Dark Shadows The Revival, ep. 1

Opening Title

Victoria Winters

Collinwood

Mrs. Johnson, cleaner. Also Willie's aunt.

Willie

Roger Collins

Maggie Evans.

Elizabeth Stoddard

Carolyn Stoddard

Willie finds the coffin.

The hand of Barnabas.

David, a complete, total brat.

Isn't dried blood supposed to be dark in color?

More realistic.

They determine a human attacked her. The sheriff talks to an expert in strange things.

The portrait of Barnabas.

Barnabas.

David's friend, Sarah.

Julia Hoffman

A painting of Josette.

Sarah, looking like she has an ice pack on her head.

It's nighttime. Why, then, does the tree in the center at the top show sunlight?

Somehow, at least to me, things being somewhat dark works better in black-and-white than it does in color. The scenes are, again at least to me, often too dark in this series. I feel that Willie is over-the-top in acting. Another thing I don't like about this is the style of camera usage. It actually appears that someone is following someone with a videocamera and records the normal bounces in frames that such walking and shooting cause.

In plain words, parts of the episode look like an amateur was doing a school project on filming something rather than the thing looking like professionals did the shooting. There's also too much sound-of-lightning and thunder whenever anything spooky or otherwise significant is said.

This episode is almost one and a half hours long which, in my opinion, is too long for a television show. I'll have to see if the other episodes are shorter and, if they are, then I'll consider this one the pilot.