For Halloween, Emmy digs up the Dark Shadows that never aired: the first half of the 2004 pilot, set on October 31st. Victoria Winters rides a nightmare train to Collinsport, where her phone has no signal, Roger Collins is Martin Donovan, and every light bulb is red or blue. Willie Loomis and his girlfriend hunt for Collins gold in the family mausoleum and find garlic, chains and a coffin. By morning Carolyn is missing half her blood, and a stranger says his name is Barnabas Collins.
Dark Shadows episode 370 is back in color, and Angelique is done being polite. She finds one of Barnabas’s childhood toy soldiers, gets hold of his handkerchief, and when he visits the servants’ quarters to say they can only be friends, she shows him the door. Then Josette finally arrives, two weeks late and looking exactly like Maggie Evans, and Barnabas takes her in his arms just as Angelique knots the handkerchief around the soldier’s neck. Nobody does crazy eyes like Lara Parker.
Dark Shadows episode 368 survives only as a black-and-white kinescope, so 1795 loses its color for a night. Barnabas frets over Josette’s overdue ship until the door opens on her aunt, the Countess du Prés, who hates New York, America and the weather, and the maid Angelique, in Lara Parker’s first appearance. The Countess’s tarot cards warn of a wicked woman in the house. Then Angelique slips into Barnabas’s room to remind him of Martinique. Emmy is, in her words, totally sucked in.
Victoria Winters’ trip to 1795 continues in Dark Shadows episode 367. Abigail Collins takes one look at her, declares her a handmaiden of the devil, confiscates her clothes and locks her in, so Vicki goes out the window and straight into Jeremiah Collins, who looks just like Burke and helps her get her story straight. Naomi finally tells Abigail off, and Joshua hires Vicki as governess on a trial basis for $4 a month. Almost enough for a comic book.
Season 4 jumps ahead to Dark Shadows episode 366, Martian Shadows’ first all-color episode of the original run. A séance at Collinwood drops Victoria Winters into 1795, where the Old House is brand new and extremely pink, Barnabas has never seen her before, and little Sarah is alive and certain Vicki is her new governess. Then Lieutenant Nathan Forbes makes a pass and the wedding invitations arrive: Barnabas Collins and Josette du Prés. Emmy cheers Vicki on as she works out the year.
Emmy opens with a full Night of 100 Stars roll call, then gets down to Dark Shadows episode 227, first aired May 9, 1967. Maggie oversleeps for the first time in her life and wakes up pale, weak and freezing, with the windows open and no memory of opening them. She fumbles the coffee cups at work and panics when Joe mentions flowers. That night Barnabas leaves Sam at the easel and steps out for some fresh air, while Maggie unlocks the doors and waits.
A surprise bonus episode from The Dumb Clubhouse 2026 Drive: Martian Shadows Revival Riff No. 2, picking up the 1991 Dark Shadows revival where Season 2 left off. Professor Woodard gives Daphne a cross to wear, but she walks into the fog anyway and Barnabas finishes what he started. After the funeral, David sees Daphne at the window, and the professor finally says it out loud: vampire. Emmy has notes on the bow ties, the sunniest foggy nights on TV, and what a sloppy eater Barnabas is.
In Dark Shadows episode 225, first aired May 8, 1967, a shaken Maggie drags Joe out to the Blue Whale to tell him about her nightmare: she looked into a coffin and saw herself. Then her father walks in with Barnabas, who has a great deal to say about what a lovely daughter Sam has. Burke admires the wolf’s-head cane, the dogs start howling, and Barnabas pays Maggie a visit after closing time. Emmy supplies the nursery rhyme.
The first Martian Shadows of 2026 is a true Friday episode: Dark Shadows 224, first aired May 5, 1967. Barnabas rescues David from a stuck door and a pack of howling dogs, sweet-talks Elizabeth into letting Willie stay on, and gives Jason a quiet warning. Then, while Sam paints by candlelight, Maggie has a nightmare so well done that Emmy stops riffing to admit this is exactly why she watches the show.
