Dark Shadows: Bloodline begins!

Dark Shadows: Bloodline is here! Much earlier than anticipated!

If I learned anything yesterday, it's that I'd rather get caught with my actual pants down than with my figurative pants down. Actual pants are quickly pulled up, allowing us to all go about out lives as if you never saw my whiter-shade-of-pale. Figurative pants are a lot more difficult to hitch up.

Yesterday, I was drafting an aggregate post about Justin Partridge's Road to Bloodline series of reviews when I was figuratively de-pantsed. Justin had spent the last few months visiting the Dark Shadows audios that followed the best-selling/award-winning Bloodlust serial in anticipation of the sequel. This feature was/is going to be bookended by Bloodline-related project here at the CHS that isn't ready to be announced just yet ... but before any of that happened, Big Finish sent out an e-mail announcing that the first episode of Bloodline was available for sale.

I was already preoccupied with other non-Dark Shadows related business and couldn't do any more than tweet about the news (though I did work in 30 minutes to listen to the episode during a break.) Given what happens during the final seconds of the episode, it might be worth mentioning that yesterday was the late Humbert Allen Astredo's birthday. Or maybe it's not worth mentioning. I have questions! And confusion! But that's not different from any other day of the week, to be honest.

Bloodline is going to be a bitch to discuss for all the usual reasons. It's going to be serialized over the coming weeks and it's always difficult to discuss an incomplete story. There's also the spoiler factor to consider; not everybody is going to be able to listen to Bloodline at the same pace and I'd love to end our coverage of the series without anyone pissed off at me. (I don't even know if mentioning Astredo's name here is a spoiler or a bad guess.)

We've got plans to deal with all of that, and hopefully we'll be able to say more during the next few days.

In the meantime, Big Finish has included a feature about Dark Shadows: Bloodline in their latest issue of Vortex, which you can download HERE. The producers have been keeping much of the cast of the serial a secret, but reveal in the interview that Burke Devlin (and presumably Mitchell Ryan) will be returning to Collinsport during Bloodline.

You can get the first episode HERE.