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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 21984" data-attributes="member: 22">26/Feb/86: DYNASTY: Ben v. 27/Feb/86: THE COLBYS: Burden of Proof v. 28/Feb/86: DALLAS: Overture v. 28/Feb/86: FALCON CREST: Law and Ardor"I lusted after you before my sister stole you from me,” confesses Caress Morelle to her ex-brother-in-law Blake on this week’s DYNASTY. An intriguing little tidbit to be sure, but one that pales into insignificance next to Jason Colby's courtroom announcement at the beginning of this week’s COLBYS that he fathered his sister-in-law’s child. This revelation, which feels both shocking and inevitable, triggers one dramatic explosion after another, resulting in one of Soap Land's all time great episodes.The drama itself is more than matched by some lush, dynamic cinematography. The hilltops and cityscape of LA make for a backdrop as impressive and evocative as the Texan oilfields and skyscrapers on DALLAS. Miles Colby even manages to overturn his car in view of the Hollywood sign. The camera work in this episode is as bold and exciting as Larry Eilikann's at his most insane, but is more stately, more classically cinematic. When KNOTS LANDING is at its best, it will often find ways to subvert and undercut the conventions of the Soap Land genre, both visually and narratively. THE COLBYS, however, is never embarrassed to be a soap opera. Here, it embraces the genre and revels in its melodrama. It's as Sirkian as soap gets.Following the revelation of Jeff’s paternity, the Colby family abandon the courthouse, fighting their way past the reporters on the steps outside before scattering in different directions — Jeff takes Frankie one way, Sable commandeers Jason's chauffeur to take her another, while Miles tears off on his own. Jason is left behind, alone and open-mouthed. Finally, his attorney Garrett Boyston offers him a ride home. (If anyone can understand how it must feel to suddenly realise you fathered an illegitimate child years before, it’s Garrett. At some point during the hearing, he somehow manages to cross over to DYNASTY to tell Dominique Devereaux he believes he's the father of her nineteen-year-old daughter Jackie before crossing back to THE COLBYS without anyone in the courtroom noticing his absence.)Jason arrives home to find Sable has taken the elephant gun out of the hall closet. "Do you recognise this, Jason?” she asks. "It’s your favourite gun. 'Blow a hole in a man the size of your fist.' How many times have I heard you say that?” This quote can’t help but remind one of Charlton Heston’s famous pro-NRA stance. Likewise, when fellow gun lobbyist Susan Howard’s name pops up as the writer of this week’s episode of DALLAS, one finds oneself looking for any personalised fingerprints she may have left on the script. The tightly structured nature of a show like DALLAS being what it is, there is little room for personal authorial comment, but the episode’s one idiosyncratic touch is in the opening scene where JR's boot supplier shows him a selection of animal skins for his choosing. (“Here’s an old armadillo, would make a good pair of rough out boots!” chuckles JR.) “We have some other skins, very exotic ones,” says the supplier tentatively. “If you’d like to see them, we can arrange it — if you get my meaning” “… I don’t want anything on the endangered list,” JR replies firmly. "I don’t need any of those wildlife fanatics on my back.” It’s tempting to speculate whether Howard is using JR to voice her own opinion on “wildlife fanatics” here — tempting, but also unfair. JR has made similar cracks about vegetarians and homosexuals in the past — it’s well within his character. (In contrast, Alexis is surprisingly enchanted by the kangaroos she encounters during a visit to Australia on this week’s DYNASTY. “I’ve already seen three. They’re adorable!” she gushes — which isn’t to say she won’t be wearing a hat made out of one of them next week.)The elephant gun scene on THE COLBYS is the second time in recent weeks where a Soap Land wife has pulled a gun on her husband. However, Sable training a rifle on Jason before randomly opening fire on a flower arrangement is approximately four billion times more exciting than Peter Stavros’s daughter shooting her husband dead on FALCON CREST. The action that follows — Jason chasing Sable through the upstairs hallway, her slamming the bedroom door in his face, him kicking it open — has a thrillingly different feel to the marital disputes we’re used to seeing on DALLAS and DYNASTY. When Blake and Krystle are at odds, a frosty politeness descends over them — it simply wouldn’t do to start screaming in front of the servants — while JR and Sue Ellen’s fights have always been likewise constricted by the unspoken knowledge that Mama’s bedroom is just down the hall.