Snarky Oracle!
Telly Talk Supreme
These shows need a gothic bitch-diva grand dame, even though executives compulsively think "teenagers-by-the-pool" is always the answer --- a Hollywood business model that's failed many times.
It's like Jack Warner thumbing his nose at bankrolling WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? because he didn't want to waste a dime on "those two old broads" (only he didn't say "broads"). And then everybody is stunned when it's a hit and creates a new genre.
We've discussed this before, especially on the FALCON CREST page, because they got it most right with the introduction of Jacqueline Perot (Lana Turner) who was potentially the Soap Mother of Them All because she slept with nazis, sold her children (or other people's children) around like chess pieces, and was revealed to have generally unleashed all sorts of covert evil throughout her long and glamorous life, and was portrayed by a genuine movie legend. Even her post-mortem memory was vile and wicked. And even then they didn't take it far enough -- I wanted S7 of FC to have a spontaneous human combustion plotline due to nuclear waste having been buried under one corner of the vineyard by Jacqueline in the '50s eventually leaking out and tainting the chardonnay, causing anyone who consumes it to physically blow up. At the same time, we learn Julia's and Emma's mental problems are due to brain tumors that radioactive waste created, as was Maggie's tumor a few years earlier. Julia and Emma both have corrective surgery, but Melissa refuses to, even though her burgeoning psychiatric issues are probably caused by the same thing.
And this is why Jacqueline always tried to pressure Chase to move his family away from Falcon Crest.
People like old bitches. They just do. They like 'em and they can't get enough.
DALLAS had Lady Jessica, but she was only there briefly, and rarely referred to after her exit. She was brought back for a few episodes half-a-dozen years later, but that reappearance was wasted, her murder spree played for laughs and directed towards people we didn't know... She should have been killing off the cartel, Jessica having run the same scam Kristin had by extorting the cartel members for years over their trysts decades earlier, all led to believe they'd fathered Dusty.
But DYNASTY, which seemed to cry out for a gothic geriatric villain most of all, didn't really do it much. And Alexis just wasn't old enough to qualify. THE COLBYS had Stanwyck's Connie (I hate that much-too PEYTON PLACE name) but she wasn't used very much and they didn't do much with her, despite her scenes with Sable being the most watchable the program offered.
How could this have been remedied?
I wanted Bette Davis to make an appearance on DYNASTY and on THE COLBYS, arriving in Denver just after the Colbys have left to return home to Los Angeles. As Sable's and Frankie's mother, Agatha Scott is none-too-pleased that her youngest daughter is stealing big sister's husband, Jason; but most of Agatha's anger is directed at Jason. After having dinner at Blake's mansion, chatting on the phone with Sable to announce her upcoming arrival in California, dropping by Alexis' ColbyCo office at night to tauntingly praise her niece on her recent successes (they never liked each other, of course) , Agatha then ominously hands over an over-stuffed packet of data to her other niece, Caress, telling her "you'll know what to do with this when it's time..", the implication being that if Jason finally dumps Sable for Frankie, Caress is free to do what she will with the information her imperious aunt has just given her.
Intimidated by the responsibility handed her by a relative she never knew all that well, Caress never mentions it to anybody, even after we learn that Agatha has died within a year or two... Was it material about The Collection Jason, Sam Dexter and Blake's father had buried under the estate in Denver? Did Caress surreptitiously approach Sable before Season 9 and get the ball rolling on the disaster that digging up the old nazi art collection would unleash, perhaps?
Then there's Alexis' and Caress' mother, Minx Morell (played by Gloria Swanson). She would only have to appear in a single episode early in Season 3 once she learns her eldest daughter has just inherited ColbyCo and is now very, very rich. Alexis walks into her knew penthouse suite to find her glamorous mom lounging on one of the white overstuffed couches. Daughter is contemptuous of her wildly opportunistic mother, but Minx holds her own. Swanson would be dead in less than a year, so Minx's various sins would be revealed over time. With affairs with the King of Moldavia as well as his father, Minx beds much of European royalty from WW1 to the post-war era, making friends (and enemies) in very high places. The Third Reich saw more than a little of Minx Morell, and by phantom Season 10, Alexis becomes alarmed that der Fuehrer himself was one if Mom's conquests and that she may even have bore him a daughter (!!!) leaving Alexis to scramble to discover the truth and, if need be, cover it up forever.
