FALCON CREST versus DYNASTY versus DALLAS versus KNOTS LANDING versus the rest of them, week by week

[James from London]

04/Dec/84: PAPER DOLLS: Episode 9 v. 05/Dec/84: DYNASTY: Krystina v. 06/Dec/84: KNOTS LANDING: We Come Together v. 07/Dec/84: DALLAS: Barbecue Five v. 07/Dec/84: FALCON CREST: Going Once, Going Twice

A week after Val Ewing was delivered of twins on KNOTS LANDING, DYNASTY’s Krystle gives birth to a daughter in the main bedroom of the Carrington mansion. Like nearly all Soap Land newborns, Val’s and Krystle’s offspring are born approximately two months premature. What makes Val’s situation unique is that her babies mysteriously vanished as soon as they were born; the distinctive feature of Krystle’s delivery, meanwhile, is that it is Soap Land’s first home birth. The closest we’ve come previously was when Richard Avery delivered Laura’s baby in the back of a car on KNOTS two years earlier. These conditions are far less cramped — plus Blake has a couple of servants and a daughter-in-law to handle the really messy stuff. Nonetheless, like John Ross Ewing III, Joseph Agretti Cumson and Blake Carrington Colby before her, Blake and Krystle's baby is born with serious health complications and much of the episode’s subsequent action unfolds at Soap Land Memorial Hospital — which is where this week’s KNOTS LANDING also commences.

While Blake quietly paces the waiting room floor — in-between exchanging harsh words with Alexis and being sweetly comforted by Amanda (the touchingly tentative nature of Blake and Amanda’s relationship has so far been the big surprise of my re-re-watch of DYNASTY Season 5) — things are more visceral on KNOTS. Lilimae’s cries of despair when she hears that Val’s babies are dead echo Val’s own hysteria when she was informed of Gary’s murder near the end of last season. That both Gary and the twins later turn out to be alive in no way diminishes the force of the characters’ grief in the present. There’s also an excruciatingly ironic waiting room moment on KNOTS where Gary sensitively consoles Ben on the loss of his children; what Ben (and the viewers) know, but Gary doesn’t, is that Gary himself is the true father of the supposedly dead babies.

The centrepiece of this week’s DYNASTY is the scene where Krystle visits her baby daughter in an incubator and recounts a dream she had the night before about a girl she used to know called Krystina, who once saved her life as a child. She then decides to name the baby in Krystina's honour. Fellow new mother Val dreams in her hospital bed too — reliving the moment when her children were born and she heard them crying. As this contradicts the hospital staff’s account that the babies were stillborn, no one believes Val’s insistent claims that she heard them cry.

Val consequently joins DALLAS's Pam and FALCON CREST’s Emma as the third Soap Land character presently unable to convince anyone else that someone believed dead is still alive. Karen Mackenzie’s expression of dubious concern as Val talks about her babies matches Miss Ellie's when Pam speaks of Mark Graison staging his own death on this week’s DALLAS.

Undeterred, Pam consults a psychic, Lydia, about Mark’s whereabouts. Lydia’s conclusion is carefully worded: "There's only one thing you really want to know. You want to know if the man you love is coming back into your life. He never meant to hurt you. He felt he needed to get away from you for your own good ... He'll becoming back into your life.” Pam assumes she is talking about Mark, but Lydia's words are equally applicable to Pam's ex-husband Bobby. A similar ambiguity occurred when Blake enlisted a medium named Dehner to locate his missing son Steven on DYNASTY two seasons ago. Dehner said that he sensed the presence of someone who was alive, blind and covered in cloth — a description fitting both Steven, then undergoing plastic surgery in Hong Kong, and his newborn son Danny, whose existence Blake had yet to learn of.

In both cases — as well as that of Adriana the fortune teller from DYNASTY’s second season who predicted Cecil Colby’s death — the psychic is portrayed as having a genuine gift. While such scenes exist more as a dramatic device to foreshadow future events than as a serious exploration of the supernatural, they nevertheless suggest that in Soap Land, all things are possible — this is a world in which the future can be predicted, the dead can rise and characters can return from overseas having completely altered their appearance.

The most intriguing aspect of DYNASTY at present is what one might call "the Luke Fuller effect”. With his good looks, solemn geekiness and sweater vests, Luke mostly resembles a Tiger Beat version of KNOTS LANDING’s Ben. A seemingly minor character, we know nothing about him thus far beyond his conscientious work ethic. Any secret ambitions or desires he may harbour have yet to be determined. Yet his prettiness and proximity to Steven are enough to send Steven and Claudia’s marriage into a tailspin. Despite Steven's protests to the contrary, both he and Claudia behave as if an affair between the two men were an inevitability, an impending iceberg that the ship of their marriage cannot possibly avoid, and this week Claudia effectively throws herself overboard by jumping into bed with another man.

Luke’s looks may not have been objectified in the same way as Peter Richards’ were on last season’s DALLAS — where Peter was poured into a tiny pair of speedos almost immediately, Luke has remained fully dressed throughout his first four episodes. Nonetheless his effect on Steven is similar to Peter’s on Sue Ellen. Where Sue Ellen found herself gazing longingly at young couples canoodling in a park, Steven finds himself staring meaningfully at his own bare-chested reflection in a hotel room mirror while on a business trip with Luke. The silent suggestion in both cases is of long dormant desires being reluctantly awakened.

As Luke, Bill Campbell doesn’t possess quite the same magnetism as Alec Baldwin does as Joshua on KNOTS. Without appearing to say or do anything at all, Baldwin commands the viewer’s attention whenever he appears on screen. Nonetheless, there’s a similarly unnerving stillness (or blankness) about Luke. And like both Joshua and Peter Richards, he is presented as a sexual innocent. Unlike Mandy Winger on this week’s DALLAS (“I’ve always known I was beautiful,” she tells JR matter-of-factly, “that’s the reason men come onto me”), he seems completely unaware of his own power.

Last week’s DYNASTY and DALLAS were notable for the fact that each of their respective antagonists, Alexis and JR, took an uncharacteristic backseat to the main action. With Krystle’s baby drama and Bobby and Jenna’s problems with Naldo taking centre-stage this week, both continue to keep a relatively low profile. In fact, it is JR’s absence from his office (while he is off wooing Mandy Winger) that triggers the feud between Jamie Ewing and Marilee Stone which leads first to an altercation between the two women at the Southfork barbecue and then to a bitter showdown between Jamie and JR where he once again challenges her status as a Ewing. Thus provoked, Jamie produces a fifty year-old agreement between the Ewing brothers and Digger that appears to divide the ownership of Ewing Oil three ways. As one such story-line commences on DALLAS, another concludes on FALCON CREST. Instead of long-lost cousin Jamie, it is long-lost sister Francesca who lays claim to a third of the family business via a never-before-seen-but-valid legal document While this week’s DALLAS ends with Bobby and JR hearing that they may have to share a piece of Ewing Oil with their arch enemy Cliff Barnes, FC goes out on the bombshell that Francesca has sold a third of Falcon Crest to Angela and Chase's arch enemy Richard Channing.

In contrast to JR and Alexis’s lack of screen time, their KNOTS LANDING counterpart, Abby, features prominently in this week’s ep. For once, however, she has not instigated the drama but is trying frantically to unravel it. In her attempt to get to the bottom of the disappearance of Val’s babies, she uncovers another disappearance — that of her own attorney, Scott Easton, who appears to have literally vanished in mid-air. I’m not sure why exactly, but there’s something profoundly satisfying in seeing Abby, never more rich and powerful than she is this season, scrambling desperately to get Easton’s secretary to even take her calls over the Thanksgiving weekend. For all her customary power and resourcefulness, Abby is no match for a public holiday.

This is the first time Thanksgiving has been celebrated, or even acknowledged, in Soap Land. It also feels like the DALLAS barbecue has been brought forward to coincide with it (as it usually occurs around Christmas). At both celebrations, there is one notable absence. Pam declines Miss Ellie’s invitation to attend the barbecue, therefore prompting JR’s cheery declaration that "this is the best damn barbecue I can remember, honey … This is the first time a member of the Barnes family's not here. That makes my day, I tell ya!” Meanwhile on KNOTS, as everyone else in the opening credits (and then some) convenes round the Mackenzies’ extended dining room table, Greg Sumner receives a solitary Thanksgiving dinner in his hotel room courtesy of room service.

There is a broad range of cultural references in this week’s Soap Land. GONE WITH THE WIND, Brigitte Bardot, the Kennedy assassination and the Lone Ranger’s horse are all acknowledged. First off, DYNASTY’s Amanda flirts mischievously with Dex Dexter on the terrace of Alexis’s penthouse. When he responds by trying to kiss her, she pulls away. "What's the matter?" he asks. "Has Scarlett changed her mind about fun and games on the porch of Mama's sky-top plantation?” Mama's sky-top plantation is such a terrifically surreal image. Later in the same ep, during a characteristically awkward conversation with Steven, Luke remarks that Claudia resembles a French film star. "Bardot?” ventures Steven. "No, before her," Luke replies. "Michele Morgan?” Steven persists. “Beautiful cheekbones and eyes!” Somehow, in an attempt to acknowledge his wife’s attractiveness (and thus reaffirm his own heterosexual credentials), Steven has stumbled into a conversation about glamorous movie actresses from a bygone era which sounds — for want of a less reductive term — kind of gay. What’s most interesting is that the scene doesn’t ram this point home in any way. In fact, one is in fact left wondering if one has imagined it — for once, subtext really is subtext.

Bearing in mind where Kennedy’s death took place, it's interesting, and somehow fitting, that Soap Land's first direct reference to it should occur in DALLAS’s spin-off show. It’s Mack Mackenzie who draws a parallel between Val’s insistence that the cul-de-sac Thanksgiving dinner go ahead despite her recent trauma and his own mother’s reaction to JFK’s murder: "The whole family was in a state of shock, just like the country was. So my mother put together this huge Thanksgiving dinner, invited everyone, half the world ... We all needed to band together. Family, you know?” It's a potentially queasy comparison - a real life, world-changing tragedy vs. an outrageous soap opera storyline — yet somehow it totally works: however bizarre Val’s story may be, there’s an integrity to it.

Meanwhile DALLAS itself, characteristically the most inward looking of the soaps, also comes up with a couple of cultural references this week. Over dinner with his ex-wife and daughter, Naldo Marchetta talks about the Tom Mix and Lone Ranger westerns that captivated him as a child growing up in Italy. Charlie and even Jenna are charmed. The suggestion seems to be that if a foreigner, even one as unsavoury as Naldo, can be susceptible to something as so wholesomely American as a cowboy film, then he surely can’t be all bad.

Or perhaps he can. Naldo is one of two former husbands — the other being Terry’s ex Joel McCarthy on FALCON CREST — who this week casually informs his former wife that they are to be remarried. To say that both Jenna and Terry are bemused at the prospect is something of an understatement. Jenna is, after all, busy planning her wedding to Bobby. Terry, meanwhile, has just tried to shoot Joel earlier in the same episode. Where Jenna is the entirely blameless focus of Naldo’s attentions (even though, as Bobby points out, “it's a little hard for me to forget that you ran away from me once and married him”), Terry is in a more compromised, and therefore more interesting situation: she and Joel were never technically divorced which means the fortune she inherited from the man she thought was her husband is in jeopardy unless she does Joel’s bidding.

Something I’ve never noticed before: the summer dress Val wears to the Mackenzies’ Thanksgiving dinner on KNOTS is, if not identical, then pretty darn close to the one she wore to Southfork in her very first episode of DALLAS. This makes dramatic sense given that Val has responded to the loss of her babies by mentally retreating to a time when she and Gary were still happily together. It also highlights the fact that her baby weight has vanished as quickly and mysteriously as the babies themselves.

1 (1) KNOTS LANDING
2 (5) DALLAS
3 (4) DYNASTY
4 (2) FALCON CREST
5 (3) PAPER DOLLS

 

[James from London]

11/Dec/84: PAPER DOLLS: Episodes 10 & 11 v. 12/Dec/84: DYNASTY: Swept Away v. 13/Dec/84: KNOTS LANDING: Message in a Bottle v. 14/Dec/84: DALLAS: Do You Take This Woman ... v. 14/Dec/84: FALCON CREST: The Triumvirate

Following the bombshells at the end of last week's episodes, this week’s DALLAS and FALCON CREST begin with JR dismissing Jamie’s paper splitting Ewing Oil into thirds as a forgery and Angela declaring Francesca’s sale of her third of Falcon Crest to Richard Channing illegal. Their lawyers, however — Harve Smithfield and Greg Reardon respectively — caution against dismissing these new developments so easily.

While Chase and Angela are dismayed by Richard’s plans to take Falcon Crest into the high volume-low cost wine business (a plan not dissimilar to JR’s scheme to flood the market with cut-price gasoline two years ago), the reveal of Jamie’s document casts doubt on everything we know, or think we know, about the origins of the Barnes/Ewing feud. There is further tinkering with Soap Land back stories elsewhere this week. On DYNASTY, the impression we've been given up till now is that Blake banished Alexis from Denver more or less immediately after finding her in bed with Roger Grimes. We now learn that "three months of a travesty of a reconciliation” occurred between them after the discovery and before the banishment, thus leaving ample opportunity for the conception of Amanda. Meanwhile, during a girly chat with Karen on KNOTS, Val revisits the same story she told Lucy in her debut DALLAS episode six years earlier, about the day she first she met Gary. There are slight variations between the two accounts and it’s interesting to compare them:

In each case, Val is a fifteen year old waitress. "But you said you were sixteen to get the job,” Lucy reminds her in the DALLAS version, while in her KNOTS account, Val adds that she was "fresh out from Tennessee”. With a KNOTSian eye for detail, we also learn that the diner she worked at was “just out of Fort Worth Texas at the intersection of two highways” and that the name of her fellow waitress was Mary Jo. In the DALLAS story, Val describes Gary as "the prettiest man I ever saw” who came into the diner, sat down and immediately started flirting with her ("What does a man in love eat for lunch?”). On KNOTS, he becomes "this blond god” who rides to Val's rescue after she is caught up in the kind of scenario we’ve recently seen Lucy involved in during her waitressing stint on DALLAS - "Most of the customers were truck drivers and I was ... getting teased by them … First one table started complaining, then another and before I knew it, I was right in the middle of it all, in tears.” Where it was Eddie Cronin who came to Lucy’s aid, here it’s Gary. "He didn’t say a word to me, he just smiled at me, and I got this real flutter feeling in my tummy and I knew then that everything was going to be all right.” While in the DALLAS version of events, Gary is the romantic, impetuous one ("He was there when I got off work to walk me home — 'Miss Valene,' he said, 'I have the urge to ask you to marry me’”), in the KNOTS’ account it’s Val who falls quickest and deepest ("I think I fell in love with him that very minute”). These differences might be small, but they mirror the way the Gary and Val relationship has evolved between 1978 and 1984. When they were first introduced on DALLAS, Gary was portrayed as vulnerable and easily overwhelmed (“He gets over his head with a shopping cart in front of him!” Val told Bobby) while Val was shown to be more practical and protective. Now their roles have reversed and their back story has shifted to reflect that. What’s interesting is that neither version feels more definitive than the other. Rather each feels appropriate for the wider story they are part of.

“I guess some people set off on a trip and arrive at their destination — others don’t,” a sinister bearded man tells Abby in this week’s KNOTS LANDING. From that, she concludes that Scott Easton was done away with during his cross-country plane journey. Conversely, on DYNASTY, Jeff Colby develops a Pam Ewing-like theory that Fallon didn’t die in the plane crash with Peter de Vilbis as everyone else believes.

“Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to feel that Mark is alive and not be able to convince anybody else?” asks Pam in DALLAS. If there’s one Soap Land character who can sympathise, it's Pam’s ex-sister-in-law Val whose own conviction that her twins did not die but were taken from her quietly strengthens this week. However, unlike Pam, who this week goes so far as to take out a full-page newspaper ad offering a reward for information about Mark’s whereabouts, Val keeps her ideas about the babies largely to herself. During a conversation with Ben, she describes how she lost Lucy to her in-laws. "I was just poor white trash from Tennessee who got Gary in trouble. I’d no business raising a Ewing much less being one.” She strongly implies that the same “they” that took Lucy, i.e., "JR and his boys”, are also responsible for the abduction of her twins. However, when Ben asks her directly, “Are you saying that you think the babies are still alive?” she clams up. Likewise on DYNASTY, when Jeff leaves town to investigate the possibility that another woman might have onboard de Vilbis’s plane when it crashed, he does not tell Blake the reason for his trip, even when it results in Blake accusing him of neglecting his son in order to go gallivanting.

There are two dream sequences in KNOTS this week, each courtesy of Val’s subconscious. In the first, which opens the show, she and Gary are frolicking on the beach, only to be interrupted by a smiling Abby who then leads Gary away. The second takes place towards the end of the episode and is Soap Land’s most elaborately staged dream sequence since Kirby’s fairytale nightmare in DYNASTY’s Season 4 opener. The dream starts with Val at home in bed happily cradling her newborn twins, both of whom are alive and well. Then a pair of hospital doors materialise out of nowhere and Dr. Ackerman arrives to “take the babies away” (just as Abby appeared in the previous dream to take Gary away, and JR’s boys showed up in Val’s reminiscence to take Lucy away). Gary, Joshua, Lilimae and Ben then appear behind Dr Ackerman, all in hospital scrubs. Val turns to them for help but instead they watch approvingly as Ackerman takes the babies from her. Val wakes up screaming which brings Joshua and Lilimae to her bedside. Confused between their “real” and “dream” selves, she yells at them to leave her alone. After eavesdropping on their conversation about her outside her bedroom door, she packs a suitcase, phones for a cab and steals away into the night.

This isn't the first time a Soap Land character’s dream has then impacted their show’s narrative: earlier in this season’s DYNASTY, the scene in which Steven Carrington dreamt that he saw Alexis on the terrace of her apartment as Mark Jennings plunged to his death was immediately followed by him taking the stand at her trial to testify that he had seen her kill Mark. “Do you believe what they say about dreams … that they only last for a split second?" Val asks Joshua after her first dream in this week’s ep. “They have to last longer than that, don’t you think?” In Soap Land at least, the consequences of such dreams certainly do.

In contrast to the tightly structured quality of its previous two seasons, this period of KNOTS has a sprawling, almost meandering quality that I very much enjoy. Alongside Val’s dreams and the various references to her back story, this week’s episode also includes a speech from Ben about Albert Einstein’s thwarted desire to become a lighthouse keeper and a full two-and-a-half minute rendition by Cathy Geary of the Bee Gees’ lovelorn ballad “Words”. Neither of these further the action in any way, yet both add to the atmosphere of loneliness and melancholy that permeates an instalment in which each of the show’s three leading ladies finds herself isolated from the rest of the characters in some way — Val by her grief over the loss of her babies, Abby by her unwilling complicity in the disappearance of those babies, and Karen due to her secretly terminal condition, the symptoms of which begin manifesting themselves this week.

Not that there isn’t also room for some pleasingly knotty plotting as it gradually emerges that Scott Easton’s death, the disappearance of Val’s babies, the Lotus Point water rights and a gruesome series of killings known as the Tidal Basin murders are all somehow linked to Galveston Industries. Head honcho Paul Galveston makes his debut appearance this week, living the kind of high-on-the-hog lifestyle his former FLAMINGO ROAD incarnation, Sheriff Titus Semple, always aspired to. (Galveston is also responsible for another notable DALLAS reference when he becomes the first KNOTS character to refer to Gary’s ranch as Westfork.)

Although Francesca Gioberti leaves for Italy at the beginning of this week’s FALCON CREST, this season’s procession of long lost relatives continues unabated with the arrival of Maggie Gioberti’s biological mother and Greg Sumner’s secret daddy (although Galveston has yet to be revealed as such).

Another growing trend: following the scenes in last week’s DALLAS and FALCON CREST where Naldo Marchetta and Joel McCathy informed their bemused ex-wives that they planned to remarry them, there are more proposals-with-a-twist in this week’s Soap Land. At the end of the first half of the PAPER DOLLS double bill, a besotted fan of model Laurie Caswell informs a fellow bus passenger of his plans to marry her, even though they’ve never met. This might seem more endearing were he not headed for her hometown with a loaded gun in his bag. Meanwhile, at the end of this week's DYNASTY, Alexis’s boyfriend Dex and her daughter Amanda have just spent a torrid night of passion together in a snowed-in ski lodge. No sooner have they agreed never to speak of the incident again than in bursts Alexis to turns the whole situation on its head by announcing that, “the three of us are all flying to England together … We're getting married!” And there’s yet more proposal perversity on FALCON CREST when Melissa has divorce sex with Lance on the same day that she agrees to marry his cousin Cole.

This week’s DALLAS cliffhanger combines elements from both DYNASTY’s and KNOTS LANDING’s. Where Alexis surprises Dex with news of their impending wedding in England, Jenna surprises Bobby by failing to show up for their wedding at Southfork. “My God, she’s run out on you again,” concludes JR after the brothers search her abandoned condo — just as Val runs out on her loved ones at the end of this week's KNOTS.

While KNOTS is in a league of its own, it’s pretty much a dead heat between the rest of this week’s soaps. DYNASTY and DALLAS both fluctuate between the pedestrian (Krystina’s life-saving surgery, Bobby and Jenna’s continued squabbling over Naldo) and the juicy (Dex and Amanda's fireside fling, the Barnes/Ewing feud heating up again over Jamie’s document). FALCON CREST, meanwhile, remains on an even keel throughout — a week marked by English sidekicks Pamela Lynch and Greg Reardon getting it on (another fireside fling) and Maggie’s long-lost mother turning out to be a compulsive gambler, it’s all pretty watchable without being hugely memorable. Meanwhile, a double helping of PAPER DOLLS gets a leg up from some great scenery-chewing by Brenda Vaccaro and an insanely ridiculous scheme which has Racine and the future Jack Ewing tricking a fashion critic into believing he’s beaten the former Vicky Gioberti to death.

And so this week’s Top 5 are …

1 (1) KNOTS LANDING
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (5) PAPER DOLLS
4 (3) DYNASTY
5 (4) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

19/Dec/84: DYNASTY: That Holiday Spirit v. 20/Dec/84: KNOTS LANDING: Distant Locations v. 21/Dec/84: DALLAS: Deja Vu v. 21/Dec/84: FALCON CREST: Winner Take All

A week after Paul Galveston made his debut in KNOTS LANDING, Daniel Reece arrives in DYNASTY (just in time for its Christmas-themed hundredth episode, no less). The two men have much in common. Both are — even by '80s supersoap standards — impressively rich and powerful businessmen of a certain age. Each resides on a beautiful ranch. Each will later turn out to be the father of an established character. More immediately, in their opening episode, each makes an extravagant horse-related gesture to a different established character, seemingly on a whim. Last week, Paul surprised Gary Ewing with the gift of Galveston’s Hope (“This horse, he's worth a fortune!” Gary exclaimed); this week, Daniel pulls Allegree out of an auction at the last minute so that Blake can buy him back for Krystle. While Gary is flattered by Galveston’s generosity, Blake is suspicious of Daniel's — even more so when he follows it up by sending Krystle a very expensive picture frame. Likewise, Abby grows wary when Galveston offers to make Gary his partner in a communications satellite venture. As this week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS draw to a close, a question mark hangs over the true motivations and histories of both men. DYNASTY ends with Krystle bursting into Daniel’s office and asking him angrily, “How dare you come back into my life after what you did?!” Meanwhile, Paul Galveston concludes his first conversation with Abby with the equally cryptic remark, “Everything Scott Easton told me about you is true.”

Allegree and Galveston’s Hope aren’t the only thoroughbred horses used as plot devices in this week’s Soap Land. On FALCON CREST, Small Virtue, the racehorse owned jointly by Melissa and Greg Reardon, is taken ill. The subsequent all-night vigil provides an opportunity for Greg to make a pass at Melissa, and then for Melissa’s fiancee Cole to embark on a jealous tirade about his future wife’s fidelity (or lack thereof).

Val Ewing and Jenna Wade, two missing mothers whose children have recently been abducted, are the focus of much discussion in the Ewingverse this week. When DALLAS’s Mandy hears that Bobby and Jenna’s wedding did not take place, she views it as a golden opportunity for Bobby to reunite with Pam. Cliff does not share her enthusiasm. "You don't understand the whole history of the thing,” he tells her. "The Ewings hate Pam, JR almost destroyed her ... From the very moment Pam and Bobby got married, JR did everything he could to try and split them up and if there was an inkling they were gonna get back together, he'd attack her with everything he's got!” There’s a parallel between this speech and Gary’s equally emphatic response on KNOTS LANDING when Lilimae suggests that Val might have gone to visit Lucy in Dallas. “Valene would never go back to Dallas,” he insists, "not after everything that happened to her there — JR taking Lucy away from her and running her out of the state ... she just wouldn’t do it!” The pleasingly dramatic picture Gary paints of Dallas — as a place so dangerous that Val wouldn’t even contemplate a visit there — doesn’t quite jibe with the habitual appearances she made during DALLAS’s first few seasons. KNOTS, however, abides by his account, and the possibility that Val would now return to Dallas under any circumstances is effectively sealed off.

Back on FALCON CREST, Richard warns Lorraine that by getting involved with Lance, she is heading down a path just as treacherous as the ones trodden by Val and Pam after they got tangled up with Ewing men. "Everybody who gets involved with that family ends up getting hurt or worse," he tells her.

While everyone on KNOTS is looking for Val, she quietly checks into the Sun Motel in Los Angeles. Over on DALLAS, Bobby and JR’s first port of call in their search for Jenna is the swanky Fairview Hotel where Jenna’s ex-husband Naldo has been staying. Whereas the proprietors of the Sun Motel are inquisitive to a fault (“Mrs Ewing, pardon me for asking, but you’re not the author are you - Valene Ewing?”), the desk clerk at the Fairview could not be more snootily disinterested in Bobby’s enquiries - until he gets around to introducing himself, that is. “Oh Mr Ewing, I’m sorry,” the clerk then responds fawningly, "I didn’t recognise you."

By this point, Naldo has checked out of the Fairview and escorted a reluctant Jenna to a motel not dissimilar to the one Val is holed up at on KNOTS. What goes on behind these motel room doors provides both shows with some of their best scenes of the week. So far this season, Jenna and Naldo’s encounters have been somewhat flat dramatically but now they’re cooped up in the same room, the sparks begin to fly. “You are so beautiful,” murmurs Naldo, starting to sound like his sleazy ex-husband counterpart on FALCON CREST, Joel McCarthy. "We were intimate once, why not again?” Jenna regards his proposition with contempt: "I'll do what I have to do to get my daughter back but ... if you lay one finger on me, I swear I'll kill you!” Meanwhile in her motel room, Val’s disgust is reserved for what she sees in the mirror. "How could anybody love you? How could anybody want you?” she rants at her own reflection. "Look at you — you look like a man, as flat as a board. No, you look like an old lady — your arms are so skinny and scrawny, long, sad face and those eyes …”

Clearly this level of self-loathing is unprecedented in Soap Land. For any of the 80s soaps to even suggest a physical shortcoming in one of its leading ladies — much less having the character/actress herself go into such specific detail on the subject — is pretty much unthinkable. Regardless of where Val has ventured geographically, it becomes apparent that she has strayed psychologically into a place where the conventional (if unspoken) rules of the soap genre no longer apply.