The Martian Shadows Winter Solstice Holiday Extravaganza goes back to where it all started: the very first episode of Dark Shadows, from June 27, 1966, with the commercials that originally aired alongside it. Victoria Winters rides the train to Collinsport, gets a lift from Burke Devlin and a warning from Maggie Evans, and knocks on the door of Collinwood. Emmy riffs the bug spray, bleach and toothpaste ads right along with the show.
In Dark Shadows episode 223, Elizabeth is furious to learn Willie has moved into the Old House as Barnabas’s servant, and David is heartbroken to find the place changed: Josette’s portrait is gone, and so is the scent of jasmine. Burke barges in to ask why Liz sold prime seafront for quick cash, and David gets himself shut inside the Old House at dusk. Emmy enjoys the half-finished portrait with no mouth and asks whether anyone on this show respects boundaries.
Season 3 goes back to the original sixties run of Dark Shadows, picking up with episode 222. Vicki finds a strangely polite Willie fixing up the Old House and hurrying her out the door before sunset. Barnabas calls on Maggie Evans at home and hires her father Sam to paint his portrait: $1,000, sittings at the Old House, nights only. Emmy presents The Tedium of Painting with Sam Evans, right up until Barnabas ghosts him at dawn.
Emmy wraps up the 1991 Dark Shadows revival pilot. Dr. Hoffman hypnotizes Daphne into remembering red eyes and teeth, Barnabas has Vicki to dinner at the Old House with Josette’s music box and a speech about reincarnation, and the ghost of his little sister Sarah leads him on a chase through the woods. Emmy has been on shorter dates than this one, and she lets Barnabas know it.
Scream queen and horror legend Barbara Steele joins the cast as Dr. Julia Hoffman in the penultimate chapter of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival pilot. Two more victims turn up dead, a strange cell appears in the blood samples, and Vicki visits the Old House, where Barnabas shows her Josette’s restored room and a portrait that looks exactly like her. Willie tries to warn her off and pays for it. Brought to you by the Roger Corman School of Walking.
Part three of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival pilot opens with quiz time at Collinwood and a spider in David’s desk. Willie turns up in the stables with a suspicious neck wound, the sheriff grills him, and cousin Barnabas steps in to say Willie has been working for him at the Old House. David’s ghostly friend Sarah warns that Barnabas is evil, and Barnabas offers a young lady a lift home. Emmy unveils Come Along Willie, the new doll from Mattel.
Part two of the 1991 Dark Shadows revival pilot. Daphne is found drained of half her blood, the doctor finds human saliva in the wound, and the sheriff goes looking for a madman. Then a visitor arrives at Collinwood: Barnabas Collins, from England, who knows the house a little too well and offers to restore the Old House, which is exactly where David says his friend Sarah lives. Emmy salutes the callbacks to the original and notes the portrait looks nothing like Jonathan Frid.
Season 2 changes things up: Emmy takes on the 1991 primetime Dark Shadows revival, starting with part one of the pilot. Victoria Winters arrives at Collinwood by train, young David welcomes her with a rat in a shoebox, and Willie, newly hooked on old books and riddles, cracks the rhyme that leads him to the Collins family tomb. With real cars, real doors, a crane shot they fully intend to use, and a Blue Whale that serves donuts.
The Season 1 finale sends Barnabas into town. In Dark Shadows episode 221, he walks into the Collinsport diner at closing time, charms Maggie Evans over coffee, and leaves his prized silver-headed cane behind, so she and Joe have to bring it up to the Old House. There are howling dogs, a girl attacked on the road, and Willie asking what Barnabas plans to do with her. Even Willie begs Emmy not to riff another one.
Willie makes a miraculous recovery the moment the sun goes down, so Jason hands him his $500 and Collinwood finally sees him off. In Dark Shadows episode 220, Elizabeth gives Barnabas the keys to the Old House, and its new tenant already has a servant waiting: Willie Loomis, home at last and no longer in charge of what he does. Emmy keeps score of the questions, pitches a Dark Shadows Choose Your Own Adventure, and coaches Barnabas on his innuendos.
