daytime TV could you find this great assortment of ghouls and ghosts, weaving themselves within the soap world of romances and deception. I still consider it to be one of the best soaps ever. In comparison, “Passions” is a second rate imitator.

What surprised me the most when doing my homework on the show, which I had to do as my most vivid memory (having not seen it in over 30 years) is the theme, is how insanely popular it still is. It’s been running on the SciFi Channel, and there are as many fan clubs, conventions and websites as any other show has ever had.

My hat’s off to MPI Home Video for being the keeper of the “Dark Shadows” flame. For quite a while now they have been thrilling fans with videos of the old episodes, but as of this year they are finally releasing the show on DVD. And these sets are terrific. Volume 1 hit stores in May 2002, and as of this writing they have 3 volumes available, each with 40 episodes. For some reason they started the first volume with the 210th episode which featured the arrival of vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathon Frid – who would become the show’s signature character). Fortunately they included a clipped recap of what had transpired during the show’s initial 209 episodes.

These 4-disc sets are awesome. The first thing I worried about when I sat down to watch was how the quality of the video and audio held up after all these years. I was shocked to see just how good the show looked. There were a few minor glitches, but overall these discs were very easy on the eyes and ears. The picture was much sharper than I imagined it would be.

No set would be complete without a few extras. Here they mostly fall into the realm of interviews with cast and creators, but all are entertaining. The packaging is another thing I was impressed with. They kept away from the ‘box set’ look (cardboard and individual keep cases) and chose to go with a wide plastic 4-disc snap case. These cases look great, keep the discs in order and easily sit on the shelf with your DVDcollection.

MPI is going to be releasing these sets at about the rate of one every 3-4 months, and at 40 episodes per set, and 1225 episodes total, that’ll be about uhhhh…. well…ahh forget it. You can do the math. I’m watching “Dark Shadows!”

We'll give Dark Shadows an A.