Strange Paradise

This tripe caused me to have nightmares as a young child . It aired in the middle of the day back during it's original run and I watched unsupervised. The show is full of skulls, snakes , evil rabbits, death, fire etc. I've recently seen some of the episodes on Drive -In and have noticed it's poorly written, poorly acted, poorly filmed...everything you'd expect from Canadian television. I guess I've tuned in as a kind of therapy for what terror it caused me as a young child. This show is so bad , however it's really hard to sit through and I wouldn't recommend anyone else to watch it. I mean , not even it an I want to see a train wreck' or an Ed Wood movie sort of way.

Okay, so its production values aren't the highest. Still, STRANGE PARADISE is an entertaining ride, worthy of far more attention than it has garnered in the past 40 years. The series was produced as a daily serial (i.e. a soap opera), and was inspired by the phenomenal success of Dan Curtis' DARK SHADOWS. So, no, it is not slick or glossy. It was shot on a break-neck schedule in an effort to get the episodes done quickly for daily broadcasts. But if you're willing to watch a few episodes and give the story time to develop, it's really quite fascinating. And the scripts are better written than generally credited, particularly the early weeks penned by Ian Martin. STRANGE PARADISE is fairly obscure, but if you like horror stories in the vein of DARK SHADOWS and you have the chance to give it a look, it's well worth your time.

This aired when I attended grade school during the late 60's and 70's. It aired at noon hour n Newfoundland, and I would rush home on my lunch break to watch it with my Grandmother and Uncle. For me, it ranked right up there with the great American TV series of the day. Those were the days my friends.

There was a THIRD storyline that aired under a different show title that ran in 1971 in U.S. syndication---for the life of me I can't remember the title, but I watched it until it ended the same year. Could this be the discrepancy of the total number of episodes? It added a few assorted Dark Shadows writers and actors, probably Robert Costello's attempt to save the show. I remember it had a pretty high body count towards the end of the storyline! Hope someone else had seen this and could provide more details...

Thanks,

LarryM

I used to love this show when I was a kid. I was a total Dark Shadows fan and was heartbroken when it went off the air. Strange Paradise used to be on very, very late in New York and I would set my alarm clock to get up! (I was only 8!) No one I know has ever heard of this TV show and I thought I was crazy! I can still remember the creepy drums at the beginning of the show! It used to really scare me, much more so then Dark Shadows. Although I'm sure it wouldn't have the same reaction today! I did want to know if it was DVD but I guess that's considered a spoiler. If it was originally a Canadian TV series, I guess there is no way it would ever be rerun in the U.S. (Especially considering no one remembers it!) But at least now I know I'm not crazy!