This show has aged, was made on a shoe string, didn't do retakes for anything, relied heavily on dry ice fog & cheap chroma key.
But it works!
It starts of as a cheap cross between Pyton Place and Jane Eyre but ends up a cross breed of Dr Who and Hammer Horror.
At first glance the scripts and dialog are not always the best but when you stand back and look at how many episodes they (1200+) where making I'm stunned its as good as it is. Also helping this show was the cast which where largely stage actors who fitted their characters well as well as many actresses who where as attractive as skilled.
Near the 200 episode mark the show was on the block so with nothing to lose the show's creator decided F##k it lets drop a Vampire into the plot!
Bang the show was suddenly a hit and the writers proudly pronounced they did not just steal from horror literature they happily looted it!
The Frankenstein monster, the Wolf-man, Ghosts, witches, warlocks, Jekyll & Hyde, dis-embodied hands, even H P Lovecraft as well of course as Dracula. All became fodder for story arcs of this series.
Sadly the last season was just dropped with so many plot threads which where never finished but to be fair they where starting to retread old story lines so it was starting to run on empty near the end.
Keep in mind it is a product of its time (60s), for almost 300 episodes it was in black & white and in that time the concept was definitely new but now in the post Buffy era not so much.
So if you like dry ice fog & wonky chroma key this is for you;)
But it works!
It starts of as a cheap cross between Pyton Place and Jane Eyre but ends up a cross breed of Dr Who and Hammer Horror.
At first glance the scripts and dialog are not always the best but when you stand back and look at how many episodes they (1200+) where making I'm stunned its as good as it is. Also helping this show was the cast which where largely stage actors who fitted their characters well as well as many actresses who where as attractive as skilled.
Near the 200 episode mark the show was on the block so with nothing to lose the show's creator decided F##k it lets drop a Vampire into the plot!
Bang the show was suddenly a hit and the writers proudly pronounced they did not just steal from horror literature they happily looted it!
The Frankenstein monster, the Wolf-man, Ghosts, witches, warlocks, Jekyll & Hyde, dis-embodied hands, even H P Lovecraft as well of course as Dracula. All became fodder for story arcs of this series.
Sadly the last season was just dropped with so many plot threads which where never finished but to be fair they where starting to retread old story lines so it was starting to run on empty near the end.
Keep in mind it is a product of its time (60s), for almost 300 episodes it was in black & white and in that time the concept was definitely new but now in the post Buffy era not so much.
So if you like dry ice fog & wonky chroma key this is for you;)