Damon Dark
Encyclopedia
Damon Dark is a science fiction
series from Australia
, created by and featuring Adrian Sherlock.
, with Damon and various female Agents, first Candy Ryan, then Veruca Stone, setting off on an investigation, usually centered around UFO sightings and conspiracies.
, Damon Dark found a new audience in 2006, where it has been revived and continues to this day as a web series, featuring Adrian Sherlock in the role he originally created.
In 2007, the Damon Dark format was reinvented to better suit the web series. Damon had begun working for friendly aliens known as Transdimensional Control, who had recruited him to fight in a Galaxy-spanning war against a force called the Cygnus Collective.
Each episode then typically began with Damon appearing from thin air, out of a "time portal", in the location for the story. The series continues via these exclusive YouTube episodes. In December 2008 Damon Dark returned to broadcast television in Melbourne, with the controversial episode "Terror 9/11".
Because of the low budget, the web series has largely been set on contemporary Earth. Apart from its longevity, the series has also been notably influential on other aspiring film makers,such as Trea Cotton and Miguel Maldonado. Some of these contacts have assisted in developing and perpetuating the series. Because of the nature of independent productions it is unclear if Damon Dark is actually the longest-running independent series in the world. It should be noted that any episode guide to Damon Dark in its present form is bound to be incomplete, as new episodes are being made on a regular basis.
, the actress later became a professional within the industry, most famously appearing as Sally Kirk in Neighbours
. Another Neighbours luminary to appear was Andrew Dunn
, an actor who had also appeared in the movie Chopper
. Both appeared in the Damon Dark serial "Maddox".
A third actor with professional credits was Chris Heaven, who expanded his cameo into his own spin-off series.
Though Sherlock directed two of the original three stories himself, the second, "Maddox", was directed by Karl Siemon, who has since gone on to become a professional cinematographer
with five movies to his credit including Radio Samurai, The Razor Eaters and Hotel Motel.
Ed Bishop
was also due to be involved with the series during its early inception, as detailed further in "Unmade Episodes".
Adrian Sherlock himself has been a professional in the acting business for many years, appearing uncredited in ABC TV's award-winning Boy Soldiers (1990) and his own stage show Naked in the Fernery in 2007. He's also appeared in uncredited featured roles in TV commercials and a short-lived ABC TV legal drama called Inside Running (1989) where he played the Clerk of the Court.
The fundamental change was that Douglas had decided to recast the central role, with Bruce Hughes playing Damon. Bruce Hughes is an actor of considerable professional experience, including a role as Commander Wellington in the popular children's science fiction series Ocean Girl
and a role in the 2007 movie Ghost Rider
. Adrian Sherlock's own recollection was that "This was sad for me, but I liked the actor."
Recently, the 2009 episode "The Cosmic Magician" has introduced a new adversary for Damon Dark, a time-meddler played by Oliver McNeil, who had previously achieved a degree of recognition in the British media and on YouTube for an independent series called Barry the Demon Hunter in which McNeil played the title character, a hero inspired by Joss Whedon
's series Buffy and Angel. McNeil followed up this first Damon Dark appearance with "Revenge of the Magician".
In 2010, British film director Brett Gerry wrote a blog about the impact of Damon Dark on web video and became involved as a writer, scripting Damon Dark episode "Hidden Camera, Hidden Truth" in which Damon Dark's life is seen apparently by hidden video cameras in his home and two part story "Is there anybody out there?".
initially agreed to appear as "Ed", an ageing UFO expert in Damon Dark: Shadowfall, the first story following the 1999 season. Ed Bishop's own suggestion was that "Ed should be a bum on skid-row, washing dishes in a restaurant" when Damon meets him, because "nothing runs downhill faster than a thoroughbred". Funding for the story fell through and the project was abandoned, though Shadowfall was eventually recorded as a tribute audio play in 2005. The story was reported in more detail, including some plot information, in an article titled "The Bluffers Guide to UFO" in Issue 11 of English magazine Scifi Now. The character of Ed was a reference to Ed Straker, the UFO hunter played by Bishop in the early 1970s SF series UFO
.
