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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 15418" data-attributes="member: 22">30/Oct/84: PAPER DOLLS: Episode 5 v. 31/Oct/84: DYNASTY: The Trial v. 01/Nov/84: KNOTS LANDING: A Little Help v. 02/Nov/84: DALLAS: Shadow of a Doubt v. 02/Nov/84: FALCON CREST: Lord of the ValleyOn this week’s DYNASTY, we hear the name of Blake’s father, Tom Carrington, for the very first time. Like Jock Ewing’s brother Jason, first referenced on DALLAS three weeks ago, he is an integral-but-never-previously-mentioned part of his respective show’s mythology. Tom and Jason both have vaguely disreputable reputations — Jason’s (alleged) daughter Jamie describes him as “a pretty hard drinker” while "Tom Carrington philandered with women all over Colorado,” according to his (alleged) daughter Dominique.Over on KNOTS LANDING, Lilimae Clements paints a contrasting picture of her son’s father, Jonathan J. Rush, as harsh, pious and exacting ("I could never live up to his expectations, he always wanted more of me than I could give, more than anyone could give”) while on FALCON CREST we learn that Richard Channing was once married. ("What happened between you and Stephanie?” Pamela Lynch asks him. "The cartel happened,” Richard replies darkly.)This week, Richard’s former step-daughter Lorraine becomes the latest Soap Land long lost relative to show up unannounced. He might be surprised to see her and she may have a somewhat idealised view of him, but at least there’s no ambiguity about their family connection, which makes Lorraine something of a novelty amongst this season’s new faces.In the same way that Jamie’s keepsake photo of Jason and Jock failed to convince JR of her identity in last week’s DALLAS, Blake is equally unimpressed by Dominique's collection of love notes that were sent from his father to her mother. While Jamie's Alaskan driving licence at least indicates that she is legally a Ewing, Dominique’s birth certificate does nothing to support her claim that she is a Carrington. "That piece of paper simply lists the father as unknown,” she admits, "and it screams to the world that I was born illegitimate.” Meanwhile, on FALCON CREST, Joel McCarthy comes up with a piece of documentation that Terry would dearly love to discount but can’t: proof that they are still married. "Your attorney never bothered to file the final papers,” Joel tells her. "You put your trust in the wrong guy.” Yep, it’s Krystle and Mark Jennings’ non-divorce all over again, only with a better twist: if the truth is revealed, Terry stands to lose the vast fortune she inherited from Michael Ranson, the man she thought she was married to. “You’ve sure taken a big enough bite out of the Ewing apple,” JR tells Jamie after Sue Ellen treats her to some new clothes and a makeover, but that’s nothing compared to how much of Terry’s inheritance Joel plans to devour.While Jamie feels rejected by the Ewings (“a family that doesn’t want me”) on DALLAS, KNOTS LANDING’s Joshua is devastated to learn that his mother didn’t die as he had always believed, but instead abandoned him as an infant. Two weeks after arriving in Soap Land, Jamie and Joshua both decide to move on. Sue Ellen persuades Jamie to stay and Val makes a similar appeal to Joshua. “It is beautiful here,” Jamie admits, looking out of her bedroom window at a Southfork-by-night view we aren’t privy to. “Beautiful” is the kind of generic description characters on DALLAS are always giving about Southfork. However, until New DALLAS, it rarely looks especially beautiful on screen. Conversely, the ocean backdrop in the KNOTS scene where Val finds Joshua after he has been out all night really is beautiful. There’s something primal about it too — she finds him on the beach by instinct (“This is where I would have come”), the same way Gary found her after she learned of his affair with Judy Trent in Season 2.Of all of Soap Land’s current long lost relative story-lines, Jamie’s feels the most laboured and uninteresting, Dominique’s the most melodramatic and fun ("I am a bastard who started with nothing and I made a fortune, and dammit — I am going to be accepted as a Carrington too!”) and Joshua’s by far the most moving. The scene where Lilimae races to the bus station to stop him leaving town, only see his bus driving away, then realising he has had a last minute change of heart and decided not to leave after all, which leads to a tearful reunion between mother and son, is a variation on the kind of scenario we’ve seen a hundred times in movies and on TV. DYNASTY did their own version on Season 2 when Krystle changed her mind about boarding a plane to Dayton in favour of reconciling with Blake. However, the intensity and sheer presence of Alec Baldwin in the role of sorrowful man-child Joshua elevates this entire storyline to a higher emotional level. He makes Joshua's innocence completely mesmerising, almost otherworldly.The main focus of this week’s DYNASTY is Alexis’s murder trial. A year ago, FALCON CREST's Julia and KNOTS LANDING’s Gary were both behind bars on equivalent charges. Where Gary did nothing to defend himself and Julia went so far as to request the death penalty purely to spite her mother, Alexis is also proving to be her own worst enemy — bribing a warder to keep her in creature comforts, arguing with reporters outside the courtroom, shouting at witnesses while they’re on the stand and attempting to manipulate the jury’s sentiments by appointing her firstborn son Adam as her defence counsel.There’s an enjoyably twisty courtroom scene where Blake, having been subpoenaed by the prosecution, testifies to his ex-wife's violent