Festive Names

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 5398" data-attributes="member: 22">15/Dec/81: FLAMINGO ROAD: The Powers That Be v. 16/Dec/81: DYNASTY: The Miscarriage v. 17/Dec/81: KNOTS LANDING: One of a Kind v. 18/Dec/81: DALLAS: Waterloo at Southfork v. 18/Dec/81: FALCON CREST: The Tangled VinesEudora's out-of-nowhere addiction to "nerve pills" comes to a head in this week's FLAMINGO ROAD when Constance finds her on all fours in her bedroom, going through withdrawal. Constance is so freaked out that she forgets to pretend she is paralysed and leaps out of her wheelchair and to her mother's side. At that precise moment, Field enters the room, having just returned from a senatorial trip to Tallahassee, and sees his crippled wife looking not so crippled after all. It's a scene as joyfully ridiculous as the "We've got a baby to adopt!" climax of last week's DALLAS. With Eudora taking Pam's place at the Soap Land Sanitarium - all the better for Claude to have her declared mentally incompetent so he can sell the barrio to Michael Tyrone without her signature - where does this leave Field and Constance's marriage, currently held together by a combination of guilt, emotional blackmail and mutual self-interest? "We're still man and wife," Constance reminds her husband. "What we are is a corporation and I'm still Chairman of the Board," Field replies.Last week, Pam Ewing was a hopeless depressive, unable to come to terms with her inability to have a child, while Krystle Carrington was a radiant mother-to-be. This week, they've swapped lives. With Christopher in her arms, Pam is miraculously cured and happier than she has ever been. After miscarrying her baby and being told she can't have another, Krystle is inconsolable. The hospital scene where Krystle grieves for her loss in front of Nick Toscanni carries a raw, red-eyed anguish more emotionally alive than anything we've seen during Pam's equivalent story-line. (Where Nick unlocks Krystle's pain in front of our eyes, Pam's neuroses remain sealed off from us, just as they are from Bobby.)This week brings Soap Land's first on-screen divorce, between JR and Sue Ellen, and its first Christmas, celebrated exclusively on KNOTS LANDING. Divorce is a nasty business, as Teddy Becker, an old boyfriend of Karen's visiting from New York, and Evelyn Michaelson, a patient at the hospital where Mitch Cooper is now interning, can attest. Teddy may have been divorced eight years ago, but he still bears the scars. "She's remarried now," he says of his ex-wife, smiling bravely. "I understand she's very happy." It's a similar story for Evelyn: "He's getting a new life, I'm getting a new face," she tells Mitch, smiling the same brave smile as Teddy. But those break ups sound almost idyllic compared to what JR has in store for Sue Ellen: "I have the witnesses and the depositions to prove that you're a drunk, a tramp and an unfit mother … I'll fight you till you're in the streets with nothin' more to your name but the clothes on your back and a little tin cup in your hand."The latest round of Soap Land Song Wars is between Lane Ballou on FLAMINGO ROAD (yet again) and the combined efforts of Lilimae, Brian, Olivia and the Wards on KNOTS. For a change, the songs are each part of the narrative rather than functioning simply as background music. In FLAM RD's main subplot, Lane puts her $3,000 savings where her mouth is to make a demo recording of "Could This Be Magic", her own composition no less, at Golden Groove Studios. However, the studio isn't quite what it seems - it's a cover for a bootleg operation - and when the bad guys receive a tip-off from Titus that the FBI is on their tail, they skedaddle, leaving Lane broke and demo-less, but with her dreams intact. Over on KNOTS, an emotional Karen listens from her bedroom window as the Seaview Circle carollers run through "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" and "Silent Night". Meanwhile, Gary watches from his own house. "She doesn't look any older than the little ones," he says of Lilimae, before painting an evocative picture of his mother-in-law as "a little country Peter Pan" who never grew up. Pretty as Lane's song is, it's no competition for Julie Harris and her autoharp. Once again, KNOTS is the winner.Soap Land is suddenly full of Yankees. "Why'd you leave New York? Did the Big Apple give you a tummy ache?" Fallon asks Nick in DYNASTY. Meanwhile, Teddy Becker becomes the first KNOTS character to properly acknowledge Karen as a native New Yorker. "I tried to picture you in California, but it's such an incongruous image," he tells her. "I just woke up one morning and decided I liked it here," she shrugs. It's not proving that simple an adjustment for FALCON CREST's Cole and Vicky, described by their mother as "born and bred New Yorkers." "How come it's so humid?" Vicky complains. "California's not supposed to be humid … I'm having a hard time getting used to living out here in the middle of nowhere … The whole town is one restaurant, one bar and one disco … I miss New York. I miss my friends and my dancing, going to the theatre. Falcon Crest just doesn't cut it!" (Not all of Soap Land's young folk are as resistant to new experiences. Vicky's KNOTS counterpart, Diana, is dazzled by the great and the good she mixes with whilst attending a governor's dinner on Teddy's arm, and rich boy Steven Carrington falls in love with the down and dirty world of stock car racing introduced to him by Sammy Jo on DYNASTY.)Things also get a bit meta this week. "It's a cute story," smirks Abby, referencing the obvious connection between Teddy and Diana on KNOTS. "'Daughter bags Mom's old boyfriend.' It's been done, of course, on soap operas." This line becomes even more ironic in hindsight when one recalls another time this soap opera story would be told - five years later, involving Abby herself, Olivia and Peter Hollister. Meanwhile, Vicky's line on FALCON CREST - "Dad's got this fantasy that living together on the vineyard's gonna turn us into the Waltons" - is a direct reference to the show that FC's creator, Earl Hamner, is most famous for.As Abby notes, the Karen/Teddy/Diana triangle