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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 6179" data-attributes="member: 22">21/Oct/82: KNOTS LANDING: Svengali v. 22/Oct/82: DALLAS: The Big Ball v. 22/Oct/82: FALCON CREST: Murder OneTwo male twenty-somethings make their Ewing-verse debuts this week. It’s safe to say that Chip Roberts - cheerful, charming, attentive - makes a more favourable first impression on Lilimae and Val than Mickey Trotter - surly, sarcastic, indifferent - does on Donna and Ray. But then, things aren’t always how they appear in Soap Land.My favourite scene of the week is between Chip and his boss Bess Riker. Two ambitious, calculating characters, each trying to get the better of the other - it’s a traditional Soap Land scenario of the kind KNOTS LANDING has never really done before. Although different in tone, it reminds me of the scene that introduced Richard Channing and his adoptive father, Henri Denault, to FALCON CREST a few weeks ago. The characters in both scenes are outsiders. They don’t belong to the familiar worlds of their respective shows, and they view those worlds dispassionately, referring to characters we know as commodities to be exploited.There are differences between the two scenes. Where Richard has worked diligently for his father all his adult life, Bess hired Chip “two months ago against my better judgement [as a] messenger. If you ever again try to con one of my clients into thinking you’re any more in this office, I’ll fire you right on the spot.” Where Richard is asking Denault for his freedom, Chip wants more responsibility in Bess’s company. Each delivers a persuasive sales pitch. “If you give me time,” Richard proposes, "I’ll deliver a multi-billion dollar per annum business to you … the California wine industry.” “She was ready to dump you, you know," says Chip of Val. "She doesn’t want a PR firm. I convinced her she had to have one.” Denault and Riker each give their consent. “Yes,” agrees Henri, "having a little wine would be nice." "All right, Svengali,” Bess tells Chip. "Let’s see what you can do. Groom her, do what you think she wants.” However, both scenes end on a warning. "If you don’t deliver this wine business in a reasonable time, I’m afraid I’ll have to cancel this agreement of ours,” Henri tells Richard. “And my freedom from the company?” Richard asks. "You simply won’t have any,” he replies. "Just don’t let me down,” Bess warns Chip, "because I’m going to be watching you every step of the way.”Bess greets Chip’s claim that Val "is going to be as big as Jackie Susann or maybe even Judith Krantz” with derisive laughter, but he insists that she is “a fabulous writer.” Without question, he is motivated by self-interest here, but he also seems to believe what he is saying. Could it be that Chip sees the same kind of potential in Val that Abby sees in Gary?Val and Miss Ellie both find themselves in the spotlight this week. While Ellie's dressmaker puts the finishing touches to her gown for the Oil Barons' Ball (which JR refers to as his mama’s coming out party), Val is persuaded to splash out $600 on a dress for her TV debut as a guest on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW. (However, neither outfit - nor any of the others at the Oil Barons’ Ball, come to that - is as bold or glitzy as some of those seen on last season's DYNASTY or FLAMINGO ROAD.)After mentioning Val’s name during the introduction of his show, Mike Douglas looks directly down the camera lens at us and adds knowingly, “And if that name Ewing sounds familiar, then it’s who you think it is.” Later, during their interview, Douglas asks Val if her book is "just a thinly disguised story of the real life Ewing family.” “Nothing the Ewings do is ever very thinly disguised!” she quips nervously. The impression one gets from these references is of the Ewings as a somewhat notorious, if not infamous family, perhaps even regarded as a little vulgar. This isn’t a hundred miles from how they were viewed by real life television audiences of the time (at least in the UK). In other words, within the context of KNOTS, the DALLAS Ewings feel almost fictional.“Nothing the Ewings do is ever very thinly disguised!” The implication of this line, that the Texas Ewings lack subtlety, is borne out the following night by the standing ovation Miss Ellie receives at the Oil Barons' Ball, initiated by her own family. Conversely, Mike Douglas’s wink-at-the-camera attitude towards the family ("it’s who you think it is!”) contrasts greatly with Punk Anderson's solemn description of Jock Ewing as "the kind of man that made Texas great” and Miss Ellie's pronouncement of him as simply "the finest man that God ever put on this earth.” Instead of a chuckling studio audience, this plays out in front of a ballroom full of people blinking back tears.The blurring of the real and the fictional continues with the first use of celebrity cameos in Soap Land. As well as Mike Douglas, KNOTS has Zsa Zsa Gabor and Billy Curtis playing themselves, while Lilimae - a fictional representation of the ordinary "us" - fantasises that she’s Elizabeth Taylor - a real life example of the extraordinary "them". This is itself ironic, given that Julie Harris co-starred with Taylor in the 1967 movie REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE, and