New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 76458" data-attributes="member: 22">10 Dec 86: DYNASTY: The Letter v. 11 Dec 86: THE COLBYS: Sanctuary v. 11 Dec 86: KNOTS LANDING: Gifts v. 12 Dec 86: DALLAS: Bar-B-Cued v. 12 Dec 86: FALCON CREST: Hot SpotsSoap Land’s mid-season exodus continues. Following last week’s departures of Sylvia Lean, Mandy Winger and Cole Gioberti, this week sees the exits of Emily Fallmont (who survives her collision with that taxi cab long enough to make it through the opening scene of this week’s DYNASTY before expiring discreetly off screen), Caress Morelle, Anna Rostov, Wes Parmalee, and Jack and Jamie Ewing.While his mother is busy dying at Soap Land Memorial Hospital, Clay Fallmont is busy marrying Sammy Jo in “a room service wedding” in Las Vegas. After Lance and Melissa on FALCON CREST and Miles and Channing on THE COLBYS, this is the third elopement of the season. The tackiness of such nuptials is often played for laughs in Soap Land, most overtly by Karen and Mack on KNOTS who succumbed to a fit of the giggles during their Vegas ceremony a few years back, but this time there’s an unspoken poignancy about the anonymity of the proceedings (“If I can have your first names, I’d be happy to decorate the cake with them?” offers the bellhop). It’s as if this marriage was somehow doomed from the start.It’s not until the next morning that Clay learns that his mother is dead. He rushes home to be with his father, but it’s too late. By absenting himself from his mother’s deathbed, however unintentionally, Clay has committed the same cardinal Soap Land sin as Sue Ellen when Bobby died and Cliff Barnes when his mother expired. “You’re never around when you’re needed,” snapped JR at Sue Ellen after his brother’s death. “You never were around when you were needed,” snipes Buck at Clay now. Then into the Fallmont living room walks Sammy Jo, and of all a sudden we’re watching a variation on another familiar Soap Land storyline: the son and heir bringing home a surprise bride to meet his dismayed family. Buck combines these two scenarios with his exit line, which echoes JR’s dismissal of Sue Ellen after Bobby’s funeral: “You don’t exist”. “You’re nothing,” Buck informs Clay, “and now you’re married to nothing.”Although not the most multi-layered of Soap Land characters, one can’t help but feel sorry for Clay in light of his father’s repeated rejection of him — even more so when one compares their relationship to the one Clay’s mountain-climbing counterpart on FALCON CREST, Eric Stavros, enjoys with his father. Whereas Buck blames Clay for events over which he has no control, Peter Stavros strongly defends his son against Angela’s suggestion that Eric is the one framing her for the toxic waste dumping at Tuscany Downs. However, the most poignant father/son exchange of the week occurs on DALLAS when Wes Parmalee shows up at Southfork demanding to see Miss Ellie. “You know, at first I prayed that you were Jock, but now, even if you are, I don’t think I care anymore,” Ray tells him. “You’re a good man, Ray. Any man would be proud to have you as a son,” Wes replies before going inside the house to tell Ellie that he isn’t Jock after all.Just as DYNASTY recalls DALLAS in the aftermath of Emily’s death, this week’s DALLAS also mirrors events from DYNASTY’s past. In the same way that Blake once travelled to Singapore to quiz a doctor about Ben Reynolds, a patient upon whom he had performed extensive plastic surgery, so Bobby flies to South America to ask another doctor about another patient, Wes Parmalee, whose face has been similarly reconstructed. Whereas Blake desperately hoped Ben would turn out to be his son Steven, Bobby is equally anxious for evidence that will prove Wes is not his father Jock. However, luck doesn’t seem to be on Bobby’s side. “He had lost all memory of everything,” recalls the doctor, “and then one morning, I walked into his room. He looked at me. He had tears in his eyes. ‘It came back to me last night,’ he said. ‘I remember who I am. I’m Jock Ewing.’”Mandy Winger and Sue Ellen parted on surprisingly good terms on last week’s DALLAS. So do Caress Morelle and Alexis on this week’s DYNASTY. Alexis even tries to persuade her sister not to go: “Cassie, how can you leave? We’ve just started having a relationship like real sisters.” Caress explains that she’s afraid of what Ben will do to her if she stays. “Don’t ever turn your back on him,” she warns before heading off to make a new life in Australia — the same place Cole