List of Dark Shadows episodes


Dark Shadows is an American Gothic soap opera that originally aired weekdays on the ABC television network, from June 27, 1966, to April 2, 1971. A total of 1,225 episodes were produced, but during the course of its run, the show was pre-empted 20 times. ABC would compensate for this by occasionally skipping, double numbering and, in one case, triple numbering episodes in order to keep a show ending in a 5 or 0 airing on Fridays. This is why the last episode produced is episode 1,245, when in actuality it was only the #1,225th episode actually produced. The table below is a complete list of all episodes. Along with production information, it also includes a list of the DVD releases in volume format.

1969

Narrations

At the start of each episode of Dark Shadows, there is an opening narration. From episodes 1–274, Alexandra Moltke always provides the narration in character as Victoria Winters, beginning with the words "My name is Victoria Winters", even in episodes in which Victoria does not appear. Nancy Barrett narrates episode 275 in the third person. From episode 275 onwards, the narration is always in the third person and never in character again. From episodes 275–331, Moltke continues to narrate all the episodes in which she does appear. Episode 332 is the first episode in which Moltke appears in which she doesn't do the narration. In total, Moltke was the narrator on 381 actual episodes, with episode 626 being her last narration.
From episodes 1–458, the narrator is always a female, including Vala Clifton, who only appeared in three episodes, narrating two episodes in which she appeared. Episode 459 is the first episode narrated by a male, i.e. Thayer David. In episode 459, the only female in the episode is Rebecca Shaw, who only appears in this one episode as an unnamed barmaid. The second episode with a male narrator, also Thayer David, is episode 527. Alexandra Moltke is in episode 527, so this time the role of narrator was not given to a man out of necessity. Although from now on men will also take turns as narrator, the majority of episodes will still be narrated by women. The man who narrates the most episodes is David Selby, with 49, closely followed by Thayer David with 44, then Louis Edmonds with 33, and John Karlen with 25. Every other man has less than 20.
The final episode, i.e. episode 1,245, has two narrations, one opening, and one closing. The final episode is the only episode with a closing narration.

Narrations by actual episode total

Color status and archive status

Episodes 1–294 of Dark Shadows were made in black and white. The master tapes of episodes 83, 120, 145, 149, 193, 194 and 260, are lost, with those episodes only existing as kinescope recordings. The English language version of episode 289 also only exists as a kinescope, but the master tape of episode 289 dubbed in the Spanish language does exist.
From episode 295 onwards, Dark Shadows was made in color, although 20 actual episodes that were made in color do not exist in that format anymore, due to lost master tapes and those episodes only existing as black and white kinescope recordings. Episode 1,219, is the only episode with no master tape and no kinescope copy, so episode 1,219 is therefore the only missing episode of Dark Shadows. On the DVD release, episode 1,219 is covered by a combination of telesnaps taken from other episodes, an off–air audio recording made by a fan at home on February 25, 1971, at the time of the original broadcast, and new narration recorded by Lara Parker.