New posts

A little forum update...We're planning an upgrade.

Find out more about what's planned and how you can help support the forum
Click here for the details

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 178377" data-attributes="member: 22">03 Jan 91: KNOTS LANDING: The Unknown v. 04 Jan 91: DALLAS: Sail OnOn KNOTS, Greg raises eyebrows by relocating his hospital bed, complete with IV and drips, to the executive suite at the Sumner Group. “His office looks like a set from GENERAL HOSPITAL or something,” remarks Linda Fairgate. On DALLAS, JR finds the future owner of Ewing Oil, LeeAnn De Vega, making herself at home in his office. “My name’s still on the door,” he points out. “Oh yes, but not for long,” she replies. He then tries to persuade her to sell him back the company, explaining how much it means to him. She nods sympathetically. “It’s a terrible tragedy to lose what you love the most,” she says, then adds cheerily, “but you’ll get over it!”Mack Mackenzie and James Beaumont greet the impending nuptials of Greg and Paige, and JR and Vanessa, with weary resignation. “If Paige wants to marry the worst person on earth, and she does, that’s her problem,” Mack tells Anne. “If she wants to marry some dying old man out of pity, and she does, that’s her problem. If Paige wants to marry a different lunatic each week, and she does, that’s her problem.” “I don’t want any part of your marriage,” James tells his mother. “If you think you’re gonna be happy, fine, but I know you won’t.”For the first time that I can recall, the dawning of a new year is acknowledged onscreen when Julie Williams’ teacher asks her class if they have made any resolutions. “More fun in ’91,” drawls Jason Lochner.After we get our first glimpse inside the Lochner house, it quickly becomes apparent that Jason and his father are this season’s Amanda and Danny — a dysfunctional family from outside the cul-de-sac through whom we explore a social taboo. In place of marital rape, it’s parent-on-child violence. Instead of Danny making bitterly sarcastic putdowns to his wife, we have Dick Lochner doing the same to his son (“I’d never do anything to harm my precious little angel I’m shackled with,” he sneers). Rather than Gary riding to the rescue (or attempting to), there is Mack. However, Jason makes for a more interesting “victim” than Amanda did. Also, the issue itself is treated in a less didactic manner; there are some shades of grey. “Maybe the kid’s father did spank him, maybe he hit him across the butt, but I wouldn’t call that physical violence,” Frank says to Mack. ”Sometimes kids need a spanking, it’s how they learn.” “All they get to learn is that the big person hits the little person,” Mack argues. Frank then tries to pin him down: “So you’re saying you should never hit a child, ever? Is that what you’re saying?” Mack replies hesitantly as if he were making up his mind in the present moment: “Yeah, maybe I am.” Then he adds, more firmly: “Yeah, I am.” When we later see Frank apologising to Julie for spanking her when she was younger, she shrugs it off, seeming to regard it as less of a big deal than he does.Meanwhile, Jason remains hostile in the face of Mack’s continued efforts to help him. “Is this what you do all day — follow teenagers, huh?” he asks when Mack approaches him outside his school. “Are you some kind of pervert who hangs around kids’ houses in a little red Santa suit — is that it, huh? Am I your type?” Conversely on DALLAS, Vanessa continues to behave graciously to James in spite of his hostility towards her. When she tells him she’s made an offer on the bike shop where he works (“It’s yours if you want it”), he throws the offer back in her face. “You sound just like JR,” he snaps. “You wanna help me? Stay out of my life.” The turning point in both relationships is a semi-public gathering where a young man addresses the room. On KNOTS, it’s a school presentation of Spoon River Anthology. (According to the internet, this is “a collection of short free-verse poems” by Edgar Lee Masters that “shattered the myth of small-town America as the bastion of American virtue”. Given what is occurring behind the Lochners’ white picket fence, this seems quite apropos.) Mack tags along with Frank to the reading and they sit on the front row. Jason gives a sensitive recitation of ‘The Unknown’, a striking poem about a wounded hawk (“I put him in a cage where he lived many days, cawing angrily at me when I offered him food”). Just like the rock ballads Ciji used to perform at Richard’s restaurant, the words of the poem turn out to be applicable to our characters — Jason is clearly the caged bird lashing out at Mack. Jason evidently makes this connection himself because when Mack returns home at the end of the episode, he finds Jason sitting on the doorstep waiting for him. (Like their Santa moment last week, this sounds horribly hokey, but is actually quite touching.)Another character for whom the caged bird metaphor is applicable is Paige — it’s what she fears she will become if she marries Greg. Fittingly, Mack makes a not-in-so-many-words comparison between Paige and Jason elsewhere in the episode. “I’ve had it with her,” he says of his daughter. “All she’s ever done is complain about her lousy upbringing. There’s a lot of kids out there who have it a hell of a lot worse