Another example of this takes place when, following her bout of self-flagellation, Val drags herself up as an archetypal soap vamp, all big teased hair, heavy eye make-up and shiny red lipstick — she even stuffs her cleavage with tissue paper. “You are beautiful and there isn’t a man in town who wouldn’t want you just the way you are,” she pouts at herself in the mirror. "I’m sure that you could get anything you want to, anything you put your mind to,” she adds, sounding like any number of ruthlessly determined soap vixens: Terry Hartford, Katherine Wentworth, Sammy Jo Carrington, Racine. However, though it isn’t stated directly, the specific character Val seems to be basing this new persona on is her old rival Abby. The line she delivers to the wife of a man she attempts to pick up in a bar (“I could have your husband any time I want, sweetheart”) strongly echoes what Abby once said to her about Gary — “I can have him any time I want him.” Back then, Abby stood her ground even when Val slapped her across the face. However, when the same thing happens to Val here she is instantly reduced to a pathetic snivelling wreck. Val isn’t a soap vixen — in this scene, she’s more like a soap viewer trying to emulate what she’s seen on TV and failing miserably.

The most genre-busting moment comes the following morning when a disheveled and hungover Val stumbles to her motel bathroom and once again surveys her reflection, now smudged with last night’s make-up. She is appalled by what she sees (“What did you do?” she whispers. "You dirty filthy tramp!”) and so, in front of our eyes, in a single unbroken take, she scrubs her face with soap and water until it is entirely free not only of make-up but of almost any indication of eyebrows or lips. Her face becomes a featureless canvas onto which she then applies fresh make-up, talking to herself as she goes, till she has reinvented herself as Verna, a happy-go-lucky waitress from Tennessee.

There have been “psychological transformation in a mirror” scenes in Soap Land before. Last season’s FALCON CREST saw Julia hacking off her hair in front of a mirror as part of her plan to escape prison, and when she put out her hand to touch her reflection, it seemed to bend — an indication of the widening chasm between herself and reality. As part of her unexplained breakdown at the end of last season’s DYNASTY, Fallon’s view of her own reflection became distorted. But where Julia's and Fallon's transformations were conveyed through camera trickery and effects, Val’s even more dramatic metamorphosis is achieved via one unblinking shot of a woman removing and then reapplying her make-up. In Soap Land, the naked human face is perhaps the weirdest special effect of all.

Such is the level of concern over Val and Jenna that even their show's respective bad guys, Abby and JR, participate in the searches to track them down. Both go to the extent of hiring a private detective, which surprises those around them. DALLAS's Jamie admits to being impressed by JR’s display of familial concern while on KNOTS, Lilimae is openly suspicious of Abby’s. “Why would you want Valene back?” she asks her. "You never showed any interest in her before.” Abby’s response (“I’ve never wanted to hurt Valene … I don’t care what you think about me but I wouldn’t want any harm to come to her”) sounds impressive in its sincerity. However, midway through this week’s episodes both she and JR provide us with similar twists that prove that neither has lost their capacity for I-didn’t-see-that-one-coming deviousness. In the same way that it recently transpired on FALCON CREST that Angela has secretly had the PI who Maggie hired to track down her biological mother in her pocket all along, so we discover that Abby has instructed the detective enlisted to find Val to withhold vital information about her whereabouts from Gary and Lilimae. Meanwhile on DALLAS, Gerald Kane, the pilot who has approached Pam with apparently solid information about Mark Graison’s whereabouts, turns out to be a plant hired by JR. Abby and JR are similarly motivated — so long as Val is waiting tables in Shula, Tennessee and Pam is checking out last-chance clinics in the Caribbean then there’s little chance of either them reconciling with their respective lost loves, Gary and Bobby.

There are two Soap Land weddings this week. On DYNASTY, a miserable Amanda Carrington looks on as Alexis marries Dex in an English country church while Bobby Ewing is no happier at the end of DALLAS to see Jenna and Naldo emerge from a wedding chapel as husband and wife. Both ceremonies are comparatively low-key by Soap Land standards, but look closer and you’ll see that each bride has an ulterior motive for plighting her troth. Alexis has cooked up the English wedding scheme to keep Amanda out of Denver and away from Blake who is eager to claim her as his daughter (”Isn't it enough that you've robbed me of my other children?” Alexis asks him. "Must you take this one too, the only one that's mine to love completely?”) while Jenna's actions are also motivated by a need to protect her daughter from her father. Having snatched Charlie from her school at the end of last week’s ep, Naldo has now convinced Jenna that she is on her way to Rome. “The only way the two of you are going to see each other again as if you do exactly what I say,” he tells her.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (1) KNOTS LANDING
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (4) DYNASTY
4 (5) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

25 Dec 84: PAPER DOLLS: Episode 13 v. 27/Dec/84: KNOTS LANDING: Uncharted Territory v. 28/Dec/84: DALLAS: Odd Man Out v. 28/Dec/84: FALCON CREST: Suitable for Framing

PAPER DOLLS bows out on Christmas Day with a never-ending fashion show and an offscreen plane crash. While there's not much in the way of closure, there is something pleasingly circular about reporter Mark Bailey, in his quest to find out more about Racine's elusive past, catching a flight to Dallas - the very place where Morgan Fairchild began her Soap Land journey as Jenna Wade.

Speaking of Jenna, the path of her present incarnation diverges from that of Soap Land’s other missing mother, KNOTS LANDING’s Val, this week. Still being held captive by Naldo, Jenna is desperate to return home and there’s a tense scene where she frantically tries to phone Bobby, only for Naldo to intercept the call at the last minute. By contrast, Val is now so happily immersed in her new identity as Verna that when she hears a radio news report about her own disappearance, she shows not a flicker of recognition.

Just as Val’s waitressing skills are proving a big hit with her new customers in Shula, Tennessee (she even has her own catchphrase: “okey dokey!”), her daughter Lucy’s less successful foray into the same profession draws to a close on DALLAS. “I see you finally got the hang of waitressing — after you quit,” quips boyfriend Eddie after she wakes him up with a cup of coffee. Val and Lucy’s respective attempts at domesticity also produce differing results. While Val scores herself a cute little kitchenette apartment on KNOTS — in terms of desirable Soap Land residences I could actually imagine living in, it’s up there with Gary and Abby’s Season 4 beach house and Nick Toscanni’s DYNASTY bachelor pad — Eddie makes it clear to Lucy that he doesn’t appreciate coming home from work to find her waiting for him in his apartment. Poor Lucy — after Gary making it clear last week that Val would never return to Dallas under any circumstances, not even to see her daughter, it seems like Lucy doesn’t belong anywhere in Soap Land anymore, not on KNOTS or at Southfork, nor even the Hot Biscuit or at Eddie’s place.

Where KNOTS’ storytelling continues to sprawl in several directions at the same time, much of DALLAS’s present appeal comes from the way its various plot lines overlap and intersect. There’s both a strong emotional undercurrent and an irresistible comic book dumbness to this week’s ep, and it's that combination which feels just so quintessentially ... DALLAS. It’s a blast to see JR manipulating Bobby and Pam for the umpteenth time and having such a fun time doing it. No sooner has Pam arrived at Southfork to drop off Christopher on her way to San Serrano to look for Mark, for example, than he shows up with a drunken Bobby. "Bobby has vowed to search for Jenna until he finds her,” JR informs his clearly concerned ex-sister-in-law, “kind of like what you're doing for Mark Graison ... I just think it's so ironic — you're both searching for people you love.” "She [Pam] was here when I brought you home," he tells a hungover Bobby the following morning. "Hell, she was standing right over there, but she couldn't wait for Mama to take Christopher so she could go off and catch that plane. I used to think she really cared for you — until now. Sorry, bud.” He’s unable to suppress a smile as he turns away from his forlorn brother to exit the shot. And it’s just as pleasurable to watch Abby on KNOTS intercept Joshua's fan mail and realise, following the televised appeal he made to the missing Val in last week’s ep, that she has a potential star on her hands. Tickled pink, she urges Joshua to deliver another on-air sermon for his sister’s benefit. Running parallel to the wild goose chase JR has sent Pam on, this is another case of misdirection — Abby already knows Val’s whereabouts and that Joshua’s message will never reach her.

The way the various plot strands slot together on DALLAS is immensely satisfying, even though viewed in isolation they can seem a little illogical. For example, there’s a scene where Jamie, currently working as a humble receptionist, decides that just because JR has been so nice to Bobby over Jenna’s disappearance, she won’t pursue her legal claim to a third of Ewing Oil — thereby sacrificing millions of dollars and the chance to restore her father’s reputation. (“My father always wanted to reconcile with Jock but he could never bring himself to do it,” she smiles dreamily.) Over on FALCON CREST, Melissa Agretti has exactly the opposite reaction when she learns that Lance has usurped her as Angela’s heir. (“It was my father’s dream that I be part of Falcon Crest!” she seethes.) The subsequent scene where she comes on like a film noir femme fatale and offers scuzzy Joel McCarthy $50,000 to discredit Lance in the eyes of his grandmother is great. It’s also a turning point equivalent to Abby’s passing comment at the beginning of this season's KNOTS that she wished Val’s babies would “just disappear”. In the same way that Abby could never have envisaged such a remark leading to the twins' abduction so Melissa doesn’t anticipate just how far Joel will go to frame Lance.

DALLAS and FALCON CREST’s storylines featuring troublesome ex-husbands — Naldo Marchetta and Joel McCarthy — have each been treading water for some time. However, both reach unexpectedly violent climaxes this week, leading to near identical cliff-hangers. On DALLAS, Jenna is dragged to a Laredo hotel room by Naldo. On FALCON CREST, Lance is lured to a disused gas station by Joel. Jenna loses consciousness while Lance is tied up and robbed. At the end of their respective episodes, Jenna comes to and Lance is set free, only to each then find themselves in a compromising position while surrounded by armed police — Jenna is lying next to Naldo’s dead body with a gun in her hand and Lance is in possession of the car which has been used to push Angela's off a cliff.

FALCON CREST aside, each of this week’s shows ends with a spouse contemplating their partner’s mortality. As well as Jenna finding her husband’s dead body on DALLAS, Mack MacKenzie finally learns about the bullet fragment lodged in his wife's spine on KNOTS. “I won’t let you die,” he vows. PAPER DOLLS, meanwhile, concludes with Grant Harper’s tearful announcement that the plane carrying his wife has crashed, with no sign of survivors. Given the melodramatic nature of the scene, the aeronautical theme and the fact that Grant is portrayed by Lloyd Bridges, it’s hard not to be reminded of Bridges’ performance as an increasingly befuddled air traffic controller in the spoof disaster movie AIRPLANE (“Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue!”) — which probably isn’t quite the note the producers of PAPER DOLLS were hoping their series would go out on.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (4) FALCON CREST
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (1) KNOTS LANDING
4 (-) PAPER DOLLS

 

[James from London]

02 Jan 85: DYNASTY: The Avenger v. 03 Jan 85: KNOTS LANDING: Weighing of Evils v. 04 Jan 85: DALLAS: Lockup in Laredo v. 04 Jan 85: FALCON CREST: Vicious Circle

This week we hit the mid-point of the 1980s and Soap Land is a very different place than it was at the start of the decade. Firstly, it’s a lot more glamorous. (Even though the women of Seaview Circle continue to potter around in their kitchens, they now do so in designer outfits instead of sundresses, while the formerly plain Miss Ellie, since turning into Donna Reed, is never less than immaculately turned out.) And where the mere idea of Pam Ewing and Laura Avery going out to work once ruffled their menfolks' feathers, female characters in positions of power has now become such a commonplace sight that the fact that Racine was by far the savviest character on PAPER DOLLS passed without comment. Laura is now a shareholder in Lotus Point and, as of this week’s KNOTS, is headed for a new career in Washington. While looking for Mark Graison may have replaced helping Cliff run his oil company as Pam’s full-time job, one of the biggest pleasures of this season’s DALLAS thus far has been watching her put those men who have sought to patronise her efforts — be they detectives, lawyers or salvage company operators — in their place. Meanwhile, this week’s DYNASTY sees Alexis make Dominique Devereaux a multi-million dollar business proposition while casually acknowledging that “we are both ambitious, determined professional women”.

Having established these norms, however, the soaps now seem interested in challenging them. Two weeks ago Val Ewing scrubbed all the make up off her face, and at different points this season she and daughter Lucy have each turned their backs on Soap Land luxury to wait tables in a small town diner. This week, further pin-pricks are made in Soap Land’s hermetically-sealed world of artifice and glamour where everyone and everything is beautiful. First, this week’s DYNASTY, arguably the most hermetically-sealed soap of them all, displays footage of a colt actually being born — placental sac and all. Then on KNOTS, the impact of Joshua’s burgeoning celebrity hits home when he visits a group of adoring young fans with special needs. As well as children with Down’s Syndrome, he encounters a blind black boy and a blond kid on crutches. (Following the multi-ethnic children’s choir who serenaded the Carringtons during DYNASTY’s recent Christmas episode, one could say — were one so inclined — that this scene takes Soap Land to the next level of inclusive representation.)

Overt male chauvinism is also on display in this week’s eps. While DALLAS’s Ray Krebbs has spent most of this season conscientiously battling his own resentment over wife Donna’s decision to enter the oil business, KNOTS LANDING’s Paul Galveston and DYNASTY’s Blake Carrington just come right out and say what’s on their minds. “As a woman with practical skills, maybe you should stay home and have babies,” suggests Paul when Abby tries to explain that she, and not Gary, is the business brain in their marriage. "Seems to me that being a mother and a wife is a full time job and not one to be taken lightly,” echoes Blake when Krystle talks about realising her long held dream of working with horses. While Abby gets mad, (“You may think women belong at home, barefoot and pregnant, but you’ve never dealt with me before!”) Krystle gets sad ("I can't talk to you about anything anymore”).

1985 gets off to an especially grim start for DALLAS’s Jenna Wade and FALCON CREST’s Lance Cumson, who both begin the year under arrest and behind bars. Jenna is charged with the murder of her husband and Lance with the attempted murder of his grandmother. The big difference between the two stories, from an audience perspective, is that we already know that Lance is innocent, having been framed by Joel McCarthy. The fatal shooting of Naldo Marchetta, however, is shrouded in mystery — not even Jenna herself knows whether or not she pulled the trigger. Nonetheless, the Ewings unite behind her, hiring Scotty Demarest, aka "the best criminal lawyer in the state”, to represent her. Meanwhile Angela Channing tells Lance to "rot in jail" and prohibits her attorney from taking his case. Lance, therefore, has to make do with the litigation lawyer retained by the Globe, the newspaper originally owned by Lance’s grandfather — aka Scotty Demarest himself. In the event, Lance is soon out on bail while Jenna, fancy lawyer or no fancy lawyer, languishes in jail.

Directed by soap genius Larry Elikann, this episode of FALCON CREST hits the ground running and barely lets up. Elikann’s trademark use of low camera angles and big close ups ensures that the ep feels both melodramatic and darkly gritty at the same time. The tone is very reminiscent of the KNOTS instalments he directed in the aftermath of Ciji’s death at the end of Season 4. This week’s DALLAS also has a more edgy than usual vibe during some its scenes — particularly an unusually lengthy interview room encounter between Scotty and Jenna where he alternately cajoles and harangues her in an effort to find out what happened in the hotel room on the night of Naldo’s death. (That Jenna is plainly dressed and wears next to no make-up adds to the whole "anti-glamour” feel.)

During this scene, Scotty suggests that Naldo may have lured Jenna to the hotel in order to rape her and that she subsequently killed him in self-defence. This theory makes sense, given that Jenna was obliged to fight Naldo off after he tried to force himself on her in last week’s episode. An equivalent scenario takes place in this week’s DYNASTY when, after Claudia moves out of the Carrington mansion and into La Mirage, a drunken Steven shows up at her hotel room door. Just as a shirtless Naldo surprised Jenna in the shower and insisted, "Amore, this is our wedding night, our honeymoon!”, Steven is intent on claiming his conjugal rights. "You're my wife and it's time you started acting like it!” he snaps, manhandling Claudia into a chair and unbuttoning his own shirt. Whereas Jenna defended herself by flinging soap in Naldo’s eyes and then locking herself in the bathroom, Claudia’s words are enough to stop Steven in his tracks: "Don't you come near me. If you have to prove that you're a man, you find somebody else. Now get out!” In contrast to both Claudia and Jenna, FALCON CREST’s Terry plays along with her estranged husband’s desires, going so far as to make out with Joel on the couch — but it turns out she’s just playing for time till Richard Channing shows up with the documentation that will ensure Joel can no longer blackmail her, plus a couple of heavies for good measure. At this point in the scene, there’s a fascinating shift — in his reaction to Terry’s ruse, Joel is suddenly and unexpectedly transformed into a poignant, even sympathetic figure. We realise that in his own twisted way he truly loves her and that his desire to quit cocaine and clean up his act is genuine. It’s partly the reactions of Terry (who, after he is led away, tearfully smells the jacket he has left behind) and Richard (in particular, David Selby’s patented ability to turn on a dime between compassion and contempt and back again) that help to sell us on Joel’s humanity. In contrast, Joel’s recently deceased DALLAS equivalent Naldo never transcended the stereotype of “shady foreigner” and it simply doesn’t occur to the viewer to mourn his loss in any way.

On this week’s DYNASTY we learn that Daniel Reece is Sammy Jo’s father. On this week’s KNOTS, we learn of an as-yet-unspecified link between Paul Galveston and Greg. As with the Lance Cumson/Jenna Wade scenarios, a key difference between these two storylines is how much information the viewer at home and/or the characters onscreen are privy to. On DYNASTY, neither Daniel nor Sammy Jo yet know of their connection (for the time being, it’s a secret shared between Krystle and Steven) while on KNOTS, only Paul and Greg themselves know the precise nature of their relationship. We viewers, along with the rest of the characters, are in the dark — although we can make an educated guess as to what the connection might be. (“Come to grips with who you are — and what it means to be who you are,” urges Galveston cryptically.) We do glean that Paul has been observing Greg from a distance during his senatorial campaign and seems to understand what makes him tick ("You’ve always understood power, Gregory, and craved it”), which calls to mind the relationship between Paul’s previous self, Titus Semple on FLAMINGO ROAD, and his political protege/surrogate son, Senator Field Carlyle.

In their scene together, Paul also admits to Greg that he is “probably dying … Heart’d be OK as long as it’s quick”. In the penultimate scene of this week’s DYNASTY, Blake receives word that his father — and possibly Dominique’s — "has had a heart attack. He's dying."

As well as FLAMINGO ROAD’s Titus turning into KNOTS LANDING’s Paul Galveston and FALCON CREST’s Douglas Channing becoming DALLAS’s Scotty Demarest, there’s another bit of interesting cross-casting when Lydia, the psychic Pam consulted on DALLAS a few weeks ago, shows up as Maxine, an old gambling cohort of Maggie’s mother on FALCON CREST. In the same way that Lydia didn’t come across like your average mystic ("I have supper on the table for my husband when he gets home,” she assured Pam), Maxine is equally down-to-earth and homely. In each case the actress's warm, middle-aged “niceness” helps to undercut the stereotypical expectations of their respective storylines. The likes of Lydia and Maxine might be home in time to put their husband's supper on the table in the evening, but that doesn’t prevent them predicting the future or playing the horses in the afternoon.

While we’re on the subject of Maggie’s mother, I realise that I’ve never fully appreciated the character of Charlotte Pershing before. There’s something about Jane Greer’s restrained performance (particularly Charlotte's deeply felt but barely expressed shame as she succumbs to her latent gambling addiction) that operates at the same frequency as Donna Reed’s as Miss Ellie. Their subtly nuanced portrayals are easy to overlook in the soapy tumult surrounding them.

Towards the end of this week's episodes, the stoic matriarchs of DALLAS and FALCON CREST each allows herself a late night moment to reflect on the latest family crises. Miss Ellie’s takes place on the Southfork patio with Clayton where she broods about Jenna’s murder charge and Jamie’s document. "I guess everything's beginning to get me,” she admits. Nevertheless, she manages to end the scene on a semi-optimistic note as she remarks on JR’s good behaviour of late. "Isn't it funny?” she smiles. "When everything else is going so badly, he's the one bright spot in the family.” Angela’s fireside chat with Emma is more doom-laden and poignant as they contemplate how empty their once busy family home has become. “You’re all I have left,” she tells Emma sadly.

The last words of this week’s DYNASTY and DALLAS go to Krystle and Sue Ellen respectively (each of whom is elegantly clad for the occasion in a glittering black evening dress). Until recently, each has been a dutiful and devoted wife to her rich husband, but is now speaking out defiantly (and thrillingly) against his wishes. "You said that if I decided to go into business that you'd help … Teach me,” a rebellious Krystle asks Daniel Reece during at a party at La Mirage. Meanwhile Sue Ellen turns on JR after he orders Jamie to leave Southfork after she has exposed his latest infidelity: "I hope she fights you for Ewing Oil and I hope she wins — because then you'll know exactly how I feel tonight!”

However, the most striking episode ending of the week is FALCON CREST’s. Joel McCarthy is being led towards a plane in the middle of a storm. There is a sudden flash of lightning — and the frame freezes. It’s dramatic and unexpected — classic Elikann.

It’s especially tough to rate these eps as they're all top-notch, but this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (1) FALCON CREST
2 (3) KNOTS LANDING
3 (-) DYNASTY
4 (2) DALLAS

 

[James from London]

23 Jan 85: DYNASTY: Foreign Relations v. 24 Jan 85: KNOTS LANDING: Out of the Past v. 25 Jan 85: DALLAS: Bail Out v. 25 Jan 85: FALCON CREST Acid Tests

Let the battle of the bizarro wedding storylines commence: On DYNASTY, Jeff Colby sheepishly introduces his third wife Nicole, whom he can’t actually remember marrying, to his first wife’s family who immediately invites the happy couple to move in with them. On KNOTS LANDING, Gary arrives in Shula, Tennessee where he tries to stop his amnesiac ex-wife from marrying the local dry-cleaner.

The scenes dealing with Nicole’s first few days at the Carrington mansion feel like a Hall-of-Mirrors version of Clayton’s initial attempts to acclimatise to life at Southfork earlier in this season’s DALLAS. Just as Clayton’s bid to assert his authority over step-granddaughter Lucy proved somewhat heavy-handed, Nicole comes on a bit too strong where ordering maid Jeanette around. Also, Nicole is as troubled by the prominence of her predecessor Fallon’s portrait in the family home as Clayton was by Jock’s. And in the same way that Bobby impulsively attempted to remove his father’s painting out of consideration to Clayton, Nicole’s drunken pal Bill tries to dislodge the picture of Fallon — only to be reprimanded by Krystle just as Bobby was by JR. “It’s still your house,” Clayton conceded to Jock’s portrait on his first night at the ranch. “You win again,” murmurs Nicole to Fallon’s picture in her last scene of this week’s DYNASTY.

Two slow-burning relationships that have been shrouded in ambiguity so far this season are finally consummated in this week’s Soap Land. On DYNASTY, Steven turns up unannounced at Luke Fuller’s door and on DALLAS, Mandy Winger accepts JR’s invitation to Club 1900 — which, when she steps out of the elevator, turns out not to be a club at all but a dimly-lit hotel penthouse. Whereas Steven’s mood is solemn and earnest ("I've thought about us and I know what I want to do, where I want to be and with whom,” he tells Luke), Mandy's is volatile and angry (“You've been using me since you first met me,” she hisses at JR, "I hate you!”). While Luke and Steven stand facing each other in silence, JR lunges at Mandy after she throws a glass of champagne in his face and starts kissing her. Where Luke discreetly closes his apartment door leaving us on the other side of it, JR chuckles knowingly as he lowers Mandy out of shot and the screen fades to black.

This week’s DYNASTY also sees the arrival of Lady Ashley Mitchell, Soap Land’s first titled character since Lady Jessica Montford in last season’s DALLAS. Although Jessica lived in London and Ashley resides in Paris, each is the American widow of an English lord. DYNASTY being DYNASTY, Lady Mitchell isn’t quite as down-home as Lady Montford was — where Jessica boasted of wrestling mountain lions in Virginia, Ashley speaks rhapsodically of her vineyard in Bordeaux — but the show is nonetheless keen to depict her as more relatable than her grand title might otherwise suggest. When Blake asks what she misses most about her homeland, Ashley replies without hesitation: “An all-American big juicy hamburger.”

The final scenes of Jessica and Ashley’s debut episodes also share some similarities. Just as Jessica forged an immediate friendship with Miss Ellie (or at least appeared to) so Ashley strikes up an instant rapport with Blake (even going so far as to kiss him impulsively, if somewhat chastely, on the lips). At the end of their respective scenes, Miss Ellie and Blake each take their leave of their new acquaintance. ”I’m so happy that we’re going to be family,” smiles Ellie as she exits Jessica's bedroom at Southfork. “Good-bye,” says Blake as he departs Ashley’s suite in Paris. Left alone, Jessica and Ashley repeat these parting words questioningly, before contradicting them. “Family? Oh, I don't think so,” said Jessica back then. “Good-bye? I'm not so sure about that,” says Ashley now. The frames then freeze on Ladies Montford and Mitchell — Jessica scowling malevolently, Ashley smirking mischievously.

Two of the best scenes of the week take place between the Ewingverse’s most perennially thwarted couples, Gary and Val on KNOTS and Bobby and Pam on DALLAS. Each pair of soulmates are seemingly destined to be together but are separated by a series of obstacles — the most extreme being Val’s current inability to recognise Gary or recall any aspect of their life together when he approaches her at the coffee shop where she is working. There is a fleeting breakthrough when Gary, watching as Val gets swamped by customers, comes to her assistance, thereby re-enacting the circumstances under which they met as kids all those years ago. Past and present collide (with the aid of flashbacks and two really well-cast actors as the teenage Gary and Val), the couple's eyes meet, and just for a second Val recalls something of her past life — before quickly shutting it out again. Pam describes a similarly transient moment on this week’s DALLAS when she tells Bobby how she felt when she first heard that his wedding to Jenna hadn’t taken place. "I guess I let my fantasies take over,” she admits. "You know, the dream — that you and I would get back together.” Like Gary and Val’s, Bobby and Pam's romance has been impeded by a succession of storyline complications and misunderstandings, one of which is cleared up when Pam explains that she accepted Mark’s marriage proposal not because she was in love with him, but because he was dying. “You were going to marry Mark because he needed you?” realises Bobby. "Now he's gone!” But just as one obstacle disappears, another materialises to take its place. “And now Jenna needs you," Pam points out, her eyes glistening. "Yes she does," Bobby agrees. "Right now, I'm just about all that she's got." Finally, Bobby and Pam are privy to all the secrets that have kept them apart since the beginning of the previous season ... only the information has come too late for them to be together. By contrast, Val’s subconscious is actively erecting barriers to keep Gary at bay — this week’s KNOTS ends with her telling Parker that they should get married immediately.

At the beginning of this Soap Land season, two young denim-clad innocents, KNOTS LANDING’s Joshua and DALLAS’s Jamie, showed up out of nowhere on their families' doorsteps. Having just crossed the midpoint of the season, this seems an opportune time to see how they're progressing. Appearance-wise, both are more sophisticated than they were. Gone is the double-denim — as well as, in Jamie’s case, the girlish party frocks Sue Ellen subsequently dressed her up in. This week Jamie unveils her new post-Southfork image — a shorter hairstyle (a tamer version of the sexy Debbie Harry bob currently sported by Abby on KNOTS) and a more tailored wardrobe. Joshua too looks slicker, as befits his current role as in front of the TV cameras. There’s a brief but telling moment this week that would have been unthinkable only a few episodes ago — just before going on air, Joshua checks his appearance in a make-up mirror and nods approvingly. (It’s tempting to imagine Alec Baldwin based this on the behaviour of the KL actresses surrounding him on set.)

