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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 20725" data-attributes="member: 22">15/Jan/86: DYNASTY: The Alarm v. 16/Jan/86: THE COLBYS: The Turning Point v. 16/Jan/86: KNOTS LANDING: The Confession v. 17/Jan/86: DALLAS: The Deadly Game v. 10/Jan/86: FALCON CREST: CheckmateThere are two contenders for Eccentric Soap Land Cameo of the Week — one a lascivious, cackling pawnbroker to whom Robin Agretti hocks her watch on FALCON CREST (“top quality merchandise,” he says, eyeing her breasts), the other a portly, middle-aged, camp newspaper researcher who describes himself as "a great admirer of Mrs. Dexter” on DYNASTY. “If a business tycoon could have a fan, I’m one,” he boasts. While the pawnbroker reinforces FALCON CREST’s depiction of the big city, outside of its air-conditioned offices, exclusive restaurants and luxury penthouses, as a sordid, dangerous place, populated by crackpots and weirdos, DYNASTY’s researcher is the closest Soap Land has gotten to putting one of its own viewers on screen. “Wasn’t that something?” he says to Caress Morelle, recalling Alexis’s first onscreen appearance at Blake’s murder trial. "I can personally quote it all to you, chapter, verse, and cross-examination.” He even recalls her outfit: “She was dressed in black and white with a picture hat, black veil and dark glasses.” Still researching her biography of Alexis, Caress relishes these tidbits, as well as the revelation that her sister married Cecil Colby on his deathbed. “That woman has a thing about death,” she concludes, "an obsession. They call it necrophilia." In fact, there is a rich seam of what one might term “necrophiliac comedy” running through this week’s DYNASTY, including a scene where Joel makes love to Rita as they plot Blake’s murder. And is it mere coincidence, following the mention of the monochromatic outfit Alexis wore to Blake’s murder trial, that Rita is dressed in the same colours when she administers Blake his final fatal dose of poison? Then there’s the terrific final scene where Blake staggers onto the Carrington staircase complaining about a pain in his chest and reaches out to “Krystle” for help. To his bewilderment, she backs away from him. After he tumbles past her down the stairs, Rita forces herself to keep walking up them as if he weren’t there. We then see her from below, peering through a crack in a door, shrouded in guilt and shadows. Without a doubt, it’s the freeze frame of the week.There are plenty of references to past events in this week’s Soap Land. As well as Alexis’s exploits at Blake’s trial and Cecil’s deathbed, the St Denis Club and the burnt champagne Alexis served Dominique at their first meeting also get a mention on DYNASTY. Caress’s account of Alexis and Blake's first encounter — "They’d had nothing more than one dance together when she waltzed over to me and she whispered, 'I have just met my husband and the father of my children’” — is echoed by Cole telling Melissa on FALCON CREST, "I’ve been in love with you since the very first day I met you. I knew there was something special between us.” “You should have forgotten me the day I married Lance,” Melissa tells him. On KNOTS, Cathy’s previous murder conviction and Lilimae’s attempted murder of Chip are brought up by the cop in charge of the ongoing investigation into Joshua’s death, and Abby raises the subject of Karen’s drug problem as they compete for a seat on the state planning commission. As an added bonus, we’re given a glimpse of the origins of Abby's feud with Karen. "She and I have never agreed on anything, including the fact that she married my brother,” she recalls.Three of last week’s soaps — DYNASTY, KNOTS and FALCON CREST — ended on a shot of a female character — Sammy Jo, Lilimae and Melissa — being faced with a crisis of her own making. It takes Sammy Jo most of this week's episode to confirm her suspicions that Rita and Joel have been poisoning Blake. “What’s happened to you?” she asks Rita when she finally admits the truth. “Why’d you have to change? … What took over?” echoes Lilimae on KNOTS during another of those speeches to an inanimate object (this time, a photograph of her son) that that have become increasingly prevalent this Soap Land season. Already we’ve had Miss Ellie talking to Bobby's grave and JR to his office chair on DALLAS, and Jeff Colby, Greg Sumner and Sable Colby speaking to the portrait of their respective ex-wife, dead father and sister-in-law. In each case, it’s a way of conveying the character’s innermost thoughts to the audience.On last week’s KNOTS, after an innocent man was arrested for Joshua's murder, Cathy admitted to Mack that she and Lilimae had been covering up the truth of his death. On last week’s DALLAS, Angelica Nero’s claim that Jack was Dimitri Marinos’s son was found to