Alexis was a rank amateur in the ambitious whore sweepstakes in comparison to Mummie Minx. We later learn Caress had little relationship with her mother, due to Alexis' manipulations, jealousy and lies -- which is what started the bad blood between the sisters.
The King of Moldavia was so fond of Minx, that he convinces Alexis to move her mother's remains from Cornwall to the royal cemetery in his own country just before the wedding between Amanda and Prince Michael, making it impossible for Alexis to visit Minx's grave following the coup d'etat at the nuptials.
And then there's Ursula Colby Fallmont, the half-sister of Andrew Colby and the aunt to Jason, Philip, Cecil, and, the niece she despises, Constance. Andrew's father, Jason's grandfather, had a doomed first marriage to a Fallmont which produced a daughter, Ursula, who herself then marries King Galen's father...
When Alexis is on the throne in mid-Season 6 for three or four episodes (before the inevitable reverse-reverse coup send her and the royal family packing to Colorado) she would taunt Ursula that her "Queen Mother" stature wouldn't be accepted in many European principalities. Naturally, Alexis cannot abide her new mother-in-law or Ursula's daughter, Magda, who view Alexis as unfit and too low class to rule the country alongside Galen.
But this allows Ursula to return home after the latest overthrow of the royal family, and she eventually winds up on THE COLBYS after Sable accidentally runs over Constance and then Jason's elderly big sister dies, followed by Connie's video will where she leaves most her estate to Jeff and calls Alexis, Caress and Sable, "you dirty, dirty whores!" before the tape runs out... Why she detests the three women would be unveiled in good time, but since I always want to combine King Galen with Zack Powers, Ursula likely resents the ongoing affair Sable was having with her son. And since Ursula always hated Minx Morell for sleeping with her entire family, she just assumes the daughters are cut from the same cloth -- and she isn't entirely wrong.
How nice to have a regal character like Ursula who's related to the Colby, Fallmont, and Moldavian dynasties simultaneously... And, of course, she knows everything about everything --- except, perhaps, what's in the oversized envelope Agatha hands off to Caress two-thirds of the way thru Season 6. But it might reveal that Constance vindictively funded the coup in Moldavia, the idea of Alexis on the throne was just too much to bear given Connie's unrequited love for the King.
It's like Jack Warner thumbing his nose at bankrolling WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? because he didn't want to waste a dime on "those two old broads" (only he didn't say "broads"). And then everybody is stunned when it's a hit and creates a new genre.
We've discussed this before, especially on the FALCON CREST page, because they got it most right with the introduction of Jacqueline Perot (Lana Turner) who was potentially the Soap Mother of Them All because she slept with nazis, sold her children (or other people's children) around like chess pieces, and was revealed to have generally unleashed all sorts of covert evil throughout her long and glamorous life, and was portrayed by a genuine movie legend. Even her post-mortem memory was vile and wicked. And even then they didn't take it far enough -- I wanted S7 of FC to have a spontaneous human combustion plotline due to nuclear waste having been buried under one corner of the vineyard by Jacqueline in the '50s eventually leaking out and tainting the chardonnay, causing anyone who consumes it to physically blow up. At the same time, we learn Julia's and Emma's mental problems are due to brain tumors that radioactive waste created, as was Maggie's tumor a few years earlier. Julia and Emma both have corrective surgery, but Melissa refuses to, even though her burgeoning psychiatric issues are probably caused by the same thing.
And this is why Jacqueline always tried to pressure Chase to move his family away from Falcon Crest.
People like old bitches. They just do. They like 'em and they can't get enough.
DALLAS had Lady Jessica, but she was only there briefly, and rarely referred to after her exit. She was brought back for a few episodes half-a-dozen years later, but that reappearance was wasted, her murder spree played for laughs and directed towards people we didn't know... She should have been killing off the cartel, Jessica having run the same scam Kristin had by extorting the cartel members for years over their trysts decades earlier, all led to believe they'd fathered Dusty.
But DYNASTY, which seemed to cry out for a gothic geriatric villain most of all, didn't really do it much. And Alexis just wasn't old enough to qualify. THE COLBYS had Stanwyck's Connie (I hate that much-too PEYTON PLACE name) but she wasn't used very much and they didn't do much with her, despite her scenes with Sable being the most watchable the program offered.
How could this have been remedied?
