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Two productions from the 1990s offer different routes into long-running screen franchises: Roland Emmerich’s 1994 science-fiction film *Stargate* and NBC’s 1991 series *Dark Shadows: The Revival*. Both have been reported as available to watch free on YouTube. The reports focus on the works themselves, however, and do not establish how long either will remain available or whether access is the same in every country.

In *Stargate*, Egyptologist Daniel Jackson, played by James Spader, deciphers an ancient device that opens a passage to another world. He travels through it with a military team led by Colonel Jack O’Neil, played by Kurt Russell. Their destination has temples, a desert civilisation and a ruler claiming divine authority. The film unfolds as an expedition into an unfamiliar place before its alien threat comes into sharper view. Its large sets, location filming and crowd scenes give the journey much of its scale, even if some effects and supporting characters now seem less convincing. The film went on to provide the starting point for a much larger television franchise.

*Dark Shadows: The Revival* takes a more intimate approach to the supernatural. Joanna Going plays Victoria Winters, a governess who arrives in the Maine town of Collinsport to work for the wealthy Collins family. At their coastal home, Collinwood, she becomes caught up in secrets surrounding Barnabas Collins, played by Ben Cross. He presents himself as an English relative, but is a vampire whose interest in Victoria grows alongside the danger he poses to the town. The 12-episode series retells material from Dan Curtis’s original daytime soap at a faster pace, bringing Barnabas into the story early. Its cast also includes Barbara Steele as Dr Julia Hoffman and Jean Simmons as family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.

The two releases invite different kinds of rediscovery. *Stargate* is a self-contained adventure whose premise later supported years of television stories. The *Dark Shadows* revival condenses an existing serial, retaining its Gothic romance, family intrigue and supernatural history within a single season. Taken together, their reported YouTube availability gives viewers a chance to see a franchise at its beginning and another being reimagined for a new audience.

Where outlets differ

The *Stargate* report concentrates on the film’s scale, performances, effects and place before the television franchise. The *Dark Shadows* report concentrates on how the revival reshapes the original soap’s story, characters and pacing. They cover separate titles and make no competing claims about the same production.

• www.polygon.com
• www.polygon.com