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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 3954" data-attributes="member: 22">23/Mar/81: DYNASTY: The Separation v. 26/Mar/81: KNOTS LANDING: Designs/Squeezeplay v. 27/Mar/81: DALLAS: The Gathering StormThis week on Soap Land, everything's going to hell in a hand cart. Jock and Krystle walk out on their respective marriages, Blake kills Ted, Sid goes over a cliff and JR and Abby indulge in the first recorded case of inter-soap intercourse (well, since Kristin and Kenny anyway).The logistics of Ted's struggle with Blake and his instantaneous demise upon head-butting the fireplace fender aren't wholly convincing, but it doesn't really matter. By this point, Ted's death is almost a foregone conclusion. It's previously been established that "Steven comes from a world where culls, cripples and homosexuals are taken out behind a barn and slaughtered before they get a chance to breed." This week, we hear more about this world: "You're so many different people," Krystle tells Blake, "gentle and sensitive one minute, treacherous and brutal the next. Maybe you have to be that way to survive in your world." It appears to be a similar world to the one inhabited by Cliff Barnes. "His world only knows givers and takers and he wants to be a taker," says Pam of her brother in this week's DALLAS. Ted isn't a taker. Nor is he treacherous and brutal. What he is is awkward and gawky (watch him squirm and lie badly as Blake quizzes him about his time at Princeton), maybe a little smug and prissy, (hear how he puts down Denver for its lack of a metropolitan opera house) but fundamentally he's loving and decent. "I wanted you to be wretched, someone I could hate," he tells Claudia helplessly, "but I can't." "I didn't invite you into this house," Steven protests when Ted follows him out to the mansion as if the same rules that govern vampires should also apply to homosexuals. But by entering "my father's house," Ted has transgressed the laws of Soap Land and must pay the price.Blake and Krystle aren't the only couple separating in "The Separation". Steven finishes with both Ted and Claudia (although he neglects to inform Claudia), and Krystle and Matthew share one last kiss before she sets sail for Ohio. Of those who remain behind, Claudia wants to leave, but can't. In an achingly poignant scene at the drill site, she asks Matthew if they can go "somewhere far away from here … I just wanna make a fresh start." "Claudia, look around you here," Matthew replies, patient but perplexed, "this is the fresh start." "Not for me," she replies sadly. This a really lovely, mostly sad episode, with camera work and music that give it a full-blooded, cinematic feel. Somewhat incongruously, it's also our first indication of just how bloody weird a character Joseph is. His outburst about Blake, his master, in front of the other servants -- "it OFFENDS ME to see him hurting!" -- never fails to make me laugh."Designs" and "Squeezeplay" make for an interestingly odd KNOTS double bill. Ironically for such a diverse show, they have more or less the same plot. "Designs" serves as a re-enactment of the stolen parts storyline thus far - Abby and Gary deceive Sid, supposedly for his own benefit, (this time patenting his engine design behind his back) with help from JR - as well as foreshadowing what is about to happen in the very next episode - Karen's suspicions aroused by Gary and Abby's behaviour, Sid stubbornly refusing to believe that either his sister or best friend would do him harm. One distinction between the two episodes is Larry Hagman's Special Guest Appearance in "Designs". He even gets the freeze frame."Squeezeplay", in which the stolen parts plot returns with the FBI hot on its tail, gives us the same scenario again: something's afoot at Knots Landing Motors, Karen's suspicious, Sid is trusting, and Gary, Abby and JR (now in absentia) are all involved. In fact, the familiarity of the story lulls us into a false sense of security. The first half of the episode is quite funny, almost a caper, with Karen and Richard breaking into the KLM offices after hours. Then all of sudden, everyone's in serious trouble, with the law and with each other. ("What's terrible is where we are now," exclaims a bewildered Val.) Increasingly preoccupied with the subplot of her missing children, Abby has never seemed more sympathetic and relatable - but when confronted about her involvement with the stolen parts scam, she brazenly lies her way out of trouble and, shockingly, pins all the blame on Gary. Throughout this season, Donna Mills has done a brilliant job of keeping the audience off balance. Just when we think we've got a handle on Abby, she turns around and surprises us again.Once the FBI get involved, the episode starts to move very fast - major developments that might take weeks on another soap are dealt with in a few scenes: suddenly Gary has turned himself into the authorities, Sid is taking part in a sting operation, Roy and Frank are arrested, and the FBI are checking the Fairgates' mail for bombs. The story manages to be low-key, matter of fact, and insidiously tense all at the same time.Watching in hindsight, the last five minutes are horrible - Abby imploding when she hears Jeff's tape, then Sid taking his last drive with Salmaggio: the small talk, the brakes failing, the shot of the beach rising up to meet them as they go over the cliff and Sid's cry of "Oh my God!" continuing in our ears even after the screen has frozen on his stricken, open-mouthed expression.By this point in DALLAS, Jim Davis's decline is unavoidable and poignant to watch, but in a way that adds to the sadness of Jock and Ellie's separation. Miss Ellie might be, as Donna describes her, "a very bitter woman," but she is also a very sad one. Although she has been married to Jock for forty-five years at this point (by Ray's calculations anyway) and Krystle to Blake for only eleven episodes, there is a parallel between the two women. "I love him, I always will," Miss Ellie tells Donna, "but I can't put up with the Ewing ways any longer, never knowing if what he says is true." "I've loved you, Blake. I've loved you the best I could," whispers a tearful Krystle to her sleeping husband, "but I can't live with the suspicion, I can't live with the rage."Now we're over the credibility hump of Bobby serving on the senate committee that will rule on Takapa, his situation within the context of the family becomes interesting again. He even attempts to re-enact the bedroom scene in "A House Divided" where he tells Pam they may have to leave Dallas. This time, however, Pam objects, explaining that she has just been reunited with her mother. As with a lot of things to do with Rebecca, there's a strange detachment in Bobby's reaction. He's pleased for Pam and all, but in the same way he'd be if she'd just been contacted by an old school friend on Facebook - he doesn't even embrace her - and by the end of the scene, he's back to talking about his own problems again. Similarly, Rebecca displays an odd sense of entitlement regarding her relationship with Cliff. That he might not want to see the mother who abandoned him as a child seems not to occur to her until they're face to face. However, Victoria Principal is lovely in the scene where she gently warns Rebecca about the consequences of exposing Cliff to all the Wentworth money and power. Everything she predicts will come true in the next season, and then come true again tenfold in New DALLAS."The Gathering Storm", with its several disparate storylines, lacks the end-of-season tunnel vision of this week's DYNASTY and KNOTS, but nevertheless ends on an exciting note, with JR making one of those intoxicatingly reckless pronouncements that have become his stock-in-trade this season. "I'm gonna bring Bobby down if I have to destroy Ewing Oil to do it" and "I want a revolution - I want those oilfields again" are now joined by "Jeremy, I'm here to sell you Ewing Oil."Cultural references of the week: Moments before their arrest, Frank tells Roy how much he's looking forward to watching GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES on the hotel TV that night. And in the haunting scene where Ted approaches Claudia at the bookstore, a couple of Beatles-themed books are prominently displayed on a nearby shelf - for some reason, it's kind of a jolt to realise John Lennon has only been dead for a few months at this point.And the winner is … DYNASTY.2nd: KNOTS LANDING.3rd: DALLAS.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?