, began life in 2008. In 2009's Damon Dark episode "The Space Prison", Vincent Kosmos died in a manner reminiscent of the death of Mr. Spock in the Star Trek
movies, sacrificing his life to save Damon Dark. Vincent Kosmos has since returned from the dead for a third season. Jack Knoll has also announced he is producing a spinoff webseries about the adventures of Young Damon Dark, concerning Damon's first UFO and alien encounter during his formative years, based on Damon Dark's backstory. More recently, Trea Cotton has produced the pilot episode of his own spinoff, The Dr.Lansing Chronicles, featuring his own character who debuted in Damon Dark.
Damon Dark maintains an "open door" policy and has welcomed contributions from writers, actors, musicians, CGI animators and others from around the world who want to become involved and contribute to its development. In 2011, Jack Knoll ended Young Damon Dark with a film called Genesis of the Collective, featuring Young Damon (Jack Knoll) Damon Dark (Adrian Sherlock) Vincent Kosmos (Chris Heaven) The Magician (Oliver McNeil) and Lucy (Rachel Hunt). The film ends with young Damon on the road to becoming the adult character as we first meet him in the Channel 31 TV series. Chris Heaven began work on a final episode to wrap up the Vincent Kosmos series late in 2011. Meanwhile Damon Dark itself ended the year with Damon disappearing, apparently taken back in time to Nazi Germany by arch villain The Magician.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, created by and featuring Adrian Sherlock.
Origins of the Series
The series began as a semi-professional TV pilot episode called Damon Dark: "Timeslip" and when this was not picked up by TV networks, its creator made a continuation for community TV, through ERA (Eastern Regional Access) a branch of Community TV 31 in Melbourne. It was first broadcast on the local community television station Channel 31 Melbourne from September to October 1999, in an 11 PM, Thursday night timeslot and told the adventures of Damon Dark, an agent working for a Department Six, a secret service branch investigating and fighting against hostile alien incursions into Earth society. In the original TV run, the alien menace was unseen, operating through human agents which they either employed or controlled in some way. The final episode of the original run featured an alien which could adopt a human shape. The UFO itself was unseen, too, having landed under the sea. The series initially followed a similar format to The X-FilesThe X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
, with Damon and various female Agents, first Candy Ryan, then Veruca Stone, setting off on an investigation, usually centered around UFO sightings and conspiracies.
Continuation of the Series
A more expensive TV pilot was produced in 2000, with a different cast and a professional television director involved. Again, the pilot was not taken up. However, with the rise of YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Damon Dark found a new audience in 2006, where it has been revived and continues to this day as a web series, featuring Adrian Sherlock in the role he originally created.
In 2007, the Damon Dark format was reinvented to better suit the web series. Damon had begun working for friendly aliens known as Transdimensional Control, who had recruited him to fight in a Galaxy-spanning war against a force called the Cygnus Collective.
Each episode then typically began with Damon appearing from thin air, out of a "time portal", in the location for the story. The series continues via these exclusive YouTube episodes. In December 2008 Damon Dark returned to broadcast television in Melbourne, with the controversial episode "Terror 9/11".
Because of the low budget, the web series has largely been set on contemporary Earth. Apart from its longevity, the series has also been notably influential on other aspiring film makers,such as Trea Cotton and Miguel Maldonado. Some of these contacts have assisted in developing and perpetuating the series. Because of the nature of independent productions it is unclear if Damon Dark is actually the longest-running independent series in the world. It should be noted that any episode guide to Damon Dark in its present form is bound to be incomplete, as new episodes are being made on a regular basis.
Name Involvement
Damon Dark was the first television to feature Niobe Dean. Although famous on the Internet for her starring role in Broken AllegianceBroken Allegiance
Broken Allegiance is a fan film that made its debut on the internet in April 2002, created by Australian fans of the Star Wars franchise. It is a live-action drama set in the Star Wars universe, taking place a few weeks between the events in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back...