is a familiar soap premise - becoming even soapier when Ted tells Karen he thinks Diana could be his daughter. However, KNOTS characteristically takes the less obvious route, and the whole situation is underplayed with the minimum of melodrama - perhaps too underplayed at times. But it's a sweetly touching ep, as Karen realises Teddy's need to believe Diana is his stems from losing his own kids after his marriage break-up.Divorce, childlessness, parental absenteeism … these themes permeate the week's episodes. On KNOTS, Sid's absence hovers over the Fairgates' Christmas while Lilimae's festive cheer only serves to remind Val of all the times her mother wasn't with her as a child ("When I hear her talk about those dear sweet Christmases that never were I just wanna throw up"). The scene where Lilimae presents Val with the dreaded patchwork quilt she has made for her and Val embraces her, thereby silently forgiving her for all those Christmases they missed out on in the past, always touches me.And then there's the brilliantly excruciating scene where, after Richard has given Laura the Christmas gift of a car, Laura's boss Scooter shows up and unintentionally upstages him by also giving her a car - only a much bigger and better one. Richard reacts as graciously as he can, insisting his wife keep Scooter's gift, but the blow to his pride is palpable.There's a similar dynamic on DALLAS between Ray, whose land deal has collapsed, and Donna, whose star is in the ascendant. Unlike the Averys, however, the Krebbses are past putting on a brave front. "Look at you," says Ray, "my wife, the girl that has everything. You got looks, you got brains, you got political savvy. You can sit down and write a book, and boom - just like that, I guarantee you it's gonna be a best seller. And look at the dummy you're married to.""Waterloo at Southfork" is the kind of DALLAS episode - action packed and filled with conflict - that makes you forget however many sluggish instalments or contrived plot devices it's taken to get us there. Sparks fly between Larry Hagman and Barbara Bel Geddes ("Then you're gonna have to break me, JR") while the scene where Miss Ellie stands up to the cartel is justifiably regarded as classic. Her line to Cliff, "How long are you going to perpetuate this stupid Barnes/Ewing feud, till we're all dead and gone?" seems more meaningful than ever in light of events on New DALLAS.A gibbering Eudora notwithstanding, old ladies are doing it for themselves in this week's Soap Land. As if Lilimae's homemade quilt weren't impressive enough, Miss Ellie strikes a deal with Clayton Farlow to pay off Ewing Oil's debt to the cartel and on FALCON CREST, Angela Channing acquires someone else's loan - she buys up vintner Carl Reed's mortgage in order to dissuade him from buying Chase's harvest, which in turn would have allowed Chase to pay off the taxes on the land he has inherited from his father. She also uses her influence with the bank to have them refuse Chase a loan. Her hope is that he will be forced to sell up (to her) and return from whence he came.Interestingly, the Giobertis have yet to figure out that Angela is behind their difficulties. Regarding her as an irksome but relatively harmless aunt, they have no idea of the extent of her ruthlessness. It's a similar situation on DYNASTY where Alexis is now free to roam the Carrington grounds, dropping poison into Claudia's ear about Krystle and Blake's about Sammy Jo, whilst also listening in on business conversations about Rashid Ahmed.Angela's grandson Lance, meanwhile, demonstrates to the audience what a fantastic little shit he can be - smugly threatening Carl Reed then petulantly trashing a bar owner's property and pinning the blame on Cole. The dynamic between Cole and Lance at this stage is not dissimilar from that between Christopher and John Ross in New DALLAS - cousins who might easily be friends but instead find themselves on opposite sides of a feud passed down from a previous generation.In each of this week's FALCON CREST and KNOTS, an old family photograph helps bring resolution to a storyline. Karen finds a picture of Sid's grandmother in which she bears a remarkable resemblance to Claudia Lonow with a wig on, thereby ending any confusion over who Diana's father might be. Meanwhile, Chase ruminates over an old snapshot: "That's me and my father. This must have been taken shortly before my mother left him and took me to Paris. We hardly had a chance to get to know one another." (The photo is dated 1950, which means Chase left the valley ten years earlier than was established in the opening episode - but hey, who's counting?) Chase shows the picture to his son Cole, who has been growing seriously disillusioned with grape farming ("I'm sick and tired of this vineyard!"). The pic, and Chase's accompanying history lesson, ("Some of the grapes in this vineyard have been ten generations in the making - my great grandfather came to this valley with cuttings from some of the same vines his great grandfather planted in Northern Italy") serve to imbue Cole with a sense of family pride and the possibility that maybe Falcon Crest can cut it after all.The end of "Tangled Vines" reminds me of the last scene of "Call Girl", the Season 1 episode of DALLAS, where JR becomes the last to learn that Pam and Bobby have reconciled at Southfork and the rest of the family chuckle at his dismayed reaction. Here, the Giobertis invite the Channings over to celebrate their good news: they've sold their brownstone in New York and now have enough money to remain at Falcon Crest permanently. Cue big smiles from everyone save Angela and Lance, who are caught looking suitably bemused in the freeze frame. Their look of defeat is mirrored by JR's in the closing moments of this week's DALLAS when the judge announces his decision to award custody of John Ross to his mother, with JR granted access on alternate weekends - a festive reminder, perhaps, that sometimes bad guys do finish last.And this week's Soap Land Top 5 are …1 (2) DALLAS2 (4) FALCON CREST3 (1) DYNASTY4 (3) KNOTS LANDING5 (5) FLAMINGO ROAD</blockquote>

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