Having arrived in Soap Land to be with their families, both Joshua's and Jamie’s horizons have now broadened. Joshua has embarked on a promising career in television and Jamie has joined forces with Cliff Barnes to fight the Ewings for two-thirds of their company. Yet both characters are conflicted. Throughout this week’s DALLAS, Jamie expresses misgivings about the path she has chosen. "It's hard for me to fight my family,” she frets. Joshua’s girlfriend Cathy, meanwhile, is worried about Abby’s influence over him. “She’s using you!” she tells him. "She’s helping me!” he insists. Cathy’s right, of course. What’s especially chilling about Abby’s behaviour here is that making Joshua a star is almost a sideline for her — something to keep her occupied while she waits for Gary to get back from Tennessee or for Paul Galveston to make his next move in their ongoing game of cat and mouse. Almost as an amusement, she is feeding Joshua’s ego (“You must know that you’re very special … When the Creator has set you apart, endowed you with special gifts …”), without noticing or even caring that she’s slowly turning him into a monster in the process.

Jamie and Joshua’s nearest FALCON CREST equivalent, Lorraine Prescott, is also caught in the middle — between step-daddy Richard and secret lover Lance, whom Richard is currently in the process of framing for attempted murder.

DYNASTY’s Ashley, DALLAS's Pam and FALCON CREST’s Maggie are each asked to take sides in an ongoing feud within their respective shows this week. When Alexis hears that Blake has flown to Paris to resume negotiations with the Chinese regarding his South China Sea oil leases, she asks the politically-connected Ashley to keep her informed of his progress. Ashley turns her down. "I'd be thrilled not to be a party to her manipulations,” she later confides to Blake. On DALLAS, Cliff and Jamie ask Pam to join them in their fight for Ewing Oil, but she too declines. "Fighting JR is one thing, but I'd have to fight Bobby too, and that company means so much to him,” she explains. Then comes Maggie’s turn on FALCON CREST. During a particularly dynamic scene (credit goes once more to director Larry Elikann), Richard assigns her the job of reporting on Lance's trial full time: “Think about the premise — ’Spoilt young heir to a wine fortune tries to kill his rich powerful grandmother.’" Following Ashley and Pam’s lead, Maggie refuses point blank to join Richard's crusade. “I am willing to cover the story for you, but I am not going to exploit it,” she says. When that doesn’t satisfy Richard, she resigns. By the end of the ep, she's even testified as a character witness for Lance. Lady Ashley similarly winds up helping Blake instead of spying on him, interceding between him and the Chinese over a diplomatic hiccup. Only Pam remains on the fence — at least until the last scene of this week’s DALLAS when the pilot who claimed he flew Mark Graison to the Caribbean for treatment admits he was lying, and that JR was behind the whole thing. The final shot of the episode — Pam's face contorted with a mixture of shock, fury and disgust - is a freeze frame for the ages.

Unintentional tribute of the week: as Jane Greer makes her bittersweet final appearance as Charlotte Pershing on FALCON CREST — daughter Maggie having tracked her down to a halfway house where she has decided to face up to her gambling addiction — the name of Greer’s most famous movie, the film noir classic Out of the Past, is adopted as an episode title by KNOTS.

Soap Land’s accused — DALLAS’s Jenna and FALCON CREST’s Lance — both head back to the courtroom this week. For Jenna, it’s for another bail hearing while on FC, it’s already time for Lance's preliminary hearing. Jenna’s lawyer Scotty Demarest warns that the presiding judge is "an ornery son of a gun” while Greg Reardon informs Lance that his case will be heard by "a tough new judge elected on a law and order platform”. In each instance, the message is the same: this is one time the Ewings’ and Channings’ power and influence will count for naught. In the event, Jenna is finally released on bail while Lance, in spite of Angela's testimony that she does not believe he tried to kill her, is bound over to stand trial for attempted murder.

However, there’s a twist. At the end of this week’s FALCON CREST, we learn that the judge in question is in Richard Channing's pocket. This is quite an achievement: successfully bribing a trial judge, be it in a murder case or even a mere child custody battle, is something JR and Alexis, for all their resources and ruthlessness, have never quite managed to pull off. For that reason alone, Richard is more than deserving of this week’s FC freeze frame. (Greg Sumner also manages some fancy legal manoeuvring on this week’s KNOTS when he presents Mack with a warrant to search Galveston Industries in relation to the Tidal Basin killings, i.e., Soap Land’s third currently ongoing murder investigation. “How did you manage that?” queries Mack. “Don’t ask,” Greg replies, adding for good measure, “Get Paul Galveston!” Lest we forget, he’s talking about his own father here.)

This week’s KNOTS and DALLAS each contains a juicy two-hander scene where one female character gives another some unwelcome advice about her love life. “If you really care about Joshua, you’ll stop seeing him,” Abby tells Cathy. “Our relationship is none of your business,” Cathy replies. ”Joshua is my business,” Abby shoots back. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen is at her jaundiced best during a scene in which she congratulates Jenna on her decision not to elope with Bobby. "You can live here at Southfork and see exactly how the Ewings operate, without being locked in 'till death do you part'. It's a rare opportunity, Jenna … Maybe you’ll do yourself a huge favour and decide never to marry a Ewing."

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (-) DALLAS
2 (1) KNOTS LANDING
3 (-) FALCON CREST
4 (2) DYNASTY

 

[James from London]

30 Jan 85: DYNASTY: Triangles v. 30 Jan 85: KNOTS LANDING: Lead Me to the Altar v. 01 Feb 85: DALLAS: Legacy of Hate v. 01 Feb 85: FALCON CREST: The Showdown

It’s a tough week for relationships in Soap Land. "We're through!” Brady Lloyd shouts at wife Dominique on DYNASTY. "It's over, isn't it?” guesses Luke Fuller correctly during a scene with Steven Carrington in the same episode. “This is over,” echoes Joshua Rush on KNOTS LANDING, walking out on girlfriend Cathy. “Now I'm going to do exactly what I want, and that's to have nothing to do with either of you,” declares Mandy Winger to JR on DALLAS.

In each case — and as the title of this week’s DYNASTY suggests — a third party is involved. Brady believes that Dominique has chosen her newfound brother over him ("My wife doesn't need me anymore! She's got Blake Carrington!”), while Joshua’s boss is having a similarly destructive impact on his relationship (“Don’t let Abby do this to us!” Cathy pleads). Meanwhile, Steven is torn between his feelings for Luke and his marriage to Claudia in much the same way that Mandy is caught between arch enemies JR and Cliff. "I'm afraid of losing any sense of who I am or what I want,” explains Steven to Luke. "You don't understand what's happening to me!" Mandy tells Cliff.

An interesting parallel emerges this week between Steven and Luke on DYNASTY and Joshua and Cathy on KNOTS. Although Joshua started off the season as shy and innocent, and was near-traumatised following his first sexual experience with Cathy, he has since grown in confidence, and that has been reflected in the evolving physicality between he and Cathy on screen. A recent play-fight between them in Laura’s house inevitably ended up the bedroom, and during an argument a couple of weeks ago, Joshua impulsively picked Cathy up and threw her over his shoulder before laying her down on a couch and straddling her. As a result, we’re left in no doubt as to the passionate nature of their relationship. By contrast, due to the constraints of the era, Steven and Luke have done little more than pat one another on the arm. Prior to this week’s episode, Luke straightening Steven’s tie was as intimate as it got between them. In this ep, in lieu of an actual love scene, they share a sweaty game of racquetball, and even then, when Steven puts out a hand to help Luke to his feet at the end of the match, there is a shared awkwardness, even a guilt, in response to this chaste contact. This partly reflects Steven’s conflict within himself. Indeed, the restrictions of the period and Steven’s own inhibitions inform one another till it's hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Strangely, this seems much clearer to me now than it did when these episodes first aired: not only is this Soap Land’s first depiction of two men falling in love (Steven’s previous male relationship having commenced before the series even began), but one of the men is married with a child and the other is his workplace subordinate. As such, the show and its characters find themselves navigating both a narrative and emotional minefield simultaneously.

"I'm starting to care for you a great deal,” Steven admits to Luke before ending their relationship. “Joshua, I love you and you love me,” insists Cathy on KNOTS — only Joshua isn’t listening. While Steven is willing to suppress his own feelings in order to conform to the expectations of those around him, Joshua chooses to deny his feelings in order to transcend those around him. “I don’t think it would be fitting for my viewers to see me in a saloon … I’m sure that’s hard to understand for someone like yourself,” he murmurs, barely looking at Cathy, intoxicated instead by his own power and success. Such arrogance should render Joshua laughably absurd but it doesn’t — because there is something genuinely mesmeric about him.

So where do Steven's and Joshua’s self-absorbed self-denial leave Luke and Cathy? As if confused and heartbroken weren’t enough, both are cast in the default role of sexual predator. After all, it can’t be Steven's and Joshua’s faults that they each succumbed to their basest desires, can it? As Luke delivers his “Normal is loving someone” speech, we can sense both the actor and character pushing against the restraints that the show and the relationship with Steven have placed upon him. Meanwhile, Joshua pretty much slut-shames Cathy when he refuses to believe her claim that Abby paid her to make Gary fall in love with her. “Maybe it’s what you wanted to have happen — did you try to seduce him too?” he asks. And just as we don’t laugh at Joshua’s egotism, neither do we sneer at Luke's and Cathy’s tearful helplessness. Both characters have a truthful dignity about them.

While DYNASTY treats Steven and Luke’s relationship with the utmost solemnity, KNOTS finds room for a more flippant gay reference: “What the hell are you doing with Mackenzie?” demands Paul Galveston. "We’re having an affair,” quips Greg Sumner.

Just as Joshua breaks up with Cathy in the dressing room of the club where she sings, so DALLAS’s Mandy Winger attempts to sever ties with JR in the dressing room of the restaurant where she models. “We can just say goodbye and forget we ever met,” she coolly suggests. Interestingly, JR’s response is similar to Cathy's. “You can't say you don't feel somethin' for me,” he insists. But whereas Joshua manages to completely disregard Cathy’s words, Mandy’s resolve begins to crumble as soon as JR starts nuzzling her neck.

Poor Mandy Winger! As well as being caught between JR and Cliff, she also finds herself a reluctant part of another triangle, in which her already shaky relationship with Cliff is being encroached upon by the constant presence of Jamie, alongside whom Cliff is fighting for control of Ewing Oil. Mandy does a better job of extricating herself from this situation than from her involvement with JR. “I'm getting out - because three’s a crowd,” she informs Jamie and Cliff before walking out the door. Amanda Carrington does something similar on DYNASTY. Finally tiring of flashing back to her night of passion with step-father Dex while he and Mummy get it on upstairs, she turns up at the Carrington mansion in the early hours of the morning with a suitcase.

Over on FALCON CREST, Greg Reardon offers some contrary advice to an even more antagonistic trio — Chase, Angela and Richard. “Perhaps it’s time for the three of you to work together for once,” he suggests. Such counsel proves sound, for no sooner do the threesome pool their knowledge than they fathom that cartel honcho Gustav Reibmann and Tuscany Valley newcomer Jean Louis de Bercy are one and the same. This seems to be the week for aliases to unravel — just as Reibmann’s true identity is about to exposed on FC so Val Ewing finds it increasingly difficult to cling to the delusion that she is really Verna Ellers on KL.

… which leads us to yet another triangle, between Val/Verna, fiancee Parker Winslow and outsider Gary Ewing — whom this week materialises out of nowhere in the reflection of Val’s bedroom mirror as she is trying on her wedding dress. Then he appears in the room itself, clad in full morning dress, and he and Val dance lovingly together like two figures atop a wedding cake. This is Val’s more extreme version of what Pam described to Bobby in last week’s DALLAS as her fantasy taking over — “you know, the dream — that you and I would get back together.” It's also an inversion of the nightmare sequence experienced by Fallon when she looked at her wedding-dress reflection at the end of last season’s DYNASTY. So many conflicting perceptions rub up against each other in this Val/Verna story-line — fantasy and reality, past and present, dreams and nightmares, even fact and fiction: for as Gary points out this week when he shows her a copy of Nashville Junction, Val has now become a character in her own novel.

Elsewhere on this week’s KNOTS, Mack’s Tidal Basin murder investigation closes in on Galveston Industries. Meanwhile, in the cracking opening scene of this week’s DALLAS, Pam blames JR for sending her to the Caribbean on a wild goose chase looking for Mark. Paul Galveston and JR both then deftly shift the blame away from themselves: Galveston has two of his employees confess to the murders while JR plays a tape of a phone conversation that makes it appear as if Cliff were the guilty party. No one is entirely convinced by either manoeuvre, but there’s nothing they can do to prove it. Little wonder that both men are referred to as snakes — Galveston by Karen during a conversation with Mack, JR by Pam during their aforementioned confrontation, in which she also vows to get revenge by joining Cliff and Jamie in their fight to take Ewing Oil away from him.

Adam calling Luke a little troll prompted a punch up between he and brother Steven in the Carrington gym on last week’s DYNASTY. Pam telling Bobby about the wild goose chase JR sent her on leads to a fight between the Ewing brothers in the Southfork pool on this week’s DALLAS. And there’s further sibling violence on FALCON CREST when Richard takes a swing at half-brother Chase. Whereas the Carrington brawl was witnessed by Claudia, who pleaded ineffectually with Steven and Adam to come to their senses, the Krebbses and Farlows prove more proactive on this week’s DALLAS. Clayton and Ray jump fully-clothed into the pool to pull Bobby off JR while Miss Ellie and Donna shout disapprovingly from the sidelines. Over on FALCON CREST, Angela is the bystander — at least until Chase ducks and Richard’s fist inadvertently connects with her jaw. Each of these altercations is very enjoyable in its own way (and let us not forget poor old Gary Ewing, who has taken a pasting from Parker Winslow’s good ole boys two KNOTS eps in a row), but for sheer entertainment value, absolutely nothing beats a duel in the Southfork pool.

Unusually, this week’s Ewingverse episodes each makes reference to its sister show. On KNOTS, Gary tries to jog Val’s memory (before literally jogging with her) by talking about his family in Texas (“My mother’s still living there — so are my brothers, JR and Bobby”), while DALLAS ends with those very same mother and brothers being served with a subpoena (courtesy of Cliff and Jamie, suing them for their shares of Ewing Oil) over breakfast. “Gary Ewing is being served in California,” the process server confidently informs them. As a matter of fact, Gary Ewing is currently in Tennessee, trying to stop a wedding. In so doing, he goes where no previous Soap Land wedding guest (or wedding-crasher in this case) has gone before. It has long been a soap trope on such occasions for the words, “If any man can show just cause why these two may not lawfully be joined together ...” to be accompanied by a close-up of a spurned love interest (Matthew Blaisdel during Krystle’s first wedding to Blake, Cole Gioberti during Melissa’s to Lance, Amanda at Alexis and Dex's, Cliff at JR and Sue Ellen’s), who ultimately decides to hold their peace rather than stop the ceremony altogether. Gary, however, speaks out, interrupting the wedding in a final bid to remind Val who she really is. The episode ends with Val at the altar looking back and forth between Gary and Parker — that triangle shape again.

While Parker Winslow is happy to wed Val by pretending not to know she isn’t really Verna Ellers, FALCON CREST’s Gustav Reibmann is happy to date Emma Channing while pretending that he really is Jean-Louis de Bercy. This week Emma tells him about the secret tunnels built underneath the Tuscany Valley: "In the old days, all wineries had storage rooms dug deep into the hills. They hired Chinese labour gangs to do the digging ... During the Prohibition, they used them to run illegal wine and brandy. Falcon Crest is honeycombed with all these tunnels.” I really like the way the tunnels, with their strong historical context (the themes of Chinese immigrants and Prohibition having already been established in the show’s early days), recur at pivotal moments in the FALCON CREST saga — enabling Carlo Agretti’s murderer to access his house and Julia to escape the spring house fire. Now Gustav hopes they will lead him to his unholy grail — the Nazi treasure hidden under Falcon Crest. In this regard, FALCON CREST's secret tunnels serve a similar purpose to DYNASTY’s China Sea oil leases, which have proved a useful thread upon which to hang several disparate story-lines during the past two years. This very week, Blake prompts the interest of Alexis and Dex, and the dismay of Krystle, by announcing an auction in Acapulco where he aims to sell off some of his China Sea leases. That’s the same Acapulco that FC’s Gustav describes as one of "the most romantic ports in the world,” promising to sail Emma there on his yacht.

Emma’s tunnel revelation also inspires Soap Land’s wackiest therapy session to date when Gustav subjects Julia, who is still labouring under the illusion that he is her psychiatrist rather than her jailer, to a most unusual line of questioning: “Tell me about the tunnels, Julia - the tunnels!”

Speaking of Julia, Pam’s shock at the end of last week’s DALLAS upon hearing that Mark Graison hadn’t come back from the dead after all is matched by Angela’s astonishment at the end of this week’s FALCON CREST when she hears (at gunpoint, no less) that Julia has!

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (1) DALLAS
2 (2) KNOTS LANDING
3 (3) FALCON CREST
4 (4) DYNASTY

 

[James from London]

6 Feb 85: DYNASTY: The Ball v. 7 Feb 85: KNOTS LANDING: Fly Away Home v. 08 Feb 85: DALLAS: Sins of the Fathers v. 08 Feb 85: FALCON CREST: Retribution

This week’s DYNASTY is written by KNOTS LANDING’s Richard Avery. The closest his script comes to a direct Knotsian reference is Krystle comparing her baby daughter to a Dresden doll in the opening scene. Richard’s former sanatarium roommate Nicholas, who memorably observed that “we’re all just china dolls”, would doubtless concur.

It’s very much business as usual this week for Alexis on DYNASTY, still trying to get her hands on Blake’s offshore leases, and for Cliff on DALLAS, still trying to prove that Jock stole Digger’s share of the Ewing fortune. To those ends, half the cast of DYNASTY travel to Acapulco for an oil lease auction while the majority of the Barnes and Ewing clans assemble in court where Cliff and Jamie attempt to get an injunction to freeze the assets of Ewing Oil.

While in Acapulco, the Carringtons encounter Prince Michael of Moldavia, Soap Land’s very first royal character. Whereas previous aristocrats, DALLAS’s Lady Montford and DYNASTY’s Lady Mitchell, turned out to be more down to earth than other characters were expecting, here the opposite proves true — Amanda initially mistakes the prince for a waiter, but he proves every inch to the palace born, comporting himself regally and speaking in a self-consciously formal manner, even when asking her to dance. "I would be the saddest of princes if you turned me down,” he tells her, "a melancholy Mediterranean Hamlet."

Sitting at the other end of the social scale is Alf Brindle, one of my all-time favourite DALLAS guest characters, who also makes his debut appearance this week. Brindle is a shambling old drill site worker who knew Jock, Jason and Digger back when they first struck oil. The Ewing brothers thrust him into the spotlight at the end of this week’s ep so that he can give Cliff, Pam and Jamie a first hand account of the early days of the Barnes/Ewing feud. He is by turns nervous, giggly, excitable and shy, and it’s a really great, funny and eccentric performance.

Over on KNOTS LANDING, the Verna-in-Shlua story draws to a close, with the surprise twist that jilted bridegroom Parker’s aim was true after all — the real reason he wanted Val’s true identity kept under wraps is because he didn’t want to lose her. (This doesn’t stop Mack, the closest KNOTS has to a moral arbiter, later referring to him as "a louse”.) Meanwhile on DALLAS, Lucy and Eddie’s equivalent story-line literally breaks new ground as construction commences on their land development venture. Alas, Eddie’s motives turn out not to be as pure as Parker’s, for we now know that he has been sleeping with Betty Lou all along and his involvement with Lucy is merely a front for a get-rich-quick scheme.

KNOTS' Tennessee based soap-within-a-soap was fun, but things get really interesting as soon as Val returns to California. For starters, there’s some wonderfully nuanced awkwardness in her homecoming scene, with everyone behaving as if everything were fine, while silently unsure of how much Val even remembers of her old life (Laura and Ben look particularly uncomfortable - does she even know who they are?), and Joshua later ordering everyone onto their knees to give thanks for Val's return.

Having accepted that she is now Val not Verna, Val nonetheless clings to a time in her mind when she and Gary were still married. “We’ve always loved each other,” she tells him. Indeed, ex-wives with a hold on their former husbands is something of a theme in this week’s soaps. “You still love Fallon,” Nicole tells Jeff on DYNASTY, while Krystle is none too pleased to learn that Alexis is in Acapulco with Blake. JR’s reminder to Bobby on DALLAS that Pam is “not your wife anymore” is echoed by Abby on KNOTS pointing out to Gary that, “I’m your wife — Valene isn’t.”

Unintentionally and/or otherwise, each of this week’s soaps contain several references to their own history. On DYNASTY, Nicole tries on the very dress that Fallon used to wear in the opening credits (a similar shade of red to the outfit Gary had Cathy slip into when he was attempting to turn her into Ciji on KNOTS — although Jeff is less than impressed to find his third wife dressing up as his first: “Take it off!” he shouts). And as well as Krystle calling Blake in Acapulco, only to hang up in surprise when Alexis answers the phone just as she did in Season 2, there’s a scene of Daniel teaching her how to skeet-shoot, an activity that recalls another memorable scene between Alexis and Krystle from the same year. Krystle then frets to Daniel about being left behind while Blake and Alexis are in a foreign country together (another familiar scenario). "She's there in Acapulco and I'm not,” she broods. "Amanda's there and I'm not ... I feel left out and it hurts.” Krystle’s sense of isolation gets to the root of the character’s self-doubt, as established in the show’s early days. Likewise, during a beach scene between Val and Gary in this week’s KNOTS, Val reveals some of her own deep-seated insecurities. Recalling the moment in the pilot episode when she saw the ocean for the first time, she also remembers her fear that it wouldn’t live up to expectations: “Even when I was little I always knew that the ocean would probably be the biggest and the most beautiful and the most powerful thing I’d ever see. I thought just by being close to it, it would make me better — make me think clearer and feel deeper and know more.” After Gary gently explains that they are now divorced, Val starts to wade into the ocean, perhaps hoping Gary will join her like he and Lucy did back in “Home is for Healing”, but he doesn’t.

DALLAS in particular is chockfull of references to its past this week: Cliff makes mention of Bobby’s temper (calling to mind the punch he gave him at the end of Season 1), Ray Krebbs alludes Cliff and Donna’s near-forgotten fling in Season 3 (thereby strengthening his motives for joining his brothers in the fight against Cliff for Ewing Oil), and Cliff and Sue Ellen have their first conversation in almost three years when she comes to Barnes Wentworth to resurrect her friendship with Pam. Mention is even made of the pilot who witnessed Jock’s helicopter crash in South America three seasons earlier. Best of all is the scene between JR and Sue Ellen that recalls some of their classic bedroom battles in DALLAS’s early years. When JR mistakenly assumes she’s arranged to have dinner with Cliff, Sue Ellen does not disabuse him of the notion. Instead she taunts him with it. “Well, he must have something," she tells him. "Look at all the women the two of you have shared — Julie Grey, Afton, myself.” Lance and Melissa similarly remind each other of past infidelities during an argument in front of their priest in this week’s FALCON CREST. First, Melissa accuses Lance of sleeping with “every floozy in town” during their marriage. Then Lance shoots back smartly with, “What were you doing with Richard Channing — playing ping pong?” As retorts go, Melissa’s “Your crazy mother murdered my father!” is hard to top, but back on DALLAS Sue Ellen manages it. "As a matter of fact, Cliff is a wonderful lover,” she informs JR devilishly. Thus provoked, he grabs her, pins her to the bed and kisses her, thereby following the current trend of Soap Land men trying to force themselves sexually on their wives or partners (Naldo/Jenna, Steven/Claudia, Greg/Laura, JR/Mandy). Sue Ellen comes up with the most effective way yet of fending him off — and it seems especially fitting that she should choose the very week that royalty makes its Soap Land debut on DYNASTY to finally knee JR in his crown jewels.

There’s an equivalent scene to the JR/Sue Ellen bedroom encounter in this week’s KNOTS LANDING. Terrified that Paul Galveston will make good on his threat to reveal all to Gary about Val’s babies, Abby shows up at Greg’s hotel room at night (dressed, as Sue Ellen was in her scene, to the absolute nines) and begs for his help. When Greg tells her to scram, she abruptly changes tack, threatening to expose what she knows — or thinks she knows — about his connection to Galveston. She’s bluffing, of course — she has no idea that they are father and son — but Greg’s response to her blackmail is just great. He pushes her up against the wall and kisses her face off. She responds in kind; end of scene. With no subsequent reference to this passionate interlude, save for Abby tenderly asking Gary the next night to make love to her as if to cleanse her of her infidelity, this is a rare Soap Land instance of consequence-free sex between people otherwise committed to long term relationships. The last time it happened was when Lance and Melissa marked their divorce with some impromptu office-bound intercourse despite them each being in love with other people.

Another familiar situation on this week’s DALLAS sees Pam caught between the Barneses and the Ewings once again. "Bobby wouldn't do the kind of illegal, underhand things that JR would,” she insists to her brother in an early scene. "A Ewing is a Ewing is a Ewing,” Cliff replies. Later, when Bobby suggests Cliff might have been the one who sent her to the Caribbean looking Mark, she finds herself having the same argument in reverse. ("Cliff would never do something like that to me.” "What wouldn’t Cliff do to get Ewing Oil?”) Not only does this recall the kind of debates Pam and Bobby used to have when they were first married ("Pamela, when are you gonna realise just how much your brother hates my family?!”), it also points the way forward to the events of New DALLAS, when it’s only after the deaths of both Pam and JR that we finally discover just how far Bobby and Cliff will go to defeat one another.

In recent weeks, Val and Pam have each experienced their own version of "the dream — that you and I would get back together” with regard to their respective Ewing exes, Gary and Bobby. This week, it transpires that neither has entirely given up the hope of that dream becoming a reality. When Gary arranges to meet her the day after she returns home, Val is so excited, she dresses up especially for the occasion. “How do I look?” she asks nervously, waiting for him to arrive. “Beautiful, sweetpea,” Lilimae assures her. (It’s notable that she chooses the kind of simple summer dress she used to wear when she and Gary first moved to Knots Landing.) Meanwhile on DALLAS, after Bobby calls Pam at her office asking her to meet him for a drink, she surprises her secretary by deciding to go home and change first. "Might as well look my best,” she says girlishly. However, instead of realising "the dream — that you and I would get back together”, Val and Pam are each forced to face the fact that they cannot recreate what they’ve lost, no matter how much they might want to. “It didn’t work for us,” Gary tells Val sadly. "Our trouble was we always lived in our past, when you were fifteen and I was seventeen. It was so good then that we tried to recapture it and we just couldn’t.” “A part of me always feels like I belong at Southfork,” Pam admits to Sue Ellen. "I know that can never happen now that I’ve thrown in with Cliff.”

It’s interesting that Val’s memory is fully restored not during her conversation with Gary, but in a subsequent scene in her own kitchen. This calls to mind the scene from DALLAS Season 4 where Miss Ellie overcame her own denial about Jock’s death, which was also set in a kitchen. Whereas Ellie ended up on her knees smashing crockery, this scene opens with Val on her knees scrubbing the floor. Jenna Wade has a mini-breakdown in the Southfork kitchen this week too. Like Val, she’s performing a domestic task — baking bread — when she drops a hot pan and sinks tearfully to the floor. Like both Val and Ellie, she is struggling with an issue of memory, but whereas the two other women achieve a kind of breakthrough, she remains tormented by the unknown: "Maybe he did try to rape me, maybe I did grab a gun and shoot him ... I just don't know anymore ... God, what if I really did kill him?!” Where Val has Mack to help her through her kitchen crisis, Jenna has Donna — DALLAS’s nearest counterpart to Mack in the robust common-sense stakes. The main difference between the two pairings is that Val and Mack have previous experience of this kind of thing — the scene where he finds her on the beach towards the end of Season 4 springs to mind — whereas this is the first time Donna and Jenna have had a scene alone together. If this week’s FALCON CREST has an equivalent, it’s the scene where Maggie (practical yet compassionate) breaks the news to Emma (emotional and highly-strung) that the dashing Jean Louis de Bercy, for whom Emma has fallen, is really the highly dangerous Gustav Reibmann. Emma is devastated and refuses to accept this, even though deep down she knows it’s true.

While Abby orders Gary to stay away from Val on KNOTS (“a clean break — or we’re through”), Claudia orders Luke to stay away from Steven on DYNASTY. Interestingly, she employs the same emotional blackmail tactics that Abby tried on Cathy two weeks ago. “If you really care for him, you’ll stop seeing him,” Abby told Cathy then regarding Joshua. "I'm going to believe you genuinely care for him and I'm going to ask your help — stay away from him,” Claudia tells Luke now regarding Steven. Luke complies, but his caveat, “I think you’re fooling yourself, Claudia,” is, in turn, echoed by Cathy in this week’s KNOTS, if not word for word then certainly in sentiment. "You see things in black and white — things aren't that simple,” she tells Joshua.

Random trend of the week: minor mishaps with major repercussions. In DYNASTY's final scene, Krystle is out riding with Daniel Reece when she is thrown by her horse. She tumbles down a slope and Daniel rushes to her side, but no bones have been broken. Instead, it leads to a freeze-frame kiss. Over on KNOTS, Ben Gibson is out driving with the delectable PK Kelly when he gets a flat tyre. A passing delivery truck on its way to Empire Valley pulls over to lend a hand. While the delivery guys are changing the wheel (and ogling Kelly’s legs), Ben takes a peek in the back of their truck and is intrigued to discover a vast supply of highly sophisticated transmitters, "very powerful and super hi-tech”. From this, he concludes that “Empire Valley’s being used as a cover."

Whereas two of Soap Land’s “I see dead people” characters appear to have lost faith in their own convictions — DALLAS's Pam angrily dismisses Dr Matsuda’s claim that he saw Mark Graison in Hong Kong as a lie while DYNASTY’s Jeff is now sufficiently resigned to Fallon’s death to start a new life with Nicole — a third is finally vindicated when Angela sees Julia alive and well in this week’s FALCON CREST. “Emma was right all along,” she acknowledges.

While being held hostage by the cartel, Angela and Julia manage to forge a reconciliation. This is more or less a retread of their spring house reunion at the end of last season when Julia was the one holding Angela hostage, only somewhat less effective. “In my whole life, that’s the first time I can ever remember you saying you were sorry,” marvels Julia. While Angela softens in the present, Jock Ewing is softened retroactively when Alf Brindle reveals in the final scene of this week’s DALLAS how he (Jock), contrary to perceived wisdom, protected Digger from Jason rather than exploited him. "Digger was a weak man but Jock cared for him,” Brindle maintains, describing Jock as “near a saint, putting up with the two of them."

In order to save Angela, Chase and Greg Reardon embark on a Daniel Reece/Dex Dexter-style rescue mission — scaling walls, jumping hedges and overpowering gunmen with a single karate chop to the neck. There hasn’t been this much generic derring-do in Soap Land since the misconceived episode of THE YELLOW ROSE that required LC Champion to be sprung from a paedophile sex ring. It would seem that the same genre convention that allows Soap Land characters to periodically become super-sleuths also turns them into first-class action heroes whenever the need arises.

Not that Angela herself is simply a passive bystander in this scenario. Instead, she fakes a heart attack in order to get the attention of her captors, thus providing Chase and Greg with a chance to overwhelm them. Conversely on this week’s KNOTS, Paul Galveston suffers a similar sort of attack for real, but fails to elicit the concern of Abby Ewing, whom he has discovered rifling through his papers in the early hours of the morning. Despite his pleas, Abby refuses to call his doctor. “Call him yourself — cookie,” she wisecracks on her way out the door, leaving him to his freeze frame.

But however grim things are looking for Galveston, they’re even worse for FALCON CREST’s equivalent villain Gustav Reibmann, who ends this week’s ep buried alive alongside his coveted Nazi treasure. As this season’s long-lost-treasure stories go, DYNASTY’s ended on a more positive note a few weeks ago when the Inca statue in question was ultimately restored to its rightful place in a museum.

And this week’s Top 4 are … this was a close one. For the majority of their respective episodes, DALLAS and KL were neck and neck, but then at the final furlong DALLAS pulled ahead thanks to the great Alf Brindle taking centre-stage in Cliff’s condo: "Beggin' your pardon, Miss Jamie, and I hate to say it, but your daddy was a black-hearted man.”

1 (1) DALLAS
2 (2) KNOTS LANDING
3 (4) DYNASTY
4 (3) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

13 Feb 85: DYNASTY: Circumstantial Evidence v. 14 Feb 85: KNOTS LANDING: Rough Edges v. 15 Feb 85: DALLAS: The Brothers Ewing v. 15 Feb 85: FALCON CREST: Forsaking All Others

KNOTS LANDING's Val and FALCON CREST’s Julia find themselves in parallel situations this week. Previously, both ran away, from Seaview Circle and the State Institute for the Criminally Insane respectively, reinvented themselves as Verna Ellers and Kay Adams, and even found love, each with an “ordinary”, i.e., non-leading-man kind of guy. (Along the way, of course, Julia also managed to fake her own death and get kidnapped by the cartel.) Now both are now back in the bosom of their families, but the problems they ran away from in the first place still exist. Val is still mentally unstable following the loss of her babies, while Julia is still a convicted killer with a sentence to serve — even if her mental problems seem to have largely evaporated.

Where Val’s first instinct upon her return home was to lean on Gary, Julia’s is to turn to Lance. Indeed, the most touching scenes in this week’s FALCON CREST involve Lance’s reaction to his mother’s resurrection. Ultimately, however, he comes to the same conclusion as Gary did on last week’s KNOTS. “I’ve gotta get out of your way,” Gary told Val. “Mom, I can’t try to pull you out of any more fires,” Lance tells Julia.

Like nature, Soap Land abhors a vacuum and so a week after Julia’s shrink was buried alive in a disused gold mine, another psychiatrist emerges on KNOTS LANDING, this time to support Val as she gradually tries to face up to the harsh realities she ran away from before. Where Dr De Bercy, aka Gustav Reibmann, was sinister and homicidal, Dr Michaels is reassuring and avuncular, and the scenes between he and Val are really lovely. Meanwhile, as DYNASTY’s Luke Fuller resigns from his public relations post at Colby Co following his split from Steven, another publicist, Cassandra Wilder, materialises on FALCON CREST touting for Richard’s business. And oh look — Cassandra’s male assistant is an exact replica of Racine’s Man Friday on PAPER DOLLS, only now he’s called Damon instead of Sandy.

Watching this week’s Soap Land, two scenes, in particular, leapt out at me. One, on DYNASTY, never made much impression on me before. The other, on KNOTS LANDING, I have never forgotten, even though it must be roughly ten years since I last saw it. If there’s a theme linking the two scenes then it’s sibling, or at least quasi-sibling, rivalry.

The DYNASTY scene is the kind of "Cain vs. Abel in the executive suite" scenario that has been a staple of Soap Land ever since JR politely but firmly refused Bobby access the Red Files in the DALLAS mini-series, but here stripped to its fundamental basics — Adam storms into Blake’s office and is outraged to see Jeff sitting in his father’s chair reading a confidential file. Adam rails and taunts, Jeff coldly asserts his authority, Adam storms out to wreak havoc elsewhere.

The KNOTS LANDING scene takes place in the Ewing kitchen late at night — Val can’t sleep and comes downstairs to make tea, only to find Joshua sitting at the table in the dark. Unlike the Adam/Jeff scene, there’s nothing familiar about this scenario — it’s a chance meeting between two mentally fragile characters in the middle of the night. Val has tentatively begun piecing her life back together while Joshua is just starting to take off on his own megalomaniacal power trip. Whereas Adam and Jeff aren’t actual sibling rivals but for dramatic purposes might as well be, Joshua and Val are genuinely brother and sister but don’t actually know each other very well. Joshua's behaviour towards Val as he enquires about her therapy is as riveting as it is paradoxical. He seems kind yet threatening, supportive yet undermining, sometimes all at once.

Each of these scenes is at the heart of what I love about Soap Land, yet they work in polar opposite ways. The Adam/Jeff confrontation is great because it is the soap equivalent of the stranger in a western walking into a saloon and the whole place going quiet. In other words, it is a quintessential genre scene played with absolute conviction that could occur in almost any soap at any time — from the earliest days of DALLAS to the most recent season of EMPIRE. While the pleasure of this scene comes from the familiar beats it hits, the fascination of the KNOTS scene is derived from its lightning-in-a-bottle uniqueness. The Valene/Joshua exchange could only take place between these two specific characters played by these two actors on this particular night at this precise point in their individual journeys. It couldn’t exist at any other time or in any other soap — or indeed any other piece of fiction. Yet if watched in isolation, most of its nuances probably wouldn’t register. It only works as part of an ongoing genre piece.

"Father was against psychiatry,” Joshua tells Val during the scene. "He believed in prayer.” The same might be said for the authorities dealing with Julia’s case on FALCON CREST. Hence it’s "good-bye, Institute for the Criminally Insane, hello, Magdalena Convent.” Yes, Julia is to be allowed to serve out the rest of her life sentence for murder on a religious retreat with some nuns. It’s bonkers of course, but you could say that about this whole storyline, and what a fun ride it’s been.

Val, meanwhile, bounces around her timeline on this week’s KNOTS, flashing back to her life in Shula, recounting an anecdote about a Cajun cooking disaster involving Sid, Karen and Gary that we never saw on screen, shouting at Lilimae as if she were still a teenager ("How do you think I feel having a mother who’s a tramp? When I get married I will never ever do the things you’ve done, never ever!”), as well as recounting other, more bittersweet childhood reminiscences about her mama. Over on DALLAS, Sue Ellen makes a rare reference to her childhood this week. "When I was a little girl, I used to dream about going to the Far East,” she tells Pam who takes the hint and invites her along on her trip to Hong Kong to look for Mark Graison.

Both Julia's and Valene’s stories are concluded this week with an emotionally loaded question about the past. “How are your orchids doing … is it still the red food and the green food?” Val shyly asks Ben at the end of KNOTS, as a way of indicating that she now fully remembers who he is and the precise nature of their relationship. "Do you remember my First Communion?” Lance asks Julia during her farewell scene before handing her his childhood missal to take with her to the convent.

Emotional mother/daughter scenes of the week: After Val has lashed out at Lilimae on KNOTS, she then hears her sobbing in her room, but cannot bring herself to go to her and comfort her. On FALCON CREST, after saying good-bye to Julia, a heartbroken Angela declines to be consoled by Emma and Lance, instead climbing slowly up the staircase to her room alone. For the first time, she looks genuinely frail.

Last week’s FC ended with the unfamiliar sight of Angela embracing both of her daughters — the one who kept trying to kill her and the one she used to keep locked in the attic — while declaring, “We’re a family.” This week’s DALLAS ends with Angela’s matriarchal contemporary, Miss Ellie, doing pretty much the opposite. "I don’t want to turn my back on my family or Ewing Oil but if a choice is to be made, I choose my husband,” she informs her sons, who have been trying to persuade a reluctant Clayton to help hide Ewing Oil assets from Cliff Barnes. One is tempted to say that Miss Ellie’s declaration here is as uncharacteristic as Angela’s was, until one remembers that it was only two years earlier that she took her sons to court in order to break Jock’s will and sell the company and two years before that when her decision to start divorce proceedings against Jock also placed Ewing Oil in jeopardy. In fact, Miss Ellie’s defiance in this scene is the most "Barbara Bel Geddes” the character has felt since Donna Reed took over the role.

If Miss Ellie’s behaviour isn’t atypical then Alexis Dexter’s in this week’s DYNASTY certainly is. After Dex pulls off some sort of manoeuvre I don’t begin to understand that persuades the Chinese government to offer all of its offshore oil leases to her, Alexis turns the deal down in favour of a partnership with Blake. "You could have had it all — why are you settling for less?” Blake asks her. "Maybe because I'm tired of being constantly at war with you," she replies. "I think it would be nice if we could finally be friends.” She then goes on to finally acknowledge him as Amanda’s father. There’s further uncharacteristic magnanimity on FALCON CREST where Lance pays a visit to ex-wife Melissa on the morning of her wedding to his old rival Cole and tenderly wishes her the best. Elsewhere in the same episode, despite her best efforts, Angela reveals a few more chinks in her armour, as recent events take their emotional toll. There’s a particularly nice moment where Greg Reardon discreetly offers her a handkerchief and she lets her guard down long enough to accept it — only to hand it back seconds later. “It’s silk - I pay you too much!” she snaps. Back on DALLAS, Miss Ellie is optimistic that the fight for Ewing Oil will likewise bring out her eldest son’s softer side. "I know JR very well,” she tells Donna. "I know that he’s capable of all sorts of things, but somehow I’m hoping that, because of what’s at stake, he’ll act differently.” Fat chance: "This is no gentleman’s game,” JR informs his brothers when first broaching the subject of hiding assets. “I’m talking about getting down in the mud and slugging it out."

Back on DYNASTY, while Blake is in Acapulco and Krystle is in Denver, each is sent photographs of the other in a compromising position with a third party. Krystle receives a picture of Blake dancing with Lady Ashley; Blake opens an envelope to find a snap of Daniel Reece kissing his wife. Ordinarily in Soap Land, the unsolicited taking of photographs is the prerogative of the obsessed stalker — Roger Larsen on DALLAS, Peter Horton on FLAMINGO ROAD, Michael Brandon on EMERALD POINT. This time, however, DYNASTY has turned the photographer’s identity into a whodunnit. Deepening the mystery, how can the anonymous snapper be in two countries at the same time? And as well as the suspense aspect of this storyline, the photographs themselves become a paranoid symbol of the growing distrust in Blake and Krystle’s marriage. I’ve said it before, but the dynamic between these two is never more interesting than when they’re estranged. Even an awkward overseas phone call between them is coldly compelling. In the ep’s final scene, Krystle greets Blake politely upon his return home and he shows her the picture of her and Daniel. "Do you want him or me?” he asks. The frame freezes before she can answer, and even though she already made her feelings quite clear in an earlier scene, ("You'll always be special to me,” she tells Daniel, "but I love [Blake]”), it still feels like a suspenseful moment. Perhaps it’s because Blake and Krystle’s mutual devotion is so hardwired into their show’s DNA, more so even than Bobby and Pam’s or Gary and Val’s are into theirs, that when that relationship — the bedrock upon which the DYNASTY saga is built — starts to crumble, it feels almost as if the series’ whole world could come crashing down.

There are other juicy marital spats in Soap Land this week — a very funny one between Alexis and Dex where she finally broaches the subject of his attraction towards her daughter. Unlike, say, Lute-Mae on FLAMINGO ROAD who promptly lost her mind when she found her fiancee and her daughter together, Alexis remains intriguingly cool and collected about this equivalent scenario. “No one understands the working of the male psyche better than I do,” she drawls airily, "and nobody's more tolerant or even amused at a little casual harmless flirtation, but this time I think you might be going a little too far, husband dear." "There's an implication, an unsavoury one, hiding somewhere in that haystack of words,” replies Dex. "How clever of the Wyoming farm boy — can you find it?” she sneers before accusing him of "playing psychological mother/daughter games.” Meanwhile, on DALLAS, the escalating battle with Cliff over Ewing Oil provides a backdrop for further marital conflict. While Sue Ellen continues to withhold her wifely support from JR in his hour of need ("From now on, you’re gonna have to turn to all your other girls for comfort — let them hold you, listen to you, try to understand you like I did all those years”), Ray and Donna (DALLAS's most supposedly “solid” couple in the same way as Blake and Krystle are DYNASTY's) argue over his decision to side with JR against Clayton during a family squabble — only they’re not really arguing about that at all. There’s something else, more significant but as yet unarticulated, going on beneath the surface.

Watching these conjugal disputes side by side, it occurs to me that there is a basic difference in tone between the ones on DALLAS and those on DYNASTY. The DALLAS scenes have a kind of melancholic wistfulness about them — the women especially seem weary, almost resigned — while the equivalent ones on DYNASTY have a colder, more brittle quality. Between Blake and Krystle, in particular, exists a kind of icy formality. I wonder if, at least in part, this difference is informed by the shows’ respective environments. DALLAS has the backdrop of all that never-ending Texas land — useful for staring out onto in misty-eyed regret. On DYNASTY, the characters feel somehow more closed in, trapped inside their golden palace of Ming vases and priceless paintings. Whereas Krystle and Blake’s dignified coldness is partially informed by the possibility of one of the servants walking in on them at any moment, the only company Ray and Donna have to worry about during their argument is a barn full of smelly horses.

While Daniel and Krystle’s kiss at the end of last week’s DYNASTY is exposed by the mystery photographer, the cerebral haemorrhage suffered by Paul Galveston at the end of last week’s KNOTS is successfully kept under wraps by some anonymous businessmen. Although Abby has a tenuous grasp of what’s going on, only Greg Sumner knows for sure. This puts him in the same position that Blake Carrington was in four weeks ago — bitterly estranged from a powerful but dying father. Whether there’ll be an eleventh-hour reconciliation this time remains to be seen. “No matter how much you hate him, he is your father and he is dying,” says Laura. “And not a moment too soon,” Greg replies.

The FALCON CREST plot in which a shouty Lance tries to prevent girlfriend Lorraine from getting an abortion starts out like the similar Jeff/Fallon scenario from DYNASTY Season 2, but then takes an unexpected detour when he acquires a temporary restraining order preventing her from going through with the op. As a result, the assets of Lorraine’s womb are currently as frozen as those of Ewing Oil were in last week’s DALLAS.

Just as Naldo Marchetta stopped Bobby and Jenna’s wedding on DALLAS and Gary disrupted Val and Parker Winslow’s big day on KNOTS, it’s now Greg Reardon’s turn to sabotage Cole and Melissa’s nuptials on FALCON CREST. However, although he abducts Melissa from her bridal shower to whisk her off in a chauffeur-driven, champagne-filled Rolls Royce (“Consider yourself kidnapped!” he laughs, coming on like a light-hearted Naldo), Greg stops short of actually interrupting the ceremony, even if he does get the “If anyone has any objection to this wedding …” reaction shot. In the event, just like Bobby and Parker before her, Melissa ends up getting left at the altar anyway, after Angela reveals to Cole on the morning of the wedding that she (Melissa) is now barren — a titbit the bride herself had neglected to mention. This is the first time the "will they, won’t they” device, whereby some controversial secret is revealed to either the bride or groom shortly before the exchange of vows, has been deployed at an 80s Soap Land wedding. These days, it’s an essential component of almost every wedding and/or engagement party on soap operas in the UK, having first been popularised on EASTENDERS (the very first episode of which, incidentally, aired four days after this instalment of FALCON CREST was originally shown in the US).

Legal trend of the week: DALLAS’s Scotty and FALCON CREST’s Greg each moves for a change of venue regarding the impending murder/attempted murder trial of his client, Jenna Wade and Lance Cumson respectively.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (2) KNOTS LANDING
2 (3) DYNASTY
3 (1) DALLAS
4 (4) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

20 Feb 85: DYNASTY: The Collapse v. 21 Feb 85: KNOTS LANDING: The Emperor’s Clothes v. 22 Feb 85: DALLAS: Shattered Dreams v. 22 Feb 85: FALCON CREST: Recriminations

This week’s FALCON CREST opens with Melissa, having been “rescued” from her wedding by Greg Reardon, giggling, “I feel like Katherine Ross in THE GRADUATE!” — an unintended reference to Jeff’s future mother in DYNASTY II: THE COLBYS. Over on DYNASTY, Blake’s new private investigator shares the same name as Larry Hagman’s character in I DREAM OF JEANNIE. One would be inclined to put this down to coincidence were it not for Dominique being in Blake’s office when he receives a call from the PI and asking, somewhat unnecessarily, “Do I know the name Tony Nelson?” Well, if Milly Cox watched much TV while growing up in her Aunt Bessie’s house, then the chances are that yes, she probably does.

A few weeks after DYNASTY became the first soap to conjure up an entire fictional country for Michael of Moldavia to be heir to, DALLAS becomes the first soap to film in a real life foreign country, as Pam and Sue Ellen arrive in Hong Kong to look for Mark Graison. In this regard, they are the female equivalent of DYNASTY’s Dex Dexter and Daniel Reece, currently on an unspecified rescue mission in Paraguay — not that JR has much faith in their sleuthing abilities: "Can you imagine Sue Ellen and Pam trying to find Mark Graison in Hong Kong? They'll be lucky if they can find their way out of the airport.” Whereas the jungles of Paraguay are depicted in time-honoured Soap Land fashion by some ethnic-sounding panpipes on the soundtrack, an establishing shot of a forest and a studio-bound camp site, DALLAS has the real world locations of Hong Kong Harbour and surrounding vistas at its disposal.

In the same way that Ben Gibson’s assignment in Central America during last season’s KNOTS was represented by a single scene of him sweating feverishly in a cot, so our view of Paraguay in this week’s DYNASTY is limited to a scene of Dex doing the same thing. Dex’s delirium results in the most intense Soap Land dream sequence since Val imagined her family colluding with Dr Ackerman to take her babies from her. Here, Dex’s mother/daughter love interests - Alexis and Amanda — are transformed into pouting predators, taking it in turns to leer down the camera lens while addressing him directly ("I want you, Dex!” “I love you, Dex ... You're mine!”) back and forth, faster and faster, till a tormented Dex can take it no more and wakes up with a cry of “NOOOO!”

As KNOTS LANDING’s Abby discovered during her recent visit to Shula Tennessee, the Ewing name tends to attract unwanted attention when one is away from home. “You wouldn’t happen to be some of them oil-rich Ewings from down in Texas, would you?” Parker Winslow asked her. “I’m afraid not,” she replied. This week, it’s Sue Ellen and Pam’s turn when a fellow Texan approaches them in the bar of their Hong Kong hotel. “The name Ewing’s not entirely unfamiliar to us down in Waco and I was wondering if you might be related to old JR?” he asks before offering “to buy you two ladies a drink". Sue Ellen gives him such short shrift that when he retires defeated, one can’t help but feel a little sorry for him. There’s an equivalent moment on this week’s FALCON CREST when a less sympathetic barfly propositions Lorraine Prescott, only for Pamela Lynch to ride to her rescue, telling him to “get lost” in no uncertain terms. Assuming the two women to be a couple, the drunk backs off — which ranks as Soap Land’s first case of mistaken lesbianism since the days of Richard, Laura and Ciji on KNOTS.

Even though their reconciliation occurred only a few episodes ago, Pam and Sue Ellen’s excursion to the Far East consolidates theirs as one of Soap Land's firmest female friendships. In fact, each of this week’s episodes includes at least one notable scene between two women. DYNASTY has no less than four, all of them confrontational. The two between Alexis and Dominique, dealing with the former’s attempts to take over the latter’s company, are the most conventional — all big hats, ultimatums and put-downs.

More unusual is a scene between Alexis and Krystle. It starts off on familiar territory with Krystle barging into Alexis’s office with an accusation ("Someone is sending photographs to me of Blake and another woman”), only to develop into something more unusual when Alexis offers her erstwhile rival a genuine piece of advice: "Look for the person behind the camera.” This in turn leads to a scene where Krystle visits Ashley (who has been photographing Blake for a feature in Life Magazine, no less) in her hotel room and cagily quizzes her about marriage and camera lenses. Ashley is clearly bemused. "Krystle, why is it I get the distinct feeling you've come here to accuse me of something?" she eventually asks her. Krystle apologises and leaves without actually saying what’s on her mind.

While Krystle and Ashley’s conversation is cryptic to the point of abstraction, its equivalent on this week’s DALLAS, where Betty the waitress drops by Southfork to tell Lucy that Eddie has been sleeping with both of them all along, is far more direct and straight-talking. "I just came out here to see if you rich girls hurt as much as us poor ones, and I am damn pleased to see that you do,” says Betty, displaying the same kind of broken-hearted-yet-head-held-high chutzpa that other short-lived but memorable Soap Land characters, KNOTS’ Janet Baines and DALLAS’s Betty Lou Barker, did in their final scenes.

This week’s FALCON CREST, meanwhile, includes a female confrontation scene that manages to be both abstract and direct at the same time. Upon discovering that Angela was responsible for sabotaging her wedding to Cole, Melissa pays her arch nemesis a visit. After some polite but insincere chit-chat, she presents Angela with her bridal dress (“for your trophy case”) and calls her a bitch. Angela then tosses the dress onto an open fire and glowers malevolently as the background music swells dramatically around her. It feels like some kind of primal Soap Land ritual has taken place, even if its exact meaning is unclear.

KNOTS, meanwhile, gives us two of the kind of domestic heart-to-heart conversations we’ve not seen for a while, each of which helps to reestablish Karen as the lynchpin of the cul-de-sac, and therefore the show itself. First we see her and Laura taking a walk to the mailbox as Laura expresses her mixed feelings regarding her future with Greg. Karen's response is impartial yet supportive: “I’m not the one who should tell you what to do, but whatever you do, it won’t affect our friendship.” This is followed by a bike-riding scene between Karen and Val, with Val — whose memory of the night she gave birth has now fully returned — once again insisting she heard her babies cry after they were supposedly stillborn. Not only is Karen again depicted as nonjudgemental and caring, there is also a strong indication that she might be starting to take Val’s claim seriously. Whereas Sue Ellen remains pretty much neutral on the subject of Mark Graison’s resurrection — her sole dramatic purpose during the Hong Kong excursion is to act as a sounding board for Pam — the possibility that the oh-so-rational Karen Mackenzie might believe the unbelievable regarding Val’s twins is presented as a major turning point on KNOTS. “What if Val’s babies didn’t die?” she asks Mack in the closing moments of the week’s ep.

While Karen resumes her role of her queen of the cul-de-sac, Miss Ellie has never seemed less concerned about keeping her dynasty intact on DALLAS. “If anyone feels it necessary to leave Southfork they can, but it won't be us,” she tells Clayton at the beginning of this week’s episode. And just as the rest of Seaview Circle fall into line behind Karen, the remaining members of the Ewing family take their lead from their matriarchal figurehead. In fact, I don’t think we’ve seen the Ewings this disunited since the days when Jock and Ellie were battling over Takapa and Bobby was preoccupied with running Ewing Oil. "The Ewings always used to close ranks whenever there was trouble from anybody outside the family but now things have changed,” frets JR — or as Donna puts it even more succinctly, "Looks like none of us are too comfortable eating at home these days.” The strength of family unity on this week’s FALCON CREST ranks somewhere in-between those on KNOTS and DALLAS: Lance is touched when Angela finally gives his relationship with Lorraine her blessing, but really she’s doing it to spite Richard.