nature. When pressed, he says that he believes her to be capable of murder. Cue gasps from the courtroom. However, under cross-examination by Adam, he is forced to concede that "she had no motive” for killing Mark. Having come so close to hammering the final nail into Alexis’s coffin, it looks as if he may yet prove her saviour. The bitter irony is not lost on Krystle. "You're passing judgement on another human being. That's not like you,” Blake gently chides her. “But it is like her, never to be punished for what she does!” insists Krystle.Even more twisty is the situation between Greg and Abby on this week’s KNOTS. Where Alexis battled through a crowd of reporters on her way into court, Abby struggles through a crowd of reporters on her way to deliver a statement declaring that Greg’s shooting of Mark St Claire was strictly in self-defence. This is not a charitable act on Abby’s part. Having exonerated Greg — and therefore saved his political career — she intends to continue their quid pro quo relationship. Greg sees the situation differently: now that she has publicly spoken out on his behalf, he has no further use for her and so abruptly severs their association. Abby is as taken aback as Alexis was when Blake wound up testifying in her favour. She then spends the rest of the ep busting some classic soap moves in order to turn the tables on Greg once more.This week’s KNOTS also sees the unveiling of the very impressive new Lotus Point office set. (Not only is it everything a Soap Land executive suite should be, but there’s an honest-to-God natural stream running through the reception area!) Just like JR and Bobby at Ewing Oil, bitter adversaries Abby and Karen have been given offices right next door to each other — all the better for barging angrily in and out of. “Abby will not be a problem,” Gary assures Karen with the kind of insane optimism that fuels at least 75% of all Soap Land conflicts. Interestingly enough, DALLAS questions its own unlikely office arrangement this week (“Are you sure it’s worth it, butting heads with JR every day?” Ray asks Bobby) and manages to come up with an impressively plausible justification for it ("I don’t have a choice,” Bobby replies. “I can’t leave Ewing Oil ... It's a trust that Daddy left me, I can't walk away from that").Now that Abby and Karen are officially the KNOTS equivalent of the DALLAS Ewing brothers, it’s appropriate that Abby should embark on her most JR-like scheme to date. In the process, she assumes control of TV news station, Pacific World Cable, in the very same week that Richard Channing takes charge of radio news station, KRDC, on FALCON CREST. Abby and Richard each find their existing staff wary of the change in management. While Abby’s new employees are nervous that she’s going to fire them, Richard blithely gives the entire workforce their marching orders.For the time being, Abby is less concerned with making her mark on PWC than regaining her leverage with Greg. To that end, she despatches an investigative reporter to dig into the medical history of one Bob Caulfield, Greg’s rival for the state senate. This parallels JR’s targeting of government official Edgar Randolph in last season’s DALLAS. Where JR learned of Edgar’s teenage history of child molestation, Abby discovers that Caulfield underwent electro-shock treatment as a much younger man. While JR blackmailed Edgar directly, threatening to expose his secret unless he did his bidding, Abby’s route is more circuitous. First, she arranges for Caulfield's secret to be “leaked" to the press (overriding her own station manager, Ben Gibson, in the process). Then, having discredited Caulfield in the most ignominious way possible, she then threatens to pin the blame for the leak on Greg unless he falls back into line. In other words, she out-JRs JR.This week’s episodes of DALLAS and FALCON CREST start up immediately where last week’s left off, with Pam Ewing and Emma Channing each in a state of high excitement after seeing what appeared to be someone returning from the dead. Both are met with scepticism. “There must be some explanation — why would somebody be driving Mark's car?” asks Pam’s secretary Jackie, while Angela banishes Emma to her room until further notice. Pam spends the rest of this week’s DALLAS trying to get to the bottom of this latest mystery. The further she digs, the stranger things appear. At the end of the episode, during a confrontation with Mark’s lawyer, she reaches a conclusion of sorts: "You're making it sound as though Mark weren't dead, as though he were planning to come back!” Over on FALCON CREST, there’s no doubt that Julia really has come back — she’s even in the opening credits. But where Pam and Emma both struggle to convince people of what they have seen, it emerges on this week’s DYNASTY that Steven Carrington has witnessed something that he can tell no one about. But if Steven can’t speak his secret, how are we the audience to learn of it?It’s interesting how often dreams have cropped up in this still new Soap Land season. FALCON CREST's Chase and DYNASTY's Jeff have both been tormented by visions of the previous season's cliffhangers while on last week’s KNOTS, Abby awoke from a dream of her ordeal at the hands of Mark St Claire to be comforted by Gary. In this week’s DYNASTY, for the first time in Soap Land’s history, a nightmare contains crucial plot information as Steven dreams what he cannot say: the sight of Mark Jennings plummeting to his death as Alexis stands on her balcony watching.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (2) DYNASTY3 (3) FALCON CREST4 (4) DALLAS5 (5) PAPER DOLLS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?