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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 8037" data-attributes="member: 22">15/Dec/82: DYNASTY: La Mirage v. 16/Dec/82: KNOTS LANDING: Abby's Choice v. 17/Dec/82: DALLAS: Barbecue Three v. 17/Dec/82: FALCON CREST: United We Stand...There may be no Christmas in Soap Land this year, but two of this week's shows are nonetheless in a party mood - DYNASTY is celebrating the grand opening of Fallon’s hotel and the Ewings of DALLAS are throwing their annual barbecue. Both gatherings have a dress theme - DYNASTY’s is the roaring twenties (“Those must have been the most wonderful carefree days,” sighs Alexis, "people innocently pursuing their pleasure-filled lives”) while the barbecue guests all show up in traditional Western garb.DYNASTY is so excited to be throwing a party that fancy dress takes precedence over drama in this week’s ep. For the most part, the results are enjoyably dumb - particularly the scene where Alexis and Krystle show up at the same dress shop at the same time to be fitted for what turns out to be identical party frocks. Their encounter echoes the scene in FLAMINGO ROAD’s first season where nemeses Lane and Constance simultaneously arrive at the beauty parlour for the same appointment with the same hairdresser. Back then, laid back Lane graciously surrendered the appointment to Constance. This time around, competitive Krystle suggests she and Alexis flip a coin to determine who will wear the dress to Fallon’s party. As she did last season’s cat fight, Krystle wins.The closest DALLAS comes to an equivalent scene is the one where the Ewing women are writing barbecue invitations, (hard to imagine the Carrington/Colby ladies lowering themselves to such a task) and Lucy coolly declines Sue Ellen’s offer of lunch in town. Unlike the dress shop scene in DYNASTY, there are no witty remarks or bitchy putdowns, ("Go on, Krystle, swear - I'd adore to hear you say something colourful and foul”) just earnest bemusement and concern. “Pam, is it me?” Sue Ellen wonders aloud after Lucy has left the room. Pam assures her it isn’t: “The kidnapping really left a lot of scars on Lucy … She’s just not ready to accept help yet.” As adversarial female relationships go, the richest one in this week’s Soap Land takes place between Abby and Karen on KNOTS LANDING.“Abby’s Choice” is whether or not to donate one of her kidneys to her niece, and Karen’s daughter, Diana. It’s very much her choice to make - everyone is falling over themselves to be nonjudgemental. “You don’t have to be a hero,” Gary tells her. “It’s a very personal decision,” insists Dr Blake Carrington’s Secretary. Even Diana herself, never more sweetly vulnerable, is reluctant to pressure her aunt into helping her. After all, it’s not as if it’s a question of life and death - Diana can survive indefinitely with one kidney - it’s the quality of life that's in question. Factor in the knowledge that Sid, Abby’s brother and Diana’s father, died on the operating table and you’ve got a more complex than average Soap Land dilemma. So it is that Abby is obliged to look within herself in a way that very few Soap Land characters, and certainly not villainous ones, ever are. “I am not a hero, believe me,” she tells Gary, her voice shaking. "A hero is someone with courage, and it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of courage to say no to this. I don’t know if I’ve got that kind of guts.”This is a story-line that slices, both metaphorically and literally, through Abby’s beautiful blonde exterior and scheming persona to the human being underneath, as burdened by conscience and terrified of death as any average looking schlub in the real world. Crucially, however - and herein lies the cleverness of both the episode and Donna Mills’ performance - it does so without compromising any of the qualities that have made Abby such a terrific Soap Land villain in the first place. