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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 17613" data-attributes="member: 22">08 May 85: DYNASTY: The Heiress v. 09 May 85: KNOTS LANDING: One Day in a Row v. 10 May 85: DALLAS: Deliverance v. 10 May 85 FALCON CREST: Cold ComfortThis week, DYNASTY begins as DALLAS ends, with a front-page headline in the Chronicle (New York and Dallas editions respectively) devoted to a significant character. “MULTI-MILLIONAIRE PUBLISHER AND HORSE BREEDER DEAD,” announces the first headline, on DYNASTY, referring to Daniel Reece. Like his guest-starring tycoon equivalent on this season’s KNOTS LANDING, Paul Galveston, Daniel has died off screen (in Libya, to be exact). Sammy Jo spends much of the rest of the episode convinced that she has inherited a fortune, and it’s great fun to see her lording it over Krystle and Steven, ordering Daniel’s staff around and quaffing his champagne. While her father has indeed left her the bulk of his estate, there is an unexpected stick-in-the-craw proviso — just as there was for Paul Galveston's illegitimate offspring in his will. Where Greg has had to contend with Gary inheriting Empire Valley, Sammy Jo is informed by her father’s lawyer (former FALCON CREST cartel leader Norton Crane) “that all monies involved [are to] be held in trust, with Mrs Krystle Grant Carrington as executrix."Like Greg, Sammy Jo is prepared to play dirty to get her hands on what her father has left so tantalisingly just out of reach. Greg spends this week’s KNOTS blackmailing Abby into handing over her stake in Empire Valley in exchange for the information she needs about Val’s babies. Sammy Jo, meanwhile, stumbles on an idea to get her hands on her father's money when she overhears Rita, aka the Krystle lookalike, practicing her vowel sounds for a commercial audition ("I find your fondness for fondue phenomenal!”). “That dumb lawyer said there was nothing I could do, but you talking like that makes me think …” Sammy Jo breaks off mid-sentence, before we get to hear what she’s got in mind. Likewise, we're left wondering what Ruth Galveston has planned when she assures Abby, “I can get you what you want … and you won’t have to give up a thing.”Much of the action on this week’s DYNASTY takes place in King Galen’s summer palace in Moldavia. This proves to be a soap-within-a-soap equivalent to the Hot Biscuit, the diner where Lucy Ewing worked at the beginning of this season’s DALLAS. Just as it took Lucy a while to differentiate between fried and scrambled eggs when taking an order, so bride-to-be Amanda has lessons to learn about diplomacy and protocol. (“One of the first things you’ll have to realise, my darling,” her fiancé explains, "is that here state affairs take precedence over personal feelings.") And just as Lucy soon found herself in a blue-collar love triangle with Eddie and Betty the waitress, Amanda is quickly involved in a blue-blood variation with Prince Michael and Elena, the Duchess of Branagh.Meanwhile, in this week’s Ewing-verse, Gary and Bobby deviate from their more traditional roles of rancher and oilman to play at secret agent and detective respectively. KNOTS has Gary spying on Greg at Empire Valley then meeting covertly with a government operative in order to report his findings. Gary has trouble taking this cloak-and-dagger routine seriously and the show initially plays the whole thing for laughs, as if self-consciously acknowledging the spy movie cliches it has fallen prey to. As the episode progresses, Gary becomes increasingly convinced that someone really is out to get him — first his car is pursued by an anonymous driver (leading to a chase sequence similar to one involving Krystle on DYNASTY a few months ago), then he discovers a bug in his phone (just as Bobby Ewing and Chase Gioberti did earlier in the season). Even then, KNOTS can’t resist undercutting the intrigue with comedy by having Gary unable to reassemble the phone he has just dismantled. DALLAS, meanwhile, plays the interrogation scenes between Bobby and hitman Andre Schumann deathly straight and is all the more effective for it.While Ben Gibson, or rather his researcher Meredith, spends most of this week’s KNOTS digging for Dr Ackerman’s Achille’s heel (which turns out to be his gambling debts), Bobby intuitively realises that Schumann’s wife is his weak spot. "I will make sure that your wife has all the money she'll ever need,” he says in order to persuade Schumann to come clean about his involvement in Naldo's murder. "You help my lady and I'll help yours.” The equivalent information comes a lot cheaper on this week’s FALCON CREST where all it takes is a large tip for the bartender at the Turf Club to tell Greg Reardon about Melissa’s financial arrangement with Joel McCarthy.So it is that Bobby and Greg, after four months of fighting to prove the innocence of Jenna Wade and Lance Cumson respectively, have both finally achieved their goals. However, neither man is feeling especially victorious. "I thought you'd be happy,” says Schumann, observing a look of dismay on Bobby's face after he has confessed to killing Naldo and framing Jenna. "I wish to God I'd never found out the truth,” says Greg bitterly after Melissa’s role in framing Lance is confirmed. Bobby’s dismay comes from the understanding that freeing Jenna from prison will cost him a future with the woman he really loves — Pam. Meanwhile, Greg’s bitterness stems from the realisation that the person who must now confess all and go to prison if justice is to be served is the woman he really loves — Melissa. The scene where he confronts Melissa at the Turf Club (on the exact same spot where she bribed Joel in the first place) is really good. Simon MacCorkindale does a great job of conveying not just Greg’s fury but also his sorrow and heartache towards Melissa over her actions, whilst simultaneously preserving his English stiff upper lip. (MacCorkindale is yet another Soap Land actor I now realise I’ve shamefully misjudged in the past.)