A self-serving and conniving doctor in the fields of psychology and rare blood disorders, she is also head of the Windcliff Sanitarium, who moved into Collinwood and discovered the vampire Barnabas Collins.

“One of her signature lines, spoken in tentative, leading tones was “You mean...,” thus allowing another character to restate a bit more of the story and flesh out each episode.”[2] Julia Hoffman[3] was introduced as the head of Windcliff Sanitarium after Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott) was admitted after escaping from the vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who had wished to transform Maggie into a mental replica of his long-dead love Josette du Pres (also played by Scott).

In order to protect herself from the trauma Maggie had mentally regressed to childhood, playing with a doll given her by the ghost of Sarah Collins (Sharon Smyth) and singing "London Bridge".

By this time Julia clearly had her suspicions of what had happened to her patient, but constantly refused to elaborate to Dave, suggesting he find Maggie a new doctor if he didn't like her methods.

Dave Woodard then found out that Barnabas was actually the son of the eighteenth century Joshua Collins (Louis Edmonds) and stole Julia's notes from the experiments from her room in Collinwood.

Secretly, Julia began planting subconscious fears in Victoria's mind, hypnotizing the family governess and showing her Barnabas in his coffin.

As far as Julia and other séance participants were aware, Victoria suddenly reappeared in an eighteenth-century dress reacting as if she was being strangled (she had travelled back just as she was being hanged for witchcraft).

Unwilling to expose Barnabas as a vampire and reveal her true motivations for coming to Collinwood, Julia lied to Elizabeth that she had been close to suffering a nervous breakdown in her medical practice and left to write a book about the Collins family as therapy.

Julia's arrival prompted Barnabas to secretly plan an elaborate deception that would allow him to fight the evil Count Petofi more freely.

When Barnabas attempted to rescue her, a trap from Petofi's servant Aristede fired a gun at Julia, but the bullet did not harm her, as her real body only existed in 1969.

Realizing that something related to her time travel was affecting her astral body, Julia asked Angelique (Lara Parker) to finish the work she had started, and the former enemy agreed.

The two also discussed Quentin's portrait, Julia's agreement with Angelique to leave her alone, and Leviathan leader Jeb Hawkes's (Christopher Pennock) plans for Carolyn Stoddard.

Julia offered to inspect the damage to the carriage house with Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, allowing Barnabas the chance to search the east wing of Collinwood for Megan Todd's coffin.

Later, she questioned Elizabeth about the east wing, noting that she had realized only that day how little she truly knew about Collinwood, but learned little to help in her investigation of the strange occurrences Barnabas had witnessed.

Panicking because of his insatiable lust for blood, Barnabas rushed to the east wing parlor, hoping to finally enter Parallel Time and potentially be free of his curse.

She soon encountered William Loomis, and, although plagued with guilt over the murder of her counterpart, worked with the writer to find out if Hoffman had told Angelique about Barnabas' vampirism.

The witch attempted hypnosis to discover Barnabas' secret, which Julia resisted, and Angelique then explained that she would live out the rest of her life in the hidden room with no food or water, and with only two candles burning until they went out.

After Angelique's eventual defeat, Inspector Hamilton and Barnabas searched for Julia, but the doctor, overcome with weariness, had fallen asleep and did not hear their calls to her.

Later, Barnabas and Julia spoke with Victor Flagler, whose wife had been killed while visiting the ruins of Collinwood, but learned little to help them understand the disaster which occurred.

At Collinwood, Julia found a dagger on the drawing room desk and suggested that its appearance and the sound of tinkling music in the house was not intended to frighten them away.

When the two found Carolyn dead at Collinwood after writing a list of clues about the house's destruction, Julia followed Gerard's urgings and did not examine the body, which mysteriously disappeared moments later.

Julia brought several historical volumes loaned from Elizabeth to the drawing room to aid in the search for biographies of Gerard and Daphne, another ghost Barnabas had encountered in 1995.

After Barnabas went to astrologist Sebastian Shaw in an attempt to convince him to complete Carolyn's horoscope and prevent yet another of the clues, Julia received a telephone call at Collinwood, interrupting her perusal of 19th century tax records in an effort to locate Rose Cottage.

Although Shaw claimed to know nothing about what was to happen to the Great House, Julia walked in on him playing the piano in the drawing room, instantly recognizing the music she had heard in the playroom in 1995.

Although she was upset that Julia had escaped captivity in the lighthouse, Angelique agreed to help the doctor by attempting to contact the person who was truly using the black magic on Desmond.

She was unable to meet Stokes for his formal introduction at Collinwood that night, however, as the ghost of Roxanne Drew contacted Julia in a dream and attempted to show her where Barnabas, the prisoner of Lamar Trask, was being held.

This version of Julia Hoffman was a general practitioner specializing in the field of hematology and alternative medicine who had taken a sabbatical from her medical profession to spend time collating a comprehensive history of the Collins family, moving into Collinwood to work on her project.

However, even as the treatment worked she realised that not only had she fallen in love with the reluctant vampire, but he was intent on courting the Collins family governess Maggie Evans.

As a result, she deliberately sabotaged her own serum, which caused Barnabas to rapidly age after she gave him his last injection; in reaction he angrily strangled Julia to death.

On March 30, 2019, Big Finish Productions announced that actress Julie Newmar would be playing Julia in its upcoming Bloodlines miniseries of Dark Shadows audio dramas.