I wanted Bette Davis to make an appearance on DYNASTY and on THE COLBYS, arriving in Denver just after the Colbys have left to return home to Los Angeles. As Sable's and Frankie's mother, Agatha Scott is none-too-pleased that her youngest daughter is stealing big sister's husband, Jason; but most of Agatha's anger is directed at Jason. After having dinner at Blake's mansion, chatting on the phone with Sable to announce her upcoming arrival in California, dropping by Alexis' ColbyCo office at night to tauntingly praise her niece on her recent successes (they never liked each other, of course) , Agatha then ominously hands over an over-stuffed packet of data to her other niece, Caress, telling her "you'll know what to do with this when it's time..", the implication being that if Jason finally dumps Sable for Frankie, Caress is free to do what she will with the information her imperious aunt has just given her.
Intimidated by the responsibility handed her by a relative she never knew all that well, Caress never mentions it to anybody, even after we learn that Agatha has died within a year or two... Was it material about The Collection Jason, Sam Dexter and Blake's father had buried under the estate in Denver? Did Caress surreptitiously approach Sable before Season 9 and get the ball rolling on the disaster that digging up the old nazi art collection would unleash, perhaps?
Then there's Alexis' and Caress' mother, Minx Morell (played by Gloria Swanson). She would only have to appear in a single episode early in Season 3 once she learns her eldest daughter has just inherited ColbyCo and is now very, very rich. Alexis walks into her knew penthouse suite to find her glamorous mom lounging on one of the white overstuffed couches. Daughter is contemptuous of her wildly opportunistic mother, but Minx holds her own. Swanson would be dead in less than a year, so Minx's various sins would be revealed over time. With affairs with the King of Moldavia as well as his father, Minx beds much of European royalty from WW1 to the post-war era, making friends (and enemies) in very high places. The Third Reich saw more than a little of Minx Morell, and by phantom Season 10, Alexis becomes alarmed that der Fuehrer himself was one if Mom's conquests and that she may even have bore him a daughter (!!!) leaving Alexis to scramble to discover the truth and, if need be, cover it up forever.
Alexis was a rank amateur in the ambitious whore sweepstakes in comparison to Mummie Minx. We later learn Caress had little relationship with her mother, due to Alexis' manipulations, jealousy and lies -- which is what started the bad blood between the sisters.
The King of Moldavia was so fond of Minx, that he convinces Alexis to move her mother's remains from Cornwall to the royal cemetery in his own country just before the wedding between Amanda and Prince Michael, making it impossible for Alexis to visit Minx's grave following the coup d'etat at the nuptials.
And then there's Ursula Colby Fallmont, the half-sister of Andrew Colby and the aunt to Jason, Philip, Cecil, and, the niece she despises, Constance. Andrew's father, Jason's grandfather, had a doomed first marriage to a Fallmont which produced a daughter, Ursula, who herself then marries King Galen's father...
When Alexis is on the throne in mid-Season 6 for three or four episodes (before the inevitable reverse-reverse coup send her and the royal family packing to Colorado) she would taunt Ursula that her "Queen Mother" stature wouldn't be accepted in many European principalities. Naturally, Alexis cannot abide her new mother-in-law or Ursula's daughter, Magda, who view Alexis as unfit and too low class to rule the country alongside Galen.
But this allows Ursula to return home after the latest overthrow of the royal family, and she eventually winds up on THE COLBYS after Sable accidentally runs over Constance and then Jason's elderly big sister dies, followed by Connie's video will where she leaves most her estate to Jeff and calls Alexis, Caress and Sable, "you dirty, dirty whores!" before the tape runs out... Why she detests the three women would be unveiled in good time, but since I always want to combine King Galen with Zack Powers, Ursula likely resents the ongoing affair Sable was having with her son. And since Ursula always hated Minx Morell for sleeping with her entire family, she just assumes the daughters are cut from the same cloth -- and she isn't entirely wrong.
How nice to have a regal character like Ursula who's related to the Colby, Fallmont, and Moldavian dynasties simultaneously... And, of course, she knows everything about everything --- except, perhaps, what's in the oversized envelope Agatha hands off to Caress two-thirds of the way thru Season 6. But it might reveal that Constance vindictively funded the coup in Moldavia, the idea of Alexis on the throne was just too much to bear given Connie's unrequited love for the King.
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