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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 8376" data-attributes="member: 22">29/Dec/82: DYNASTY: The Locket v. 30/Dec/82: KNOTS LANDING: The Block Party v. 31/Dec/82: DALLAS: Mama Dearest v. 31/Dec/82: FALCON CREST: ...Divided We Fall1982 ends as it began in Soap Land. At the start of the year, the Ewing brothers flew to South America to look for their daddy Jock, missing presumed dead after a helicopter crash. Fifty-one weeks later, Blake and Alexis fly to Bali to look for their son Steven, missing presumed dead following an oil rig explosion in the Java Sea.Back then, Miss Ellie decreed that “the family should pull together when there’s trouble.” Krystle has the same wish now but lacks the matriarchal authority to enforce it. “I guess I’ll just never understand this family,” she tells Fallon sadly. "At a time when most people need to pull together, you go off by yourselves like wounded bears.”“Don’t shut me out, you need me now,” she pleads as Blake leaves for Bali without her. "I don’t need anybody to help me fight my battles, Krystle,” he replies coldly. This exchange is echoed by other couples in this week’s Soap Land. “Mack, don’t shut me out,” says Karen in KNOTS LANDING as Mack wrestles with parental problems. “I’ll work this out myself - alone!” he shouts back. In this week’s DALLAS, in the wake of a family row following Miss Ellie’s shock decision to break Jock’s will, Bobby elects to take a drive. “I’ll go with you,” offers Pam. "I'd just as soon be by myself,” he replies, more gently than either Blake or Mack, but just as firmly, before driving off into the night. Sue Ellen observes this exchange from the shadows and when she later finds JR deep in thought, is mindful not to impose herself upon him the way Pam did Bobby, Karen did Mack or Krystle did Blake. "Would you rather be alone?" she asks him carefully.It’s interesting how much angrier and more dysfunctional the Carringtons seem in their time of crisis than the Ewings did a year ago. On their way to South America, the Ewing boys huddled together on a crowded plane, fondly sharing childhood reminiscences and refills of bourbon. Travelling separately on the same flight to Bali, Alexis locates Blake in the first class lounge and first berates then physically attacks him. The contrast continues when both parties reach their destination. While the Ewings, even JR, accepted without question Punk’s assurances that everything was being done to find their precious daddy, Blake immediately pulls rank with Cassidy, Punk’s equivalent: “What are you doing? That’s what I wanna know! It’s been forty-eight hours since the explosion and you don’t have one scrap of information about the survivors?”And while the Ewing family as a whole (apart from Sue Ellen) remained optimistic about Jock’s chances of survival, the Carringtons (except Blake) all seem resigned to Steven’s death. Ironically, Fallon’s description of Steven as "probably dead somewhere at the bottom of the ocean where nobody will ever find him” will ultimately prove more applicable to Jock.Things are far less harmonious in DALLAS these days, however. In this week’s instalment, “Mama Dearest", everyone’s turning on everyone. As well as the Ewings fighting amongst themselves, Punk nearly comes to blows with Cliff - and the sight of Ellie turning to ice when Harve Smithfield reluctantly tells her he will be unable to represent her in court is one of the most effective moments in an episode full of effective moments. Meanwhile, Rebecca’s chastisement of her son (“I won’t be a party to any violence!”) takes on fresh resonance in light of Cliff’s actions in New DALLAS. Add to this Miss Ellie’s scolding of her eldest son (“I don’t think you give a damn about your daddy’s wishes - all you care about is yourself!”) and this episode could be renamed, in the parlance of modern day DALLAS, “Mama No Like".After initially shutting her out, Bobby later unburdens himself to Pam. Over on KNOTS, Mack does the same with Karen. Both men admit that they are the way they are because of how their fathers raised them - the primary difference being that while Bobby always tried to emulate and please Jock - "I wasn't just a road man for Ewing Oil, I was the best road man for any oil company because that's what Daddy expected, and that's what