Strange...

Reverend Matt Dawson: Where's Holly?

Dinah: You really got a thing for her, haven't you, Reverend? Come on, she knows it - so do most of the kids. It's as obvious as (actress looks around room) - a psychedelic poster.

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Reverend Matt Dawson: "Holly! Nice to see you here, what a pleasant surprise".

Holly Marshall: "You mean making the church scene? Forget it, Reverend, I'm not resting...(actress realises she's fucked it up) ...I'm not praying, just resting".

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Dr. Alison Carr: "Money isn't the answer to everything".

Tim Stanton: "Why don't you tell that to the ugly at the bar? He's after 162 pounds of flesh - all me".

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Raxl: "Open the secret doors to the catacombs!"

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Rexl: "You dare to fly in the face of God?"

Jean-Paul Desmond: "On this island, from this moment forward, I AM God".

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Dan Forrest: "Mmn, I thought Doctors were supposed to smell medicinal, not sexy".

Strange Paradise

Strange...

Dr. Menkin: "Until the people from the Cryonic Society arrive to replace the dry ice, there's nothing else we can do to preserve your wife".

Strange Paradise

Strange Paradise

Woah, 'Strange Paradise' is a bit of an odd one to get slightly obsessed with but, I'm afraid, it has me in its wobbly clutches. A daily, live soap opera produced in Canada (part of the Commonwealth, so technically within The Island's remit) the show ran between October 1969 and January 1970.

Designed as a rival to the hugely successful US gothic soap 'Dark Shadows' (1,000 episodes and a film), it never really captured the public imagination in the same way but is its equal in its unholy mix of banal soap opera and horror. The actors are poor and quite often struggle with their lines, the scripts are alternately boring and outrageous, the locations limited (many episodes simply cut back and forth between two sets) and, best of all, it occasionally tries to be hip and happening with highly amusing results. But it's strangely compelling, like watching an amateur production of Lovecraft with all the atmosphere and tentacles taken out. Despite only being on air for four months, there's 185 episodes of this, and three distinct story arcs and casts. 

As a flavour, here's a synopsis of the mind boggling first episode: Jean-Paul Desmond is the millionaire owner of a tropical island called Maljardin. His beloved wife Erica has just died suddenly. Jean Paul cannot accept this, and decides to have her body cryonically frozen. In the front room of his mansion, Jean Paul is addressed by the portrait of his notorious ancestor, Jacques Eloi DesMondes. DesMondes (who is the spitting image of Jean-Paul, allowing the same actor to play him in flashbacks) offers to return life to Erica if Jean-Paul will help him to live again. To this end, Jean-Paul visits the family crypt, locates DesMonde's coffin, opens it, finds a a voodoo doll with a silver pin through its head, removes the pin and is promptly taken over by the malevolent DesMondes...

Yes. I know, I know. Here's a clip from a randomly selected episode, number 64, I believe. I haven't quite got this far myself, so I don't know what's going on either.