“I think I knew. I must have known, deep down,” Jason tells Jeff of their father/son relationship. This recalls what Jock Ewing said to Ray Krebbs in the DALLAS scene where he told him he was his daddy: "I know it’s the truth. I just feel it. I don’t know why in the world I never realised it before.” That, however, is where the similarities between the two situations end. Whereas Ray happily and lovingly accepted Jock as his father ("I want to do what's best for you, that's all I care about”), Jeff does not (“Don’t you ever call me son,” he snaps. "I’ll never accept you as my father!”) And whereas JR and Bobby swallowed their pride along with their bourbon in order to welcome Ray into the family, Miles first disowns Jason (“You may be Jeff’s father, but to me you’re nothing!”) before pushing his newly acquired brother off a cliff at the end of the episode.Disowned by both Jeff and Miles, rejected by both Sable and Frankie, Jason is wrong-footed almost continually this week. His authority, both moral and patriarchal, is challenged by his family in a way Jock Ewing's never was by his. Fortunately, it’s an assault that Heston's stature and charisma were built to withstand.Jeff and Miles aren't the first pair of feuding Soap Land cousins to learn they’re actually brothers — FALCON CREST's Chase and Richard made the same discovery three years ago. These days, Richard and Chase are partners. That doesn't mean they always see eye to eye. There's a really interesting scene in this week’s ep, for instance, where Chase condemns Richard for intimidating an old man into selling them his harvest, only for Richard to accuse him of hypocrisy. “You tricked Angela into buying [Carl Beck’s] dead vineyards,” he reminds him. "When you do that sort of thing, Chase, you’re just like the rest of us so stop pretending you’re not.”Like THE COLBYS, this week DALLAS also ends with characters standing on a clifftop overlooking a beach. Whereas Miles thinks he may have accidentally killed Jeff (his deranged expression in the freeze frame is just great), Angelica Nero and her gang are planning to kill JR and Jack. As a dummy run for what they have devised, Nicholas detonates an explosive aboard a small boat. "And so Dimitri Marinos and his good friend JR Ewing die in a tragic accident," purrs Angelica as the boat is engulfed by flames.Nor is Jeff the only DYNASTY-verse character to lose his footing in the middle of an altercation this week -- only when Krystle and Alexis end up covered in mud after tumbling down a hillside, it's played for comedy rather than tragedy. "You stupid bitch!” barks a dishevelled Alexis before staggering amusingly out of shot.FALCON CREST’s Maggie and THE COLBYS' Fallon are each presented with some unusual reading material this week. Jeff Wainwright, Maggie’s publicist, asks her to cast a professional eye over his unpublished novel. “I did find some of the imagery a little disturbing,” she later admits. “Oh, great!” he replies with the same puppy dog enthusiasm he had as Quisto on THE YELLOW ROSE. The title of his book, Consumed, pretty much sums up Miles’s feelings towards Fallon. "I'll never let you go,” reads a note he breaks into her bedroom to place on her pillow while she is sleeping.No sooner is Pam Ewing back from Colombia than three of Soap Land's chief antagonists also leave the country. DYNASTY’s Alexis flies to Australia to find Blake's long-lost brother Ben taking a shower in the outback while DALLAS's JR travels to Martinique with cousin Jack and the Angelica gang. Over on FALCON CREST, Angela has taken a sudden trip to Italy — or has she?While Jack Ewing is surprised to learn he is a dead ringer for Dimitri Marinos, Ben Carrington feigns surprise when Alexis tells him his father has died without leaving him a share of his $500,000,000 fortune. Jack is no more enthusiastic when JR tries to sell him on the idea of impersonating Dimitri than Ben is when Alexis tries to persuade him to sue his father's estate as a way of getting back at Blake. Eventually, both men reluctantly agree to go along with the respective scheme. (Alexis is a particularly fast worker. She manages to fly to Oz, track down Ben, persuade him to join forces with her and then return to Denver — all within the space of eight screen minutes.)While Blake dissuades Sammy Jo from moving away from Denver on DYNASTY, Fallon talks Jeff out of moving back to Denver on THE COLBYS. Alexis, meanwhile, is relieved that Caress has decided to go back to Europe. She is therefore dismayed upon her return from Australia to find she has changed her mind and installed herself in the penthouse instead. (Let us call this poetic justice for Alexis moving into the Carrington art studio after Blake’s murder trial in Season 2 instead of returning to Mexico as Blake had hoped.) Over on DALLAS, Mandy tells JR that she's been offered a long-term modelling contract in Canada: “I need to know if I should take it. I need to know if I should leave Dallas.” “Well, I can’t tell you what to do, darlin’,” he replies. "It’s your decision.” Similarly on THE COLBYS, Sable realises the time has to start thinking for herself. "I’ve lived my life looking through your father’s eyes,” she tells Bliss. "I think it’s time I started trusting my own."While Jason acknowledges Jeff as his son in the opening scene of THE COLBYS, Cole bids farewell to his daughter Hope in the opening scene of FALCON CREST. He also separates from his wife Melissa. “It's over, it's really over,” he says of their marriage. Following the recent break-ups of Dex and Alexis, and Amanda and Prince Michael on DYNASTY, that means that of the eight Soap Land couples who got married last season, only two are still together. One of those is Cliff Barnes and Jamie Ewing who, ironically, got married for all the wrong reasons, while the other is Lucy Ewing and Mitch Cooper who have the unfair