For the first time since the days of Afton Cooper and Lane Ballou, Soap Land now has two songstresses performing semi-regularly on their respective shows. When not foiling takeover bids by huge conglomerates, DYNASTY's Dominique has an ongoing singing engagement at La Mirage, while KNOTS LANDING's Cathy continues to perform at Isadora’s, a saloon-type establishment, despite boyfriend Joshua’s pious disapproval. This week, however, both singers’ shows are disrupted. While Dominique at least makes it to the stage before starting to cough up blood, Cathy cannot tear herself away from an especially amorous picnic with Joshua to attend a rehearsal with her band. Only after she has missed the session does she accuse Joshua of deliberately distracting her — not out of desire but in order to assert his power over her.

While Dominique’s onstage collapse is an end in itself, insofar as it brings this week’s DYNASTY to a close, a far less serious ailment, Val cutting her hand on some wire fencing during a guided tour of Empire Valley, opens up a whole can of dramatic worms on KNOTS. While waiting for her to be treated in a clinic in the small nearby town of Wesphall, Ben stumbles upon a water contamination cover-up involving Galveston Industries. On one hand, this is an unusual plot for an '80s soap, containing as it does traces of consciousness-raising movies such as SILKWOOD and THE CHINA SYNDROME while also anticipating the likes of ERIN BROCKOVICH; on the other, it ties into an already knotty conspiracy in a way that suits KL perfectly.

Legal trend of the week: Witnesses coming forward in return for protection. On KNOTS, Mack makes a breakthrough in his attempts to nail Paul Galveston for the Tidal Basin murders when the hitman himself tells him he was following Galveston’s orders. Meanwhile, on DALLAS, Veronica Robinson contacts Bobby and offers to fly to Dallas to testify for Jenna at her trial. Mack and Bobby are initially excited by these developments, unaware that each will lead to a more or less dead-end — while Veronica is killed before she can make it to court, it looks like Paul Galveston will be equally dead before Mack can arrest him (although Mack doesn’t realise that yet).

What are the odds of two "Dead Woman on a Plane" storylines in the same Soap Land week? While Bobby and Jenna wait anxiously at the airport to greet Veronica Robinson at the end of DALLAS, Chase and Maggie do the same thing as they watch the plane carrying Mary Giannini (the widow of a local vintner murdered by the cartel earlier in the season) touchdown on FALCON CREST. Whereas Veronica’s death is discovered when her corpse falls out of the bathroom, Mary’s body makes a slightly more dignified appearance when her coffin is wheeled off the plane and into a waiting hearse. (Like DALLAS, this week’s DYNASTY also ends with a woman falling to the floor as a concerned crowd gather round, only here it’s an unconscious Dominique onstage at La Mirage rather than a dead Veronica onboard a plane.)

Nor is there any shortage of live women making dramatic entrances by plane this week. As well as Pam and Sue Ellen touching down in real life Hong Kong, Mary Giannini’s coffin is escorted by her daughter Connie in full mourning. Most intriguing of all is the unknown woman arriving at a private airstrip on KNOTS, her face and body obscured by a fur coat and strategically placed hat.

The same woman reappears throughout the episode, but each time her appearance and identity are obscured. This is the hoariest of clichés and one that has been rendered with more sophistication on other soaps — DYNASTY of course, and also PAPER DOLLS — but it’s nonetheless effective. In fact, KNOTS almost seems to relish the contrived nature of this plot device. (The fact that it is tied into the same storyline as the Wesphall water contamination is a great example of just how broadly encompassing KNOTS’ story-telling can be.) The mystery woman’s arrival culminates in the wackiest wedding thus far in a Soap Land season full of wacky weddings, as she marries Paul Galveston on his deathbed. Not only does the bride’s face remain obscured but the groom himself is also off screen for the ceremony. And even during the exchange of vows, we still don’t learn the lucky lady's name. Instead, the scene ends abruptly on the words: “Paul Galveston, do you take — ”. To put this plot development in broader terms, it's the equivalent of DYNASTY going from Alexis’s mysterious entrance at the end of Season 1 to her bedside wedding to Cecil Colby at the beginning of Season 3, all within the space of one episode but without either showing or explaining who she is. Only weirder.

Meanwhile, Gary, unaware of Galveston’s terminal condition, reacts to his business partner’s continued absence in the same way that daughter Lucy does to the news of Eddie’s infidelity on this week’s DALLAS — they each call a halt to their current building project. Where Lucy tells Eddie to "fire your crew, cancel your concrete”, Gary issues the following ultimatum to Galveston’s underling: “Nothing moves forward on Empire Valley until Paul and I talk.” (While there are no repercussions for Lucy following her snap decision to put an entire crew of men out of work, Gary choosing to halt production on Empire Valley incurs him the enmity of a group of sinister men in suits — just as it did a year earlier when he did the same thing to Lotus Point.)

This week’s FALCON CREST is a bit odd. For the majority of the episode, its tone is light and flippant, even a bit silly, but towards the end, it becomes unexpectedly gutsy and emotional. There’s a great fight between Greg Reardon and Cole Gioberti in Melissa’s living room which is probably the most "real” brawl Soap Land has seen since the days of THE YELLOW ROSE. (If any stunt men were involved, I couldn’t spot them.) There’s a nice little twist at the end of the fight when Greg — who has behaved like a heel throughout Cole and Melissa’s engagement, undermining their relationship at every turn — unexpectedly takes the high road and informs Cole that he (Cole) is the one Melissa really loves. The next thing we know, Greg is acting as Cole’s best man when he and Melissa are finally hitched in Soap Land’s second, and surprisingly touching, wedding of the week.

The final scene of this week's FC sees Richard Channing at his electrifying best. Having heard from a gloating Angela that his beloved step-daughter is pregnant by Lance and is planning to marry him, he flies into a rage. ”How could you do this to me??” he yells at Lorraine before disowning her. "You belong to them now!!”

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (1) KNOTS LANDING
2 (4) FALCON CREST
3 (2) DALLAS
4 (3) DYNASTY

 

[James from London]

6 Mar 85: DYNASTY: Parental Consent v. 7 Mar 85: KNOTS LANDING: A Piece of the Pie v. 08 Mar 85: DALLAS: Trial and Error v. 8 Mar 85: FALCON CREST: House Divided

Earlier in this season’s KNOTS LANDING, Val transformed herself into Verna Ellers, a fictional character in her own novel. This week’s DYNASTY goes one better by transporting Alexis to the fictional kingdom of Moldavia. What we see of the country — a royal chateau in wintry surroundings — looks quite Austrian, so it's appropriate that King Galen himself should strongly resemble Christopher Plummer, aka Captain Von Trapp from THE SOUND OF MUSIC. This minimal view of Moldavia — Alexis and Galen in cosy seclusion — is typical of what we see whenever Soap Land characters travel abroad. There’s rarely a genuine sense of the country or city we’re in, which makes the opening scene of this week’s DALLAS, where a tearful Pam and a concerned Sue Ellen appear lost and bedraggled amidst the hustle and bustle of a rainy Hong Kong street, all the more fascinating. A couple of real life passersby steal awkward glances at the camera in a way that never usually happens in Soap Land simply because there never usually are any real life passersby. Both in spite and because of its limitations, DYNASTY’s attempts to conjure an entire fictional country out of nowhere are so audacious as to be really funny. I particularly like the scene where Alexis laments Prince Michael’s betrothal to “the Duchess of Breena”. “Branagh,” King Galen corrects her. “Whatever — it’s so small a duchy that I never remember its name,” she shrugs, casually dismissing an entire dukedom as if it were one of her interchangeable male secretaries.

The first Soap Land Song Wars for two seasons takes place this week between DYNASTY’s Dominique Devereaux and KNOTS LANDING’s Cathy Geary. Admittedly, it’s not really an equal fight as Dominique is still convalescing in her hospital bed where we find her listening to a recording of herself singing “The Very Thought of You" and wondering if she’ll ever be able to perform again. “Listen to that - that’s the late great Dominique Devereaux,” she tells Blake. Over on KNOTS, Cathy makes her debut on Joshua’s TV show singing “Jehova”, a very pretty, overtly Christian song (“Jehovah, I love you so and Jesus, I want you to know all you’ve done for me …”). Unlike Joshua, Cathy has never expressed any strong religious views of her own, yet she imbues the song with an aching sincerity. At the same time, the cutaway shots of a glowering Joshua scrutinising her performance like an old-time movie director combine with Lisa Hartman’s innate vulnerability to suggest an underlying ambiguity — is Cathy singing to praise her creator or to appease Joshua? Either way, her sweetness and humility win out over Dominique’s showboating (even if it is only on tape).

Cathy’s performance is immediately followed by this week’s display of bizarre wedding-related behaviour. After the revelation of Jeff Colby’s non-wedding on last week’s DYNASTY comes Joshua's non-proposal as he announces his and Cathy's engagement on live TV, without having consulted the bride-to-be beforehand. Peter de Vilbis pulled the same stunt on Fallon during last season’s DYNASTY, but whereas Blake was unhappy to learn of his daughter’s engagement via the medium of television, Lilimae “is full to bursting with joy” that her son is to marry "the nicest girl in the whole wide world” (Cathy, like Fallon before her, having fallen passively into line).

Joshua isn’t the only character on this week’s KNOTS to pull the rug out from under those closest to him via an announcement on live television. Greg Sumner calls a surprise press conference (very much like the one last season in which he accused Mack of corruption and then asked for his resignation from the crime commission) to announce, in one fell swoop, Paul Galveston’s death, his own relationship to Galveston, and his decision to resign from the senate in order to take over his father’s company. No one saw this coming, least of all Greg’s closest confidante and girlfriend Laura. “I can’t believe it! All the effort, all that work down the tubes and not a word!” she shouts, before smashing a framed photo of the two of them in happier times.

There’s an equivalent situation in this week’s DALLAS when a similarly angry Ray Krebbs comes home drunk after finding out he was the last to know that wife Donna has "hit the big gusher” with her first oil well. He accuses Donna of being embarrassed by their marriage and lifestyle (just as he described his own shame at growing up as “the town drunk’s son” in last week’s ep). Like Laura’s outburst on KNOTS, this scene also ends with a shot of a "happy couple" photograph as Ray storms out leaving Donna to pick up their wedding portrait and look at it plaintively.

During the scene, Ray tells Donna, “You belong in the big house with the real Ewings, where the power is, not with the half-breed.” By “big house” he is speaking of Southfork itself. The line echoes what Richard Channing told Lorraine at the end of the last episode of FALCON CREST: "You belong to them now!” By “them”, he was referring to Angela, Lance and co. in their big house. And just as Donna has indeed moved in with “the real Ewings” by the end of this week’s DALLAS so Lorraine is now living with “them” at Falcon Crest. But where Miss Ellie and Clayton welcome Donna with open arms, Lorraine’s stay with her in-laws-to-be is proving somewhat frostier. It’s during a scene where Angela takes her to the same kind of restaurant as Sue Ellen took Jamie to earlier in this season’s DALLAS, where models parade in expensive designer dresses that diners can then purchase, that Lorraine realises that all Angela is interested in is turning her unborn child into the next heir to Falcon Crest.

There’s also a parallel between Ray and Donna’s conflict and a late-night kitchen conversation between Chase and Maggie on FALCON CREST. Where Donna insists that she is "not going give up my ideas, my hopes and my dreams to try and fit in with what Ray's ideas of what a perfect wife should be,” Maggie recalls a time when being a perfect wife was all she aspired to: "All I wanted then was to be a good wife and mother and roll out a flaky pie crust.” "If Donna wants to spend her time turning a profit in the oil business, she's just going have to do it alone,” Ray tells Clayton angrily. "Do you resent all this?" Maggie asks Chase, referring to her work as a journalist. "Occasionally," he admits. The Gioberti marriage is nowhere near as rocky as the Krebbses’ at this point, but it’s nonetheless telling that at the end of the scene Chase is telling Maggie about his work when he realises that she’s stopped listening. (This is one of those odd moments, a bit like when Dominique started coughing on DYNASTY a few episodes ago, that in real life would be inconsequential — after all, people cough and stop listening to each other all the time — but in the simplistic world of Soap Land seem quite portentous.)

Her search for Mark having reached a dead end, DALLAS’s Pam prepares to return home. “I've finally got to accept that he's gone from my life,” she tells Sue Ellen. “I know they’re gone,” echoes Val on KNOTS LANDING in regard her twins. Both shows then conclude with what might be termed a "resurrection tease”. As Pam and Sue Ellen leave Hong Kong, they are unaware that they are being observed by Mr. Wong. "The plane just took off,” he is reporting to someone over the phone. "Tell him it went exactly as he planned.” Tell who? Might it be … Mark Graison? Meanwhile during this week’s KNOTS, Mack and Ben pay a chance visit to an address listed amongst Paul Galveston’s papers. A young housewife answers the door and invites them in, but is unable to supply a connection between herself and Galveston Industries. Mack and Ben are then distracted by Greg’s surprise announcement on television and so fail to register that the woman has twin babies in her kitchen. Lest we at home aren’t quite sure what to make of this, KNOTS pulls a Soap Land first and places a freeze frame of the twins underneath the end credits, circumventing narrative convention to make it clear to us that, “yes, they really are who you think they are.” This kind of direct communication between programme maker and viewer would nowadays most likely be done via Twitter.

Throughout this week’s FALCON CREST, Greg Reardon is hopeful that his appeal for a postponement regarding Lance’s trial will be granted. In the final scene of the ep, we learn that it hasn’t. “Your trial starts Monday,” Angela informs her grandson gravely. Meanwhile, on DALLAS, Jenna’s trial is already underway. As the prosecuting attorney, Scooter Warren, Laura Avery’s former real estate mentor, is pitted against Angela Channing’s first husband Douglas (aka defence lawyer Scotty Demarest). While Scooter is as brisk, sharp and witty as he was on KNOTS, Douglas/Scotty is as laid back and slow-talking Southern as ever. It’s a great contrast.

Synchronicity of the week: In the same week that Greg S gives up his senatorial career on KNOTS, Greg R announces his intention to make a run for the governor’s office on FALCON CREST.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (-) FALCON CREST
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (1) KNOTS LANDING
4 (3) DYNASTY

 

[James from London]

13 Mar 85: DYNASTY: Photo Finish v. 15 Mar 85: DALLAS: The Verdict v. 15 Mar 85: FALCON CREST: The Trial

It’s a courtroom heavy week in Soap Land with the trials of DALLAS’s Jenna and FALCON CREST’s Lance now both underway. In each case, the jury is more ethnically diverse than the show’s cast as a whole, while the bailiff at Jenna’s murder trial is played by the same black actor who was the bailiff at Alexis's murder trial on DYNASTY four months ago. The hearings begin similarly, with each prosecution’s first witness being the cop who found the accused in possession of the offending weapon (Naldo’s gun, Lance’s car) at or near the scene of the crime. More police and legal experts are then called, creating a strong case against the defendant. After the prosecution rests, Bobby Ewing and Angela Channing each take their turn as a witness for the defence, although neither fares very well under cross-examination. Bobby produces a letter written by Veronica Robinson to her sister Ann shortly before her death in which she states Jenna’s innocence. (The letter has been obtained by Bobby during a flying visit to California where he finds Ann McFadden living in what could easily pass for the same not-too-shabby, not-too-swanky neighbourhood as Sheila Fisher, the housewife with twin babies whom Mack and Ben dropped in on during last week’s KNOTS LANDING.) Prosecuting attorney Scooter Warren easily discredits this evidence as the word of "a woman who was a kidnapper, an extortionist and a drug addict.” Meanwhile, the equivalent prosecutor on FALCON CREST (recently the paediatric surgeon who saved Krystina’s life on DYNASTY) riles Angela to the point where she calls the jury a bunch of idiots. Both Bobby and Angela end up appearing uncharacteristically impotent on the witness stand.

With things looking grim for both defendants (“There's a strong case against you, and I don't have much to counter it with,” confesses Scotty Demarest to Jenna. “The trial is not going according to plan and we are fast running out of our supply of friendly witnesses,” admits Greg Reardon to Lance), the suggestion is made to call a controversial witness to the stand. In Jenna’s case, this means her daughter Charlie. "It's vital that the jury understand that the one goal in your mind was to get your daughter back,” Scotty explains. However, Jenna won’t consider it. "Charlie's been through enough," she insists. On FALCON CREST, Angela is equally opposed to the idea of Lance testifying on his own behalf. “I am absolutely against it — you’re making a terrible mistake,” she insists. However, her objections are overridden by Lance himself.

At this point, it becomes apparent that Lance’s story is about more than whether or not he will be found guilty of attempted murder. The overarching storyline is the character’s redemption, his journey from semi-villainous playboy (“You have a reputation that Genghis Khan would envy,” Angela reminds him) to reformed good guy, wrongly accused (“It’s all in the past now,” he insists). When an emotional Lance explains to the jury how much he loves his grandmother (a speech reminiscent of Blake Carrington’s sentimental testimony about his son Steven at his own murder trial), the transformation appears to be complete. There is no such character journey for Jenna. She has already taken the stand at her trial, but with no memory of the night Naldo died, had little to offer (“All I know is I didn’t kill him!”). In terms of DALLAS as a whole, the primary function of Jenna’s trial is the obstacle it presents to a reconciliation between Bobby and Pam.

In the event, Jenna is found guilty not of murder but of voluntary manslaughter, just Blake was following the death of his son’s gay lover on DYNASTY four years ago. Now that Steven has a new boyfriend, Blake is handling the situation rather differently. In this week’s ep, instead of dashing Luke Fuller's brains against a fireplace fender, he invites him to dine with the family at the Carrington mansion. As might be expected, the dinner table conversation is exquisitely excruciating, but somewhat less predictably, never devolves into a petulant spat with somebody storming out in a huff.

Interestingly, while Blake makes an overt display of acceptance towards Steven and Luke, he is less tolerant of Claudia whom he seems to blame for failing to keep Steven on the strait and narrow. This allows Adam to play Claudia and Blake off against one another. I’d completely forgotten how much fun it is to watch him going from to other, slyly dripping poison in their respective ears in order to drive a wedge between father and daughter-in-law.

A week after Lilimae’s long-lost son Joshua announced his engagement to Cathy on KNOTS LANDING, Blake and Alexis’s long-lost daughter Amanda receives a marriage proposal from Prince Michael on DYNASTY. Whereas Cathy, despite her reservations, meekly consented to Joshua's wishes, Amanda is less compliant. “You’re buying me,” she accuses Michael, echoing her near namesake Mandy Winger’s recent response on DALLAS when JR tried to buy her an apartment: “I’m not for sale.” Like JR, Michael insists that his motives are genuine. “I swear that I love you,” he tells Amanda. When this fails to impress her, he tries another tack. "You’ll change your mind — you’ll have to,” he snaps coldly, sounding more like the domineering Joshua than the gallant prince.

The idea of Amanda as a piece of property for sale recurs throughout this episode of DYNASTY. “How much does a daughter go for on the open market these days?” Amanda asks Alexis during a very enjoyable confrontation scene. "Why would a mother sell her own daughter?” wonders Blake. In fact, the story surrounding this royal engagement is surprisingly layered. As chief matchmaker, Alexis has multiple motives for wanting to marry her daughter off to royalty. Some are self-serving — the marriage would indeed seal a business alliance between Colby Co and the Moldavian government, plus it would put Amanda safely out of reach of Alexis's own husband Dex — but she also believes Amanda and Michael are well-suited. “Even if I were the monster you think I am … don’t let that obscure your real feelings,” she urges her daughter. "Don’t throw away the chance of a lifetime because you feel it was pushed a bit by others.” And then there’s the whole fairytale-come-true aspect of marrying a handsome young prince. Alexis describes the proposal as “a dream, not for myself but for my daughter, a dream that comes once in a lifetime.” When Amanda still isn’t convinced, Alexis becomes amusingly exasperated: "Amanda, he’s kind, he’s intelligent — he’s a prince! What more do you want?!" All these motives are interestingly jumbled together until it’s hard to see where Alexis’s self-interest ends and her concern for her daughter’s happiness begins.

Eventually, having been spurned yet again by Dex during a clandestine meeting which is staged more like an espionage scene from EMERALD POINT N.A.S. (two cars pull up alongside each other in a dark and rainy side-street, Amanda darting out of her car and into the back of Dex's) than a lovers’ tryst, Amanda agrees to marry Michael, but with an air of cynical older-then-her-years resignation reminiscent of Kirby when she accepted Adam’s proposal last season. However, she adds a Sue Ellen Ewing-style proviso: “that it be a marriage in name only." Michael reluctantly agrees. Back on DALLAS, Mandy Winger is proving equally hard to get. Like Amanda with Michael, she has already succumbed to JR’s charms once but is determined not to make the same mistake again. “I won’t go to bed with you, not while you and Sue Ellen are together,” she tells him flatly. “Well, we may not be together much longer,” comes JR's intriguing reply.

Amanda’s not the only DYNASTY female who’s been taking a leaf out of Sue Ellen’s guide to marriage of late. A few weeks after Sue Ellen moved back into her own room at Southfork, Krystle did the same at the Carrington mansion. This week, Krystle goes a step further and follows the example set by Donna Krebbs in last week’s DALLAS by moving out of the marital home completely. This week’s DYNASTY ends with Blake standing in her wake, imploring her to change her mind. In a beautifully acted scene in this week’s DALLAS, Ray Krebbs picks up where Blake left off. He follows Donna out to the cardboard Southfork patio to ask her to come home. "Can't we just have things the way they were?” he asks. "People grow and they change," she explains tearfully. "Otherwise they just stay the same, Ray, and they die.”

If Alexis can be accused (at least in part) of trying to sell her daughter, she’s not the only one. There’s a similar dynamic between Lila Cummings, an old flame of JR’s whom he runs into at the Oil Barons' Club, and her daughter Rhonda whom she allows JR to more or less pimp out to Nathan Billings, the head of the Texas Energy Commission, in front of her very eyes.

This week's DYNASTY and DALLAS both use the familiar soap trope whereby a spouse or partner walks into a scene to find their other half in an apparently compromising situation with a third party. DYNASTY has deployed this device numerous times already this season — in fact, the Luke/Steven/Claudia and Alexis/Dex/Amanda storylines would be nowhere without it. Indeed, this week’s episode picks up exactly where last week’s left off when Alexis returned to her penthouse from Moldavia with Prince Michael in tow to find Amanda with her arm around Dex (the truth being that Dex had fainted after discharging himself from the hospital and Amanda was merely helping him). On this week’s ep, Adam spots Claudia and ex-fling Dean Caldwell in an embrace (it’s a platonic farewell) and Krystle sees Blake and Ashley Mitchell together by the La Mirage tennis courts (just a chance meeting). Over on DALLAS, Jenna is dismayed when she walks past the Southfork nursery to see Bobby hugging Pam (a comforting embrace following her fruitless search for Mark). Reversing the trend somewhat, the big reveal at the end of the Rhonda Cummings/Nathan Billings seduction is JR and Lila watching the scene via a hidden camera. “If she were my real daughter, I’d be very upset,” laughs Lila. So that explains that.

An even bigger discovery is that Sammy Jo was behind the mysterious photos sent to Blake and Krystle of each other’s misleading liaisons, with Ashley and Daniel Reece respectively. Turns out it was a scheme to break up her aunt’s marriage. Over drinks with Morgan Hess in a New York bar, Sammy Jo pulls the plug on the operation. “They’ll split up the day the North Pole has a heatwave and melts,” she says gloomily. I love the sheer ballsiness of what happens next — no sooner has one far-fetched story-line been resolved than another one begins, as Sammy Jo’s attention is drawn to a red-haired woman who has been arguing with her boyfriend at the bar since the beginning of the scene. Her observation — “My God, that woman, she reminds me of my Aunt Krystle” — may not be quite as momentous as Gary Ewing's “Holy shit — it’s Ciji!” reaction the first time he saw Cathy Geary on KNOTS, but there is still something thrilling about that initial reveal of Linda Evans sporting a red wig and a Southern accent.

There’s a late entry to this season’s long-lost-relative parade in the final scene of this week’s FALCON CREST. College dropout Robin Agretti shows up at her cousin Melissa’s door, simply dressed and carrying a backpack. So far so Joshua Rush and Jamie Ewing — but the way her eyes light up when she meets Melissa’s new husband (“What a hunk!”) and takes in her fancy new surroundings (“I’d do anything to have a place like this!”) suggests she’s actually cast from the same sexy young gold-digger mould as Kristin Shepherd and Sammy Jo Dean.

And this week’s Top 3 are …

1 (4) DYNASTY
2 (2) DALLAS
3 (1) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

27 Mar 85: DYNASTY: Reconciliation v. 28 Mar 85: KNOTS LANDING: A Man of Good Will v. 29 Mar 85: DALLAS: Sentences v. 29 Mar 85: FALCON CREST: Justice For All

Following an almighty explosion (probably the biggest in Soap Land history) in the opening scene of this week’s DYNASTY, Blake Carrington and Daniel Reece find themselves in the same position as previous Soap Land plane crash survivors — JR and Bobby in early DALLAS stand alone episode “Survival”, Sam and Field in a Season 2 ep of FLAMINGO ROAD -- that of erstwhile adversaries obliged to put their differences to one side for the sake of their mutual survival.

As is tradition, the Carrington women remain anxiously at home while the remaining male characters join the search party. Usually, it’s the female scenes that carry more weight, but this time the drama is pretty much evenly distributed between the genders, with enough macho rivalry to keep the rescue scenes bubbling along nicely. Inevitably, the search is hampered by adverse weather conditions and the men bicker over how best to proceed.

Just as it was honorary Ewing son Ray Krebbs who came to JR and Bobby’s rescue by helicopter back in ’78, so it is Blake’s surrogate son Jeff who locates he and Daniel in their hour of need. (This is preceded by a laugh-out-loud scene in which Jeff lands a sucker-punch on Steven to prevent him coming along on the precarious 'copter ride.) Also like Ray, Jeff spots the men thanks to three distress-signal fires lit by Blake (and before him JR). Oddly, this is the second time in as many episodes that Daniel Reece has been rescued from a life-threatening situation. Last week, Dex went undercover to spring him from a military prison in Paraguay — but whereas that entire operation scarcely took up two minutes of screen time, this week’s rescue spans two-thirds of an episode.

Despite their estrangement, Krystle has been keeping vigil for Blake at the mansion. Her joy at his safe return is tempered when Blake politely thanks her for her concern and offers to have her driven back to La Mirage. This is the same lesson that Sue Ellen learnt when JR returned home after his plane crash — not all marital differences can be healed with an “I’m so glad you’re all right” hug. Blake and Krystle are reunited later in the episode, however — an inevitable development, perhaps, but one that feels surprisingly earned and believable.

Another DYNASTY reconciliation takes place when the ordinarily aloof Amanda, having realised that she does love Prince Michael after all, tells him she wants to go ahead with their wedding. Conversely, on KNOTS LANDING, the previously passive Cathy Geary shows signs of rebellion regarding her engagement. First, she angrily rejects the wedding dress Joshua has picked out for her, and then fails to show up for a meeting with Reverend Catherine to discuss their vows.