“I will get my money free and clear even if I have to drag you through a hundred courts to get it!” Sammy Jo snarls at Krystle on DYNASTY. However, she might want to reconsider such a David-and-Goliath-in-a-courtroom scenario following the humiliating defeat suffered by Cliff and Jamie on this week's DALLAS. Their case against the Ewings collapses following the testimony of businessman Wallace Windham who explains on the witness stand how he bought Jason and Digger’s shares of Ewing Oil back in the thirties before secretly selling them on to Jock. The thumbnail character sketches Windham provides along the way of Jock ("the brains of the outfit”), Jason (“greedy and stupid”) and Digger (“we met three times, I think he was drunk every time”) point towards the forthcoming DALLAS: THE EARLY YEARS prequel — as does the appearance of the future Young Miss Ellie on this week’s KNOTS in the guise of Meredith, the plucky researcher given such a hard time by Ben.The highlight of this action-packed episode of DALLAS is probably the scene where Pam and Bobby finally admit their true feelings for one another. "I love you,” says Pam. "I love you more than I ever did before, and I didn't think that was possible ... Maybe it’s not fair to say it to you, but I couldn’t go on without telling you. I love you, Bobby. I love you so much my heart hurts." "I never stopped loving you and I never will,” Bobby replies simply. Then they kiss and he takes her in his arms for a big old Hollywood-style embrace. It’s a moment that might seem excessive were it not so long-awaited and emotionally heartfelt.There’s a contrasting, but equally excellent, love scene in this week’s KNOTS between Laura and Greg. It is preceded by an altercation in a restaurant where Laura, after weeks of being belittled by Greg’s mother (“You’ve never really done anything with your life, have you?"), finally snaps over dinner (“You are probably one of the cruellest women I have ever met in my life”) and gets up to leave. When Greg starts to follow her, Laura delivers the best line of the Soap Land week, if not the season: “No dear, why don’t you stay here and have dinner with Mommy? Because if she’s left here with nobody to pick on, she just might start gnawing on her own arm." When Greg finally catches up with her, Laura is at home soaking in the bath. “Tell me something I wanna hear,” she asks, trying to pin him down about his feelings for her. In contrast to Bobby and Pam’s moist-eyed sincerity, Greg is all prevarication and ironic wit. “Some things are not easy for me … I need you,” he finally admits, squirming. “Is that the best you can do?” she replies. He nods. “That’s what I wanted to hear,” she says, and he reaches into the tub, still in his shirtsleeves, to kiss her.Elsewhere on Seaview Circle, there's an impromptu late-night conversation between Val and Cathy, similar to Sue Ellen and Donna’s recent encounter on DALLAS. They speculate about the impact growing up as only children has had on both Val and Joshua (“Brothers and sisters shouldn’t grow up alone. Maybe we’d both be better people if …”), and whether this has any bearing on Joshua’s present reluctance to move out of the family home. By contrast, Val’s daughter Lucy is now ready to put her childhood surroundings behind her, albeit with some help from her ex-husband. "Southfork was a great place to grow up, but what I want now is my future,” she tells Mitch during a post-coital love scene in front of an open fire. Meanwhile on DYNASTY-in-Moldavia, the Duchess of Branagh refuses to let go of the past and attempts to win back her former fiancé Prince Michael. Her strategy of abruptly stripping nude in front of him is the same one adopted by Lucy to gain Mitch’s attention while he was studying to become a doctor, all those years ago. Like Prince Michael, FALCON CREST’s Cole is also disturbed by a previous romantic entanglement when Robin Agretti reappears in the Tuscany Valley with the news that she’s pregnant. Nor is Robin the only unexpected face from the past this week. A drunken Sue Ellen catches a glimpse of Dusty Farlow during the Ewings’ victory party near the end of DALLAS … or does she? He vanishes from view as just as quickly as he appeared and so one is left with a similar sensation as at the end of the last episode of DYNASTY: Was that really Dusty/Fallon I just saw?Recent episodes of both DYNASTY and FALCON CREST have concluded with a scene involving a woman sitting with her back to the camera. On DYNASTY, she turned around to reveal herself as (apparently) New Fallon. On FALCON CREST, her face remained concealed but her identity was established as Cassandra and Damon’s mother. This week's DALLAS ends with a shot of a third facially obscured woman. "No!” she mutters, reading the second Chronicle headline of the week — JENNA WADE FREED: EWING FIANCE CLEARED OF MURDER CHARGES — and clawing at the picture of Jenna underneath it. This time, however, the back-to-camera-woman’s name and face remain a mystery. For all we know, she could be another Krystle lookalike.And this week’s Top 4 is … again, it's a toughie. DALLAS is the clear winner, but there’s not much to choose between the other three — all are a blast, each in a very different way.1 (3) DALLAS2 (1) KNOTS LANDING3 (-) DYNASTY4 (2) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

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