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the scene where, having agreed to give Diana her kidney, Abby is visited by Karen in the hospital the night before the operation. When Karen tries to express her gratitude, Abby throws it back in her face: “I’m doing this because I have to, for Diana, for my brother’s child, and for myself so I won’t have to live with the guilt of having refused, but I am not doing it for you ... I don’t want you here. I don’t want us to be civil to each other and I don’t want you to pretend like you like me all of a sudden. If you want to show your gratitude, save a whale in my name, but stay away from me now.” Sure, the “save a whale in my name” quip is cute, but this isn’t simply cattiness for its own sake, the way Alexis and Krystle’s encounter in the dress shop is. It runs deeper than that - there are years of resentment in Abby’s speech, the kind of unarticulated stuff that goes on in real families. There’s also fear, the sort you can only take out on someone who knows you really well. And that’s what Karen and Abby are - reluctant members of the same family - rather than simply rivals for the same man.All that said, once Abby and Diana are wheeled into the operating theatre, the episode settles into a conventional, if perfectly acceptable, hospital drama where the eventual (i.e. successful) outcome is in little doubt. Meanwhile, the remaining characters all congregate in the hospital waiting area to exchange the same kind of meaningful glances they’d otherwise be giving each other in Richard’s restaurant.“Barbecue Three” is one of those great pay-off episodes of DALLAS where everything clicks expertly into place and one is reminded why this show is the Daddy of the genre. It’s the one where JR’s latest master plan, a string of cut-rate gas stations, is finally unveiled, setting off a chain of dramatic events. Something similar, albeit on a smaller scale, happens on FALCON CREST when Chase learns that the Douglas Channing Memorial Garden is really just a front for the winery Richard is secretly building. Just as JR’s latest move to beat his brother also spells bad news for the oil community at large, ("He's cutting the throat of every oil man in Texas,” Cliff explains to Afton, “He's gonna force us to cut our profits”) so Richard’s vendetta against Angela has serious implications for the rest of the local populace. “Richard’s already making offers for next year’s harvest at twice the going rate,” Chase informs Angela. "If [he] opens that winery and starts a price war for next year’s harvest, he’ll put the rest of us out of business … He’s declared war on every single winery in this valley.”While the newly formed Texas Energy Commission initially vote to rescind JR’s oil variance, (only to later rescind that rescission when they hear about his gas stations) Chase announces he is filing an injunction to halt construction on the winery.It’s interesting to compare the reactions of Miss Ellie and Jacqueline Perrault (Chase’s mother) to the family/business conflict going on around them. Each is worried for her children. While Ellie confides her concerns to Ray, (“I have such a feeling of helplessness ….I have to try and keep this family from flying apart”) Jacqueline is more pro-active. She meets with Richard and offers to join forces with him against Angela, “but I don’t want Chase to get caught in the crossfire … All I want is the promise that no harm will come to my son.” By the end of their respective episodes, Ellie and Jacqueline are singing from almost identical hymn sheets. “I’ve had enough of this insane competition between you two!” Miss Ellie tells JR and Bobby. “I came to put a stop to this madness,” Jacqueline informs Chase and Richard. "You two are the last people in the world who should be fighting one another!”Back at the grand opening of La Mirage, the shrill '20s musical score and air of self-congratulation begin to grate. Everyone oohs and aahs over what a fabulous/wonderful/beautiful job Fallon has done with the place when it actually looks remarkably tacky.Three weeks after Afton reluctantly slept with Gil Thurman to secure Cliff’s refinery deal, Alexis gives Congressman Neil McVane a quick knee trembler during the party as an inducement to scupper the government loan Blake so desperately needs to hold onto his company. Blake retaliates by threatening to expose McVane's "private goings on in Washington” unless he continue to play ball. Angela pulls an equivalent move in FALCON CREST, blackmailing Eric Kenderson, Richard’s broker, over his drug problem in order to delay the release of the two million shares Richard needs to hold onto his newspaper. Neither Alexis nor Richard take kindly to having the tables turned on them. “You double-crossing scum!” Alexis seethes at McVane, while Richard promises Kenderson that ”if I find out you’ve backed out of this deal on your own, you’re gonna be the old man sweeping the ticker tape from the stock exchange floor!"When Adam meets DYNASTY newcomer Kirby at the La Mirage opening, he immediately becomes possessive of her. “She’s with me,” he insists when Jeff asks her for a dance. When Kirby accepts Jeff's invitation, a love triangle is formed. There’s a similar moment at the Ewing barbecue where Bobby is leading Pam to the dance floor only for