If Cathy’s starting to question her choice of men, she’s not the only one. Having recently dated a con man and a madman respectively, it’s not too surprising that DALLAS’s Lucy and FALCON CREST’s Emma should both be feeling a tad dejected about their love lives this week. "I keep picking men who are wrong for me,” laments Lucy. “Romance is just not in my plans,” says Emma firmly. However, you can’t keep a good victim down for long and by the end of this week’s FC, Emma has fallen head over heels once more, this time for Damon Rossini (yet another Tuscany Valley newcomer with a secret identity and an ulterior motive). Meanwhile, all it takes is the mention of her ex-husband Mitch Cooper to make Lucy’s eyes light up all over again.

Back at the Carrington mansion, a recuperating Blake receives a visit from Alexis. His anger over her involvement in Amanda’s engagement (“You sold her!” “I bought her a chance at happiness!”) reignites their feud, prompting Krystle to order Alexis out of the house. “This was my house while you were living in a shack somewhere!” Alexis snarls as Krystle manhandles her down the stairs and tosses a bouquet of flowers after her. It’s been a long time since the two rivals have interacted so physically and I’d forgotten how much fun it could be. Over on DALLAS, another classic conflict also comes back into focus. Following her return from Hong Kong, Sue Ellen is unhappy to hear that JR has been “flaunting” his relationship with Mandy Winger in her absence. He has a solution: “You can divorce me … but no matter what, John Ross stays here with me.” He hasn’t spoken to his wife this coldly in years and there is an immediate sense of urgency. “I’ve got to do something before JR drives me over the edge again,” Sue Ellen tells Pam.

DYNASTY’s Ashley Mitchell may share a title with DALLAS’s Lady Jessica and a profession with KNOTS LANDING’s Ruth, but it turns out the Soap Land character she most resembles is recent FALCON CREST arrival, Connie Giannini. Both are American women who became experts in their chosen fields while living in France — Ashley was "the best young photographer in all of Paris” according to Dominique, while Chase hails Connie as "the first woman winemaker at Montret”. They also share a perpetually sunny disposition (in spite of Ashley’s widowhood and the recent untimely deaths of both of Connie's parents) as well as an inappropriate interest in the husband of their respective show’s most wholesomely married couple. Upon hearing of Blake’s plane crash on this week’s DYNASTY, Ashley finally stops smiling long enough to admit to Dominique that she came to Denver to seduce him, before realising how hopelessly in love with Krystle he was. Meanwhile, the neck rub Connie elicits from Chase on FC is at least as provocative as the kiss Ashley gave Blake at the end of her first ep. It is followed by a bedroom scene where Chase, still aroused from being in such close proximity to Connie, takes Maggie by surprise by getting into bed and kissing her passionately. (“Where’s this coming from? Are you on new vitamins or something?” she asks) By Soap Land standards, this is pretty frank stuff. This is a genre in which the concept of a “happy marriage” has been so idealised that the very notion of a husband fantasising about another woman while having sex with his wife (a wife played by a beautiful Hollywood star!) is all but inconceivable. Even in KNOTS LANDING, for all its self-consciously “down to earth” depictions of married life — for example, the running gag in last week’s ep regarding a blocked sink in the Mackenzies’ kitchen — it is unthinkable that Mack would ever find Karen anything less than highly desirable. Therefore, in its own quiet way, Chase’s libidinous behaviour feels as subversive as Val Ewing lacerating her own appearance in that motel room scene earlier in the season.

Speaking of quiet subversion, it transpires on this week’s KNOTS that, in contrast to virtually every other red-blooded male in Soap Land (with the possible exception of Ray Krebbs), neither Eric nor Michael Fairgate has any interest in taking over their father's business. In a genre where father-to-son legacies are of paramount importance, Michael’s matter-of-fact dismissal of Knots Landing Motors (“I work there part time and I hate it") sounds a similarly blasphemous note to Donna Krebbs' recent exasperated plea to her husband on DALLAS: “Jock is dead, Ray — do something for the living!”

The Fairgate boys’ attitude comes to light after Sid’s widow Karen receives a very handsome offer for the dealership. In spite of the offer and her sons’ feelings, she still finds herself unable to let it go — in contrast with Miss Ellie’s recent conclusion on DALLAS that Ewing Oil is "just a company.” At first glance, given what else is happening at this point in the KNOTS saga, specifically the somewhat space-age developments at Empire Valley, this hearkening back to Sid’s era feels slightly incongruent but is actually quite timely. The scene at his grave where Karen relieves Eric of any filial obligation towards KLM (“Your father … never thought you had to do what he did — he just wanted you to be happy”) seems to signify a passing of the torch: the days when Sid was the dead patriarchal figure whose shadow loomed largest over KNOTS are at an end. Thanks to the shock twist at the final scene of this week’s ep, that distinction now belongs to Paul Galveston.

In fact, these week’s DYNASTY and KNOTS have similar endings. Adam Carrington is dismayed to overhear Blake telling hero of the hour Jeff Colby (not even his real son!) that he intends to leave him control of Denver-Carrington in his will. Meanwhile, Laura Avery is a bystander when Gary Ewing informs Abby that Paul Galveston (not even his real father!) has left him and not Greg all of Empire Valley in his will. Adam goes nuts, ranting at a framed photograph of Blake (“Denver Carrington is mine! It’s mine! IT’S MINE!”) which he then smashes. Gary goes nuts in a different way, unleashing his high-pitched hysterical laugh as he embraces Abby and lifts her off the ground. With no photograph of her own to smash (she did that last week), Laura just hovers awkwardly then does an interesting sideways look with her eyes.

Soap Land’s current trials both reach their conclusion this week. While the Ewings file into court for Jenna’s sentencing on DALLAS, the Channings and Giobertis anxiously await the verdict in Lance’s case on FALCON CREST. The icy blonde judge on DALLAS (who slightly resembles the icy blonde prosecuting attorney on FALCON CREST) casts a dispassionate eye over Jenna's complicated history. "You have woven yourself quite a tangled web, Mrs Marchetta,” she coolly observes, making no allowances for the fact that Jenna lives in a soap opera world where tangled webs are unavoidable. Indeed, the juxtaposition between Jenna’s melodramatic ordeal at the hands of Naldo and the coldly sceptical scrutiny she has received from the legal system since her arrest has been the most interesting and satisfying aspect of this storyline.

Conversely, on FALCON CREST, the legal system is part of the melodrama by virtue of the fact that the judge presiding over Lance’s trial is being bribed-cum-blackmailed by Richard Channing into ensuring a guilty verdict. Jury deliberation subsequently becomes a Soap Land plot point for the first time when the jury in Lance’s case declares themselves unable to reach a unanimous verdict. Defence lawyer Greg Reardon moves for a mistrial but under pressure from Richard, Judge Holder orders them to continue deliberating until they have reached a definitive verdict. Eventually, Lance is found guilty.

Having proved ineffectual on the witness stand, Bobby Ewing and Angela Channing each now attempt to pervert the course of justice on behalf of the accused. Angela tries to bribe Judge Holder into granting Lance a suspended sentence but is unsuccessful. Lance, like Jenna, is sent down for seven years. Bobby, meanwhile, perjures himself during Jenna’s sentencing hearing. Fearing her daughter Charlie will be made a ward of the state, he claims to be the girl’s real father. Jenna having already told the same lie on Charlie’s birth certificate, he is believed.

As well as the same prison term, Jenna and Lance are awarded similar freeze frames. FALCON CREST’s shows a stunned Lance being led away from his fiancée Lorraine in the courtroom while DALLAS ends with jailbird Jenna instructing her fiancé Bobby never to visit her again. “You’re free!” she tells him bravely but tearfully.

Freudian flubs of the week: During a conversation with her daughter Amanda, DYNASTY's Alexis mistakenly blames King Galen himself for sabotaging their teenage romance instead of his father (“When Michael’s father forced us to separate, I thought I’d never love another man again …”). Over on DALLAS, while talking to Lucy, Ray erroneously refers to Mickey Trotter as his nephew rather than his cousin.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (-) DALLAS
2 (2) DYNASTY
3 (1) KNOTS LANDING
4 (-) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

10 Apr 85: DYNASTY: Kidnap v. 11 Apr 85: KNOTS LANDING: Four, No Trump v. 12 Apr 85: DALLAS: Terms of Estrangement v. 12 Apr 85: FALCON CREST: Devil’s Harvest

DYNASTY's Alexis and KNOTS LANDING’s Abby find themselves in similarly helpless situations when their children’s lives are endangered in this week’s Soap Land. “Oh my God — Amanda!” Alexis gasps as her youngest daughter is snatched away by kidnappers in front of her eyes. “Please God, don’t let anybody be hurt,” mutters Abby as she and Gary rush to the site of a car accident involving both of her children. Amanda is ultimately rescued and Olivia and Brian are found uninjured, but both mothers are left shaken. “When those men grabbed her, I felt part of my life was being dragged away,” Alexis tells Dex. “I just can’t help thinking what could have happened,” Abby tells Gary.

Each incident reawakens memories of past abductions. "All I remember is a loneliness, isolation, a feeling I didn’t quite belong,“ says DYNASTY’s Adam of his own kidnapping. "I never felt so alone or empty in all my life,” echoes Abby, referring to the time her ex-husband Jeff “stole” her children. “It’s the most awful feeling in the world to see something happen to your child and be absolutely helpless to do anything about it,” Alexis agrees.

While the kidnapping prompts Alexis to take Amanda to Moldavia ahead of her wedding in the mistaken belief that she will be safer there than in Denver, the car accident has an even more profound effect on Abby who decides she can no longer live with her complicity in the disappearance of Val’s babies. In order to get her hands on Paul Galveston’s papers, which she believes contain the answer to the twins’ whereabouts, she is obliged to tell Greg Sumner everything. While it’s fascinating to watch her finally come clean, it’s even more interesting to observe Greg’s implacable reaction to her lengthy tale. At its conclusion, he agrees to give her his father’s papers with one proviso: “I don’t ever want to hear another word about this again. Ever.” Abby gratefully agrees and that appears to be the end of Greg's involvement in the situation. However, once she has left, we discover that he has given her all of his father's documents except the torn pages revealing the babies’ location!

Meanwhile, as a falsely accused Lance Cumson becomes a fugitive from the law on FALCON CREST, it emerges that two genuinely dangerous men are also currently at large in Soap Land. While one is hiding in plain sight, the other could be anywhere in the world. The former is Yuri, Prince Michael’s head of security on DYNASTY, who was behind Amanda’s botched kidnapping. The latter is Andre Schumann, whose murder of Veronica Robinson on DALLAS comes to light via in-flight security footage. While neither Prince Michael nor the Carringtons have any idea of Yuri’s duplicity and continue to entrust him with Amanda’s safety, Schumann is identified by the Dallas police as a professional hitman, "and professional hit men are nearly impossible to find”. In each case, a bigger question is raised: who are Yuri and Schumann taking their orders from?

“I'm acting the way everyone thinks that I should, the way I think everyone wants me to act … from the moment I wake up in the morning till the moment I try to close my eyes at night.” So says Val to Karen on KNOTS LANDING, but her words could just as easily apply to Bobby and Pam on DALLAS or DYNASTY’s Jeff Colby, each of whom is trying valiantly to put the past behind them and move on with their lives, only to find themselves being pulled back to the place where their heart secretly lies.

Emboldened by catching Cathy’s wedding bouquet last week, Val jokes with Ben about getting married and even goes so far as sleep with him for the first time since her breakdown. But then he awakens in the middle of the night to find her staring broodily out at the ocean, and she continues to keep him at arm’s length for the rest of the episode. “I know those babies are alive,” she confides to Karen. "I felt their life inside of me and it didn’t stop.”

Even as Bobby continues to battle for Jenna's innocence and Pam reasserts her commitment to Cliff and Jamie's fight for Ewing Oil, each is given a lingering tell-tale close-up at the end of a scene that indicates their real devotion still lies with each other. Even JR is aware of it. "Don't you deny you love Pam more than you do Jenna,” he challenges Bobby, who doesn’t reply.

Likewise, on DYNASTY, Jeff tries to move forward with his romantic life, declaring his love for Ashley Mitchell and insisting that he no longer has any interest in Fallon, irrespective of whether she is alive or dead. Later, however, we see him staring at the portrait of Fallon that has been hanging in the Carrington mansion since Christmas — only now the face in the portrait belongs to someone else! As he looks at the painting, he flashes back to a love scene that took place between he and Fallon almost two seasons ago — only now the Fallon in the flashback resembles the woman in the painting! Adding to the feeling of disorientation, Jeff’s eyes are super-imposed over the flashback as though, like the audience, he is trying to make sense of what he is seeing. If this were an episode of DARK SHADOWS, the painting itself would have psychic properties and would be hypnotising Jeff (and us) into believing this unknown woman is the real Fallon and has been all along. There are many layers of reality going on here: Fallon used to be played by one actress, but now looks like another. Fallon was believed to be dead, but now possibly isn’t. Jeff insists he no longer loves Fallon, yet clearly, he does.

Elsewhere on DYNASTY, Luke Fuller is taken aback when Steven invites him to the royal wedding in Moldavia. “Flaunting our relationship that publicly? It can’t do anything but hurt your family!” he exclaims. Eric Fairgate seemed to be anticipating a similarly strong reaction when he brought Whitney, his black girlfriend, to Joshua and Cathy’s wedding in last week’s KNOTS. However, when he anxiously asks people their opinion of her in this week’s ep, the only word they use to describe her is “cute”. This would suggest that, with the possible exception of Eric himself, the good folks of Seaview Circle are all as colour blind as, well, the Carringtons of DYNASTY were at the beginning of this season when Dominique Devereaux claimed to be their blood relative and no one even thought to mention her skin colour. However, there’s no mistaking the double meaning in Mack’s line when he says to Karen, with reference to Whitney, “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” — this, of course, being the title of a 1967 movie in which the liberal views of a married couple (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) are put to the test when their daughter brings her black fiancé (Sidney Poitier) home to meet the family.

Back on DYNASTY, a possible consequence of Dominique's race never being referred to on screen is that it becomes the elephant in the room that no one talks about; one starts to see its significance everywhere. For example, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the speech in this week’s episode where she refers herself as two separate people — one rich, successful and embraced by the Carringtons, the other poor, hungry and married to Billy Dee Williams — reflects, on some level, her own mixed race background. “I have accomplished a great deal [in Denver],” she tells Ashley, "and I have my family name now, but what about the other me, that little Milly Cox who clawed and fought her way to get here? Brady would say that I have betrayed her, sold her for thirty pieces of silver."

"What's going to happen to us as a family if we lose two-thirds of Ewing Oil?" Miss Ellie asks her husband in this week's DALLAS. Clayton's eloquent reply echoes the rallying speech Blake delivered to his family at the beginning of this season's DYNASTY. "It's when things are bad," Blake said then, "that's when we Carringtons are tested. We have to pull ourselves together. We have to be strong. We have to be what we always are — an example to others." "This family wasn't built on wealth," Clayton says now. "It was built on character. And you have to make sure that no matter what happens to the Ewing fortune, nothing happens to the Ewing spirit. With it, the family will survive and without it, it doesn't stand a chance." "I don't know if I have the strength," replies Ellie. "Together we do," Clayton concludes decisively, mirroring the end of Blake's speech: "We Carringtons will prevail." Whereas the Carringtons were united by Blake's words, the opposite occurs on DALLAS when Clayton subsequently becomes embroiled in a near fist-fight with his stepson after JR verbally attacks Sue Ellen in front of the family.

A week after Joshua married Cathy on KNOTS LANDING, his poor relation counterpart on DALLAS, Jamie Ewing, accepts a proposal of marriage from Cliff Barnes. Just as Lilimae acknowledged how far her son has evolved within the space of season — from "a shy country boy who'd just left home not knowing much about the world outside" into "a man that people listen to, respect, are drawn to and seek out" — so a figure from Jamie's past shows up this week and observes the change in her: "New wardrobe, new hairdo, new you … Looks like we're moving uptown, baby!" Yep, in the same week that Emma Samms materialises on DYNASTY as New Fallon, Dack Rambo arrives on DALLAS as cousin Jack.

Joshua and Jamie have each come a long way in less than a year, but Soap Land's newest long lost relatives — cousin Jack on DALLAS and cousin Robin on FALCON CREST — move even faster. In his very first scene during this week's ep — before he's even divulged his identity — Jack makes JR a compelling proposal: "If I can stop Jason Ewing's daughter and Digger Barnes's son from stealing two-thirds of Ewing Oil, I think fair compensation would be 10% of Ewing Oil for myself." Over on FALCON CREST, Robin offers Cole and Melissa her services as a surrogate mother. When Cole refuses, she seduces him anyway.

While the exotic Ruth Galveston and homely Lilimae make unexpected lunch partners on this week's KNOTS, the level-headed Donna Krebbs and neurotic Sue Ellen make even less likely accomplices during a late-night milk-and-cookie binge on DALLAS. Both pairs of women find common ground when the subject of men is inevitably raised. "Have you ever met a man who wasn't trouble?" asks Ruth. "Well, I never met one who was worth a damn who wasn't!" Lilimae replies and the two women laugh. Meanwhile, on Southfork, the joke is more bitter than sweet as Donna surveys the fates of the Ewing wives: "Poor Pam, poor you, poor me." (The unspoken addition of "Poor Val" feels almost implicit.) "The Curse of the Ewings," diagnoses Sue Ellen. "It wasn't supposed to happen to me," Donna whispers tearfully. There's another unusual female pairing on FALCON CREST when Pamela Lynch drops in on Melissa — only not to break bread, but to blackmail. "You can help finance my new life," she suggests. "If you don't, I'm sure Angela would pay a great deal of money to know who hired Joel McCarthy to run her off the road ... Shall we say $100,000?" (Compared to what Jack Ewing's asking of JR, this seems a mere pittance.) Suffice to say, none of these scenes would score very highly on the Bedchel test, but they're all as juicy as can be.

Each of this week's eps concludes with an exciting reveal. "Who are you?" a sympathetic cop in a Los Angeles police station asks a young woman with her back to the camera at the end of DYNASTY. When she turns around, we see it's the same woman in Fallon's painting and Jeff's flashback! "How can I tell you when I don't know myself?" she asks helplessly. At the end of KNOTS, we see Mrs Fisher, the woman Mack and Ben visited a few episodes ago, returning home with her twin babies. Who should be watching her from a discreet distance but … Greg Sumner! At the end of DALLAS, Dack Rambo shows up at Jamie's apartment to divulge his true identity. "Get lost? Just like that? Your own brother," he whispers sinisterly — a reveal almost as good as Dominique's equivalent quip to Blake at the beginning of the season: "We have so much in common, our blood, our genes, our daddy."

FALCON CREST's cliffhanger employs the same back-of-a-woman's-head gimmick as DYNASTY's. This time, however, the big reveal is not the character's identity — we already know that she is Cassandra Wilder's mother. Instead, the big news is what she has written on her notepad before falling asleep in her wheelchair: "Final Phase — The Destruction of Falcon Crest!"

And this week's Top 4 is … kind of hard to decide. Aside from FALCON CREST which is further away from the finishing post, each show now has its end-of-season groove on. While DYNASTY boasts a succession of sinfully thrilling pop culture moments (Krystle lookalikes! One-eyed Moldavians! Emma Samms in a raincoat!) and KNOTS its own specific dramatic richness ("I do what I have to to get what I want, but I don't do this — I don't take babies away from their mother"), it's DALLAS, with its interdependent story-lines, fast-moving pace and driving emotional score, that best captures the sense of a show careering inexorably towards a predestined but as-yet-unknowable climax. No matter how many times I've seen this ep, and I've seen it a lot, it still feels intoxicating.

1 (-) DALLAS
2 (2) KNOTS LANDING
3 (1) DYNASTY
4 (-) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

19 Apr 85: DALLAS: The Ewing Connection v. 19 Apr 85: FALCON CREST: The Decline

There are two police man-hunts in this week’s Soap Land, each shown from a different perspective. On DALLAS, the search for hitman Andre Schumann takes place entirely off screen with Bobby’s police lieutenant pal keeping him abreast of the situation via intermittent bulletins. Meanwhile Bobby and Pam seem to be drifting towards a reconciliation (they even kiss!), creating an exciting tension between the two story-lines — for the nearer the police get to arresting Schumann, the closer Jenna is to being released from prison.

While Schumann travels halfway across the world (he is spotted first in Brussels, then at Kennedy airport in New York), his fellow fugitive, FALCON CREST’s Lance, is reluctantly sequestered in a small room in San Francisco’s Chinatown. (A section of Chinatown has been recreated on the studio backlot for this story-line. With its assortment of Asian bit players and extras, it feels a little like a low-budget version of the real Hong Kong recently visited by Pam and Sue Ellen on DALLAS.) If Pam and Bobby are Soap Land’s original star-crossed lovers, then Lance and Lorraine are its latest version, and it is their enforced separation that this week’s FC chooses to focus on. Indeed, the episode ends with Lorraine, rather than the police, tracking down Lance to his hiding place.

In Lance’s absence, Angela offers Maggie the job of acting publisher of the New Globe. This is pretty much the same situation that Maggie’s DALLAS counterpart, Donna Krebbs, found herself in at the beginning of the season when she was asked to substitute for Bobby at Ewing Oil. The scene where Donna strode into the Ewing offices and took her position behind Bobby’s desk was pretty much the pinnacle of that story-line. Similarly, much is made of the moment where Angela persuades Maggie to sit behind Lance's desk: “The world looks a little different from this angle, doesn’t it?”
As if to underline the similarities between Donna and Maggie, their respective show’s matriarch uses the same ‘c' word to describe them this week. “Part of the reason Ray loves is that you are so capable,” Miss Ellie tells Donna, while Angela is confident that she is "placing the New Globe in capable hands”. "Everything was fine until I started being successful in my work,” Donna reflects as she contemplates a divorce from Ray. Meanwhile, Chase is no happier about Maggie’s new job than Ray was about his wife’s recent oil strike. “I think it’s a terrible idea,” he tells her. “It’s crazy!”

Chase’s main objection is that Maggie will be working for Angela. “You had an opportunity to sell out of Falcon Crest, never to work with Angela again,” counters Maggie in reply. "Not only did you not turn that down, you got in deeper.” In a roundabout way, this line echoes something Pam says to Bobby regarding their former marriage on this week’s DALLAS: "We could have gotten a house of our own. I think it would have been better for us.” Soap Land characters questioning why mortal enemies would choose to work together or why married billionaires continue to live with their parents is a little like a crew member of the Starship Enterprise asking why they don’t need to wear a space helmet — these are the unspoken rules of the genre. By making these points, it’s as if Pam and Maggie are gently prodding at the edge of the Soap Land bubble in which they exist. It’s refreshing, and makes all the characters in these scenes seem suddenly more aware, more three-dimensionally “real" than usual.

It’s telling that Chase and Maggie's quarrel takes place while they are preparing dinner in the Gioberti kitchen. As Maggie is arguing her point of view, she simultaneously struggles to prise the lid off a jar before passing it to Chase who opens it with ease. It’s a minor, but quintessentially KNOTSian — specifically Mackenzian — bit of business.

This is followed by an even more interesting scene where Maggie tells Richard she is resigning from the radio station. He is angry, partly because she is leaving to take control of the newspaper he used to own, but mostly, like Chase, because she will involved with Angela. (“Do not go to work for that woman,” he snaps. "She’ll corrupt you like she corrupts everyone else.” “What — you offer a better brand of corruption?” Maggie retorts.) As they argue, one becomes aware of an oddly indefinable something taking place between these two very different characters, a depth of emotion that even they aren’t yet fully aware of. (In fact, current story-line requirements oblige Richard to be besotted by Cassandra Wilder.) While Richard and Maggie have interacted for three seasons, there has never been any heavy-handed foreshadowing or scripted flirting between them. Instead, their undefined connection has grown, slowly and naturally, over a long period. I can think of no previous example of this in Soap Land. (Gary and Abby, Steven and Claudia, Cliff and Sue Ellen — all were slow-burn relationships with strong chemistry, but in each case one can point to an early scene which at least hinted at a future relationship between them.) Perhaps such a truly organic development could only happen on FALCON CREST — its somewhat sketchy, scattershot approach to story-telling having enabled this relationship to evolve untended, like a weed growing up through the cracks in the plot. DALLAS and KNOTS are too well-structured, too well-organised for such an “accident” to occur under the watchful eyes of their respective script editors.

On her very first day at the Globe, Maggie finds herself on the receiving end of an equivalent confession to the one Abby made to Greg Sumner on last week’s KNOTS. Where Abby stood in Greg's study and explained her involvement in the chain of events that led to the disappearance of Val’s twins, Terry now stands in Maggie’s office and admits her involvement in the chain of events leading to Lance’s arrest for attempted murder. Abby had to go back almost to the start of the season to explain how she became aware that Gary was the father of the babies, while Terry reaches back even further, admitting to Maggie how she and Joel McCarthy were once married, "a long time ago in Florida”. There are other differences between the two confessions. Whereas Abby told Greg everything she knew, Terry neglects to mention that she and Joel were never divorced, or the fact that she is now being blackmailed by Richard because of it. And while Abby’s revelation felt like a long-awaited dramatic payoff — we always knew she couldn’t outrun the truth forever — Terry’s admission comes out of nowhere. (If anyone involved was going to come clean, one would have assumed it would be Melissa.) Again, this is characteristic of the seeming randomness of FALCON CREST’s plotting. However, Terry’s confession is no less interesting for being unanticipated. Her motives are a surprise too. While Abby simply wanted Greg to provide her with the documents pertinent to the babies’ location, Terry begs Maggie to intercede with Greg Reardon, Lance’s lawyer with whom she has fallen unexpectedly in love, on her behalf. The scene where Terry eventually faces Greg and asks his forgiveness for keeping Joel’s involvement in Lance’s case a secret is surprisingly touching.

Elsewhere on FALCON CREST, the scene where Melissa hands over $100,000 in hush money to Pamela Lynch is given the same noir-ish setting as Dex and Amanda’s secret encounter on DYNASTY a few weeks ago, i.e., a parked car on a dark and rainy street, thunder rumbling overhead. An old cliché it may be, but it’s an undeniably effective one.

"Ewing Oil was given to us by our daddy — it's a family business,” explains Bobby on DALLAS as he and JR prepare to sign over ten percent of the company to their cousin Jack as a way of preventing Cliff Barnes from getting his hands on it. “After all, this is a family business,” echoes Angela on FALCON CREST, trying to talk Chase and Richard into to a lucrative but risky deal she secretly hopes will bankrupt them, thereby forcing them out of said business.

Also on DALLAS, John Ross undergoes surgery for appendicitis — another of those random, could-have-happened-to-anyone ailments like Dominique's recent heart valve problem on DYNASTY. But whereas Dominique’s medical crisis was a dramatic end in itself, John Ross’s functions primarily as a springboard for JR to lash out at Sue Ellen, accusing her of neglect and condemning her as “a totally unfit mother,” thereby pushing her over the edge and back to the booze.