of advantage of no longer living in a soap opera. Speaking of Lucy and Mitch (which nobody in Soap Land has for a while), the subject of their wedding triggers an emotional outburst from Jenna during this week's session with her psychiatrist (played by Mack Mackenzie’s old buddy Tom Jezick, no less) and it emerges that the events of that day somehow hold the key to her depression.Over on FALCON CREST, the psychological developments of Jenna Mk 1, Jordan Roberts, are keeping pace with those of Jenna Mk 3 rather neatly. Jordan's equivalent emotional trigger is a man’s tie which she finds in her apartment but can’t account for. “I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she tells Greg Reardon. "I think I’m losing my mind … I need your help.” This is a direct echo of Jenna Mk 3’s plea to Donna in last week’s DALLAS: “I don’t know what’s happening to me anymore. I’m so confused … Help me." Whereas Donna’s weirdly intense concern for Jenna’s welfare is somewhat grating, Terry’s equally out of nowhere fascination with Jordan’s double life, to the point where she hires a private detective to keep tabs on her, is much more fun.Speaking of Donna, it's interesting that in her first DALLAS script, Susan Howard should have relegated her own character to the kitchen for the week — baking cookies in one scene, preparing lunch with Miss Ellie and Sue Ellen in another. In fact, Donna, once the most career-oriented of Ewing wives, prepares more meals in this one ep than Pam and Sue Ellen have in their entire Southfork tenures combined.The opening episode of this season’s DYNASTY was notable for being the first not to include Alexis since her arrival in Denver five years earlier. More recently, there’s been the first ever episode of DALLAS not to include Pam. Both absences were the result of unexpected real life events (a last-minute contract negotiation, an illness) and each was explained away on screen by a hastily concocted hostage storyline. This week, Angela Channing fails to appear on FALCON CREST for the very first time. I’m unaware of any behind-the-scenes reasons for her absence, but FC comes up with a far more ingenious way of dealing with it than DYNASTY or DALLAS did with their equivalent situations. When Angela disappears with Peter on the day the sheriff comes to arrest her for arranging the hi-jacking of Chase’s truck, the assumption is that she's gone on the lam. Then later Peter reappears brandishing Angela’s power of attorney, explaining that they eloped to Italy to get married and that Angela has remained behind on business. The end of the episode reveals yet another twist when Lance discovers Angela’s passport in her bureau. “Grandmother’s not in Italy. Not without this!” he concludes.“He breaks all the rules, but I’m involved. I can’t put it down,” says Maggie of Jeff Wainwright's novel. Broadly speaking, the same critique might apply to FALCON CREST itself. An ongoing saga full of throwaway plots, it shows little regard for the normal Soap Land conventions. When DALLAS does a storyline about an inter-family court battle, for example, it dominates an entire season. When FALCON CREST does the equivalent — as it did when Angela sued Lance over his decision to sell the New Globe back to Richard — it lasts but a handful of scenes and is never mentioned again. Who could have predicted therefore that the “scheme of the week” storyline of Angela hi-jacking Chase’s wine should turn out to have major repercussions, not only for Angela but for the rest of the characters? Emma now finds herself caught in a Pam Ewing-style conflict of loyalties between her family and the man she loves. (“It makes me wonder if you really don’t enjoy her beating up on you,” says Dwayne.) This kind of narrative haphazardness — one can never be sure which of Angela’s, Richard’s or even Chase's schemes will be forgotten and which will come back to haunt them — is part of what makes FC unique among the soaps.With FALCON CREST in the ascendant, DALLAS slips to last place in my Top 4. Whenever three or more members of the Farlow-Krebbs-Ewing clan are gathered together at Southfork, one gets the eerie feeling that the show has been taken over by a group of blandly smiling replicants. However, there is still a surprising amount to enjoy. The shifting nature of JR's relationship with Angelica Nero, from business partners to lovers to co-conspirators to cat-and-mouse opponents and now to something more deadly — has been great fun to observe. Now that Mandy Winger is no longer the breathy object of desire she was before JR dumped her, she’s actually more vulnerable and sympathetic than ever. Likewise, the enigmatic Grace has grown increasingly lovely and strange and sad since falling for Jack. And it's reassuring to see that Sue Ellen, for all her newfound sense of responsibility and disconcertingly blonde hair, still enjoys getting under JR's skin. (This week, she delights in once again pointing out his Achille’s heel: “You always want what you can’t have.”) Even Jenna’s insistence on mourning Bobby in defiance of the Southfork robots seems admirable. Best of all, Pam's ongoing conflict between her relationship with Mark and her sense of obligation towards Bobby's memory is both believable and touching.1 (1) THE COLBYS2 (5) FALCON CREST3 (3) DYNASTY4 (4) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?