be false when Jack’s blood proved a perfect match for Jamie’s. This week, Lilimae and Angelica are each compelled tell the truth — or as little of it as they can get away with. While Lilimae confesses to the police that she was with Joshua when he died, she leaves out the fact that Cathy was there too and that Joshua tried to kill her. Meanwhile on DALLAS, in order to win back JR’s trust, Angelica discloses the real reason Jack Ewing is so important to her — his uncanny resemblance to Dimitri Marinos. “You want Jack to impersonate Dimitri — that’s it, isn’t it?” JR realises. Yes, as one lookalike scheme is exposed on DYNASTY (“Steven, it’s about your father — I think he’s gonna die!” exclaims Sammy Jo), another is revealed on DALLAS. What Angelica fails to mention is her ultimate plan “for JR and Jack Ewing.” We don’t know what it is yet either, but judging by the ominous music that wells up on the soundtrack whenever she and Grace refer to it, we know it’s Something Bad.After wrestling with her conscience, Lilimae eventually makes a full confession to the police, only to find that she and Cathy are now in the frame for Joshua’s murder. This unwieldy (by KL standards) storyline seems to chiefly exist to provide a dramatic context for Lilimae’s grief, of which her monologue to Joshua’s picture is the climax.Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, there’s nothing Melissa can do about surrogate mother Robin running off with her baby other than offering a $10,000 reward for information on their whereabouts. (That is precisely half the amount put up by JR on last week’s DALLAS to help find Jack, and which he subsequently donates to Graison Research this week.) As she waits anxiously for news, Melissa follows Sheila Fisher on KNOTS and Ray Krebbs on DALLAS to become the third Soap Land character of the season to be depicted staring tearfully into an empty crib as a music box tinkles plaintively in the background. Although helpless in this situation, Melissa does make a moral decision on another matter, electing to end her affair with Father Christopher in favour of saving her marriage to Cole. Thus far, Melissa and Christopher have managed to keep their relationship a secret — that is until Angela walks in on their farewell embrace at the end of the episode.On THE COLBYS, Sable decides to drop the incompetency suit against Connie, but the damage has already been done — Jason tells her he wants a divorce. The speech she subsequently delivers to her lawyer ("I like being Mrs. Jason Colby. I like the way she lives: her home, her art, her friends, her children, her husband. It’s a good, very good life. Help me keep it”) reminded me of Sue Ellen's speech to Pam after JR and Bobby’s plane crash in DALLAS Season 1 (“The country clubs, the committees, the invitations — it is all because I am Mrs. JR Ewing … Everything is because I am Mrs. JR Ewing”).Compared to previous instalments, this week’s episode of THE COLBYS is a little slow. It only really catches fire two-thirds of the way through, after Miles drunkenly lets slip to his mother about Jason’s involvement with Frankie, but when it does, it takes off like a rocket. There are further echoes of JR and Sue Ellen’s dynamic in the explosive final scene. When Jason comes home late to find Sable waiting with an intimate supper for two, it feels like one of those doomed seduction scenes from early DALLAS where Sue Ellen fails to entice JR into her bed. Then when Jason rejects her, it turns into one of those later scenes where Sue Ellen fights fire with fire. “If you divorce me, I will tell the world just what kind of woman my sister really is,” snarls Sable. “I’m not divorcing you because of Frankie,” Jason replies. “It’s because I can’t stomach you.” Wow. Of all the cruel things JR has ever said to Sue Ellen, he's always stopped short of suggesting he’s physically repulsed by her. Not surprisingly, Sable slaps Jason and he grabs her by the wrists to restrain her. As well as resembling one of JR and Sue Ellen’s more visceral altercations, one can imagine this being the kind of fight Blake and Alexis would have had during their marriage. And when Jason walks out, leaving Sable to whisper vengeance to an empty room, it directly parallels the moment where Blake did the same thing to Alexis four years ago. “Oh no, Blake,” vowed Alexis under her breath, "it’s not gonna end this way, I may have lost you now, but I’m not gonna lose everything!” “You had your chance, Jason,” an equally breathy Sable promises, "and now by God, I’ll make you eat your words!”JR and Sue Ellen and Blake and Alexis aside, the soap couple Jason and Sable most strongly remind me of at this point are Den and Angie Watts. During this same period, early 1986, Den and Angie were becoming the breakout stars of the BBC’s fledgling soap EASTENDERS, just as Jason