than Paige Matheson ever did. She’s had more advantages than ninety-nine per cent of the population out there and she still can’t get her act together.” Vanessa expresses a similar exasperation towards her son on DALLAS: “You’re an adult. When are you going to start taking responsibility for yourself?” The equivalent gathering on DALLAS is more glamorous. It’s JR and Vanessa’s engagement party, which serves as this season’s Oil Baron’s Ball substitute. In place of Jason Lochner’s poetry reading, we have James Beaumont’s toast to the bride and groom. “I’d like to toast the new Mrs Ewing on her wedding to be … and the ex-Mrs Ewing on her child to be.” Cally and Vanessa each reward him with a slap in the face.Unborn children are also an issue for the Ewingverse’s other engaged couple, Greg and Paige. Greg casually informs Paige that kids are off the agenda for them because he’s had one of those offscreen Soap Land vasectomies nobody told us about at the time (see also: Richard Channing on FALCON CREST,  Cliff Barnes on DALLAS). This one occurred “after Meg was born.” He then wrong-foots Paige still further by suggesting a quickie wedding (“We’ll do it on our lunch hour”) and presenting her with a pre-nuptial agreement (“All grownups have ‘em these days”). KNOTS is less reliant on gimmicks this week — no thought bubbles or musical montages — and is all better for it. Paige does, however, encounter her future self, Mrs Paige Sumner, in a bar in a dream, and finds her sad, tipsy and full of regret about marrying Greg (but still more dignified than the Future Alexis Paige really will turn into). “I had one good chance for a happy life,” Future Paige recalls. “Once he said to me, ‘You wanna call it off?’ All I had to do was say yes.” The dream later bleeds into reality when Paige and Greg are arguing about the prenup. “You wanna call this off?” asks Greg, almost as a joke. There’s a pause, then Paige replies solemnly, “Yes. Let’s call it off.”Back on DALLAS, James letting the cat out of the bag about Cally’s baby fulfils the same function as the Ghost of Paige’s Future: “I wanted you to see what you were marrying,” he explains to his mother. “He went after her, didn’t he?” he asks her, referring to JR and Cally. Vanessa doesn’t reply. “I knew it!” he continues. “Nothing is more important to him than leaving behind pieces of himself … Mother, you just don’t get it. JR is evil. He’s a monster.” “The only monster I see is you,” she replies sadly, “destroying other people’s lives and happiness because you can’t be happy.”There is the sound of more doors slamming shut on DALLAS this week. JR’s Harry McSween replacement Rattigan makes his final appearance of the series when McKay uses a combination of bribery and blackmail to force him into retrieving the tape of him (McKay) threatening Johnny Dancer’s life from JR’s office. JR catches Rattigan red-handed (“That’s the trouble with a crooked cop — you always lose ‘em to the highest bidder”) and sends him packing (“You’re outta here, boy”). Rose then leaves McKay after he tries to get her to sleep with JR again, and McKay finally is arrested for murder and hauled off to jail. Meanwhile, JR and Cally are divorced in one of those sadly matter-of-fact court hearings. Best of all is Cally’s departing scene at the end of the episode, which ranks as one of the all-time best Soap Land exits. She already has her bags packed and is putting them into her car when JR’s limousine pulls up beside her. She tries to get away from him, but he grabs her by the arm. “I’m not letting you go until that child is born and being raised under my roof,” he snarls. “I’m not letting my child be raised on a pig farm by a little country hick like you!” “Sorry, JR, you don’t have a choice,” she yells back, “because you’re the not the father — James is!” She then zooms off in her little car, leaving chaos in her wake.Here, DALLAS seems to be following the final season blueprint laid down by last year’s FALCON CREST. First, you kick off the season by killing off a major female character in shockingly tragic circumstances (Maggie’s drowning, April’s shooting). Then, just after Christmas, you have another central female character, who is pregnant, abruptly depart for an unknown destination (Emma then, Cally now). Meanwhile, ownership of the family business is up for grabs yet again, but in a way that somehow manages to feel fresh and urgent.When the story of Val’s erratic behaviour on KNOTS focuses on her and Gary’s relationship, rather than on visual stunts like a wacky haircut or kids on the roof, it becomes totally worth watching for the acting alone. Val’s continual shifts in mood from furious to scared to paranoid to horny, often within the same shot, and Gary’s responses to them, are fascinating to watch. The combination of sad and funny (Val delivering the line, “You haven’t even said anything about my hair!” with the same level of outrage with which she accuses Gary of turning the twins against her) recalls Krystle’s plate-throwing outburst in the final season of DYNASTY. The crucial difference, of course, is that we already know Val’s brain disorder isn’t life-threatening, whereas Krystle’s definitely was. And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (1) DALLAS2 (2) KNOTS LANDING</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?