, the actress later became a professional within the industry, most famously appearing as Sally Kirk in Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
. Another Neighbours luminary to appear was Andrew Dunn
Andrew Dunn
Andrew Dunn may refer to:* Andrew Dunn , English actor* Andrew Dunn , British cinematographer* Andrew Dunn , 2003 Victoria Medal winner* Andrew Hunter Dunn, fifth bishop of Quebec-See also:...
, an actor who had also appeared in the movie Chopper
Chopper (film)
Chopper is a 2000 Australian film, written and directed by New Zealand film-maker Andrew Dominik and based on the semi-autobiographical books by Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read. The film stars Eric Bana as the title character, and co-stars Vince Colosimo, Simon Lyndon, Bill Young and David Field...
. Both appeared in the Damon Dark serial "Maddox".
A third actor with professional credits was Chris Heaven, who expanded his cameo into his own spin-off series.
Though Sherlock directed two of the original three stories himself, the second, "Maddox", was directed by Karl Siemon, who has since gone on to become a professional cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
with five movies to his credit including Radio Samurai, The Razor Eaters and Hotel Motel.
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
was also due to be involved with the series during its early inception, as detailed further in "Unmade Episodes".
Adrian Sherlock himself has been a professional in the acting business for many years, appearing uncredited in ABC TV's award-winning Boy Soldiers (1990) and his own stage show Naked in the Fernery in 2007. He's also appeared in uncredited featured roles in TV commercials and a short-lived ABC TV legal drama called Inside Running (1989) where he played the Clerk of the Court.
The First Television Broadcast (1999)
The first three serials consisting of five episodes were broadcast on Melbourne's Channel 31 from September to October 1999.The Pilot (2000)
After Adrian Sherlock had completed the first Damon Dark series, Producer Jennifer Douglas decided to co-produce a semi-professional version. Using a script from Sherlock, sponsorship was obtained and TV drama director Chris Langman and James Kalish directed the episode.The fundamental change was that Douglas had decided to recast the central role, with Bruce Hughes playing Damon. Bruce Hughes is an actor of considerable professional experience, including a role as Commander Wellington in the popular children's science fiction series Ocean Girl
Ocean Girl
Ocean Girl is an Australian science fiction TV series aimed for family audiences and starring Marzena Godecki as the lead character...
and a role in the 2007 movie Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider (film)
Ghost Rider is a 2007 superhero film written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Based on the character of the same name which appeared in Marvel Comics, the film stars Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcyclist who sells his soul to the Devil and transforms into thevigilante Ghost...
. Adrian Sherlock's own recollection was that "This was sad for me, but I liked the actor."
Continuation of the Series (2006-2011)
When the revamped pilot didn't take off, Sherlock decided to resurrect his creation for the Internet generation. Back in the lead role a series of new adventures were successful on YouTube achieving around 200,000 hits by 2009 figures. Reactions to Damon Dark on YouTube have included interest from musicians, actors, special effects creators and aspiring screenwriters all offering contributions to the webseries. Some Damon Dark episodes have also been uploaded to Openfilm.com, Dailymotion and Revver.Recently, the 2009 episode "The Cosmic Magician" has introduced a new adversary for Damon Dark, a time-meddler played by Oliver McNeil, who had previously achieved a degree of recognition in the British media and on YouTube for an independent series called Barry the Demon Hunter in which McNeil played the title character, a hero inspired by Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
's series Buffy and Angel. McNeil followed up this first Damon Dark appearance with "Revenge of the Magician".
In 2010, British film director Brett Gerry wrote a blog about the impact of Damon Dark on web video and became involved as a writer, scripting Damon Dark episode "Hidden Camera, Hidden Truth" in which Damon Dark's life is seen apparently by hidden video cameras in his home and two part story "Is there anybody out there?".