Gioberti was bound for on last week’s FALCON CREST. Cole may have got a week’s head start, but as Caress is flying and he’s sailing, my money’s on her to arrive first.Over on DALLAS, Cliff Barnes takes his soon-to-be-ex-wife Jamie out for lunch, with the aim of achieving a similarly cordial farewell to Caress and Alexis’s — and thus dissolving their marriage without paying out a hefty divorce settlement. However, he hasn’t bargained on Jamie billing him for solving his offshore oil problem to the tune of $2,000,000. “Do you know what you’re doing to me?!” he asks angrily. “Oh yes,” she replies with relish. “I’m doing exactly what you haven’t done to me since just after we got married.” Back in the day, this line actually made me gasp in shock. As far as I was concerned, this was the raciest thing anyone in Soap Land had said since Alexis’s quip to Mark Jennings three years earlier: ”I paid you $100,000 to keep your mouth shut. For a tennis bum, that'll buy a lot of balls — and believe me, you're going to need them!”Before they leave DALLAS, Jamie and her brother Jack have one last twist up their sleeves. In order to prevent his ex-wife April getting her hands on fifty percent of his Ewing Oil shares, Jack sells them to Jamie — for a dollar. Jack presenting April with her half of the proceeds — fifty cents — and her throwing it back in his face makes for a really fun exit scene.Surprisingly, the saddest onscreen farewell (given that we’re privy to neither Emily Fallmont’s death nor Wes Parmalee’s final words to Miss Ellie) belongs to the most minor departing character, THE COLBYS’ Anna Rostov. Surrounded by assorted Russian and American officials, a team of cops and various members of the Colby clan, she tearfully breaks the news to her brother Kolya, who has chosen to seek political asylum in the States, that she is returning to Russia without him. The ambiguity over whether or not her decision has been coerced makes the situation all the more devastating, and those two Russian kids act the hell out of it.“Where’s your heart?” appeals Jason Colby to Sasha Malenkov, who seems determined to take at least one of the Rostov siblings back to Russia whether they like it or not. ”I listen to my head, Mr Colby,” Sasha replies coolly, “not my heart, just as you do. I am a servant to one ideology, you to another. We do what we have to do, what we believe is right.”The ongoing real world tensions between the Soviet Union and America also manifest themselves, briefly, on DALLAS during a news report about a group of mercenaries attacking a major Saudi Arabian oil field. “Syria is blaming the Iraqis who are blaming the Iranians,” says the announcer. “Different factions of the PLO are blaming each other while a spokesman for the Soviet news agency issued a strong statement blaming America.” Bobby’s secretary Phyllis wonders if maybe the Russians are right: “That’d be one way of getting oil prices to rise.” “Americans would never stoop to violence like that,” snaps JR patriotically. In this instance, of course, an American has stooped to violence like that — JR himself. Whereas the Americans on THE COLBYS, as represented by leading man Jason, are fair-minded and pure of heart in comparison to the paranoid fundamentalist Russkies, the Americans on DALLAS, as represented by leading man JR, are hypocritical and dangerous, while the Soviets we hear about are bang on the money.With so many cast members leaving Soap Land — nine over the past two weeks — there's room for a few new faces. This week sees the introduction of two tertiary characters, both defined by their governmental job titles, Senator Andrew Dowling on DALLAS and EPA Project Director Gwen Fuller on FALCON CREST. While Senator Dowling’s function is to debate the proposed tariff on imported oil with Donna Krebbs, Project Director Fuller’s is to investigate the toxic contamination of Chase’s vineyards. Between Donna and Andrew, and Chase and Gwen is forged an immediate bond of professional respect and courtesy  (in sharp contrast to the messy, resentful state of both Chase and Donna’s marriages). In each case, there is just the tiniest suggestion of the professional and personal becoming blurred — Andrew’s polite enquiry about Donna’s pregnancy elicits the information that she and Ray are separated, while Gwen unintentionally overhears a conversation which establishes Chase and Maggie as similarly estranged. Small moments both, but each is significant enough for the dedicated Soap Land watcher to foresee further complications in