Holly Harwood to interrupt and ask to take Pam's place. “It’s strictly business,” she assures Pam. Bobby and Holly's Texas two-step might not be quite as intimate as Joaquin and Pamela Rebecca’s at the most recent Southfork barbecue, but Pam’s reaction to the kiss Holly plants on Bobby’s cheek isn’t a million miles from John Ross’s to his wife hip-grinding with another man.At first glance, Kirby is the anti-Ciji. Where Ciji is distant and remote, Kirby is positively garrulous about her life. Ciji might have made a big impact on the residents of KNOTS LANDING, but after six episodes, we still know next to nothing about her. Kirby, meanwhile, burbles on and on - about the summer she spent nannying on a yacht, (“While the rich, super rich, mommy and daddy pooped out on the poop deck, I took care of Little Poop”) about how wonderful and beautiful the Carringtons are, about what it was like to grow up in their family mansion. As if this were not enough, we also learn that she has been leading a double life, one that somehow involves dancing barefoot on tables in the casinos of Monte Carlo.However, when one looks a little closer, it turns out Kirby and Ciji do have things in common. This week, as Kirby renews an old friendship with Fallon, Ciji forges a new one with Laura. In different ways, each of these relationships is a first. When Fallon greets Kirby with open-armed excitement, it is the first time we see her regard another woman as anything other than an enemy (her short-lived truce with Alexis notwithstanding). When Ciji shows concern for Laura, whom she has overheard arguing with Richard, it is the first time she has exhibited an active interest in anyone’s life but her own. Ciji and Laura’s friendship hits the ground running - within the space of one episode, they’ve wept at a Bette Davis movie together, had a sleepover, giggled conspiratorially at Richard, and celebrated Ciji’s birthday with a party for two.It transpires that Kirby and Ciji also share a love of babies, with Kirby fawning over Little Blake to the extent that Fallon hires her as his nurse, and Ciji cooing over Daniel and confiding to Laura that she’d really like a baby of her own. Meanwhile, on DALLAS, Holly admits to Bobby that a faithful husband is "exactly what I’d like to have.” For all that they are modern career women, it seems that Ciji and Holly are both old fashioned girls at heart. Somewhat less traditionally, FALCON CREST’s Lance - who has steadfastly disowned Melissa’s child since he learnt of its conception - starts to bond with the little critter this week, almost in spite of himself.When Kirby attempts to leave La Mirage at the end of the party, Adam grabs her arm and won’t let go. Similarly, in an effort to persuade Lucy to dance with him at the barbecue, Mickey Trotter makes a playful grab towards her. When both women recoil from these advances, Adam proves creepily persistent, whereas Mickey exhibits a heretofore unseen sensitive side. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” he realises. “Lucy, I know what it’s like to be scared."The parties at La Mirage and Southfork are both disrupted by characters making spectacles of themselves. On DYNASTY, a crowd gathers to watch Fallon charlestoning tipsily on the hotel diving board alongside Mark Jennings, before they tumble fully clothed into the pool and share a kiss. Aside from Jeff pursing his lips in disapproval, the party guests seem happy to indulge their hostess’s folly. The cartel and Cliff angrily confronting JR at the barbecue over his cut-price gas stations is less well received, with Bobby and Ray sticking up for their brother (“If there’s any blood spilled here today, I guarantee you, it won’t just be Ewing blood!”) and Miss Ellie angrily voicing her disapproval: “Go home! Go home, all of you!” In each instance, the characters embody the periods their party outfits are meant to evoke. While Fallon plays the madcap ‘20s heiress - decadent, irresponsible, narcissistic - the Ewings band sternly together on the Southfork patio, looking for all the world like a pioneer family protecting their homestead from outsiders.This week’s DYNASTY, DALLAS and FALCON CREST all end with a dramatic revelation, each one more exciting than the last. "Our divorce papers were never filed in Mexico - we were never divorced!” is easily topped by “I’m going to court to break Jock’s will - and then I intend to sell Ewing Oil!”, while “I’m your mother - you are both my sons!” is the real shocker.And this week’s Soap Land Top 4 are …1 (4) DALLAS2 (1) KNOTS LANDING3 (3) FALCON CREST4 (2) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?