The Second Television Broadcast (2009)
Damon Dark returned to community TV with the YouTube episode Terror 9/11 being shown on Australian television in late 2008. The screenings, in many Australian States, were part of a series showcasing Australian short films, "The Anthology of Interest", produced by Graham Garfield Barnard.Possible cancellation of the Series
In July 2010 Sherlock decided to cancel the series, deleting the YouTube account and looking at taking Damon Dark to the stage and other mediums such as a series of original audio plays. However, Adrian Sherlock was persuaded by online fans to continue the series and returned to producing new episodes in December 2010. In 2011, a second YouTube account was established, TheDamonDarkChannel, which is exclusively dedicated to a small number of episodes deemed to be the "best of" Damon Dark. As of late 2011, having become a YouTube Partner, Adrian Sherlock has begun making a new series of Damon Dark which takes the character in a different direction. In this new version, Damon has lost his memory and while he claims to be a stranded time-traveller, no one believes his claims. An unseen psychiatrist character recurs in the series, trying to convince Damon that his memories of time travel and alien encounters are mental delusions. As the series is depending upon its creator to continue, it may never be truly considered cancelled while the possibility exists that he will produce new installments.List of episodes
| Episode | Title | Production Date | Duration |
|---|
Unmade Episodes
Ed BishopEd Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
initially agreed to appear as "Ed", an ageing UFO expert in Damon Dark: Shadowfall, the first story following the 1999 season. Ed Bishop's own suggestion was that "Ed should be a bum on skid-row, washing dishes in a restaurant" when Damon meets him, because "nothing runs downhill faster than a thoroughbred". Funding for the story fell through and the project was abandoned, though Shadowfall was eventually recorded as a tribute audio play in 2005. The story was reported in more detail, including some plot information, in an article titled "The Bluffers Guide to UFO" in Issue 11 of English magazine Scifi Now. The character of Ed was a reference to Ed Straker, the UFO hunter played by Bishop in the early 1970s SF series UFO
UFO (TV series)
UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...
.
Spin Offs
Damon Dark has also been self-published by Adrian Sherlock in novella form, with the first book, Damon Dark: Biodome. However, possibly the most significant spin off is the creation of a "sister" webseries featuring a professional actor Chris Heaven. Heaven had appeared in the film Garibaldi il generale and was the writer of two television projects. His own series, Vincent KosmosVincent Kosmos
Vincent Kosmos is a Spin-off to the Popular Damon Dark webseries. It focuses on a rogue Time-Thief, bent on stealing valuable pieces of art and flirting with women. However, the series focuses more on Kosmos's confrontation with other alien enemies...
, began life in 2008. In 2009's Damon Dark episode "The Space Prison", Vincent Kosmos died in a manner reminiscent of the death of Mr. Spock in the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
movies, sacrificing his life to save Damon Dark. Vincent Kosmos has since returned from the dead for a third season. Jack Knoll has also announced he is producing a spinoff webseries about the adventures of Young Damon Dark, concerning Damon's first UFO and alien encounter during his formative years, based on Damon Dark's backstory. More recently, Trea Cotton has produced the pilot episode of his own spinoff, The Dr.Lansing Chronicles, featuring his own character who debuted in Damon Dark.
Damon Dark maintains an "open door" policy and has welcomed contributions from writers, actors, musicians, CGI animators and others from around the world who want to become involved and contribute to its development. In 2011, Jack Knoll ended Young Damon Dark with a film called Genesis of the Collective, featuring Young Damon (Jack Knoll) Damon Dark (Adrian Sherlock) Vincent Kosmos (Chris Heaven) The Magician (Oliver McNeil) and Lucy (Rachel Hunt). The film ends with young Damon on the road to becoming the adult character as we first meet him in the Channel 31 TV series. Chris Heaven began work on a final episode to wrap up the Vincent Kosmos series late in 2011. Meanwhile Damon Dark itself ended the year with Damon disappearing, apparently taken back in time to Nazi Germany by arch villain The Magician.