Victoria Winters arrives by train to Collinsport, where she has been hired by the Collins family to tutor their youngest member, David.

Meanwhile, Willie Loomis and his girlfriend Kelly Vance go to the Collinwood crypt in search of treasure, and open the locked coffin of Barnabas Collins.

He later attacks Elizabeth's daughter Carolyn Stoddard, who is walking to her car from a romantic encounter with Joe Haskell on his boat.

Alec Newman went on to play a grown up David Collins in an audio series of Dark Shadows produced by the British company Big Finish, which was created as a continuation of the first T.V.

TV Guide reported in November 2003 that The WB had secured the rights to adapt the 1966–1971 gothic soap opera Dark Shadows into a new television series.

[9] It starred Alec Newman as Barnabas, Marley Shelton as Victoria, Blair Brown as Elizabeth, Martin Donovan as Roger, Kelly Hu as Dr. Hoffman, and Jessica Chastain as Carolyn.

[5][9][12] WB chairman Garth Ancier said in July 2005, "We had a new director [Hogan] come in who was accomplished in movies but frankly didn't do a particularly good job ...

"[9] Jeff Thompson wrote in The Television Horrors of Dan Curtis that The WB later regretted their decision, as the 2004–2005 season saw the debut of several popular "mystical and quirky" series like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, and Supernatural.

[9] In his book Dark Shadows, Harry M. Benshoff wrote, "Perhaps the most interesting thing about the pilot was its luridly lit visual design, one more reminiscent of Italian horror films by Mario Bava and/or Dario Argento than the original series.