Jason catches Willie creeping home at dawn and accuses him of hunting for the Collins family jewels, Roger delivers a withering review of Willie’s “histrionic talents,” and the sheriff reports livestock all over the county found expertly drained of blood. In Dark Shadows episode 219, an actual doctor finally examines Willie, and the diagnosis is an enormous loss of blood. Emmy can’t believe something is happening. Must be a Friday episode.
Jason trails Willie to the Collins mausoleum and comes up empty, while Barnabas drops in at Collinwood with a counterproposal: he’d like to move into the crumbling Old House, no electricity required. In Dark Shadows episode 218, Roger is all for it, Elizabeth needs time to think, and Jason sizes up the new cousin and his ring. Emmy names the mausoleum her favorite character and pleads for something, anything, to happen.
Willie is stuck in bed with an arm that looks drained of blood and a terror of the coming dark. In Dark Shadows episode 217, Jason plays nursemaid, Carolyn and Vicki agree Willie has become a different person, and something only he can hear calls him back to Eagle Hill cemetery. Emmy covers the riveting jacket scene, a surprise sound-effects budget, and the drinking game nobody should play with the word “Willie.”
Jason hauls a pale, jumpy Willie back to Collinwood to apologize to Elizabeth and Carolyn in Dark Shadows episode 216, and for once the apology sounds sincere. Then Willie faints in the foyer, earns himself a sickbed, and guards a mysterious wound that nobody is allowed to touch. Emmy wants to know who did his eyeliner, begs the scenes to end, and has notes on the fakest candles ever put on television.
Emmy is your designated driver for a night at the Blue Whale, Collinsport’s most prestigious and only bar. In Dark Shadows episode 215, Joe tells Burke and Maggie about a calf found drained of blood with two small puncture marks on its throat, and Willie Loomis finally turns up again: pale, shaking, apologizing to Burke and turning down Jason’s $500. Something is very wrong with Willie, and there’s blood on his sleeve.
Barnabas gives Vicki a tour of the Old House in Dark Shadows episode 214, with a monologue that takes in the pyramids, clamshell-and-horsehair plaster and a father-and-son feud he remembers a little too well. Then Roger comes home, pours the amontillado, and notices the new cousin is wearing the very same ring as the man in the portrait. Emmy keeps track of every flubbed line and every time Barnabas cases the joint.
Presented live, with Emmy riffing by the seat of her skirt. There are no vampires in Dark Shadows episode 213, just soap: Elizabeth and Jason fight over Willie’s $500, and Carolyn takes her troubles to the Blue Whale, where Joe talks her into hearing out Burke Devlin’s smug little apology. Emmy calls it one of the darkest episodes she’s seen and dedicates the riff to Nancy Barrett, who carries every scene.
Barnabas Collins charms his way into Collinwood in Dark Shadows episode 212, presenting himself to Elizabeth and Vicki as a cousin from England who somehow knows every secret passage in the house. David meets him at the Old House and isn’t convinced he isn’t a ghost. Emmy admits this one was harder to riff, because some of the acting is actually pretty good, right up to Barnabas’s speech to Josette’s portrait.
Willie has vanished and Elizabeth wants her money’s worth. In Dark Shadows episode 211, Jason follows the trail to Eagle Hill cemetery, where a caretaker who feels evil, evil, evil in the air shows him the broken lock on the Collins mausoleum. Emmy keeps count of the repeated questions until a visitor knocks at Collinwood: a cousin from England named Barnabas Collins, who looks an awful lot like the portrait in the foyer.
Where it all begins: Miss Emmy Martian’s very first riff of Dark Shadows takes on episode 210. Jason McGuire grills a cagey Willie Loomis, Elizabeth pays to get Willie out of Collinwood, and Willie heads for the cemetery with a bag of tools instead. It’s a marathon game of 20 questions with riveting gate-opening action, a chained coffin, and our first look at Barnabas Collins. Well, his hand.
