A cult classic of the vampire television genre, "Dark Shadows" is a gothic soap opera that began airing in 1966. Despite only airing for five years, the show released a new episode about the Collins family every weekday, meaning the final episode count is 1,225. The saga begins with Victoria Winters, an orphaned young woman who is hired to look after David Collins. What follows is the typical melodramatic tangle of soap opera storylines, with vampires, ghosts, zombies, witches, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures thrown in the mix. Time travel and alternate realities also play a major role in the series, creating a complex web of drama.