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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 165251" data-attributes="member: 22">08 Feb 90: KNOTS LANDING: The Ripple Effect v. 09 Feb 90: DALLAS: After MidnightVal drives out to Gary’s ranch at the start of this week’s KNOTS to tell him of her marriage to Danny, but he already knows. Given that their elopement took place three episodes ago (the third quickie wedding of the season following Emma and Charley’s on FALCON CREST and Carter McKay and Rose’s on DALLAS), this isn’t very surprising. It’s indicative of how eventful KNOTS has been of late that Val’s new marriage only becomes a front-burner storyline this week. Over on DALLAS, Bobby wakes April up in the middle of the night with some equally controversial news. “I’m caught up in something and it’s something that I have to finish,” he begins. Like Gary, April’s not completely clueless either. “Does this have anything to do with that woman, the one that looks like Pam?” she asks. Whereas Gary reacts wearily to Val’s news (“I did not elope to hurt your feelings,” she insists. “Oh great, you’re worried about my feelings but you’re not worried about your own safety,” he replies drily), April is borderline hysterical when Bobby asks her to be patient with him while he works things out. “April, please wait for me!” he pleads. “Who do you think I am — St April the Martyr?!” she asks him incredulously. “I have to deal with this 'getting over Pam' crap?!” Bobby is also in an unusually emotional state in this scene. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever seen him so highly strung, not even after Pam’s accident. It’s as if meeting Pam’s lookalike has triggered a kind of delayed reaction to her disappearance. The scenes between Val and Gary, and Bobby and April end similarly, with Gary and April each unwilling to let the other two off the hook. “For the first time in my life, I’m really happy. Doesn’t that mean anything?” Val asks her ex. “Great, everything’s fine, ‘Val’s happy’ — so what do you want from me?” shrugs Gary. Meanwhile, April is no more impressed with Bobby’s situation than Gary is with Val’s. “I can’t take this anymore! I’m fed up of dealing with the Kay Lloyds of this world and the Pam lookalikes!” she wails.Back at the cul-de-sac, Karen and Mack throw a dinner party to welcome Danny to Seaview Circle. While this serves as a way of integrating “the new stepfather on the block” into the regular cast, for the individual couples in attendance — the Mackenzies, the Williamses and the newlyweds themselves — it’s more of a duty than a pleasure. “I have nothing in common with this guy Danny,” Mack complains. “We can’t ignore the fact that she married the man,” argues Karen. We drop in on the Mackenzie house throughout the evening to see how the party is progressing. These scenes are a great example of what Tommy K wrote on his blog about how mundane domestic tasks work best on KNOTS when they serve as a backdrop to a more dramatically significant issue: “There had to be something simmering sub-textually that the actors could play.” In this case, underlying the social obligation of welcoming a new arrival to the neighbourhood is the unspoken question: “Can this new arrival be trusted in light of the allegations made against him by his ex-wife?” When the party starts, there is a degree of awkwardness, but as the evening wears on and Danny develops in confidence, out come his funny stories and everyone starts warming to him. Initial misgivings are forgotten and they all seem to be having a good time. Then, over post-dinner drinks, Danny makes an off-the-cuff, lighthearted remark about the twins needing “a few good whacks on the old behind.” This acts as a psychological warning for Karen in the same way as holding Danny’s watch to her forehead served as a psychometric one for Aunt Ginny a few weeks ago. She keeps up the social niceties for the rest of the party, but once the last guest has gone, she and Mack turn and look at each other. “He did everything Gary said he did,” she says gravely. Mack has an equivalent epiphany of his own later in the episode about Tom Ryan: “Our man’s a dirty cop!” Both moments are hugely satisfying payoffs we didn’t even realise we’d been waiting for.Out of all his employees in the Sumner Group, Greg entrusts the task of finding out what his recently murdered daughter was looking for in his computer to Michael Fairgate. There’s something oddly moving about the show’s most jaded character putting so much faith in its most innocent one. What Michael finds out — something to do with the shipping of dangerous chemicals — links Mary Frances’s death back to Oakman Industries. Greg is mulling over this revelation on a sidewalk (“Oakman Industries is like a B-movie monster,” he says to Paula, “it’s always showing up, always haunting me”) when he suddenly emits