I expect from myself” - Mack’s life has been determined by a doomed attempt not to turn out like his father. “I’m like him, you see?” he explains to Karen. "And that’s the worst part. I hate his lousy guts and yet I’m like him and I know it. That’s probably why I never got married - because I knew I’d be just as crappy a father and husband as he was.” “That's why Daddy turned away from Gary,” Bobby continues. "'The Ewings must succeed' and Gary didn't care about that, but Pam, JR and I do."On DYNASTY, Blake repeatedly insists that his search for his son is "just between Steven and me.” On KNOTS, the scenes between Mack and his father, Pete, who is terminally ill, also have a life and death intensity to them. Jeff Corey’s performance as Pete brings a fresh layer of authenticity to the show. There aren’t many Soap Land characters whom I genuinely feel I could have met in the real world, but Pete is one of them. (Granted, this might have something to do with Pete’s Scottish brogue, which the character is meant to be faking, but which the actor pretty much nails.)While the significance of the father/son relationship cannot be underestimated, what of those Soap Land sons who grew up without either a father or a mother - what of Adam Carrington and Richard Channing? This week, Richard confronts Jacqueline Perrault, the mother who abandoned him as a baby. It’s interesting to compare this scene with the equivalent one between Cliff and Rebecca in DALLAS Season 3. Where Cliff invited his mother to his apartment for coffee and cake (not to mention liquorice), this is a much more businesslike arrangement: Richard receives Jacqueline in his office where he makes a point of placing a clock timer on his desk in order to limit their conversation to half an hour.Both Cliff and Richard are looking for straight answers. "I was barely five years old and you pretended to be dead … why?” asks Cliff. "Why did you put me in an orphanage?” demands Richard. So confronted, both women prevaricate, adopting a similarly martyred tone, as if to suggest that they themselves are the real victims. "It’s so hard to explain,” sighs Rebecca. "Oh Richard,” pleads Jacqueline, "I never wanted to choose between my sons.” Both men then let their mothers have it. While Cliff becomes emotional, ("Do you have any idea what it’s like to be five years old and be told that your mother’s dead only to find out the truth is that she didn’t want you, that she was only thinking about herself?!”) Richard keeps his feelings under control. "I’ve spent my life searching for my mother,” he tells Jacqueline calmly. "As a kid, I always dreamed of greeting her with open arms, but as I got older, my resentment grew to the point where the only excuse I’d accept was death. I wanted my search to lead to my mother’s grave.” Jacqueline gasps in shock, then begs Richard to keep her identity as his mother a secret (much as Rebecca did when she first met Pam).Meanwhile, on DYNASTY, Adam is put in the strange position of mourning a brother he has never met. "Growing up alone the way I did, I’d have given a lot for a kid brother,” he tells Fallon with apparent sincerity. Then while flirting with Kirby a few minutes later, he blithely dismisses Steven as “just a name to me”. This duality is mirrored by Richard in FALCON CREST. ”I sort of like the idea of having a brother,” he bashfully admits to his newly acquired sibling Chase. "Even more, I like the idea of having you as a brother.” Later in the episode, Miss Hunter asks him if he honestly has any feelings for Chase. “Yes,” he replies coldly. "Hatred.”Jacqueline Perrault is central to another FALCON CREST scenario that hearkens back to early DALLAS this week. Her consequences-be-damned insistence on visiting her great-grandson Joseph at Falcon Crest echoes Digger Barnes’ determination to peak a sneak at his supposed grandson Baby John in “Rodeo”. In order to see the child, Jacqueline, like Digger, must keep her blood tie to him a secret and instead suffer the humiliation of kowtowing to her nemesis, who smugly believes that she is the child’s direct ascendant. Just as Jock did when Digger cradled John Ross, Angela keeps a beady eye on Jacqueline during her visit with Joseph.Compared to Jacqueline, Chase and Maggie don’t appear overly concerned about their new grandson - or perhaps it’s just that they are occupied with other story-lines. A possible downside of FALCON CREST's focus being split between multiple plots, each of equal importance, is that it’s hard to keep track of where the characters’ emotional priorities lie. Whereas Digger's pilgrimage to the Southfork nursery was a significant and poignant part of that particular DALLAS episode and had a lasting impact on him, Jacqueline’s equivalent visit is dealt with in a couple of minutes, after which the characters swiftly move on to other stories. This isn’t to say the plot won’t yet resurface and bite us on the ass when we're least expecting it - which is a possible upside of FALCON CREST being such a busy show.The week before Christmas, there was the La Mirage opening in DYNASTY and the Southfork barbecue in DALLAS. Now it’s party time in FALCON CREST and KNOTS. Like DALLAS, KNOTS’ celebrations are of the daytime, al fresco variety, with a bit of local fundraising thrown in - a “block party”, or what we English might call a fete - with the added bonus of rising rock star Ciji Dunne belting out power pop cover versions on a makeshift stage.FALCON CREST plays host to no less than two gatherings this week. First, there’s the Founder’s Day Parade which, like the block party and the barbecue, is a wholesome community event (“This whole thing smacks of an office picnic,” observes Miss Hunter drily) and also has a period dress theme. (The exact period I’m a little vague on - somewhere between THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE GREAT GATSBY it appears - with Nick Hogan and Lance both sporting the same style of white Gatsby-esque hat that Mark Jennings wore at La Mirage two weeks ago). This is followed by a more glamorous party at Angela’s house. For a change, there’s no dress code here - but while there are plenty of low cut gowns with spangly sequins, there are, strangely, no shoulder pads.Soap Land parties are almost always an excuse to bring estranged or feuding characters together in the same environment - see Blake, Alexis and Neil McVane at La Mirage, Cliff, the cartel and the Ewings at Southfork, Angela, Richard and Jacqueline at this week’s party at Falcon Crest - and then watch the sparks fly. Not so at the KNOTS LANDING block party, where Abby and Gary drop Olivia off at the entrance to the cul-de-sac and then disappear off-screen for the rest of the episode. (As a result, Gary is referenced more in DALLAS this week than KNOTS, thanks to Miss Ellie’s controversial decision to sell Ewing Oil “and give half the money to a drunk and a cowboy.”) Consequently, the block party is a somewhat tame affair, the highlight of which is Ciji and Lilimae duetting on “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”There’s something dreamlike about the scene at the end of this week’s KNOTS, where Pete Mackenzie comes to Seaview Circle looking to make up with Mack, with whom he has argued. It is dark and the party guests have all left. He finds Lilimae amongst the streamers and other party debris blowing gently around in the cul-de-sac, searching for a random piece of paper. As she roots about, she distractedly imparts unhelpful advice to Pete about how she and Val came to terms with their differences: “We don’t talk about them. All we do is not do them anymore.”Pete carries with him his own father’s kilt, which he plans to present to Mack as a symbol of reconciliation. This is mirrored by Mark Jennings' gesture towards Krystle on DYNASTY when he returns her grandmother's locket which he stole from her and pawned during their marriage years before. After thirty years, I’ve finally forgiven Mark for not being Matthew Blaisdel and the gradual reconciliation between he and Krystle has actually been quite sweet to watch.KNOTS closes on an emotional embrace between Pete and Mack, their differences nonetheless unresolved. Angela’s party on FALCON CREST concludes more dramatically. Just like the La Mirage opening and the Southfork barbecue, the celebrations are disrupted, this time by an impromptu toast from Richard “to my mother, Jacqueline Perrault.” Cue a “You bitch!” from Angela, and an if-looks-could-kill freeze frame of Lana Turner. Very funny.And this week’s Soap Land Top 4 are … wow, this one was close ...1 (1) DALLAS2 (4) DYNASTY3 (3) FALCON CREST4 (2) KNOTS LANDING</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?