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In Season 3, Maggie develops a brain tumor, and Dr. Ranson has to excise it. Successfully.
But what caused it? Was it random? Is there a genetic history? Did her slamming her head against a buttress inside the winery when Julia pushed the barrels onto the Giobertis somehow activate the brain tumor?
Maybe there was another reason for it... During, say, Season 7, instead of doing all the frenetically silly things they did, why not find out that Julia (who is back from the convent) and Emma have both been diagnosed with brain tumors -- and that Melissa's whacko behavior would seem to suggest she has one, too (but she refuses to be tested for it) -- which leads people to suspect the Channing sisters' mental illness over the years had a biological basis and wasn't just the result of having a domineering mama like Angela.
The cause? Nuclear waste (Strontium-90 or some such isotope) was buried under the vineyards back in the early-'50s by a vindictive Jacqueline after she'd divorced Jason Gioberti. Given her contacts (including the entities which developed The Bomb) Jacqueline knew how to find that stuff, and use it as she saw fit... And, as Maggie later surmises, the radioactive material was the real reason Madame Perrault tried fervently to convince Chase to leave Tuscany Valley once he and his family moved out there from New York City. It was the danger from the nuclear waste -- not so much Angela.
Not to cut Angela too much slack here. But, let's face it, Jacqueline was even more evil in her way than was Angela Channing (who was just a brittle fussbudget).
And Strontium-90 has a half-life of 29 years.
Julia and Emma have simultaneous surgeries. (Angela is weirdly immune due to some chromosomal irregularity). And Melissa's psychiatric breakdown and visual hallucinations (e.g., seeing ghosts that Buck Henry doesn't have to fake, thinking she's been abducted by a UFO and that her baby is an alien) are either real, are due to her own tumor, or are faked by her for some manipulative reason.
But all that radioactive liquid has, after 35 years, leaked into the chardonnay and customers around the valley and elsewhere begin exploding into spontaneous human combustion upon consuming a tainted bottle. All of which has to be cleaned up -- and covered up -- to protect Falcon Crest from ruinous scandal and devastating legal actions.
Could this work as a plotline? Is it any worse than what Season 7 actually did?
But what caused it? Was it random? Is there a genetic history? Did her slamming her head against a buttress inside the winery when Julia pushed the barrels onto the Giobertis somehow activate the brain tumor?
Maybe there was another reason for it... During, say, Season 7, instead of doing all the frenetically silly things they did, why not find out that Julia (who is back from the convent) and Emma have both been diagnosed with brain tumors -- and that Melissa's whacko behavior would seem to suggest she has one, too (but she refuses to be tested for it) -- which leads people to suspect the Channing sisters' mental illness over the years had a biological basis and wasn't just the result of having a domineering mama like Angela.
The cause? Nuclear waste (Strontium-90 or some such isotope) was buried under the vineyards back in the early-'50s by a vindictive Jacqueline after she'd divorced Jason Gioberti. Given her contacts (including the entities which developed The Bomb) Jacqueline knew how to find that stuff, and use it as she saw fit... And, as Maggie later surmises, the radioactive material was the real reason Madame Perrault tried fervently to convince Chase to leave Tuscany Valley once he and his family moved out there from New York City. It was the danger from the nuclear waste -- not so much Angela.
Not to cut Angela too much slack here. But, let's face it, Jacqueline was even more evil in her way than was Angela Channing (who was just a brittle fussbudget).
And Strontium-90 has a half-life of 29 years.
Julia and Emma have simultaneous surgeries. (Angela is weirdly immune due to some chromosomal irregularity). And Melissa's psychiatric breakdown and visual hallucinations (e.g., seeing ghosts that Buck Henry doesn't have to fake, thinking she's been abducted by a UFO and that her baby is an alien) are either real, are due to her own tumor, or are faked by her for some manipulative reason.
But all that radioactive liquid has, after 35 years, leaked into the chardonnay and customers around the valley and elsewhere begin exploding into spontaneous human combustion upon consuming a tainted bottle. All of which has to be cleaned up -- and covered up -- to protect Falcon Crest from ruinous scandal and devastating legal actions.
Could this work as a plotline? Is it any worse than what Season 7 actually did?
