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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 3377" data-attributes="member: 22">20/11/80: KNOTS LANDING: Hitchhike (1) v. 21/11/80: DALLAS: Who Done It?When Karen called hitchhiking dangerous in "The Lie" (KNOTS Season 1), she was referring the risks a teenage girl (specifically her daughter) runs when getting into the car of a strange man. She wasn't thinking about the risks a man (specifically her husband) might be taking by letting a strange teenage girl into his car. "Hitchhike" deals with the latter scenario.This is the second episode of KNOTS in eleven months to focus on a false accusation of rape (or in this instance, assault with intent to rape.) Two out of DALLAS's first four episodes also included a false accusation of rape. In the DALLAS eps, the issue wasn't explored in any great depth. The message just seemed to be: When women get themselves into a jam, they cry rape. By contrast, "Hitchhike", like its predecessor, "The Lie", deals with the complexities of the subject in unexpected and fascinating ways. Nothing is quite as it seems, preconceptions are continually overturned: "We're not nice people … What we are doesn't give anyone the right to rape us." "Hitchhike" and "Who Done It?" both put a major character behind bars - Sid, briefly, for assault and Sue Ellen, overnight, for the small matter of shooting her husband. It's a blast to see Miss Texas put through the indignity of jail, but it's when she and Sid are released that things get really interesting. Sid's response to the assault accusation is to shrug it off and get on with his everyday life - Sid Fairgate rapist? No one's gonna believe that! (And to begin with, they don't - the police are sympathetic, even apologetic towards him, while Laura all but laughs with disbelief when she hears the news.) And so, Sid and Karen throw a welcome-to-the-neighbourhood party (just coffee and cake, out of consideration for a newly sober Gary) for Sid's visiting sister Abby. As soap diva entrances go, Abby's is decidedly low-key, although her unruly kids restore to the cul-de-sac some of the domestic noise and chaos that was present in the pilot episode. Unlike Sid, Sue Ellen has no everyday life to fall back on. As always, the Ewings have united against their common enemy - and this time, it's her. A mysterious benefactor might have posted her bail, but after that, she's on her own. It's kind of fascinating to watch an exiled Sue Ellen in action: first she takes a cab to Southfork and stands outside the gates looking in (as Ewing outsiders--Gary and Val in 1978, John Ross and Elena in 2012--are wont to do), then she turns up at Cliff's condo, then Kristin's, and then lurks outside Ewing Oil, where she begs Bobby to let her see her son. And what are those things she's suddenly wearing on an impressive variety of outfits, despite having no money or possessions to her name - shoulder pads? Truly, the '80s have arrived. Gradually, over the course of "Hitchhike, Part 1", the repercussions of Sid's arrest begins to make themselves felt. He might not have made the front page of the Knots Landing Tribune the way Sue Ellen has the Dallas Press, but he and a fist-waving Karen still make a decent splash on Page 5. Pretty soon, the sight of the Fairgate mailbox proves enough to scare off potential neighbours, Diana and Michael are getting a hard time at school (damn that Helen Hunt!) and even mild-mannered Eric wants to know why his dad picked up that tramp in the first place. Sid greets all of this, and the dirty looks he receives at KLM, with a bewildered smile which becomes more and more frozen with fear. For both Sue Ellen and Sid, matters are further complicated by their choice of legal representation. Understandably, JR - who seems genuinely freaked out by the idea that the woman who shares his bed might have tried to kill him - is less than happy that an attorney he employs, Kyle Bennett, should be defending her. In the first of what will become a DALLAS staple, the two minute lunch meeting, JR - fascinatingly encumbered by a wheelchair and a couple of dopey security guards - coerces Kyle into dropping the case.Sid, meanwhile, turns for help to neighbour Richard, who happens to be an attorney. So far, so convenient. What becomes less convenient, as the episode goes on, is Karen's increasing sense that Richard isn't up to the job (which he isn't, as we realise when he tries to bribe Sid's accuser). However, Sid is reluctant to fire him - because he doesn't want to hurt his feelings. On most any other TV show, Sid's sheer inability to grasp the enormity of what is happening to him would render him an idiot. Here, its precisely what makes his situation so believable: "This can't be happening!" Isn't this how most of us would react in the same position? Sue Ellen's predicament, i.e. she was so drunk, she has no idea whether or not she shot her husband, is somewhat less universally identifiable. In fact, the way it's been depicted - stretched out over four episodes, with Sue Ellen either wild-eyed with fear or lip-twitching with guilt and only the weirdly deadpan Dr Elby for her to confide in - makes it DALLAS's most bizarre story-line to date - which isn't to say it isn't still really enjoyable. It's just that at this point in the series' run, I find myself starting to laugh at as much as with it.By the time we get to the hypnosis scene, the show feels less like the deliciously twisty turny DALLAS of the previous year and more like a piece of 1970s science fiction. When Dr Elby puts Sue Ellen under, I'm reminded of THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Bigfoot episode, where an extra-terrestrial Stefanie Powers scans Steve Austin's brain for flashbacks. It also feels reeeeally slooooow, which is due in part to the background music: Because of a strike by the musician's union, these episodes of DALLAS and KNOTS are obliged to share the same generic score on their soundtracks. The music evokes slow-moving, doom-laden foreboding quite well; dramatic urgency, not so much. This works for "Hitchhike", where it takes the whole episode for the seriousness of the situation he's in to really hit home for Sid. On "Who Done It?", as we gear up for the revelation the whole world has been waiting months to hear, it kind of kills the momentum.The last scene, where Sue Ellen confronts JR and Kristin on the cardboard Southfork patio, is also hampered by some strangely clunky editing. It looks as if certain shots were hastily inserted after the bulk of the scene had been filmed. Presumably, it was something to do with keeping the identity of JR's assailant under wraps. Still, I'm sure the billion trillion zillion people watching back in the day wouldn't have cared about the odd weird edit, and the whole thing is still delightfully nuts.But however much fun this episode of DALLAS is, the Season 2 opener of KNOTS is in a different league. For example, nothing in "Who Done It?" - not even the great dressing down Donna Culver gives Cliff at their second meeting - is as smart or as witty as the sequence at the beginning of "Hitchhike" where Diana and her talent show pals' performance of "If My Friends Could See Me Now" is juxtaposed with the sight of Sid getting arrested. "What a set up, Holy cow!" indeed.And so the winner is … KNOTS LANDING.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?