One Of ABC's Most Popular Soap Operas Was Nearly Canceled - Until A Vampire Joined The Cast

While vampires are known for draining the life out of things, they sometimes bring newfound immortal life. Metaphorically, the latter is what happened to one failing TV soap opera. When 1966's "Dark Shadows" premiered, it was struggling to survive its first year — and it took a charismatic bloodsucker to give it new life.

Created by Dan Curtis, the show's premise originally mirrored a standard Gothic romance novel, following a young governess arriving at the mysterious Collinwood estate in Maine. The show, which had some fragments of the supernatural, was devoid of the undead. As director John Sedgwick once put it, according to Woman's World, "There wasn't all that much happening."

As viewership numbers failed to impress, ABC issued an ultimatum. "The show was limping along, really limping," head writer Sam Hall recalled, per Soaps in Depth. "And ABC said, 'We're canceling it. Unless you pick up in 26 weeks, you're finished.'" Desperate to save the series, Curtis decided to fully dive into the supernatural; thus, one of TV's greatest vampires was born. "Dan Curtis had always wanted to do a vampire picture, so he decided to bring a vampire — Barnabas Collins — on the series," Hall explained.

According to producer Robert Costello, he actually pulled the name Barnabas from an 18th-century tombstone in Queens, New York, because it "just sounded right." In April 1967, classical actor Jonathan Frid made his debut as the 175-year-old vampire, who had been slumbering in a chained coffin since 1795.

Dan Curtis' ghoulish gamble paid off instantly. "Dark Shadows" became a pop culture sensation with one of the wildest soap opera storylines on TV, and Frid was suddenly launched into rock-star levels of fame. "It was the time of The Beatles, and I was getting something of the same kind of treatment that they were," Frid recalled, per Soaps in Depth. Curtis initially intended for Barnabas to be a short-term villain, planning to kill him off. However, as ratings skyrocketed, the writers leaned in to making Barnabas a sympathetic monster. Frid described, "He was a man with an addiction who drank blood only to survive."

Even though its vampire star's arrival warded off cancellation, "Dark Shadows" wasn't entirely immortal. It ended up airing for five years, producing 1,225 episodes. The show hit its ratings peak in 1969, but viewership began to dwindle by 1970, and the coffin was closed for good in April 1971. But Barnabas lived on. The character was resurrected again for NBC's 1991 "Dark Shadows" reboot, starring Ben Cross as the bloodsucker, and Tim Burton helmed his 2012 film adaptation of the series, starring Johnny Depp.