Big Finish to revive DARK SHADOWS serial in 2014

Joe Lidster and David Darlington let slip some great news on the third episode of their podcast: BIG FINISH is reviving the DARK SHADOWS audio serials in 2014.

The series will differ in a number of ways from the self-contained audiodramas that have been at the heart of the DARK SHADOWS line during the last few years. For starters, the new episodes will be part of a longform story, made up of 13 half-hour episodes. The new series, titled DARK SHADOWS: THE RETURN, will follow 2006's epic KINGDOM OF THE DEAD storyarc.

"It will follow on from the cliffhanger of KINGDOM OF THE DEAD, but not directly, because we want to make it accessible to new listeners," Lidster said in the podcast. "So, we will do the age-old DARK SHADOWS' tradition of a woman on a train. We'll come in with a voice-over and we'll meet people in Collinsport through her ..."

The series will eventually be for sale as box sets, but Lidster didn't rule out the idea of publishing the series online as a "daily soap opera."

DARK SHADOWS: THE RETURN will be written by Lidster, Will Howells and Adam Flanagan. The series is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of 2014, but an official release date has yet to be set.

"There's so much going on in here," Lidster said of DARK SHADOWS: THE RETURN. "Quite a lot of characters. Quite a lot of stories. And hopefully again it will be a bit like what we did last year — fun, scary, some heartbreaking stuff in there, doing some interesting stuff with the characters and interesting pairings."

For those of you keeping score at home, there's one name conspicuously left out of the conversation: BARNABAS COLLINS. Fans of KINGDOM OF THE DEAD know that Andrew Collins (no relation) played Collinsport's favorite vampire in that storyline, which was set sometime in the 1980s ... and that leaves the door open for the character's possible return to the serial later this year. While DARK SHADOWS fans famously reject anyone but Jonathan Frid in the role, Andrew Collins has a surprising number of fans, even among DARK SHADOWS fundamentalists. And that's a feat not even Johnny Depp managed to pull off.

Only time will tell if we'll see Andrew lurking the shadows of Collinsport again in 2014. Stay tuned!