And this week’s Top 2 are …

1 (1) DALLAS
2 (4) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

02 May 85: KNOTS LANDING: A Price to Pay v. 03 May 85: DALLAS: Deeds and Misdeeds v. 03 May 85 FALCON CREST: And the Fall

"We could have gotten a house of our own. I think it would have been better for us,” said Pam to Bobby on last week’s DALLAS. KNOTS LANDING’s Cathy has similar feelings this week when she and Joshua return from their honeymoon to find Lilimae expecting them to move in with her and Val. When Cathy puts her foot down, Joshua doesn’t object outright. Instead he finds more indirect ways to undermine her — abruptly walking out on her just as they’re about to make love; arranging to look at a prospective apartment with her, only to then send Lilimae along in his place. Shitty behaviour to be sure, but I wonder how differently JR or Bobby would have responded had either Sue Ellen or Pam really pushed for a life away from the Ewing ranch? (“Are you going to move out of Southfork?” Mandy Winger asks JR this week when he insists that he will not be living under the same roof as Sue Ellen for much longer. From her mocking tone, it’s clear that she already understands what an unlikely scenario this is.) For her own part, Lilimae proves to be as emotionally manipulative as Miss Ellie when it comes to keeping her loved ones around her. “It’s all right, Cathy,” she sighs when her new daughter-in-law tries to explain her position. "I finally get all my family under one roof and - I guess I’m being selfish.”

Random trend of the week: morning-sex innuendo. “You’re looking very self-satisfied this morning,” Ruth tells Laura coolly when she and Greg eventually surface for breakfast on KNOTS. “Self had nothing to do with it,” Laura assures her. "I haven’t been to the office this morning,” Cassandra Wilder admits when her brother catches her playing hooky on FALCON CREST. "Richard and I have been firming up some things between us.” There are no such double-entendres on DALLAS, but there is an equivalent exchange which sounds positively chaste in comparison. “Good morning! I haven't seen you smile like that in I don't know how long,” Jackie observes as Pam arrives for work at Barnes Wentworth. “Well, I haven't felt like this in I don't know how long,” beams Pam, still aglow from the single kiss she and Bobby exchanged in last week’s episode.

This week’s instalment of KNOTS is one of very few directed by series creator David Jacobs and it contains some very striking camera work — lots of cinematic long takes and lovely deep-focus shots. There’s also a prolonged, exquisitely indulgent sequence in Ben’s beach house during which Val and Ben, both resplendent in evening dress, slow dance to "Send in the Clowns”, sung beautifully by an off-screen Michele Lee.

Jacobs remains faithful to his original “scenes from a marriage” conceit with a succession of intimate late-night bedroom exchanges between each of the show’s main couples — Ben and Val, Abby and Gary, Karen and Mack, Joshua and Cathy. The one exception is Greg and Laura whose attempts at alone time are invariably scuppered by Ruth. By contrast, none of DALLAS’s primary martial partnerships — JR and Sue Ellen, Ray and Donna, Bobby and Pam, Clayton and Ellie — interact with each other at all this week.

During one such KNOTS scene, Ben proposes to Val. Meanwhile on DALLAS, Cliff springs a surprise wedding on Jamie. If the “almost a dress” Cathy married Joshua in a few weeks ago qualifies her as Soap Land’s most sexily dressed bride to date, then Jamie’s sweater-vest-and-jeans ensemble places her pretty much at the bottom of that list. Meanwhile, as part of her plan to help Lance to elude the authorities on FALCON CREST, Angela arranges for he and Lorraine to be smuggled aboard a ship bound for Italy and to be then married by the ship’s captain once they are safely out to sea.

During another prettily shot KNOTS scene, this time on the beach, Val gently turns down Ben’s proposal, explaining that she is still preoccupied by her lost babies. She admits to regularly waking in the night, sensing instinctively that they are hungry. “I know they’re crying, but I can’t find them,” she says. If Val's maternal impulses are thwarted on KNOTS, then Sue Ellen's have become twisted on DALLAS as she insists on blaming herself for not being at home when John Ross was taken into surgery. "How could I neglect my little baby like that?” she broods. “You’re creating something that is very self-destructive,” Miss Ellie warns her. What’s interesting about this situation is that the alcoholic part of Sue Ellen needs to feel guilty so that she has a reason to continue drinking. There is yet further maternal drama on this week’s DALLAS as Donna deliberates how best to tell her estranged husband that she is carrying his baby, a predicament previously faced by both Ginger and Laura on KNOTS.

While JR responds to the news of Sue Ellen’s drinking with a barely suppressed smile and immediately starts hinting of his plans to send her back to the sanatarium ("Your mama's real tired, John Ross, and we may just have to send her someplace where she can take a nice long rest”), Ben is appalled to realise Val still believes her babies are alive (“I thought she was getting better and she’s getting worse … She’s cracking up, man. I’m losing her”). Such is Ben’s despondency that Mack brings him home to see Karen, who tells him that she too is now convinced the twins were not stillborn. It’s a strangely moving moment.

Whenever Sue Ellen has previously fallen off the wagon on DALLAS, Gary has done the same on KNOTS, but these days he has a new obsession — Empire Valley. “It’s his big chance to prove to himself and the world that he's capable of doing something great,” is how Abby describes it. As Greg Sumner is threatening to tell Gary the truth about Val’s babies unless Abby finds a way to get him out of Empire Valley, this puts her in a very tricky position.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to distract Mack from his investigation into Galveston Industries, Ruth pulls some strings to have the governor offer him Greg’s former senate seat. Tracy Kendall was behind a similar scheme to have Blake named “chairman of the party" during last season's DYNASTY. While Blake took the bait straightaway, Mack is initially flattered (especially as the invitation is delivered by one Jill Bennett), but he is also suspicious that Greg himself is behind the offer.

Earlier on this season’s KNOTS, Gary showed up at Val’s wedding in Shula to try to coax her out of her fantasy world and back to reality. On this week’s DALLAS, Bobby does the opposite when he shows up at the Rolling Hills sanatarium in Colorado and deliberately plays into Amanda Ewing’s delusion that is he is her young husband Jock returned to her. He does this so that the Ewing boys can get their hands on the evidence that proves Cliff and Jamie have no claim to their company. Likewise on FALCON CREST, Greg Reardon also visits a sanatarium (Camp Mary Jane in Canada) in the hopes of finding the man who can exonerate Lance. However just as Jenna’s key witness died of a heroin overdose before she could testify at her murder trial, so Joel McCarthy, who similarly holds the proof of Lance’s innocence, has also now died from a cocaine overdose.

The end of this week’s FALCON CREST resembles the final scene of last season’s KNOTS, with several characters converging on the same location with disastrous, possibly even fatal, results. Rather than the lobby of the swanky Belmar Hotel, this time the action culminates outside Lance’s hideout — “a three-storey building in Chinatown, a laundry on the ground floor, a newsstand on the corner,” to quote loose cannon Pamela Lynch (who, after two years of loyal service to Richard, has spent the last half a dozen episodes selling everyone out to everyone else). Where Karen MacKenzie went to the Belmar to save Mack and wound up getting shot, a pregnant Lorraine goes to the hideout to help Lance and ends up being chased by Richard and the police. She climbs out onto the fire escape, loses her balance and falls to the ground below. Where Mack cradled Karen helplessly, Richard cries out in horror.

And this week’s Top 3 are …

1 (-) KNOTS LANDING
2 (2) FALCON CREST
3 (1) DALLAS

 

[James from London]

08 May 85: DYNASTY: The Heiress v. 09 May 85: KNOTS LANDING: One Day in a Row v. 10 May 85: DALLAS: Deliverance v. 10 May 85 FALCON CREST: Cold Comfort

This week, DYNASTY begins as DALLAS ends, with a front-page headline in the Chronicle (New York and Dallas editions respectively) devoted to a significant character. “MULTI-MILLIONAIRE PUBLISHER AND HORSE BREEDER DEAD,” announces the first headline, on DYNASTY, referring to Daniel Reece. Like his guest-starring tycoon equivalent on this season’s KNOTS LANDING, Paul Galveston, Daniel has died off screen (in Libya, to be exact). Sammy Jo spends much of the rest of the episode convinced that she has inherited a fortune, and it’s great fun to see her lording it over Krystle and Steven, ordering Daniel’s staff around and quaffing his champagne. While her father has indeed left her the bulk of his estate, there is an unexpected stick-in-the-craw proviso — just as there was for Paul Galveston's illegitimate offspring in his will. Where Greg has had to contend with Gary inheriting Empire Valley, Sammy Jo is informed by her father’s lawyer (former FALCON CREST cartel leader Norton Crane) “that all monies involved [are to] be held in trust, with Mrs Krystle Grant Carrington as executrix."

Like Greg, Sammy Jo is prepared to play dirty to get her hands on what her father has left so tantalisingly just out of reach. Greg spends this week’s KNOTS blackmailing Abby into handing over her stake in Empire Valley in exchange for the information she needs about Val’s babies. Sammy Jo, meanwhile, stumbles on an idea to get her hands on her father's money when she overhears Rita, aka the Krystle lookalike, practicing her vowel sounds for a commercial audition ("I find your fondness for fondue phenomenal!”). “That dumb lawyer said there was nothing I could do, but you talking like that makes me think …” Sammy Jo breaks off mid-sentence, before we get to hear what she’s got in mind. Likewise, we're left wondering what Ruth Galveston has planned when she assures Abby, “I can get you what you want … and you won’t have to give up a thing.”

Much of the action on this week’s DYNASTY takes place in King Galen’s summer palace in Moldavia. This proves to be a soap-within-a-soap equivalent to the Hot Biscuit, the diner where Lucy Ewing worked at the beginning of this season’s DALLAS. Just as it took Lucy a while to differentiate between fried and scrambled eggs when taking an order, so bride-to-be Amanda has lessons to learn about diplomacy and protocol. (“One of the first things you’ll have to realise, my darling,” her fiancé explains, "is that here state affairs take precedence over personal feelings.") And just as Lucy soon found herself in a blue-collar love triangle with Eddie and Betty the waitress, Amanda is quickly involved in a blue-blood variation with Prince Michael and Elena, the Duchess of Branagh.

Meanwhile, in this week’s Ewing-verse, Gary and Bobby deviate from their more traditional roles of rancher and oilman to play at secret agent and detective respectively. KNOTS has Gary spying on Greg at Empire Valley then meeting covertly with a government operative in order to report his findings. Gary has trouble taking this cloak-and-dagger routine seriously and the show initially plays the whole thing for laughs, as if self-consciously acknowledging the spy movie cliches it has fallen prey to. As the episode progresses, Gary becomes increasingly convinced that someone really is out to get him — first his car is pursued by an anonymous driver (leading to a chase sequence similar to one involving Krystle on DYNASTY a few months ago), then he discovers a bug in his phone (just as Bobby Ewing and Chase Gioberti did earlier in the season). Even then, KNOTS can’t resist undercutting the intrigue with comedy by having Gary unable to reassemble the phone he has just dismantled. DALLAS, meanwhile, plays the interrogation scenes between Bobby and hitman Andre Schumann deathly straight and is all the more effective for it.

While Ben Gibson, or rather his researcher Meredith, spends most of this week’s KNOTS digging for Dr Ackerman’s Achille’s heel (which turns out to be his gambling debts), Bobby intuitively realises that Schumann’s wife is his weak spot. "I will make sure that your wife has all the money she'll ever need,” he says in order to persuade Schumann to come clean about his involvement in Naldo's murder. "You help my lady and I'll help yours.” The equivalent information comes a lot cheaper on this week’s FALCON CREST where all it takes is a large tip for the bartender at the Turf Club to tell Greg Reardon about Melissa’s financial arrangement with Joel McCarthy.

So it is that Bobby and Greg, after four months of fighting to prove the innocence of Jenna Wade and Lance Cumson respectively, have both finally achieved their goals. However, neither man is feeling especially victorious. "I thought you'd be happy,” says Schumann, observing a look of dismay on Bobby's face after he has confessed to killing Naldo and framing Jenna. "I wish to God I'd never found out the truth,” says Greg bitterly after Melissa’s role in framing Lance is confirmed. Bobby’s dismay comes from the understanding that freeing Jenna from prison will cost him a future with the woman he really loves — Pam. Meanwhile, Greg’s bitterness stems from the realisation that the person who must now confess all and go to prison if justice is to be served is the woman he really loves — Melissa. The scene where he confronts Melissa at the Turf Club (on the exact same spot where she bribed Joel in the first place) is really good. Simon MacCorkindale does a great job of conveying not just Greg’s fury but also his sorrow and heartache towards Melissa over her actions, whilst simultaneously preserving his English stiff upper lip. (MacCorkindale is yet another Soap Land actor I now realise I’ve shamefully misjudged in the past.)

“I will get my money free and clear even if I have to drag you through a hundred courts to get it!” Sammy Jo snarls at Krystle on DYNASTY. However, she might want to reconsider such a David-and-Goliath-in-a-courtroom scenario following the humiliating defeat suffered by Cliff and Jamie on this week's DALLAS. Their case against the Ewings collapses following the testimony of businessman Wallace Windham who explains on the witness stand how he bought Jason and Digger’s shares of Ewing Oil back in the thirties before secretly selling them on to Jock. The thumbnail character sketches Windham provides along the way of Jock ("the brains of the outfit”), Jason (“greedy and stupid”) and Digger (“we met three times, I think he was drunk every time”) point towards the forthcoming DALLAS: THE EARLY YEARS prequel — as does the appearance of the future Young Miss Ellie on this week’s KNOTS in the guise of Meredith, the plucky researcher given such a hard time by Ben.

The highlight of this action-packed episode of DALLAS is probably the scene where Pam and Bobby finally admit their true feelings for one another. "I love you,” says Pam. "I love you more than I ever did before, and I didn't think that was possible ... Maybe it’s not fair to say it to you, but I couldn’t go on without telling you. I love you, Bobby. I love you so much my heart hurts." "I never stopped loving you and I never will,” Bobby replies simply. Then they kiss and he takes her in his arms for a big old Hollywood-style embrace. It’s a moment that might seem excessive were it not so long-awaited and emotionally heartfelt.

There’s a contrasting, but equally excellent, love scene in this week’s KNOTS between Laura and Greg. It is preceded by an altercation in a restaurant where Laura, after weeks of being belittled by Greg’s mother (“You’ve never really done anything with your life, have you?"), finally snaps over dinner (“You are probably one of the cruellest women I have ever met in my life”) and gets up to leave. When Greg starts to follow her, Laura delivers the best line of the Soap Land week, if not the season: “No dear, why don’t you stay here and have dinner with Mommy? Because if she’s left here with nobody to pick on, she just might start gnawing on her own arm." When Greg finally catches up with her, Laura is at home soaking in the bath. “Tell me something I wanna hear,” she asks, trying to pin him down about his feelings for her. In contrast to Bobby and Pam’s moist-eyed sincerity, Greg is all prevarication and ironic wit. “Some things are not easy for me … I need you,” he finally admits, squirming. “Is that the best you can do?” she replies. He nods. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” she says, and he reaches into the tub, still in his shirtsleeves, to kiss her.

Elsewhere on Seaview Circle, there's an impromptu late-night conversation between Val and Cathy, similar to Sue Ellen and Donna’s recent encounter on DALLAS. They speculate about the impact growing up as only children has had on both Val and Joshua (“Brothers and sisters shouldn’t grow up alone. Maybe we’d both be better people if …”), and whether this has any bearing on Joshua’s present reluctance to move out of the family home. By contrast, Val’s daughter Lucy is now ready to put her childhood surroundings behind her, albeit with some help from her ex-husband. "Southfork was a great place to grow up, but what I want now is my future,” she tells Mitch during a post-coital love scene in front of an open fire. Meanwhile on DYNASTY-in-Moldavia, the Duchess of Branagh refuses to let go of the past and attempts to win back her former fiancé Prince Michael. Her strategy of abruptly stripping nude in front of him is the same one adopted by Lucy to gain Mitch’s attention while he was studying to become a doctor, all those years ago. Like Prince Michael, FALCON CREST’s Cole is also disturbed by a previous romantic entanglement when Robin Agretti reappears in the Tuscany Valley with the news that she’s pregnant. Nor is Robin the only unexpected face from the past this week. A drunken Sue Ellen catches a glimpse of Dusty Farlow during the Ewings’ victory party near the end of DALLAS … or does she? He vanishes from view as just as quickly as he appeared and so one is left with a similar sensation as at the end of the last episode of DYNASTY: Was that really Dusty/Fallon I just saw?

Recent episodes of both DYNASTY and FALCON CREST have concluded with a scene involving a woman sitting with her back to the camera. On DYNASTY, she turned around to reveal herself as (apparently) New Fallon. On FALCON CREST, her face remained concealed but her identity was established as Cassandra and Damon’s mother. This week's DALLAS ends with a shot of a third facially obscured woman. "No!” she mutters, reading the second Chronicle headline of the week — JENNA WADE FREED: EWING FIANCE CLEARED OF MURDER CHARGES — and clawing at the picture of Jenna underneath it. This time, however, the back-to-camera-woman’s name and face remain a mystery. For all we know, she could be another Krystle lookalike.

And this week’s Top 4 is … again, it's a toughie. DALLAS is the clear winner, but there’s not much to choose between the other three — all are a blast, each in a very different way.

1 (3) DALLAS
2 (1) KNOTS LANDING
3 (-) DYNASTY
4 (2) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

15 May 85: DYNASTY: Royal Wedding v. 16 May 85: KNOTS LANDING: Vulnerable v. 17 May 85: DALLAS: Swan Song v. 17 May 85 FALCON CREST: Confessions

With two season finales, three weddings, three deaths and an onscreen massacre, this has to be Soap Land’s most eventful week yet.

The first time DALLAS’s Lucy and Mitch got married, their wedding on the cardboard Southfork patio was upstaged by the splendour of Blake and Krystle’s nuptials in the DYNASTY pilot a week earlier. Something similar happens this week when the Ewing-Coopers retie the knot in an intimate gathering in the Southfork living room two days after DYNASTY's Amanda and Prince Michael are married and then immediately gunned down along with their guests in Soap Land’s most stunning, shocking, surreal and disorientating set-piece to date. Simultaneously artful and tacky, it’s like an episode of THE A-TEAM directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, only stranger. The third wedding of the week is a sweet and simple hospital-bound affair on FALCON CREST between Lance, fresh out of prison, and Lorraine, fresh out of a coma.

“Swan Song” — the longest individual Soap Land episode since the DYNASTY pilot — re-enacts storylines and situations from DALLAS's previous seven years (Lucy marrying Mitch, Bobby proposing to Pam, Dusty riding to the rescue after JR threatens to send a drunken Sue Ellen back to the sanitarium, the return of Katherine Wentworth, etc.). Likewise, “Royal Wedding”, focusing as it does on the buildup to Michael and Amanda’s nuptials, contains several echoes of that DYNASTY pilot, which centred around Blake and Krystle’s wedding. Elena listing the bride-to-be’s shortcomings (“You’ll never be able to stand this life, Amanda, it’s too demanding, it’s too hard and you don’t have what it takes”) could just as easily be Fallon talking about Krystle before her wedding. Steven looking across the palace grounds to see Adam kissing Claudia recalls the moment he spotted Fallon with Michael from his bedroom window. An angry Blake summoning Adam on the morning of the wedding to discuss his inappropriate choice of partner recalls his equivalent confrontation with Steven before his own ceremony. And, just as there was a sense of impending jeopardy during Blake and Krystle’s wedding as an armed and dangerous Walter Lankershim sped towards the Carrington mansion, so there is during Michael and Amanda’s, thanks to Yuri and his henchmen plotting their military coup. Where Matthew was the outsider trying to stop Walter, here that role is taken by Dex. However, both Matthew and Dex arrive too late to prevent the violence. (The quick cutaways during the ceremony to Dex trying to free himself from his bonds also echo of those of Matthew brooding on a hillside during Blake and Krystle’s exchange of vows.)

“A spokesman for the government expressed outrage at the senseless killing of innocent people, calling those responsible nothing but a bunch of cowardly assassins who are like a pack of wild dogs,” says a television newsreader on KNOTS the night after the Moldavian attack. “They don’t care who they kill, do they?” sighs Abby. It’s rare for Soap Land characters to show much interest in events outside their own hermetically-sealed bubble, but Gary and Abby both seem mildly depressed by this unspecified international calamity. Meanwhile, the Mystery Blonde Woman we glimpsed at the end of last week’s DALLAS is even more upset by an early morning news report of the Ewings’ victory party, so much so that she hurls a glass of blood-red tomato juice at her TV when a happily reunited Bobby and Jenna appear onscreen. Like the Moldavian thunder that rumbles early on in this week’s DYNASTY, this outburst introduces an ominous sense of foreboding to the episode.

Donna finally tells Ray about her pregnancy on this week’s DALLAS, leading to a meaty dilemma ("You're pregnant, we're separated, so what the hell are you gonna do now, Donna?”) and some heartfelt scenes between them. Over on FALCON CREST, there’s a very neat and quite amusing gender reversal of the same scenario as Cole coolly informs a dismayed Melissa that, “Your plan for surrogate parenthood paid off — Robin’s pregnant!” The surrogacy storyline has probably been my least favourite of this entire Soap Land season — it’s just so silly — but if this scene is the punchline, then perhaps it was worth it.

Meanwhile, two newly-married couples discuss the prospect of not having children this week. Again the tone of each scene is quite different. KNOTS goes for the serious angle with Joshua turning away from Cathy after she explains that she isn’t yet ready to start a family. Meanwhile on DALLAS, Cliff admits to Jamie that he’s had a vasectomy in the hopes that she’ll ask for an annulment. However, his plan backfires amusingly when it turns out Jamie is no more interested in becoming a mother than Cathy is. "Oh Cliff!" she gasps sympathetically. "I understand how hard that must have been for you to tell me. It only makes me love you more. I really respect your honesty!”

“It’s hard to think of leaving Southfork,” admits Lucy, as she prepares to start a new life in Atlanta with Mitch. “She doesn’t know how lucky she is,” Sue Ellen mutters enviously, lacking the emotional strength to make such a break herself — even though JR is virtually kicking her out the door. "Why don't you leave me and John Ross and Southfork and inflict yourself on somebody else?” he suggests. By contrast, Alexis is furious when Dex announces he’s catching the next plane out of Moldavia. “Don’t you walk out on me, you bastard!” she shouts. We’ve been here before, of course — I’ve lost track of how many times Dex and Alexis have separated since getting married at Christmas, but this time it sounds as if he really has had enough — not just of Alexis but of life inside a soap opera. (“I got mixed up in a world I never should have become a part of — Alexis, the Carringtons, the Colbys, all of you,” he complains, sounding a lot like Mack in last season’s KNOTS.)

Of all of these comings and goings, however, none is more interesting than Pamela Lynch’s on FALCON CREST. “I’m in the process of burning my bridges,” she tells Maggie, handing her a tape-recording that proves the judge at Lance’s trial was in Richard’s pocket all along. She then buys up a small company that Angela, Chase and Richard desperately need for their new venture and charges them $50,000,000 for it. Even Angela’s impressed. "You know, my dear, I've never liked you, but I've always admired enterprising young women,” she tells her. It’s always a thrill to see a secondary character suddenly emerge as a major player — before being cruelly but inevitably punished for getting ideas above their station. "Poor Pamela,” Richard tells her at the end of the episode, "you were always too close to the surface, too exposed. It wasn't my work you were doing, it was the cartel's. I turned your name over to the authorities when I found out you had betrayed me. They were fascinated by your dossier. It must have weighed ten pounds.” Pamela's victory may have been short-lived but at least she gets the freeze frame as she snarls at Richard, "I'll kill you! I swear I'll blow you off the face of the earth!” This is the same scenario as Alan Beam and Kristin trying to blackmail JR at the end of DALLAS Season 2 only for him to have them charged with rape and prostitution, but with even higher stakes.

If Dex's suspicions are aroused by the unexplained goings-on on DYNASTY (“What are you doing delivering wine at this time of night? What the hell is going on here?” he asks before being clonked on the head), then so are Val's on KNOTS. However, it’s not the behaviour of dodgy-looking delivery men, but that of her closest friends — Karen, Mack and Ben — that is giving her cause for concern. The real reason for their preoccupation is that they are trying to find her babies, but don’t yet want her to know for fear of getting her hopes up. Joshua, meanwhile, preys on his sister's insecurities, suggesting that she has driven her friends away with her neurotic behaviour: “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Val, but you make them feel uncomfortable." When Ben gets wind of this, it prompts a juicy confrontation between he and Joshua, and a very satisfying sock to the jaw. There is an equally long-awaited, if somewhat curtailed, brawl between Dex and Prince Michael on DYNASTY, while FALCON CREST provides an interesting variation by having Melissa punch her pregnant cousin in the face (definitely a Soap Land first).

DYNASTY’s Lady Ashley and DALLAS’s Jenna might have been two of the blander characters of this Soap Land season, but each has a lovely scene this week in which they let go of the man they love with unexpected dignity. "There was a time that I was absolutely sure our getting married was the right thing to do, but I'm not so sure anymore … I really would understand if things weren't the same,” Jenna tells Bobby, thereby setting him free to be with Pam. Meanwhile, Ashley turns down Jeff’s proposal of marriage, because of his feelings for his ex-wife: “Can you honestly say that you don’t still care about her, that you’re not hoping she’s alive somewhere?” Interestingly (not to say unusually), each woman also makes touching reference to her age. "Do you know what it's like being my age and to have loved only one person all that time?” Jenna asks Bobby. That's always struck me as a poignant line, not least because it's one of the rare instances of a Soap Land woman acknowledging she is no longer in the prime of youth. Back on DYNASTY, Ashley refers to herself half-jokingly as “a beautiful older woman” before pointing out to Jeff the decidedly non-soapy reality that, “you love children, I can’t have any.” Ashley’s behaviour is somewhat less dignified when the bullets start flying at the royal wedding, however. “Are you crazy??” asks Jeff incredulously as he sees her snapping pictures amidst the chaos. Before she can answer, they are both shot.

“Be a family," requests Bobby Ewing just before he dies. So it’s fitting that the extended DYNASTY and DALLAS clans should each be united in their respective season finale freeze-frames — the Carringtons in death, the Ewings by death.

Random trend of the week #1: Unlikely detective duos harassing “minor” criminals in order to achieve a larger objective: On KNOTS, Karen and Ben invite themselves into the trailer home of Nurse Wilson (lowly, frightened) in order to persuade her to implicate Dr Ackerman in the theft of Val’s babies. On FALCON CREST, Greg Reardon and Maggie climb into the back of the car carrying Judge Holder (arrogant, outraged) in order to coerce him into dropping all charges against Lance for skipping bail and expediting his release from prison.

Random trend of the week #2: Slow-motion shots from the point of view of a deranged driver. On KNOTS, we see Dr Ackerman reach into his glove compartment to pull out a gun. For a second, it looks as if he might be about to shoot Mack and Karen, but instead, he turns the weapon on himself. On DALLAS, we see the Blonde Mystery Woman heading down Pam’s driveway towards her and Bobby. For a moment, it looks as if she’s going to hit Pam, but then Bobby pushes her out of the way and takes the impact of the car himself. Like Dr Ackerman, the Blonde Mystery Woman then takes her own life, by driving into a gardener’s truck (although whether this is by accident or design is hard to say).

Random trend of the week #3: The use of blonde wigs as a revelatory device. On DYNASTY, Sammy Jo places one on Rita’s head and voila — instant Krystle! Then one is pulled off the head of the Blonde Mystery Woman on DALLAS and lo — a dead Katherine Wentworth!

