there was nothing likable or charming or sympathetic about ben cross' portrayal of the tortured barnabas.nbc should have had the gorgeous adrian paul portray barnabas instead of allowing him to become a runaway hit as the highlander in syndication.the true highlight of this series was the gorgeous and devious angelique. her evil was so delicious and endlessly watchable.also victoria winters was so marvelously put upon that you couldn't help but feel for the little orphan girl. she suffered from cassandra's complex. she kept telling the truth and trying to forewarn everyone, but she was never believed.

This is more of a fast-forward of the original. Not as well done, but still great story-telling! I love the original Dark Shadows for its live-stage-like & non-Hollywoodized one-of-a-kindness with a really great story to tell.The remake is still great, yet did get rather Hollywoodized. People never misword a thing or talk over each other like they do in real life or like they did in the original series. Amazingly enough, the original series was more life-like, as hey didn't have the budget to do more than one take! I'll still always like the original cast, the Black &White opening, until it went color, which added to a story like this one, yet if you want to hop, skip & jump through memory lane, this is a great way to do it (Seems at this point only the 1st season is here, there were 2 if I recall correctly of the remake?)If you've never seen Dark Shadows from beginning to end, best to get the original series, as there s far more detail & multiple stories going on at a time - not the "story A", "story B" & once in a while a "story C" format that is the cookie-cutter format of just about every show on TV now - sad as audiences are smarter than that, it's easily recognizable & gets boring quick. Dark Shadows never followed that "format" & is simply a great story from beginning to end. Sure, you can, if you are watching carefully (& once in a while not so carefully), you can see a crew member walk behind the actors, a boom mike overhead, but there is nothing like the original Dark Shadows.I hope Hollywood, New York, Vancouver & other film locations/companies will break out of that cookie-cutter mold & give us a great show to sink our teeth into!There is SO much more to the original show, but this is great too... it just leaves out a lot of detail & some of the other side stories. Great stuff!No one can take the place of the original cast, but it's a fun fast-forward of highlights of Collinwood.