Mission: Collinwood

[FredHerring]

During the era when this Newsgroup was fairly active, I posted a write-up
of "A Ghost Story," the fifth-season Mission: Impossible episode that I
maintain was based on (plagiarized from) story ideas and characters from
Dark Shadows. Season 5 of Mission Impossible is scheduled for release on
DVD this coming Tuesday October 7th and I encourage DS fans to view the
episode and decide for themselves.

In 'A Ghost Story,' the IMF team is assigned to a mission that takes place
at a creepy old mansion that locals believe is haunted. The occupants of
the mansion are a wealthy, powerful family resented by the locals.

The Jim Phelps character (Peter Graves) infiltrates the mansion as the
tutor (governess Victoria Winters?) of a young boy (David Collins?) who is
lonely and who believes he communicates with the ghosts of his deceased
family members.

One such rumored ghost is a Josette-like beautiful young French woman who
came to the mansion to marry a family member and died tragically young.
Besides haunting the area, she plays the flute (Sarah Collins?).

The young boy is being raised by his stern, cold, neglectful, unloving
grandfather (Roger Collins?). There is no Liz surrogate, but the
grandfather is believed to have murdered a family member and buried the
corpse somewhere on the vast estate in hopes of never getting caught and
punished. Marion Ross plays a Mrs Johnson-like housekeeper.

--
Message posted using http://www.talkabouttelevision.com/group/alt.tv.dark_shadows/
More information at http://www.talkabouttelevision.com/faq.html

[DivaM...@webtv.net]

That's got to be more than mere coincidence, Fred! I think more people
in Hollywood than we know were influenced by DS.

There seems to be another wave of vampire popularity now - as happens
every few years - with TV series and movies and books. Hopefully,
that's just taking one more step toward getting the Depp DS movie made.

And I still hope they make that sequel to "Love At First Bite" that
there have been rumblings about for years! :)

Diva

--

DivaMagenta @}{~~>~~~>~~~>~~~~~

"Religion is man's futile attempt to reach out to God, trying to earn
His favor. Christianity is the good news that God has reached out in
love to us through His Son, because He knows that our arms are not long
enough..."

My Homepage:
http://www.geocities.com/sistermagenta

My Dark Shadows Page:
http://community.webtv.net/DivaMagenta/DivasDarkShadowsPage

My Sha Na Na Page:
http://www.geocities.com/sistermagenta/shanana.html

[FredHerring]

<<That's got to be more than mere coincidence, Fred! I think more people
in Hollywood than we know were influenced by DS.>>

Thank you for the additional insights, DivaMagenta. I think you're right.
Current-day newcomers to DS fandom don't always realize just how popular
with the mainstream DS was in its initial run. DS may be perceived as a
"cult show" now, but 40 years ago everybody either watched it, knew
someone who did or was at least aware of it.

I spotted DS similarities again just last night in the premiere episode of
the American version of 'Life on Mars,' though, in this case, I think it
was coincidence, not copying.

The protagonist finds himself time-traveled from 2008 back to 1973. As
with Victoria Winters' jaunt to 1795, the LoM cop doesn't understand who
or what caused the temporal displacement, but finds in the past
connections and clues to a mystery he's trying to solve in his own time
period. Also like Vicky, the cop doesn't simply accept the situation and
keep his mouth shut about coming from the future. Instead, he blurts out
to everyone he meets that he is from 2008 and he keeps telling them how
wrong everything is and how they must be figments of his imagination,
thereby insuring they'll think he's insane or just weird. Dark Shadows
fans for decades have been making fun of Vicki for exacerbating her plight
with her constant blurting out of 1795 / 1967 comparisons, but the Life on
Mars protagonist does the same stupid thing.

Adding to the DS / LoM similarities is the presence of Harvey Keitel on
both shows. As on DS, Harvey's LoM character has a scene in a barroom,
but, alas, is not seen on LoM jitterbugging to the jukebox they way he did
at the Blue Whale in 1966.

<<And I still hope they make that sequel to "Love At First Bite" that
there have been rumblings about for years! :)>>

So true! As far back as the late 1970's, I saw reports in Variety of
plans for a sequel called 'Divorce, Dracula Style.' While that was still
being planned, the director got busted overseas for drug possession,
putting the kibosh on his involvement at least temporarily