And this week’s Top 4 is … surprising. While the season finales of DYNASTY and DALLAS both feel momentous — more like television events than regular episodes — and this week’s KNOTS is a solid four-star instalment, it’s actually FALCON CREST, by sticking closest to the Soap Land penultimate-ep-of-the-season blueprint (lots of twists, turns and people being dragged out of rooms shouting, "I'm ruined, Channing, thanks to you ... I swear you'll pay! I'll get even with you if it's the last thing I do!”) that proves the most irresistible of them all.

1 (4) FALCON CREST
2 (3) DYNASTY
3 (1) DALLAS
4 (2) KNOTS LANDING

 

[James from London]

23 May 85: KNOTS LANDING: The Long and Winding Road v. 24 May 85 FALCON CREST: The Avenging Angel

KNOTS LANDING and FALCON CREST offer up quite different season finales, but each includes a spot of breaking-and-entering crucial to their respective show’s plot. In both cases, the burglar is concerned with acquiring information rather than material goods. KNOTS opens with an exciting sequence of someone ransacking an office. We’re not sure who or where or why, but gradually it emerges that Mack has broken into Dr. Ackerman’s house looking for a list of people who may have adopted Val’s babies. FALCON CREST’s break-in takes place offscreen with Cassandra Wilder hiring a private eye to sneak into Angela’s house and locate a copy of Falcon Crest's bid for the Helios Foods contract. She then leaks this information to another company, ensuring Falcon Crest is outbid on the deal and thus rendering Chase and Richard bankrupt. And Cassandra’s motive for that … isn’t revealed until nearly the very end of the episode.

There is an unusual atmosphere on this week’s KNOTS — calm and urgent at the same time. The episode does a great job of making the methodical and mundane — Karen and Ben calling everyone in the phone book whose names match those on Ackerman’s list of adoptive parents, Mack driving around in circles trying to recall the location of the Fisher house — feel tense and gripping. This paradox is best captured by Val placidly singing along to a country music station as Abby drives her to see her children for the very first time. As she has done in the past, Abby regards Val’s behaviour with quiet incredulity, but this time there’s no amusement or exasperation to accompany it. The circumstances are far too momentous for that.

When Abby and Val reach their destination in the final scene, the mood changes. Val gets out of the car and walks slowly towards the Fisher house as if drawn by an invisible umbilical cord. She has gone from being the only person who doesn’t know what’s going on to the only person that matters. Everyone else recedes, with Abby only too willing to adopt the role of silent bystander alongside Gary and Ben. “Don’t ask,” she says, preempting Gary’s questions about her involvement in the situation.

As in the climactic moments of last week’s DALLAS, there is a vehicular-based slow-mo sequence. Sheila Fisher’s elongated cry of “H-A-A-R-R-Y-Y!!” serves the same warning function as Bobby’s yell of "P-A-A-A-M!!” Just as Pam turned around in slow-motion to see the car being driven directly towards her so Val’s head spins round in stop-motion to see one of her two babies being driven away.

The only scenes in this week’s KNOTS not directly related to the twins focus on Laura and Greg. In last week’s ep, in exchange for crucial papers pertaining to the babies’ whereabouts, Ruth had Abby pretend to Laura that she and Greg were sleeping together. It made for a fun scene, but I can’t help feeling this kind of Soap Land 101 trick is somewhat beneath such worldly-wise women as Ruth, Abby and Laura — and maybe even KNOTS itself. That this “childish prank,” as Greg describes it, should be what finally enables Abby to bring Val to her babies feels a little cheap. It’s a stunt perhaps better suited to the more naive and juvenile likes of DYNASTY’s Elena, Amanda and Prince Michael who went through their own version of the same charade only two weeks ago. Whereas Elena was obliged to disrobe completely in order to convince Amanda of Michael’s infidelity, Abby has only to pad around in Greg’s bathrobe for Laura to break off all ties with him. It’s interesting to compare Laura's angry reaction in this episode with her non-reaction in Season 2 as the very same Abby blatantly conducted an ongoing affair with her husband Richard in the next-door jacuzzi. Back then, Laura’s lack of response subverted soap opera expectations and took the storyline in a different direction. Now, she reacts how the plot requires her to in order to serve the bigger, soapier picture. All credibility is not lost, however — KNOTS characters are hardy enough to withstand the occasional contrivance, and it becomes clear that Laura’s rejection of Greg is less to do with his supposed infidelity than with the deceptions and secrets that constantly surround him. “I am so sick of this, I am so sick of all of this,” she says, echoing Dex Dexter’s “I got mixed up in a world I never should have become a part of” speech in last week’s DYNASTY. Like Dex, Laura had enough of living in a soap opera. Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, Maggie Gioberti walks in on a genuine case of in flagrante this week when she catches husband Chase in a passionate embrace with Connie Giannini.

For the most part, the FALCON CREST finale lacks the feverish momentum of last week’s instalment. However, there’s a gloriously insane moment where Chase, after Maggie has told him that their marriage is over, goes into complete meltdown, trashing his office and bellowing, “WHAT’S GOING ON??”

As three famous Hollywood movie actresses are unceremoniously bundled out of the Soap Land exit — Ava Gardner, Ali McGraw and Donna Reed each made their final Soap Land appearance last week without so much as a goodbye wave between them — another makes her entrance. Celeste Holm receives “Special Guest Appearance” billing on FALCON CREST for her role as Anna Rossini, mother of Cassandra Wilder and Damon Ross. The plot involving the Rossini family might easily have been sewn together from previous Soap Land storylines. A brother and sister infiltrating a small community as part of a plan to avenge the death of their father whilst concealing their own relationship? Then: Michael Tyrone and Sandie Swanson on FLAMINGO ROAD. Now: Cassandra and Damon. A female public relations expert who bewitches her tycoon client by keeping him at arm’s length romantically, all the while plotting to take advantage of him? Then: Leslie Stewart and JR on DALLAS. Now: Cassandra and Richard Channing. A deceptively simple scheme to bring down a millionaire businessman (or two), successfully executed in just a handful of episodes? Then: Alexis and Rashid Ahmed suckering Blake over the China Sea oil leases at the end of last season. Now: Cassandra and Damon luring Angela, Chase and Richard into a risky bid for the Helios contract that ends up ruining Chase and Richard. The arrival of a somewhat unstable older woman consumed by revenge plus a back story involving a house fire and a mysterious death? Then: Clayton Farlow’s sister Jessica, nursing a grudge against Clayton and a secret about the fire that killed his wife. Now: Cassandra’s mother Anna, nursing a grudge against Angela, whom she blames for the fire that killed her husband.

“We’ve come a long way since Romeo and Juliet!” Lilimae told Eric Fairgate on KNOTS LANDING a few weeks ago. Maybe not so far. Legend has it that Bobby Ewing, Soap Land’s first Romeo, was originally meant to die at the end of the DALLAS mini-series, but of course, that didn’t happen. Only now, seven years later, has he met his preordained demise. FALCON CREST’s own star cross’d lovers, Lance and Lorraine, have actually adhered far closer to the Romeo and Juliet template. Despised by each other’s families, they were forced to keep their love hidden from the start. When Lance broke the terms of his parole by hitting Lorraine’s step-father, he was simply following the blueprint laid down by Shakespeare — when Romeo got into a fight with Juliet’s kinsman Tybalt that resulted in Tybalt’s death, he was in violation of the edict laid down by the Prince of Verona. Where Romeo was banished to Mantua, Lance was exiled to Chinatown. The subsequent separation between each pair of lovers led to a fatal miscommunication, resulting in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, and the chase that caused Lorraine’s fall, her subsequent coma and the brain-dead condition in which she is found this episode.

Where DALLAS's equivalent storyline — whether or not to pull the plug on Mickey Trotter's life support system — spanned several episodes and a murder trial, FALCON CREST deals with Lorraine’s fate, movingly and effectively, in two scenes. As Lorraine’s husband of one episode, Lance has the final decision and it falls to Richard to gently convince him that she is “already dead”. Fleetingly, it seems as if Lance and Richard will be reconciled over Lorraine's body, just as the Montagues and Capulets were over Romeo and Juliet's. (You can almost hear Bobby Ewing urging them to “be a family” from some Soap Land after-life.) However, the demands of a Soap Land whodunnit ultimately win out over Shakespearean convention. “You killed her,” Lance tells his father-in-law bitterly, thereby adding his own name to the growing list of people with a potentially murderous grudge against Richard.

With his daughter dead and his empire in tatters, Richard ends the season in a similar position to the one Blake Carrington was in at its beginning. Instead of an enigmatic stranger showing up claiming to be his half-sister, Richard receives a more familiar visitor — Maggie, fresh from her fight with Chase and also upset about Lorraine. She tries to comfort Richard, he tries to comfort her, and … they kiss! They really, properly kiss! The unspoken, unacknowledged connection between Maggie and Richard — something we’ve only ever glimpsed out of the corner of our collective eye — is suddenly at the heart of the season finale. Both unthinkable and inevitable, their kiss is in its own way the dramatic equal of Katherine Wentworth ploughing into Bobby, the Moldavian wedding erupting into carnage or Val Ewing’s slow-motion head spin as her babies head off in opposite directions. And as if this kiss wasn’t enough, the house Richard and Maggie are in then explodes, courtesy of a bomb planted by … who knows who?

If there’s a common theme running through each of this season’s cliffhangers, it's that ultimate happiness cannot be sustained and must be paid for with ultimate disaster. Be it Amanda’s fairytale wedding on DYNASTY or Bobby and Pam’s dream reconciliation on DALLAS or Richard and Maggie’s forbidden kiss on FALCON CREST, a dream soon becomes a nightmare, a fairytale swiftly turns into a tragedy. “Do you believe what they say about dreams … that they only last for a split second?” Val asked earlier in this season’s KNOTS. For Amanda and Michael, Pam and Bobby, Lance and Lorraine, Maggie and Richard, even for Val -- almost within touching distance of the babies she has never held -- they last scarcely any time at all.

And this week’s Top 2 are …

1 (4) KNOTS LANDING
2 (1) FALCON CREST

 

[James from London]

02/Oct/85: DYNASTY: The Homecoming v. 03/Oct/85: KNOTS LANDING: Here in My Arms v. 04/Oct/85: DALLAS: Those Eyes v. 04/Oct/85: FALCON CREST: The Phoenix

This week, Krystle and Alexis share a Moldavian prison cell on DYNASTY, Sue Ellen rattles the bars of a police station drunk tank on DALLAS and Melissa serves time in the Tuscany County jail on FALCON CREST. Whereas the DYNASTY women are released soon after their episode’s opening scene, Sue Ellen is transferred to the detoxification ward of the county hospital after going into convulsions. Melissa, meanwhile, remains in jail throughout her episode, but still finds time to make out with husband Cole and trade insults with ex-husband Lance. However, she is keenly aware that all the while she is behind bars, another woman — her cousin Robin — is raising her son. (“I only like Robin,” Joseph states this week.) This puts Melissa in a similar position to Val Ewing, who continues to wait outside the house where her children are being raised by another couple for most of this week’s KNOTS LANDING. There is a striking scene where Val speaks to Sheila Fisher through a locked garden gate. As she peers through the railings, desperate for a glimpse of her babies, she looks just as much a prisoner as any of the other Soap Land jailbirds. But while the rest of them want out (“GET ME OUT OF HERE!!” Sue Ellen screams), Val is pleading to be let in.

As Val and Sheila talk, a mutual empathy develops between them. Indeed, what makes this particular episode of KNOTS so strong is the growing understanding (on the part of both the viewer and the regular characters) that the Fishers are not bad people and that their feelings towards the babies are as genuine as Val’s.

There are no equivalent insights into the "enemies" responsible for the violence at the end of last season’s DYNASTY and DALLAS. We're privy to neither the political circumstances that led to the Moldavian massacre nor the psychological issues that compelled Katherine Wentworth to mow down Bobby. Blake Carrington’s dismissal of the rebels as terrorists and Pam Ewing’s conclusion that her sister’s actions were “just so crazy” are as in-depth as it gets. With the Carringtons now free to leave Moldavia and Katherine’s journal revealing her to be responsible not just for Bobby’s death but also those of Naldo and Veronica plus Jenna’s kidnapping, both shows’ end-of-season cliffhangers are now essentially resolved.

Not so that of FALCON CREST, which may have returned a week later than the rest of the soaps but narratively jumps ahead of them by resuming its story six weeks after the explosion at the end of last season. It’s a nifty approach which ensures the action is already up and running as the new season begins. Instead of a “Previously on …” recap, we’re quickly brought up to speed by a gossipy television news report explaining that Richard and Maggie both survived the explosion, and that Richard is now "a reclusive figure refusing to grant interviews or even to cooperate with law enforcement agencies seeking to solve the crime that nearly killed him.” We watch Angela Channing and Greg Reardon watching the news report disapprovingly. Over on DYNASTY, Sammy Jo and Rita are watching live news coverage of the Carrington wedding party landing back in Denver where they are greeted by a barrage of reporters. To JR’s dismay on this week’s DALLAS, Sue Ellen’s lost weekend has also made the six o’clock news. “Unfortunately, you are a famous man. That makes her a famous wife,” Mandy points out.

While Sammy Jo is openly hostile towards the woman controlling her inheritance (“Forget the sermon, Aunty Krystle,” she snaps, "I need ten thousand dollars”), JR is far more tactful when dealing with the woman controlling Christopher’s share of Ewing Oil. (“I know Bobby meant well when he named you administrator,” he tells Pam, "but frankly, I think that choice was a little more romantic than it was smart … I want to buy back his shares in Ewing Oil. It would be the best thing we could do. Christopher would have all the money he’d ever need and you’d never have to worry about Ewing Oil again.”) Krystle and JR put forward similar arguments — that neither Sammy Jo nor Pam are experienced enough to handle such vast fortunes. The same cannot be said of FALCON CREST’s Angela Channing, of course, but this week she finds herself in the same situation as Sammy Jo — obliged to seek Cassandra Wilder’s permission before she can draw on the Falcon Crest bank account. This is a result of the uneasy business partnership between Angela and the vengeful Rossini family, who also announce their intention to turn the Falcon Crest vineyards into a hotel complex. “If you think you’re going to plough under my vineyards and build that instant slum, it’ll be over my dead body!” barks Angela.

Season finales being what they are, there have been several Soap Land fatalities of late, but most do not warrant an onscreen funeral. DYNASTY’s Lady Ashley was possibly too minor a character, while Katherine Wentworth and Dr. Ackerman are simply too undeserving. FALCON CREST’s time-jump means that Lorraine Cumson’s burial has been skipped over — although there is a juicy confrontation at her graveside this week when Richard accuses “my grieving son-in-law” Lance of blowing up his house. Bobby Ewing was, of course, given a memorable send-off in the DALLAS season opener, but, more surprisingly, so is Luke Fuller on this week’s DYNASTY. Whereas JR, ordinarily the most outspoken of Soap Land characters, waited until the rest of the funeral congregation had departed before delivering a private eulogy to his brother, Steven Carrington — a far more reserved personality — summons up the courage to pay public tribute to his dead lover. (“So much of what passed between Luke and me was private that it’s very hard for me to express my emotions publicly, but Luke was too important to be mourned in silence … He knew that love doesn’t grow in a closet, it needs air.") That such overt declarations don’t come easily to this repressed stuffed-shirt of a character (nor possibly to the actor playing him) only serve to make them more touching.

Private-versus-public issues also arise for two of Soap Land’s newlywed couples this week. On KNOTS, Cathy commits the error of snapping at Joshua in front of his TV crew. As soon as they are alone, he grabs her roughly by the arm. “Don’t you ever talk to me that way in front of other people — do you understand?” he snarls. “If you have something to say to me, you save it for the privacy of our own home.” She pushes him away and he cuts his hand. Meanwhile on DYNASTY, Prince - nay, King - Michael’s hand is already bandaged, a result of an injury sustained during the massacre. That’s not all the two men have in common. Just as sudden celebrity went to Joshua’s head, so Michael’s abrupt change in status — from playboy prince to monarch in exile — has made him pompous and domineering, and he too lectures his blonde bride about speaking out of turn. “When it comes to affairs of state, you leave the thinking to me … Lower your voice, someone might hear … You are no longer simply Blake Carrington’s daughter, you’re my queen and you will act as one.” Michael then goes one better by forbidding Amanda to speak her mind even in private. “Michael, we’re in our bedroom,” she points out. "We’re lovers here, not the King and his queen.” "I learned at a very young age that whether a door is open or closed, I was a prince and future king,” he replies.

No Alexis in last week’s DYNASTY, no Gary Ewing on this week’s KNOTS. He is literally between two soaps, driving cross country from Texas to California. Having left Southfork directly after Bobby’s funeral, his journey has thus far taken two episodes of DALLAS and one of KNOTS with still no sign of his return. In his absence, Abby and Greg each turn DALLAS’s recent tragedy to their own advantage. Abby breaks the news of Bobby’s death to Karen as way of deflecting her awkward questions regarding Abby's knowledge of the twins’ whereabouts. “I met him,” Karen recalls. "He was here when Val and Gary moved in." This nice call back to the very beginning of the series is amusingly undercut by a roll of the eyes from Abby, as if to suggest that Karen is trying to make even Bobby’s death all about her. Meanwhile, Greg uses Gary’s absence to countermand some of his orders concerning Empire Valley.

Last week, there was some refreshingly straight-talking when Ben Gibson on KNOTS and Miss Ellie on DALLAS dished out a few unwelcome home truths to Karen Mackenzie and Sue Ellen respectively. There are equivalent scenes in this week’s episodes, again involving Karen and Miss Ellie, but this time they are even more powerful. Karen is firmly on the front foot as she delivers a compelling speech to Harry Fisher about the babies he claims are his. Miss Ellie, meanwhile, is on the receiving end of a stern talking-to from the doctor presiding over Sue Ellen’s detox. Harry is determined to somehow elude the authorities and keep the babies; Miss Ellie is equally determined to take Sue Ellen away from the grim surroundings of the county detox ward (“I won’t let her rot in this place!”). Karen and the nameless doctor are consequently tasked with cutting through Harry’s and Ellie’s respective denial and making them face the reality of their situations. For Harry, it’s a moral reality; for Ellie, it’s a medical one.

“You have no choice,” Karen tells Harry. "Excuse me, you’ve got no moral choice. Think what it would be like now, raising them, that you know the truth … How can you be decent parents? How can you raise them morally knowing that you’ve gotten them immorally? … Oh God, Mr Fisher, I feel so awful for you, I really do, but don’t you see, nothing about this is right except the babies being with their real mother. You see that, don’t you? Of course you do, I know you do.”

"Sue Ellen is an alcoholic,” the doctor tells Miss Ellie. "For her, alcohol is lethal. It's one of the strongest drugs man uses and she overdosed. If she’d been left out there in the street, unsupervised, her withdrawal could have been fatal. Now Sue Ellen beat the odds this time, but unless God gave you a talent He hasn't given anyone else, you're not gonna keep her from taking that next drink, and that's all it'll take. If I let you sign that release form now, I'd be watching you sign her death certificate.”

“You’ve got no moral choice … ” “Unless God gave you a talent He hasn’t given anyone else …” Beware the sin of hubris. Ignore this warning at your peril. That seems to be the message common to both speeches, one the likes of King Michael and Joshua Rush would do well to heed.

I’ve always regarded this KNOTS scene, specifically Michele Lee’s performance, as the pivotal turning point of the entire year-long stolen-babies saga. If we don’t believe in Karen’s ability to persuade Harry to voluntarily surrender the children he thinks of as his own, then the whole storyline collapses at the eleventh hour. And Lee does indeed come up trumps, delivering a passionate yet selfless performance. For once, the scene isn’t about Karen. She is merely acting as a conduit, a vessel for her friend, and the actress understands that. But perhaps even more crucial than Karen’s appeal is Harry Fisher’s near silent but very truthful response to it. As a result, the big emotional payoff at the end of the episode — which is also the end of the storyline — is not just about Val’s unabashed joy at finally being united with her babies, but also Harry’s corresponding (if more understated) pain at relinquishing them. Somehow, we’re rejoicing in Val’s happiness and grieving the Fishers’ loss simultaneously.

Meanwhile on DALLAS, in Miss Ellie’s reaction to the doctor’s speech, we see the glamorous, rarefied world of the Ewings come slap up against the ugly realities of life that even they are not immune from. As the soaps become increasingly interchangeable (Greg Sumner acquires his own Ewing Oil-style executive suite in this week’s KNOTS) and the hair grows even bigger (and that’s just the men — Mack Mackenzie, Chase Gioberti and Lance Cumson are each looking more bouffant this season), such moments of clarity as these become all the more striking, slicing through the Soap Land artifice to touch upon the basic human truths underneath.

The new DALLAS season might only be three episodes old, but Sue Ellen's identity has already been redefined several times. “She was never a Ewing,” JR declared in the season opener, lashing out at her in the aftermath of Bobby’s death. Following Bobby’s funeral, he downgraded her yet further: “You don’t exist — you’re just a bad memory that doesn’t know when to go away.” By the time she makes it to the detox ward this week, any vestige of her individuality has been lost (“lady had no ID on her”) and in the eyes of the medical staff, she is reduced to her most basic human credentials: "Jane Doe, female, Caucasian, weight approximately 110, height approximately 5'10", eyes green, hair brown, all her teeth.” Following her scene with the doctor, it falls to Miss Ellie to restore Sue Ellen's former identity: "She's a woman that we have loved and a woman that has loved us. She’s the mother of your son who still needs her. She’s a member of this family, JR. She is a Ewing.” His mama’s words hit home — as much he might want to, JR can no longer dismiss Sue Ellen as nonexistent. Later in the episode, he delivers a touching monologue in which he reverently recalls the first time he ever laid eyes on her and concludes it by conferring upon her her original title of “Miss Texas, 1967.” (This tribute also makes a fitting counterpart to the one Sue Ellen delivers at JR’s graveside nearly thirty years later.)

The final scenes of this week’s KNOTS LANDING and DYNASTY dovetail rather neatly. “Nightmare is not a strong enough word to describe what she’s been through,” Karen Mackenzie tells Harry Fisher during their scene together. “Dreams are my business,” Rita's movie director boyfriend Joel Abrigore informs Sammy Jo during their first meeting. Yes, just as Val gets her babies back on KNOTS, thereby signalling the end of one kidnapping-related nightmare, another is about to begin on DYNASTY.

Similarly, no sooner has one “back from the dead” storyline (that of Val and her supposedly stillborn children) been finally laid to rest than others arise from the grave to take its place. On FALCON CREST, we learn of a another woman falsely informed that her baby was stillborn — this time, by her own mother. Unlike Val, Julia Cumson still believes that the illegitimate son she gave birth to years earlier was born dead. Instead, as we discover in the exciting last moments of this week’s episode, he is now a Catholic priest living in Connecticut! Meanwhile on DYNASTY, Alexis is haunted by nightmares that King Galen is still alive, just Val was by dreams of her twins last year.

On last week’s DALLAS, a jive-talking street guy broke an unwritten Soap Land rule by directly referring to Sue Ellen’s shoulder-pads. (“She looks like a Dallas cowboy!” he laughed, prodding them.) On this week’s DYNASTY, as if in direct response to that transgression, Alexis sports what must surely qualify as the genre’s most outrageous outfit to date. In place of shoulder-pads, she wears shoulder-spikes, and looks less like an American footballer than a human firework. Most incongruously, she wears the item to a business meeting with Dominique Devereaux. Unlike the incident on DALLAS, no reference is made to the strangeness of Alexis’s appearance, but this does not prevent the viewer at home from being entirely distracted from the scene’s dialogue. This reflects Alexis’s own state of mind as she is too preoccupied by thoughts of King Galen’s fate to pay attention to what Dominique is saying to her (something about timberland). This is signified by her childlike doodling of Galen’s name on a pad. Similarly, the spikes on each of Alexis’s shoulders create the shape of a crown as if crudely drawn by a child. So while the scene is ‘all about the dress’, it does at least have some thematic logic.

Also back from the dead this week, fresh from blowing his brains out on KNOTS LANDING, Dr. Ackerman resumes his original Soap Land role of JR’s banker, Franklin Horner. We see him helping to arrange a handsome offer for Christopher’s share of Ewing Oil (and not a bridge tournament in sight). He declares that if Pam accepts the deal, “She will be one of the wealthiest people in the state, in the country.” Impressive, but not as much as Joel Abrigore’s description of Blake Carrington on DYNASTY: “I read about him in Fortune. He's one of the world's wealthiest men."

While Jack Ewing lends Ray a hand with the cattle-branding on Southfork, his erstwhile PAPER DOLLS lover Racine shows up as the daughter of a famous lawyer on FALCON CREST. As JJ Roberts, Morgan Fairchild combines her PAPER DOLLS work ethic (“I made my first million before I was thirty”) with an interest in her former FLAMINGO ROAD flame, Michael Tyrone aka Richard Channing - only this time she's offering him her expertise as an attorney rather than as a bed partner. On PAPER DOLLS, Jack was a member of a prominent family while Racine was an enigmatic character whose background was shrouded in mystery. Now their situations are reversed. We learn more of Jordan Jennifer Roberts’ history in her introductory scene than we did about Racine's in all thirteen episodes of PAPER DOLLS. By contrast on DALLAS, Jack is proving to be a master of the inscrutable one-word answer. "You thinking of putting some roots down, Jack, or you be heading back to where you came from? Where was that anyway?” asks Ray. "Nowhere,” he responds. "You ever marry?” Ray persists in a later scene. "Almost,” he replies.

Jordan Roberts has a question of her own, regarding the night of the explosion at the end of last season’s FALCON CREST. "What was Mrs. Gioberti doing at your house?” she asks Richard. This query echoes Miss Ellie’s to Pam last week, regarding the morning of Bobby’s death at the end of last season’s DALLAS: “It was so early. How did he happen to be here?” Whether or not Richard will able to keep dodging the question as deftly as Pam did remains to be seen.

Elsewhere, it’s time for Soap Land’s very first Battle of the Amnesiacs. In the DYNASTY corner, we have Randall Adams, whose past is an entirely blank slate — all she knows about herself is that she can speak French with an accent and has an affinity with the name Colby. In the FALCON CREST corner, we have Maggie Gioberti who, by way of contrast, is surrounded by family and friends, but no longer has any memory of them following last season’s cliffhanging explosion. Save for her budding friendship with Miles, Fallon is all alone in the world, but even that seems preferable to the position Maggie finds herself in. “I am going home with a total stranger,” she says nervously as she prepares to leave the hospital with her husband. When told that she and Chase have a wonderful marriage, she replies, “I can’t remember it and I can’t feel it.” “It was like it wasn’t her there. It was like it was somebody else in her body,” says JR of his encounter with Sue Ellen in the detox ward this week. Although their circumstances are different, that could just as easily be Chase describing his situation with Maggie.

This leads to some fascinating scenes from a soap marriage. In the absence of a shared history, the Giobertis’ relationship is reduced to its most basic elements. Without knowing why, Maggie intuitively recoils whenever Chase tries to touch her until, in an explosive combination of wounded male ego and a genuine desire to get through to her, he comes dangerously close to forcing himself on her. A soap’s most heroic character almost raping his wife just one episode after she shared a romantic kiss with its most villainous one — how upside down is that? This is another instance of what is arguably Soap Land’s vaguest show tapping into something unexpectedly primal and subversive.

And this week’s Top 4 are …

1 (1) DALLAS
2 (3) KNOTS LANDING
3 (-) FALCON CREST
4 (2) DYNASTY