The Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dark Shadows Connection
SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
Is Buffy the Vampire Slayer a rip-off of Dark Shadows? You bet! Of course, Dark Shadows is a rip-off of old classic novels such as The Picture of Dorian Grey and Rebecca. So yes, both television shows don’t come up with the most unique plots, but what they both do is put their own special twist on every storyline and every character, and that’s why we love ‘em.
I personally worship both of the series, and that’s why I chose to make this page. It points out plot/character similarities, as well as distinctive twists that the shows came up with themselves and is unmatchable to any other.
Sunnydale
A little nowhere town in California that just happens to be the Hellmouth-and the setting for BTVS. The Hellmouth is a place where creatures gather and wreak havoc on innocent, unsuspecting citizens. In other words, you don’t wanna live there.
Vs.
Collinsport
A small fishing village in Maine where supernatural beings and other oogly googlies, along with the very rich and prestigious Collins family, reside in a state of turmoil. There’s no real explanation for why everything happens there, but I just assume it’s the Hellmouth for us east coast-ians.
Buffy Summers
The main character of Buffy and the one in which the series revolves around. That’s ‘cuz she’s the Slayer-or for you incredibly clueless people, the one person in all the world chosen to destroy vampires and save mankind from other supernatural-like demons and stuff. Conveniently, she and her Slayerettes (or the Scooby Gang, whichever you prefer) live on the Hellmouth, more commonly known as Sunnydale.
Buffy is, I think, nineteen now, very beautiful and supposedly intelligent, though I don’t see it. She is my least favorite character on the show because she’s whiny and dumb and one big know-it-all. Anyways, she’s in love with Angel, a vampire with a soul…well, now she’s been hanging out with trigger-happy ex-GI Joe Riley Finn, but she’ll always have a soft spot for the gloomy vamp. *Retch*
Vs.
Dr. Julia Hoffman
Julia is one of the only intelligent women characters on Dark Shadows. She’s an older lady-early fifties, I’m guessing-but still very beautiful and very strong-willed. She’s loyal to her best friend Barnabas, the dark sympathetic vampire-and is also in love with him. Somehow it’s a lot sweeter than Buffy and Angel’s relationship, probably because Barnabas never wakes up and realizes Julia’s love for him. (Too busy pining for his sweet Josette. *Double retch*)
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Victoria Winters
I’ve never seen any of the episodes with Vicki in them, but she was the main character on DS for awhile as David’s governess so she has to be counted. She is young and smart and pretty, like Buffy, and solves all the mysteries, like Buffy, and has a season for a last name, like Buffy. How ‘bout that, eh?
Barnabas Collins (The Nice Guy)
Barnabas is a brooding vampire who hates to kill. Simple as that. He’s pretty smart, and likes to get himself in situations he can’t get out of easily (something to do, I guess). He was evil for a bit, so when he’s nice he always feels guilty and goes around helping everyone until someone makes him go all psycho again. And he practices I-Ching.
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Angel
Angel is a brooding vampire with a soul, and he hates to kill. He’s just like Barnabas, except a lot cuter comparatively, though I really don’t think Angel is all that attractive anyway. He’s always on a major guilt-trip, so he figures that maybe if he helps everyone he comes across that somehow his conscience will cleansed and he’ll be at peace with himself. It doesn’t work, but he continues to save people in need anyway. And he practices Tai Chi.
Vs.
Barnabas (The Bad Guy)
When Barny is evil he beats up his only friend, kidnaps Maggie and forces her to do stuff, kills people when it suits his needs and all the while acting like a gentleman. He’s pretty damn cool when he’s mean.
Vs.
Angelus
Angelus is Angel when he doesn’t have a soul. When he’s Angelus he kills people for fun, tortures a young girl until she goes mentally insane then makes her a vampire so she can be insane eternally, is rotten and mean to his old friends, wears cool leather pants and is totally a riot! I love Angelus; he’s sooo much better than Angel. ;)
Willow Rosenberg
Buffy’s best friend and practicing witch. Very smart and really sweet. I don’t have much to say on her-except she dated Oz the werewolf, and then realized she was a lesbian and started dating Tara. Um, and she’s got really cool hair.
Vs.
Angelique Bouchard
Angelique is a witch and wanted to marry Quentin the werewolf, but that’s where the similarities between Willow and her end. Angelique is evil, and immortal, and blonde. She’s also in love with Barnabas, like Julia, but Willow wasn’t in love with Angel or whatever so I’m not sure of what point I’m making here.
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Maggie Evans
Willow is a lot more like Maggie. Maggie is young and pretty, very naïve and sweet. She fell in love with Quentin the werewolf too, though I believe that was Angelique’s doing. A vampire-Barnabas-also kidnapped her, like Willow was kidnapped by Spike.
Xander Harris
Xander is kind of the useless guy of the group, though he helps out as much as possible which makes him essential to the Scooby Gang. He’s really funny and pretty cute, I haveta say. He uses his sense of humor to get out of tough situations, and he’s generally a nice, likeable guy.
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Willie Loomis
Willie was the poor schmuck that opened Barnabas’s coffin, therefore making him an unlucky guy, like Xander. Willie is a nervous, nice guy who also makes jokes to get out of things. I think he’s a cutie, too.
Rupert Giles
An older English man, really intelligent and wise. He’s the Watcher of Buffy-the person who oversees all the things the Slayer has to face/do. He seems to know everything, and is the man the Slayerettes go to when they need to get some information on something.
Vs.
Professor Elliot Stokes
An older man, really intelligent and wise. He’s a professor and Dr. Julia Hoffman’s good friend and colleague. He also seems to know everything, and is the man Julia or Barnabas generally goes to if they need to get information on something.
