Did you miss Kenny and Ginger?

[Monzo]

It's usually sad when original characters leave a show, but how sad were you when Kenny and Ginger said goodbye to Knots Landing? Should the writers have made more of an effort to keep both of them (or maybe just one of them, and if so, who) on the show, or was letting the couple go the right decision?

Did you miss Kenny and Ginger? Or maybe just Kenny? Or just Ginger? Or neither of them at all?

 

[shaqattaq32]

I think both characters had potential but it seems like CBS wasn’t prepared to really explore what a “real 80s marriage” could look like and that limited the possible storylines they could have — to the point where their storylines usually had very low stakes compared to the other couples.

By the time they left, it seemed clear that the show was never going to be interested in really exploring their characters, so rather than keep them around doing nothing it made more sense to write them out. I’m glad Ginger got the moment of singing in “Celebration” before she left because she really killed that song and it was probably her best moment in 4 years on the show.

I didn’t miss them.

 

[Toni]

When I see them now, I can't stop thinking of South Park...

 

[Svengali]

I liked the couple but sometimes their stories were lame. I missed Kenny but not Ginger, and her return was useless for the plot

 

[Seaviewer]

I was surprised when "moving to Nashville" turned out to mean that they were written out of the show. But miss them? I guess not.

 

[Laura Avery-Sumner]

I liked Kenny and Ginger but miss is a strong word, I think they left at the right time.

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

I like Kim Lankford.
The show could have had major stories about the music business with both of them

 

[shaqattaq32]

I think “Constant Companion” was the most interesting Kenny/Ginger centric episode — and it’s really a unique one because the show never really goes back to them in quite the same way after that. The only way to really give them juicy storylines would have been to explore the chasm of difference between their Boomer marriage and the other couples’ Silent Generation marriages. And the show just wasn’t interested in engaging with that — I’m thinking it was CBS who put the kibosh on that.

 

[Daniel Avery]

And the show just wasn’t interested in engaging with that — I’m thinking it was CBS who put the kibosh on that.

Which is really an interesting departure, since the late-1970s and most of the 1980s saw soap operas airing in daytime "discover" the youth demographic and shamelessly pander to that group by promoting their younger actors and involving their characters in all the front-burner stories. Network people tended to (incorrectly) assume that young people only wanted to watch other young people. If KL had been trying to draw daytime soap fans to its primetime soaps, I suspect we would have seen much, much more of Kenny and Ginger.

 

[Billy Nolan]

I felt like their storyline was over... I once read that a spinoff of the two, set in the South, was planned. I can't imagine that would have been successful.

 

[shaqattaq32]

Which is really an interesting departure, since the late-1970s and most of the 1980s saw soap operas airing in daytime "discover" the youth demographic and shamelessly pander to that group by promoting their younger actors and involving their characters in all the front-burner stories. Network people tended to (incorrectly) assume that young people only wanted to watch other young people. If KL had been trying to draw daytime soap fans to its primetime soaps, I suspect we would have seen much, much more of Kenny and Ginger.

Especially because James Houghton himself started his career on Y&R which started this trend.