New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 132287" data-attributes="member: 22">07 Dec 88: DYNASTY: Body Trouble v. 08 Dec 88: KNOTS LANDING: A Weekend Getaway v. 09 Dec 88: DALLAS: War and Love and the Whole Damned Thing v. 09 Dec 88: FALCON CREST: Liars Anonymous“Dinner is served!” announces Krystle Carrington on DYNASTY. “There’s just one thing to do — blow that dam to kingdom come!” declares Ellie Farlow on DALLAS. Yes, this is the week in which two seemingly mild-mannered matriarchs each provide us with a classic Soap Land moment which proves there’s life in the old genre yet.That said, budget cuts mean that Soap Land is no longer the glamour palace it once was. Aside from KNOTS, which has always paid lip service to the way “normal” people live, each of the soaps seems to have adopted a more “down to earth” approach as a result. This change is most notable on DALLAS, which is now more about sweat stains than shoulder pads. Last week, JR was part of a road gang and this week, Cally’s brothers have him strapped to a horse like some kind of human plough. The series’ new villain, Carter McKay, is a portly, ruddy-faced man of advanced years and this week's ep ends with his men, a bunch of burly mercenary types, taking on some sluggish-looking ranch hands in a barroom brawl that ends in death. It’s a long way from Angelica Nero producing a lethal hatpin from her Travilla turban. DYNASTY and FALCON CREST, meanwhile, are both spending more time with their shows’ “ordinary” folk than is customary. While we’re getting to know the cops investigating the body-at-the-lake mystery, some of the less exclusive areas of the Tuscany Valley — the school attended by Ben Agretti, the bank where Pilar Ortega works and the local town centre — have become familiar settings on FC. These changes result in some interesting “them and us” dialogue. Zorelli’s partner expresses surprise when their boss involves himself in their case: “The captain coming down to the morgue — can you believe that? … You don’t get brass like that hanging out with peons like us.” “You do when the Carringtons are involved in the case — I’m surprised Handler didn’t show up with floats and a marching band,” Zorelli replies. Over on FALCON CREST, Pilar responds angrily when Angela opposes the Hispanic consortium: “I will never understand why the people who own this valley are so reluctant to share it … All this talk about those who have and those who don’t — it makes me crazy!” JR’s current ordeal, meanwhile, has brought him face to face with how the other half lives. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” he grumbles to Cally. “I am a multi-millionaire. People get out of the way when I walk down the street. I write the rules in Dallas.” “Well, it may not be such a bad thing to find out you’re not all that different from the rest of us,” she suggests. “Honey, if I didn’t think I was different, I’d just as soon your brothers killed me tonight,” he replies.Almost exactly a month after Sergeant Harry McSween made his final appearance on DALLAS when JR unceremoniously kicked him out of his office, his checked-jacketed counterpart, PI Morgan Hess, makes his final appearance on DYNASTY when Adam Carrington unceremoniously kicks him out of his office. “Private eye?" he scoffs. "That jerk couldn’t find a mountain in the Rockies.” It's as fitting an epitaph as any.We finally find out what’s wrong with Krystle — and so does she. She’s suffering from "an artery to brain malfunction" (which is more information than we got on whatever killed Laura on KNOTS) caused by “that riding accident” back in Season 2. “Wait a minute — are you telling me that you’ve known about this for years?” she asks Blake, her surprise mirroring the audience’s. Something else we didn’t know about: Sable Colby’s pre-existing affection for Blake and Krystle. “I’ve always admired the devotion that you and Krystle share — you can’t imagine what it means to me to see that kind of love,” she tells Blake, even though her only previous encounter with “Krystle” was a somewhat arch encounter with Rita the lookalike. It doesn’t really matter — one scene between John Forsythe and Stephanie Beacham is all we need to sell us on the idea that their characters share a connection. FALCON CREST’s Richard and Pilar also share a past, it would seem. “I went to a lot of trouble, young lady, to bring you back to this valley and set you up with a job at that bank,” he reminds her/reveals to us this week.“Blondie, you are going through some bizarre personality change — it’s like you’ve been invaded by the Body Snatchers.” That’s Greg Sumner talking to Virtuous, Virtuous Abby on KNOTS — but the description could just as easily apply to Krystle. It feels as if, somewhere along the line and without us even noticing, she too has been invaded, or even replaced, by the Soap Land equivalent of a Stepford Wife — and now that replacement is starting to malfunction. “Dinner is served,” she repeats on a loop, smiling graciously while sending plates flying into the air, colliding with Ming vases and narrowly missing party guests as they go. It’s a brief but remarkable sequence: on one hand, it acts as a sly comment on the sheer vacuousness of Soap Land itself; on the other, it’s genuinely poignant.Back on KNOTS, Greg’s assessment of Abby’s “personality change” isn’t quite fair. Unlike a lot of “bad” characters who turn over a new leaf, she hasn’t lost her wit or intelligence in the process. (She even laughs at the Body Snatchers gag.) While this may not her most memorable period, she is nonetheless more recognisably “Abby” than she was during most of last season’s Charles Scott storyline. The only real cost is to her screen-time: now she’s no longer scheming, there’s less opportunity for her to take centre stage.Two crime-related stories are neatly (perhaps too neatly) wrapped up this week. On KNOTS, the Witness Protection Programme storyline comes to an official close when a fake newspaper story convinces the bad guys that Pat and Julie have been killed in a car crash. (This is not to be confused with the fake gravestones that convinced the equivalent bad guys on last season’s DALLAS that Nick Pearce’s parents had also died in a car crash.) Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, another headline (“Phone Bill Sets Facts Straight: Agretti Death Probable Suicide”) exonerates Lance of killing Melissa.Two other Soap Land investigations are currently underway — one led by Zorelli pertaining to the dead body on DYNASTY, the other conducted on KNOTS by Val, who visits the San Francisco hotel Jill stayed at on the night of the overdose in the hopes of discrediting her alibi. Whereas the enjoyment of the KL plot comes from watching the characters try to piece together what we already know, the thrill of the DYNASTY story is that it’s a complete mystery to us — we don’t even know who the body belongs to or what his death has to do with the Carringtons. Meanwhile, Blake’s covert trips to the cellar have suddenly transformed the mansion into a place filled with secrets and lies. (This is another example of Soap Land budget cuts being used creatively — who needs dresses made of gold and million dollar flower arrangements when you’ve got dark shadows and moral ambiguity with which to fire the viewers’ imaginations?)Both storylines include some nicely idiosyncratic moments along the way, which aren’t essential to the plot but nonetheless add an interesting texture to the proceedings. When Fallon accompanies Zorelli to the morgue, she quizzes him about the drawers where the dead bodies are kept. “Are all these compartments ever full?” she enquires. “Always, unfortunately,” he replies. “What do you do with the others?” she asks. “It’s kind of ‘first come first served’,” he explains. “The rest wait in a storage freezer.” They’re talking about corpses, but there’s a sexy subtext to the exchange that makes it kind of kinky. Meanwhile, this week’s KNOTS opens with Gary sitting in a psychiatrist’s office, talking directly to the camera about his feelings for Val: “Do I love her? Yeah, I do. But it’s not what you think … She really believes Jill tried to kill her.” He and Karen accompany her to San Fransisco, offering moral support whilst simultaneously hoping she’ll accept the reality of her suicide attempt. Instead, Val finds a hole in Jill’s alibi — no-one at the hotel saw her after 8pm, leaving her enough time to fly back to Knots and commit the crime. Gary still doesn’t buy it, however, which prompts Val to pose an intriguing question: “Would it be easier on you, Gary, if I had tried to kill myself rather than Jill be found guilty of this — would that be less difficult for you?”The Ewingverse’s May/December romances attract unwanted interference from family members this week. Paige’s father doesn’t yet know who she is involved with (“I didn’t tell Mack,” she assures Greg. “You two have some boyhood rivalry going on that I don’t understand and I don’t wanna understand”), but he still doesn’t approve of the hours she’s been keeping: “I don’t run a hotel here. You’re either gonna live here or you’re not.” Cally’s brothers are even more controlling on DALLAS. “They won’t let me go to work no more,” she explains when JR asks her to go into town and call for help. She does, however, put herself in the firing line when Japhet and Boaz threaten to kill him. “I’d rather die with him here than spend the rest of my life knowing what you done!” she tells them. This leads to her and JR tying the knot in what is literally a shotgun wedding, only screen moments after Sue Ellen has divorced him back in Dallas. The sight of JR in a shabby, ill-fitting suit, reluctantly saying his vows as his demented new family look on proudly is laugh-out-loud funny. As he and Cally are bonded in holy matrimony, a wrinkle appears in Greg and Paige’s relationship. “If Miss Matheson is part of your private life, you’re asking for trouble,” Greg’s publicist Ted Melcher warns him. “I’m not passing judgement, but the public will … Besides, what’s she gonna talk about at embassy parties — the new George Michael single?” Exchange George Michael for John Waite and Ted's just described Taryn Blake, Paige’s former self on PAPER DOLLS.Elsewhere on KNOTS, Ted flirtatiously compliments Paige on her appearance. “Why do you assume that I wanna be judged on my looks?” she asks him, a sentiment echoed by Tracey Lawton over on DALLAS. “I’d be just as happy if they’d look me in the eye rather than down my dress,” she complains to Bobby while schmoozing for work at an oilman’s shindig.Tracey isn’t the only supporting character presently looking for employment. Reformed gangster Harold Dyer and Tommy Ortega, sacked from his trucking gig after sneaking a beer, are also in the job market. Whereas Mack offers Harold both moral and practical support, Bobby proves a distraction to Tracey, luring her away from a job interview with the offer of a rematch at pool. Tommy’s pal Paco, meanwhile, turns out to be the devil on his shoulder: “You’re wasting your time, man. I keep telling you: you don’t need a job to make money.”Meanwhile, Blake appoints Jeff to the Denver Carrington board (“I don’t believe you’re giving Jeff equal power with me — how can you do this to me?!” seethes Adam), Bobby welcomes Cliff as his new partner in Ewing Oil (“There’s gonna be one hell of a bloodbath when JR gets back,” predicts Casey Denault) and Maggie Channing buys a local newspaper, the Tuscany Herald, outbidding her own husband in the process.DYNASTY and KNOTS each end with a surprise announcement relating to their respective investigations: “The autopsy’s come up with some pretty bizarre findings. The man’s been dead for twenty to thirty years,” Zorelli informs Blake and Fallon. “I met someone at the convention … I had an affair,” Jill tells Gary.And this week’s Top 4 are …1 (1) DYNASTY2 (3) KNOTS LANDING3 (2) FALCON CREST4 (4) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?