and Sable’s marriage is emerging as the most dominant storyline on THE COLBYS. (Whether it was originally intended to be that way I don’t know, but it feels like THE COLBYS’ writers are now responding organically to the chemistry they’re seeing on screen, in the same way KNOTS might have given Joshua those direct-to-camera sermons last season as a direct response to Alec Baldwin’s remarkable intensity.) Like Den Watts, Jason Colby has had enough of living with a neurotic, co-dependent wife. He longs for a future with the cooler, more contained woman he has always loved (Den’s posh mistress Jan, Sable’s sister Frankie). Like Angie, Sable clings on tenaciously, desperately, lashing out like a cornered animal. There’s an unpredictability, a sense of danger Sable and Angie share — the ability to turn from brittle laughter to white hot fury in the space of a sentence. Sable does it here: “Oh my God, it’s almost funny!” she laughs. “Even now, I am meant to ask you for forgiveness after what you have done to me.” By the time she’s reached the end of that line, she’s angry enough to hurl a book at Jason. Sable’s cut-glass English accent is a lot more refined than Angie’s East End cockney one, of course, but while there’s no evidence that Sable was ever anything but to the manor born (save for Zach’s suggestion a few episodes ago that they each married into money), there’s nonetheless a sense that “Mrs. Sable Colby” is a construct, a facade, and whatever lies beneath it isn’t quite so elegant. It’s a feeling one doesn’t get from her All-American sister Frankie, so effortlessly serene even as she solemnly assures her new fiancee Roger Langdon that she isn’t marrying him to escape her feelings for Jason. Heck, she may have even convinced herself that that’s true.There’s a certain irony that the fur coat JR gives to Mandy on this week’s DALLAS should be, of all things, a Russian sable. Behind the smiles and kisses, this relationship has also become a mockery of its former self: Mandy is presently spying on JR for Cliff and JR knows it.In the best scene of this week’s DALLAS, Mark Graison gets a touch of the Dex Dexters, barking jealously at Pam over her deepening involvement with Matt Cantrell and his Colombian emerald mine, just as Dex continues to disapprove loudly of Alexis’s financial involvement in King Galen’s Moldavian counterrevolution. We already know that Dex’s suspicions about Galen are justified and the final scene of this week’s DALLAS reveals that Mark is right to be wary of Matt as well.In fact, KNOTS and DALLAS each concludes with a similar reveal. In the same way that Pam has recently formed a platonic bond with a man connected to her dead ex-husband, so Cathy strikes up an innocent friendship with saxophonist Sonny who offers a sympathetic ear as she continues to mourn her husband’s death. The ends of this week’s eps reveal that neither Matt nor Sonny has the grieving widow’s best interests at heart. While Matt is in JR’s pocket, the recording device hidden in Sonny’s pocket suggests he is some sort of undercover reporter.Elsewhere on KNOTS, the scene that introduces Peter Hollister’s money-minded mother hints that he isn’t exactly who he appears to be either. “I need that cheque. It doesn’t buy half as much as when Galveston first started sending them,” she says mysteriously. Meanwhile on THE COLBYS, Sean McAllister bucks the young-man-pretending-to-be-someone-he-isn’t trend by admitting to Jason that he is really Zach Powers’ nephew.Angela and Richard each makes a separate but similar appeal for family unity in this week’s FALCON CREST. “In life, the most important thing is the family and without it, we’re nothing,” declares Angela to Emma, Lance and Christopher. “This is a time for family to stick together, Chase,” Richard tells his half-brother. "Now that I’m married to your wife’s sister, we’re really family ... two brothers married to two sisters — a united family striving together against insurmountable odds!” What Angela and Richard appear to be after is what the Ewings of DALLAS have now achieved. Without any apparent effort or narrative explanation, they have somehow been transformed into a happy, functional family. The nearest we get to conflict during a picnic-cum-barbecue on the Southfork patio this week is Sue Ellen gently chiding John Ross for helping himself to too many cookies. Things aren’t as harmonious when Emma’s fiance Dwayne shows up at an equivalent family gathering at Falcon Crest without Angela’s approval. She orders him to leave, but when Julia (on a one-episode visit from the Convent Magdalena) stands up to her, she backs down — further proof that Angela’s bark is now worse than her bite and that Falcon Crest, like Southfork, is no longer the lion’s den it once was.The scene between Richard and Chase is more intriguing. "Together we can crush