Oz
Oz is Sunnydale’s resident werewolf. He dated Willow for a while, then cheated on her with a female werewolf (how’s that for bizarre?) and skipped town to try and find a cure. For the wolf thing. Not the cheating thing.
I liked Oz a lot; and the Scooby Gang dealt with his werewolf issue rather effectively compared to DS-you see, every night there was a full moon they’d stick Oz into a cage and keep watch over him ‘till morning. On DS, however, whenever there was a full moon Quentin would just kinda get drunk, transform, kill someone and awake somewhere in the woods all bloody. Likewise, Chris did the same-except for a little while Julia and Barnabas forced him to stay at Windcliff (the mental institution) full time, which was better than just letting him go out and kill, but pretty dumb cuz they could’ve just stuck him on nights when there was a full moon. Oh well. I never said Dark Shadow-ians had common sense.
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Quentin Collins
Quentin was Collinwood’s resident werewolf in 1897. I believe he only killed one person by name-Dorkas, I’m pretty sure it was her.
Q-man is really nothing like Oz. While Oz is calm and quite and nice, Quentin was hotheaded, loud and obnoxious. Oz pretty much stuck to one girl, Quentin was sexually linked to nearly all the woman in Collinsport-Jenny (his wife)…Amanda/Olivia Cory…Maggie Evans…Laura Stockbridge-Collins (his brother’s wife!)…Angelique Bouchard…Angelique Stokes…Alexis Stokes…Pansy Fey…Beth Chavez…wow, Q was really slut, wasn’t he? *g*
Anyway, even their appearance was contradictory. Oz-short, different colored hair, kinda elfish-looking…Quentin-tall, plain brown hair, intimidating look.
Vs.
Chris Jennings
Chris is more like Oz, I think-he’s shorter than Quentin, at least. Chris was quieter, though still pretty hotheaded like his grandfather (don’t ask). He was pretty committed to his fiancée Sabrina Stuart at least, except for that little fling with Carolyn Stoddard after he scared Sabrina so much by his werewolf transformation he turned her hair white.
I liked Chris a lot, though I really don’t know why. I was sad that they never resolved his werewolf issue.
Drusilla
Dru was the completely insane vampire girlfriend of Spike. She would go around with her weird dolls and have psychic predictions every now and then. She was made insane By Angelus, her sire and lover for a bit.
Vs.
Jenny Collins
Jenny was the completely insane wife of Quentin. She would go around with her dolls, calling them her babies and singing to them. She went insane after Quentin ran off with Laura Stockbridge-Collins, and so Edward decided he would keep her locked up in the tower room for the rest of her life. Great guy, huh?
Jenny Calendar
Jenny was a Techno Pagan and Giles’s girlfriend for a while (until Angelus went and killed her in the one episode where I absolutely hated him). She was also a Gypsy and her ancestors were the people who cursed Angel into becoming a vampire in the first place. Before she was killed she established a cure for getting Angel’s soul back, but unfortunately it wasn’t found in time.
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Magda Racossi
Magda was a Gypsy living in the Old House during the late 1800s, Quentin’s time. In fact, she was the one who cursed Quentin into becoming a werewolf in the first place after he killed her sister Jenny. Then she tried to un-curse him when she realized her nephew was in danger of being a victim of the same fate. Barnabas (you know-that vampire) was her good friend and she tried to help him out several times.
Spike
Spike is the grooviest vampire this side of Lestat! He is witty, evil and man he’s HOT!!!!! ;)
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Reverend Gregory Trask
Okay, so Trasky isn’t as good-looking as Spike-he’s still wicked evil, and the best villain on DS.
Now that’s all the character similarities I can think of for right now. I suppose I’ll go on with plot resemblances between the two shows.
Dark Shadows Parallel Time
Barnabas accidentally stumbles upon Parallel Time (that is, an alternate dimension where everyone from this time exists, but they are all different because they made different choices in that world.), finding out that everyone is really evil and wacked-out in this other dimension. In fact, he himself is dead in PT.
Vs.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Parallel Time
Cordelia accidentally stumbles upon Parallel Time, finding out that everyone is really evil and wacked-out in this other dimension. In fact, she gets killed in PT.
DS Best Friends=Love
Julia was in love with her best friend Barnabas Collins, a vampire.
Vs.
BTVS Best Friends=Love
Willow was in love with her best friend Xander Harris, vampire minion.
DS Hell
Nicholas Blair, Satan’s minion, comes from hell. Angelique also resides in hell most of the time, until she gets bored and decides to wreak havoc on the poor Collinses. Also, Amanda Harris dies and is sent to the Underworld, where her lover Quentin goes and, in Orpheus an’ Eurydice fashion, has to save Amanda by leading her out safely. The catch? If he touches her she has to stay in the Underworld. You can guess what happens.
Vs.
BTVS Hell
Buffy sends her lover Angel to hell. Miraculously, he comes back. I think there was an episode where Buffy had to go down to hell and save someone or something, but I can’t really recall.
Angelique and Buffy Connection:
Angelique, originally from the 18th century, went by the name Buffy in the 1960s.
Buffy turned into an 18th century girl after being cursed on Halloween.
DS If These Walls Could Talk:
Barnabas, in the seventeen hundreds, walled up the evil Rev. Trask, then Trask’s ghost starts roaming around trying to get someone to find his skeleton. Also, in 1897, Judith walls up her own husband Rev. Gregory Trask in the West Wing.
Vs.
BTVS If These Walls Could Talk:
In Cordelia’s apartment resides a ghost named Dennis who was walled up by his own mother. (Okay, technically this is from Angel. So sue me.)
More PT Connections:
Barnabas from Real Time ends up in Parallel Time.
Willow from Parallel Time ends up in Real Time.
That's it for now. You got anymore? e-mail me!
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