is a far more celebrated actress than Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose films Lilimae purports to be a big fan of. “Which ones?” Zsa Zsa asks her. “All of them,” she replies vaguely. (And who can blame her - can you name a single Zsa Zsa Gabor movie?)Making her TV debut, a nervous Val, consciously or otherwise, ends up playing the country hick in order to ingratiate herself with her host and his audience. It works. And each time she elicits a laugh or stumbles upon a piece of homespun wisdom, we cut to Chip standing in the wings looking genuinely pleased and relieved. Since we’re on Val’s side, we share his reaction. Does that mean we’re on his side too?While Val is under the glare of a fictional media, KNOTS itself puts Ciji in the limelight, devoting nearly a full three minutes of screen time to her uninterrupted rendition of another soft rock cover, Rick Springfield's “Hole in my Heart”, accompanied by some cool camera moves. Neither of Soap Land’s previous songbirds, Lane Ballou and Afton Cooper, were ever showcased in such a way (although Lane got pretty close during her demo recording of “Could It Be Love”). While Lane and Afton were already established characters before we saw them perform, Ciji’s spoken dialogue has thus far been minimal. The only indication we’ve been given of her personality is the gutsy earnestness with which she sings. Again, we’re seeing her through the excited eyes of Kenny and Gary, and again, it feels very seductive.In FALCON CREST, it’s Cole who hits the spotlight when the Globe newspaper launches a smear campaign targeting him as the most likely suspect in Carlo Agretti’s killing. “I want headlines on this murder!” Richard Channing orders his reluctant editor. "I want it to be sensational … Murder sells newspapers, whether we like it or not, especially when the victims are rich and the suspects are rich and the setting is right.” As well as the Globe’s readers, Richard might also be describing Soap Land’s audience here. After all, what was “Who Shot JR?” but a story about rich people trying to kill each other? Could FALCON CREST be implying that its own viewers are as prurient and easy to manipulate as a tabloid readership? Ah, but then it flatters us. When Miss Hunter suggests that Cole is too obvious a suspect, Richard assures her that his readers won’t care about that. “Don’t wanna make it too challenging,” he tells her, adding cynically that "simplicity is the key to genius.” As we the audience already know Cole to be innocent, that means we're one step ahead of the Globe’s easily duped readers.Back on DALLAS, it’s good to see wildcatter Walter Lankershim, who unceremoniously evaporated after striking it big on DYNASTY two seasons ago, resurface as “snake oil salesman” Frank Crutcher at the Oil Barons’ Ball. He offers his condolences to Miss Ellie for her loss of Jock in the same treacherous jungle that also claimed his friend Matthew. Meanwhile, Soap Land’s first businesswoman, Sally Bullock - the one who joined forces with JR to defraud Bobby out of a tanker full of oil - is discovered slumming it as a struggling vineyardist and widow in this week’s FALCON CREST.The occasion of Amos Krebbs' funeral on DALLAS introduces us to Ray’s Aunt Lil. Like Lilimae on KNOTS, she is a warm, endearing archetype of homespun country folk. “Land sakes, where are my manners?!” she exclaims before ushering Donna and Ray inside her house, insisting they stay with her rather than at a motel. "If a heavenly angel came down when I was a child to tell me that a daughter of mine was going to be on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, I’d have told her she was crazy!” declares an even more exuberant Lilimae at the beginning of this week’s KNOTS. It’s interesting to compare the two Lils. “Little more grey in my hair since you left,” Aunt Lil shyly admits to Ray. Yeah, she’s the Lil that stayed behind to bury a sister (“That was a beautiful service”) and raise a son (“Michael was such a good boy growing up”) while Lilimae (nothing grey about her hair) abandoned her family to chase a dream. Now it looks as if that dream is about to come true, albeit once removed. “We’re gonna be a star!” she cries after Val’s TV appearance is deemed a success. She goes on to declare the recording as the most exciting afternoon of her life. “Afternoon?” queries Chip. “Well, there was a night, but I can’t talk about that,” she replies. It’s hard to imagine Aunt Lil admitting to one of those.DALLAS and KNOTS each end on a forward-looking note. “Jock, of all men, always believed that we had to be ready to face tomorrow and so we will,” concludes Ellie's speech, while on KNOTS, the direct reference to ALL ABOUT EVE might be excessive, (a fawning young admirer at the stage door introduces herself to Val as Eve) but clearly illustrates that as a result of her talk show appearance, Val has been transformed from one of "us" to one of "them". Meanwhile, on FALCON CREST, there’s none of that "brave new tomorrow” crap - just a nice, juicy, traditional Soap Land cliffhanger where Cole is arrested for murder as his family look on helplessly.And this week’s Soap Land Top 3 are …1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (2) FALCON CREST3 (3) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?