both the Krebbs and Gioberti marriages.There is a younger, slightly less formal variation on this character type on DYNASTY. Like Gwen Fuller, Danny’s pre-school teacher-cum-psychologist Clare Prentice is somewhat prettier than she needs to be and this week finds herself in the middle of an argument between Steven and Sammy Jo, aka the new Mrs Clay Fallmont, who renews her threat to sue for custody of their son. In stark contrast to other recent Soap Land newcomers, these characters slip into their respective shows with no fanfare and little emotional baggage. Not for them the convoluted back stories of Dan Fixx (crippled mother, drug-addicted wife, rap sheet for murder), Channing Carter (a mother she saw die in childbirth, the uncle who may have abused her, a teenage rape and abortion) or Paige Matheson (who might not even be Paige Matheson). The only personal information we’ve been given about Andrew Dowling and Clare Prentice, for instance, is that he is a widower and she is new to Denver. Two weeks after Mack Mackenzie received a posthumous letter written (supposedly) by Paige’s mother Anne in 1967, Blake Carrington receives an equally posthumous letter from Emily Fallmont written shortly before her death but dealing with events that also took place in the mid-sixties. “I was the one [in bed] with Ben Carrington the day your mother died,” she admits. It’s enough of a confession to clear Blake of any wrongdoing in his mother’s death and prove Ben and Alexis guilty of perjury — but can he bring himself to go public with it and smear Emily’s reputation? No, he decides: “She was a warm and wonderful woman and that’s how people should remember her, including her sons.” But by the end of the episode, having learned of Alexis’s latest scheme to destroy him, he has changed his mind. “I’m going to use it,” he decides. “I’ll get them. I’ll get the whole pack of them!” Richard Channing also opens a dramatically significant letter on this week's FALCON CREST, but this one is anonymous. “You won’t get away with this, Channing,” it reads, referring to the disappearance of Erin Jones. What Richard doesn’t know, but we do, is that the letter was sent by his son’s live-in nanny, aka Erin’s sister Meredith.There is no shortage of significant phone calls in this week’s Soap Land either. Hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Paige, KNOTS LANDING’s Karen calls the home of her maternal grandparents, the Winstons. They’re not home so she leaves a message. When Mr Winston later returns her call, it is Paige who answers. Once she realises who it is, she hangs up and pretends to Karen and Mack that it was a wrong number. Later, when Karen admits she has made contact with the Winstons, Paige pretends she did speak to her grandfather and that he was abusive to her. “They’ve always hated me,” she sobs. “Oh God, if only you knew!”There’s more deception-by-phone on THE COLBYS when Channing finds herself stranded in a snowed-in ski lodge with Fallon — the woman who is carrying her husband’s baby. Earlier in the episode, we heard her repeat almost exactly Pam Ewing’s recent words regarding Jenna’s pregnancy on DALLAS: “I wish to God that baby didn’t exist!” Now Fallon is sick, meaning that that baby’s life is possibly in Carter’s hands. She calls a local doctor for help, but after dialling the number, suddenly realises that Fallon suffering a miscarriage could be the solution to her problems. The doctor picks up the call, but Channing pretends she can’t hear him. “The phone’s completely dead,” she tells Fallon. It’s really fun watching her later relay this version of events after Frankie arrives on the scene, only for the phone to abruptly start ringing. “I thought you said the phone was dead,” says Frankie, glaring at her with suspicion.Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, Maggie, newly separated but equally pregnant, is home alone one evening when she feels her baby kick for the first time. Her first instinct is to call Chase to tell him the news. His phone rings as he’s on his way out of the office. “The work day is over. Let the service take care of it,” he decides. So Maggie calls Richard instead. “I needed a friend,” she explains. “I just happen to be one,” he replies and it feels like a turning point in their relationship. (Admittedly, most every other scene between Maggie and Richard so far this season has felt like some kind of a turning point, as circumstances conspire to bring them slowly but steadily together. In that regard, they’re the anti-Ray and Donna, who seem to be travelling inexorably further apart with every scene.)Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan starred together in the 1954 movie The Cattle Queen of Montana and on this week’s Soap Land they’re sort of co-stars again, albeit off screen. We are asked to imagine that each is on the invisible end of a phone call — one on THE COLBYS, the other on DALLAS. Monica Colby calls her Aunt Constance (Stanwyck), who is still on her never-ending vacation (“They told me you and Hutch flew to Agra to see the Taj Mahal”), to ask her a life-changing question: “I need the answer if I’m ever going to get on with my life. Promise me you’ll tell the truth. Connie, is Scott Cassidy mine? Is he my baby?” Meanwhile, Donna Krebbs’ first meeting with Senator Dowling is cut short when he receives a call from none other than “Mr President” himself (Reagan) — one of the world leaders who “define the word mediocre," as described by Greg Sumner in last week’s KNOTS.It’s nearly Christmas, but KNOTS LANDING is the only show to directly embrace that fact with Lilimae wrapping presents, Greg carrying off the indignity of a Santa suit with aplomb and even a festive flashback to ’67 featuring Young Mack and Young Greg. THE COLBYS gets into the festive spirit indirectly with its snowy ski-lodge scenes while the Ewings of DALLAS throw their equivalent of the Lotus Point Christmas Party, i.e., the annual Southfork barbecue. It’s something of a back-to-basics affair this year — JR takes exception to Pam inviting a member of the Barnes clan just as Jock did in the original “Barbecue”, and he and Cliff subsequently get into a verbal spat just like their daddies did. However, Pam slaps JR before he can get any ideas about pushing her out of a hayloft. Other party memories are evoked when Bobby arrives home from South America by helicopter the way Jock conspicuously didn’t in “Barbecue Two” five years earlier. Just as that was the episode that officially killed off Jock, so this is the one that eradicates his ghost/impostor from our screens as Bobby announces Wes Parmalee’s real identity as Wyatt Haynes, another passenger aboard the same chopper as Jock when it crashed.The truth, or at least some variation of it, catches up with three of Soap Land’s impostors at the end of their respective episodes. In the penultimate scene of KNOTS,  Karen finally speaks to Russell Winston over the phone and explains that Paige is living in her house. “You’re a sick person, Mrs Mackenzie,” he replies coldly. “Paige is dead, my granddaughter is dead!” Meanwhile on DALLAS, Wes Parmalee pulls a disappearing trick before Bobby gets the chance to unmask him, leaving Clayton to vow revenge: “Maybe not today, but one day he’s gonna pay for what he did to my family!” Over on FALCON CREST, the fake Skylar Kimble opens her hotel room door to find the fake magazine writer standing there with a gun. “Kit Marlowe is your real name, isn’t it?” he asks. “You’re gonna kill me, aren’t you?” she assumes, not unreasonably.Joining Sammy Jo, Fallon, Donna and Jenna in Pregnancy Corner this week is KNOTS LANDING’s Laura Avery. Her announcement of the happy news to husband Greg is met with a long silence followed by a muttered, “Not a good idea.” It’s as crushing a response as Clay Fallmont telling Sammy Jo to have an abortion on last week’s DYNASTY. Clay is singing from a different hymn sheet this week though. “Thank God you’re gonna have our baby,” he tells his new wife. “I’m gonna be a real father to it.”In the same way that borrowing another Ewing’s car invariably leads to disaster on DALLAS (Bobby was kidnapped while driving JR’s Mercedes in Season 1, Sue Ellen was hit by Walt Driscoll while doing the same thing in Season 5 and no good will come of Pam borrowing Bobby’s car at the end of this season) so the gifting of a car at Christmastime is similarly cursed on KNOTS LANDING. Who amongst us can recall the Christmas morning when Laura’s husband and boss each presented her with an automobile without our cringe glands throbbing? Even worse comes to pass in this ep after Gary and Abby give Olivia a car as a reward for passing her driving test. With Lilimae in the passenger seat, a giddy Olivia swerves into the path of another car. One can only hope it’s not the same unfortunate cab driver that Emily Fallmont ran out in front of at the end of last week’s DYNASTY.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (4) THE COLBYS3 (2) DALLAS4 (3) DYNASTY5 (5) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?