Angela, everybody in this valley — crush 'em all!” insists Richard eagerly. Once again, Chase coldly snubs his brother's offer of friendship. "Every time I hold my hand out to you, you slap it away,” says Richard, looking hurt. It’s interesting how one’s sympathies go to Richard, the rejected orphan, in such situations, even though one can’t fault the logic of Chase’s argument: “To go into business with a man who can speak so glibly about crushing people makes me wonder about when he might turn on me."This week’s DYNASTY, KNOTS and FALCON CREST all boast juicy scenes of confrontation between two women, each following in a different Soap Land tradition. On DYNASTY, Alexis strides into Blake’s office and immediately starts talking to him, even though his chair is turned away from her. In due course, the chair spins round to reveal … Dominique sitting in his place! A crisp exchange of insults, threats and vague ultimatums follows. (“If you persist in pursuing this rather reckless course of action, you better be looking behind you because I’m going to be watching you every step of the way!”). The equivalent scene on KNOTS is the only one of the week to pass the Bedchel test (i.e., it features a conversation between two women which isn’t about a man). This time, it’s Karen barging into Abby’s office (“Don’t bother knocking, Karen, just come right in”), armed with accusations, to deliver what Abby describes as “this morning’s tirade.” (“You couldn’t resist, could you? … You knew I was gonna get that appointment so you went after it yourself … I’m gonna fight for it, with every bone in my body!”). Back on DYNASTY, Amanda follows Elena, aka the Duchess of Branagh, aka the leader of the Moldavian underground resistance, into the La Mirage ladies’ room for a “Keep your hands off my man” showdown. Amanda’s complete disregard for the revolution itself is very funny: “You may be able to fool other people with your political idealism and your love for Moldavia, but you can’t fool me because I know it’s my husband that you want!”Maggie and Terry’s scene on FALCON CREST occurs in a more domestic environment, the Gioberti kitchen. Over coffee, Terry explains to her sister why she married Richard: “I have been snubbed, laughed at and called a slut by just about every person in this entire valley. Now I am Richard’s wife, maybe not totally respectable yet, but I’m on my way … Power is the one thing that people understand and I have power.” (This is the opposite scenario to the one on THE COLBYS where Sable promises to destroy Frankie’s reputation: “I know what you think about Frankie — dear, sweet saintly Frankie … The truth is my sister, your mistress, is a tramp … Jason, if you divorce me I will tell the world just what kind of a woman my sister really is.”) When Maggie expresses misgivings about the marriage, Terry gets defensive. “Maybe what you really want is to have Richard for yourself,” she suggests. “It’s no secret he’s always had the hots for you.” “Is that why you married him?” counters Maggie. There’s no reply and the scene ends with several unanswered questions left hanging in the air. There’s further ambiguity later in the episode when JJ Roberts begs his daughter Jordan's forgiveness for the sexual abuse he inflicted on her as a child. “Every day I wake up and realise I lost my daughter and it’s my own fault,” he weeps. It’s a disturbing, pathetic sight, but Jordan is moved (“I never heard you accept any blame for it before”) and they embrace. Then something happens as he strokes her hair and calls her his special little girl that causes Jordan to recoil in horror — it’s unclear as to whether their close proximity has triggered a childhood recollection of hers or a sexual response in him. Either way, it’s a succinct illustration of how terribly damaged both of these characters are. For all the glossiness, superficiality and general lightheartedness surrounding it, there is something about this storyline that rings emotionally true.Business trend of the week: secret acquisitions. While Greg Sumner anonymously acquires three banks on KNOTS, all of whom do business with Lotus Point, Miss Ellie turns out to be the secret buyer of the holdings Clayton has had to sell off to keep his main company afloat. Elsewhere on DALLAS, JR surreptitiously sells all three members of the cartel a third of his share of the Marinos deal, each without the others’ knowledge, while arranging some healthy percentages for himself along the way. “In other words, you’ll get all of the benefits with none of the risks,” spells out Sly for our benefit. It’s reassuring to know that at least one DALLAS Ewing hasn’t entirely mellowed out.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (2) DYNASTY2 (1) THE COLBYS3 (3) KNOTS LANDING4 (4) FALCON CREST5 (5) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =