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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 2856" data-attributes="member: 22">10/Jan/80: KNOTS LANDING: "Let Me Count the Ways" v. 11/Jan/80: DALLAS: "Paternity Suit" In "Let Me Count The Ways", ambitious lawyer Richard Avery campaigns aggressively to elected to the school board. He fails. In "Paternity Suit", ambitious lawyer Cliff Barnes campaigns aggressively to get elected to Congress. He fails. In each case, Richard and Cliff's story serves as a springboard for the main plot of their episode, which deals with marital difficulties. There the similarity ends - while JR and Sue Ellen's problems are splashed over the front page of the Dallas Press, Sid Fairgate spends the whole ep blissfully unaware that there are any problems in his marriage.On KNOTS, Richard is campaigning against David Crane, a groovy teacher at Knots Landing High intent on educating the kids about a whole bunch of controversial issues - guns, drugs, teenage sexuality, venereal disease - all of which will eventually find their way onto the cul-de-sac itself. (OK, maybe no one on Seaview Circle will actually contract VD, but it will prove key to exposing Jill Bennett's attempt to kill Val in Season 10.) While Richard runs around with a megaphone, Karen dares to look in the bathroom mirror and confront some real soap opera taboos: ageing, the menopause, what was once firm now starting to droop. Over on DALLAS, JR and Sue Ellen must also face some of the realities they have striven to insulate themselves against. Having been sued by Cliff for paternity of John Ross, they're obliged to sit in a doctor's waiting room to await blood tests. Watching them briefly co-exist with some poor people and their poor people's germs is really funny. For Sue Ellen, the prospect of living in the world outside of Southfork on a more permanent basis becomes scarily real when JR promises her that if Cliff is proven to be the daddy, he'll divorce her immediately and "you, my dear, can walk the streets." (Foreshadow Alert: Sue Ellen will indeed walk the streets both in Pam's dream and in a parallel DALLAS universe once removed, i.e. the deleted scene on the new series DVD where she mentions that she was once "almost homeless".)"Let Me Count The Ways" remains an early KNOTS gem. Every time I watch it, something new leaps out at me. This time, it's the perfume ritual twice performed by Karen in front of the bathroom mirror, first before bedtime with Sid, then again as she prepares for her date with David. And I really like the Fairgate kitchen scene that introduces the episode, where Michael (the face of a twelve-year-old boy, the voice of Marge Simpson) offers romantic advice to his shy elder brother. I'm still a little confused by the scene where Sid brings home the nonstick pans and forces Karen to watch him fry cheese. Who fries cheese? And is the assumption that it tastes as bad as it looks, or is it that just that Sid could get so excited about something so mundane that prompts Karen to arrange her assignation with David? (How generous of Cliff Barnes to lend them his apartment, considering all he's got on his plate this week, and how discreet of Digger to make himself scarce - unless he was passed out behind a cheese plant.) David's "Do I make the bed" speech and Karen's midlife monologue ("more endings than beginnings") are classics. There's no room for the Wards or Gary in this ep, and Laura and Val only get a couple of scenes each. It really is Karen's episode. Her latent activism, her attraction to a younger man, her personal insecurities and her instincts as a parent are all fused together in this story. Given David Jacobs' claim that Karen is the KNOTS character he most identified with, it's not surprising she should be the most fully realised female on the show. It's the other wives' lack of identity, and their various attempts to remedy that, that will define each of them as the series progresses. This is second episode in a row where Karen enters a libidinous man's room, gets his little engine running and then abruptly walks out. When Laura tries that, it's "The Lie." Here, it's BRIEF ENCOUNTER meets DEAD POETS SOCIETY. It's also the 80s soaps' first (and maybe best) older woman/younger man scenario. "Paternity Suit" also contains a few milestones, such as the first time we see JR and Marilee Stone together when we learn that Marilee is not just another bitchy wife but the real owner of her husband's oil company (which will help explain his suicide later in the season). Jock and Cliff come as close as they ever will to an actual confrontation when Cliff tries to attack JR in the Cattleman's Club - a much more salubrious establishment here than the big-boobs-and-sawdust hang out it will later become. ("Cool it, boy!" Jock snarls.) Jock also has more interaction with Sue Ellen than ever before, as he insists she sues Cliff for slander. Once again, there is plenty of humour in this episode: as well as the aforementioned waiting room scene and Kristin gloating over her sister's scandal, it's great fun watching Sue Ellen and JR squirm as Jock and Harve Smithfield (George O. Petrie is very funny here) self-righteously discuss the best way to publicly punish Cliff for his outrageous lies.There are unexpected pockets of poignancy too: Sue Ellen confiding her fears to Bobby on the cardboard patio ("I just never imagined my life would turn out like this") and of course the final moments of the episode, where JR picks up and kisses Baby Josh for the first time. It's an absolute turning point for the whole DALLAS saga and seems even more resonant in light of the new series. I guess the equivalent scenes in New DALLAS would be the "you're my son from tip to tail" scene at the end of Season 1, and their final phone call together. If the end of "Paternity Suit" is JR saying hello to his son, then that phone call is him bidding him good-bye.I think John Ross's nursery is now my favourite room at Southfork, even more than Jock's den. It's the hushed nighttime scenes, where there's something haunting about the brightly decorated room and the dark shadowy lighting. It's also the place where the characters are at their most unguarded and isolated (aside from Baby Josh).Speaking of dark, I've always loved the moment where Cliff, having learned that he is not the daddy, refuses to take solace in knowing that the baby is safe from neurofibromatosis. Pam marvels at his bitterness - that he would rather the kid be his and die than JR's and live. It hearkens back to JR and Sue Ellen's silent relief at the end of "Barbecue" that Pam's baby is dead. It also now resonates with Cliff's willingness to sacrifice his (and Pam's) grandchildren in New DALLAS.Similarly, Jock's warning to JR regarding Cliff - "You take away a man's dignity and he'll do almost anything to get it back" - echoes what he told him about subtlety back at the start of the series ("A lack of it turns competitors into enemies and enemies into fanatics") as well as foreshadowing the shooting of JR at the end of this season. In addition, it now serves as a prophecy of what Cliff turns out to be capable of in 2013.With "Ewings Unite" being such a prominent theme of the new series, references to the family sticking together seem far more pertinent than they ever used to. In this episode, Miss Ellie responds to the paternity scandal by throwing a cocktail party. (“Honey, the Ewings have nerves of steel,” murmurs Andy Bradley's wife.) By the same token, Sue Ellen deals with her public humiliation by wearing her most revealing party dress of the entire series. This seems to be a variation on the philosophy later espoused by Fallon in Season 1 of DYNASTY: "The poor cut back in hard times, that's why they're poor. The rich know that's the time to spend."So much happens in "Paternity Suit" - as well as everything else, Sue Ellen also finds time to start an affair - and it's really thrilling and funny and poignant.And so the winner is … DALLAS.</blockquote>

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