Dark Shadows ran from 1967- 1970 as a soap opera, but it's more like a live play. The director of the show was cheap and back in that time he didn't want to pay for second takes. Every mistake is caught on camera, from forgetting lines, to props falling, or pesky flies. The actors are all trained stage actors, and the early series, especially are classics! Later, the show transforms from an eerie, black and white, hitchcock / dracula (1930s) show to somewhat of a monster mash as they ran out of ideas for the show, and they begin to hire these actors who can't act their way out of a box! There are some good storylines though later on, as they explore the Collins family through different time eras of the past and even a future (1995!) briefly, and going to a parallel time of 1970 to see what how all the character's lives could have been different. Later, it becomes more of a soppy soap opera type thing-- it isn't as good.
So... what I would recommend are the earliest series :
Collectors Series DVDS are the very very beginning episodes of the show that are to do with the wealthy Collins' family and a girl named Victoria Winters who comes to Collinsport to be a governess to the troubled David Collins (He's a really good little actor- he was in Oliver on Broadway) who lives in his own fantasy world, claiming that ghosts are his friends. There are weird sobbing noises in the house, and mysterious happenings...
Some of the storylines include:
1- Burke Devlin, a man who has spent time in prison after being convicted of a felony that he believes Roger Collins is responsible for, comes back for revenge.
2- The mystery of Victoria Winter's past... She hopes to find answers to her background, being that she is an orphan, and mysteriously got hired by the very wealthy Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard.
3- David's mother returns from phoenix... but she turns out to be somewhat super natural. Twisted plots reveal that David's mother has already died . . .
4- The death of Bill Maloy. After Bill Malloy finds out a secret about the scenario of Burke/Roger and the truth, he mysteriously ends up dead. The plot unfolds who is responsible.
5- Slimy, con-man Jason McGuire comes to town with a traveling friend, Willie Loomis (a new yorker hoodlum) who ends up stirring up trouble at Collinsport for the girls especially... Willie begins to go for the beautiful Carolyn Stoddard, Townsgirl Maggie Evans, and Victoria Winters. Bad enough, to everyone's utter surprise, McGuire ends up getting both him and his friend Willie Loomis living inside Collinwood after blackmailing Elizabeth with a secret of her presumed "run-away" husband, Paul Stoddard.
DVD set 1 begins with the vampire Barnabas Collins release from his coffin. The movie, I imagine, will follow this storyline.
It's called 'Set 1' because most people watch Dark Shadows strictly to see 'the vampire', and to them, Dark Shadows didn't really begin until he came on.
Storylines include:
1- Willie Loomis, the hoodlum friend of Jason McGuire gets greedy and impatient for his cut in the money. Willie is ordered to leave town, gets in a fight, and tries to steal a diamond pin from Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard-- being the last straw, she orders him out of Collinwood manor. The night before his departure, Willie goes to the Collins mausoleum to go grave robbing and instead..finds something else...
2- Willie Loomis disappears, and Barnabas Collins arrives, a "cousin from England" who very much resembles the portrait of the original Barnabas Collins, dead over a 150 years... Willie returns after missing for nearly a week. He has a mysterious illness... He leaves Collinwood, broken and apologetic.
3- Barnabas Collins moves into the Old House (a decrepit manor house that was the original Collinwood manor) with Elizabeth's approval. To everyone's surprise, it is revealed that Willie is working for Barnabas Collins! Everyone attempts to tell Barnabas to remove Willie at once, but everyone grows more respect for Willie after seeing how much he has changed.
4- Barnabas Collins meets Maggie Evans, the townsgirl, who resembles his long-lost love, Josette Collins. He makes plans to kidnap her. Willie, slave to his master's will, is unable to do anything about it.
It goes on, more of course... Continuing with a lady Doctor who finds out about his vampire-ness, and claims that she can cure him with her experiment.
The series continues to go back to 1795 to explore Barnabas's past in the time in which he lived.
etc etc.
Definitely check it out! Ebay, Amazon, and Wal-mart (if you order online) have pretty good prices!