a muted “ow!”, as if he’s just stubbed his toe, and then falls to the ground. Only then do we see the blood on his shirt. If anyone in Soap Land can get shot in a casually understated way, it’s Greg Sumner.Two supporting characters depart KNOTS this week — Amanda Michaels and Harold Dyer. Whereas Amanda’s performance has always been a bit dull (which, in fairness, works for her mousy character), Harold’s innate wit and ability to turn on a dime from humour to explosive anger has enriched every scene he’s been in. Nonetheless, both farewells feel equally poignant. After finally standing up to Danny (“Drop dead, you slimy son of a bitch”), and then introducing Gary to the concept of condom jewellery, Amanda exits the way she arrived, over the phone. “I wanna get on with my life,” she explains tearfully. “You’re the best phone pal a person ever had. Goodbye, Gary.” Harold, meanwhile, following a botched attempt to blackmail Tom Ryan, learns of a tidy sum of money Olivia has kept hidden from him. He steals it, pays off his debtors and hops the next bus to Miami. Over on DALLAS, April also threatens to leave town after coming down with a bad case of the Bobby Blues (“Since we broke up, I just hate it here”). She is eventually persuaded to stay, at least temporarily, by Michelle, but I’m not sure I would have been all that heartbroken if she had left. When April first arrived in Dallas, she was as much fun as Harold, but somewhere along the line, she became as drippy as Amanda, and even though the distinguishing feature of her and Bobby’s relationship has been their shared sense of humour, the jokiness between them has often felt laboured. That said, the pair act their hearts out during the “getting over Pam crap” scene — both actors end up in tears and I think I spotted some actual snot leaking from April’s nose. As couples-in-crisis scenes go, however, it pales in comparison to a blisteringly good one on KNOTS where, after catching him out in yet another lie, Paige ruthlessly interrogates Tom (“Maybe if I look long and hard enough into your eyes, I’ll see them flicker or dilate or something when you lie to me”) before coldly informing him that “it’s over … I am not interested in your stories anymore.” “… I love you!” he yells angrily. “Oh Tom, you said that very well,” she replies coolly. “Your eyes didn’t even flicker. Maybe it is the truth, but how could I ever tell?” As one Ewing romance with an unlikely premise ends (Gary and Sally’s Friend), another begins. In spite of Bobby telling April that “there’s nothing between us, it’s not a relationship”, he accepts an invitation to Jeanne O’Brien’s apartment where he finds her wearing a copy of one of Pam’s old dresses. He then allows her to seduce him. Although Jeanne is clearly taking advantage of Bobby’s fixation (“Hey look, if he’s got a thing about his ex-wife then why shouldn’t I use it?”), DALLAS does not portray her as either your average Soap Land gold digger or as a mentally unstable stalker along the lines of Connie, Ray’s one night stand who cut her hair to look like Jenna’s and then stabbed him. Instead, Jeanne is depicted as an ordinary working girl who has been offered a once-in-a-lifetime golden ticket to the right side of the tracks: “He is so fascinated by me. I keep thinking that the clock is gonna stroke twelve and he’s gonna snap out of it.”Whereas storylines on KNOTS are getting ever knottier — Danny’s assimilation into the cul-de-sac; Mary Frances’s link to Oakman Industries — DALLAS has become very compartmentalised over the past few eps. Almost every central character now has their own storyline: Bobby and the Pam lookalike, JR and Blackie the wildcatter, Cliff and Lesley Ann Down, etc. Even lovers James and Michelle each have separate business plots. James’s brings him into contact with Duke Carlisle, a good ol’ Texas boy who wants to build a racetrack next to Southfork, and his daughter Melinda. (That’s Melinda Carlisle — any nomenclative resemblance to a former Go-Go is presumably as coincidental as JR’s recent mistress Diana having a husband called Charles.) Melinda is a spoiled, sexually voracious Soap Land princess in the fine tradition of Lucy Ewing, Constance Weldon, Fallon Carrington and Melissa Agretti. There seems to be a little bit of Paige Matheson in there too as she tries to enlist James in a game of strip archery, but he declines. “I want you in my bed, James Beaumont, and what I want I get,” she pouts. “Don’t make me unhappy. Daddy doesn’t like that … One word from me and you can kiss your little deal goodbye.” But just as his father once told Sue Ellen that “I’ll be damned if you can come in here and use me like some kind of stud service”, James insists that he is “not some stud for hire.” And this week’s Top 2 are … 1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (3) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =