Dark Shadows was a short-lived gothic drama which aired on NBC from January to March of 1991, spanning a total of twelve episodes. Based on the original 1966 daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, the show brought together all of the familiar faces from the first series and revisited many of the same plot elements. Dan Curtis, series creator of the original Dark Shadows, pitched the idea for production of a mid season, program to NBC in 1991. Referred to as the "Revival Series", this version of Dark Shadows maintained the same gothic allure that made the original series so popular. Rather than running it as a daily half hour soap opera like the original, NBC aired the series as a one hour weekly program. The story structure of the program mirrored many of the key plot lines from the 1967-1968 seasons of Dark Shadows, including a character who travels back in time to the 18th century. Due to poor ratings, the Dark Shadows revival series was cancelled after only twelve episodes.
Dark Shadows was created by executive producer and showrunner Dan Curtis. Major storylines were developed by writers Art Wallace and Sam Hall. The original daytime Gothic soap opera, Dark Shadows aired on ABC from June of 1966 to April of 1971 spanning a total of 1,245 episodes. Two spin-off films House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows were released in theaters in 1970 and 1971. A remake series of Dark Shadows was produced in 1991 and ran for thirteen episodes on NBC. In 2012, director Tim Burton crafted a comical reboot of Dark Shadows as a high-budget feature film.
The short-lived comic book publishing house, Innovation Comics produced three separate limited series in 1992-1993 set in the world of Dark Shadows.
The 1790/91 Flashback storyline from this series took place in episodes 1.7-1.12. Most of the main present-day cast members from the series played characters from the 18th century as well. This was similar to what was done with the "1795 Flashback" from the original Dark Shadows series.
