Rewatching Knots Landing

[Karin Schill]

Okay so tonight we watched "The Longest Night"...

Karen's gone missing out of the blue. It turns out she's been kidnapped!
This plot came like out of nowhere with no build up what so ever...

Ben changes his mind and doesn't leave with Cathy but Val realizes that Cathy and Ben has had an affair after she sees them hug and trashes Ben's house. I wonder how come he never locks his door?
It seems like she always walks right in, if she uses a key we never see it.

Mack's daughter Paige has shown up and he remembers her mother Anne. But Paige lies and says that Anne is dead. Mack feels responsible for the girl.

Gary realizes that Abby is fooling around with Peter Hollister.

So this is Cathy's final episode. It seems like they keep changing the young couples on this show. First it was Kenny & Ginger, then Diana & Chip, then Cathy & Joshua and now they've introduced Paige who will take over...

Ben leaves town and Gary comforts Val on the beach. I love that scene when the two of them just sits and giggles and talks about how they've come full circle.
It seems like whenever there's a season finale they tease the audience with a possible Val & Gary reunion to make the viewers tune in the next season...

Also since the season has wrapped up. Here's some thoughts on season seven...

I love:

- Val & Ben getting married
It was about time and I loved the drama with Gary on the wedding day.

- Gary giving the twins Lotus Point
This created drama and caused tension between Ben and Val.

- The way they dealt with Gary's grief early on in the season
It gave Abby the perfect opportunity to handle things.

I like:

- Cathy and Joshua.
I like them as a couple even though he treated her so wrong.

- Joshua's tragic ending
I was sad to see the character go. The way he slipped and got more and more tormented was well executed.

- Laura and Greg getting married
I just wish they had actually shown the wedding.

- Olivia the teen rebel
I like how she found out about that Gary had fathered Val's twins and her mom's involvement in it and how she acted out.


I dislike:

- Cathy stealing Ben from Val.
This makes both of their characters less likable.

- Gary asking Abby for a divorce
I really like them as a couple and is sad to see them come to an end.

- Gary and Jill
She seems like a gold digger at this point.

- Peter Hollister
I don't know why but I can't watch this character without thinking about how he ends up in the cement...

- Making Jason Avery 4 years younger
No offense to the new actor but it was just weird how he never grew up.

 

[Mustard]

The moment Abby told Gary about Bobby's death.
It was like, "Right this happened at the same time as the dream season". I had almost forgotten about that in the middle of all the drama...
It felt a bit odd though as we all know that Bobby didn't really die. Funny how Pam supposedly dreamt about Gary and Abby too considering she's never even met Abby!

Bobby did die in the Knots Landing universe. The events of Pam's dream are real there.

 

[Karin Schill]

I know that's sort of strange to think about since Bobby is very much alive to me. I guess that's because I'm a Dallas fan first...

Anyway tonight it was "The Inside Man"...

So Greg offers Ben a new job to work with Peter's PR. Ben doesn't really want to take the job but feels pressured to take it because of Jean Hackney. Gosh how I hate the Ben is a spy plot. I think they are completely ruining his character!

Poor Michael is in love with Paige who is just toying with him and has already moved on to Peter.

Jill survives but lost her baby. Gary is glued to her side at the hospital.

Karen reads Anne's letter to Mack and realize that Paige has written it. She realizes that Paige is a liar and they are wondering what else she is lying about. Then we see a tomb stone with Paige name on it. This image seem to indicate that Paige was supposed to have been an impostor. But maybe NS was kept on the show because of her popularity so they changed the plot they had planned originally?

Does anyone know if that is the case?

 

[Daniel Avery]

If Paige had indeed died, she would have been buried with Winstons (her mother's family, the ones who raised her) rather than Mathesons (since Anne was only married to Mr. Matheson briefly and had not interacted with him for nearly twenty years). I have to give them props for the realistic way Karen (and Val) figured out the letter was a fake--indeed, such a letter written at that time in Anne's life would be full of flower-y prose about their beautiful baby, and it wasn't.

 

[Karin Schill]

Thanks for reminding me of that @Daniel Avery . I seem to have forgotten a lot of details about the later seasons of the show.

Tonight it was "Truth will out"...

Olivia and Lilimae survived the car crash but Lilimae got a broken arm. She alerted Abby of that Olivia was still using drugs. So now it begins. The scene where Lilimae tried to convince a guilt ridden Olivia to give her the drugs she was keeping in her bag was really touching. But Olivia is far too addicted to give it up.

Poor Abby dealing with her daughter's problem. Somehow I think she and Gary should have nipped this in the bud earlier but they have been too preoccupied with Peter and Jill to properly notice Olivia and her problems.

Poor Laura is pregnant and Greg is treating her really badly. He is not happy about "the accident that they are responsible for" at all.

Paige has deceived Mack and Karen. She tells them a fake story about a car accident that Mack believes but Karen gets suspicious. Eventually after realizing that Paige has lied to them Mack calls up the Winstons and gets a shock when he hears that Anne is still alive!

But yeah really great drama tonight.

 

[Karin Schill]

And the great drama continues...

Tonight it was "No Miracle Worker"...

That special episode that had some of the most memorable Knots moment.

Mack goes off to New York and finally comes face to face with the love from his youth - Anne. It was refreshing to see her after only seeing the flashbacks.
But yeah Karen doesn't know what she's asking for when she sent Mack to talk to Anne.

Karen tries to be cool about it but her insecurities comes out in that scene when she asks Val if she is fat and the two of them pulls out her sweater.
Great moment and very realistic scene.

Yet the main plot of the episode was Olivia's drug addiction. This was the episode when Abby locked herself in with Olivia at home and tried to watch her every minute to keep her from doing drugs and yet she succeeded in doing them. It wasn't until Brian got beaten up for not having the money that Olivia finally hit her rock bottom and caved in and gave the drugs to Abby saying that she was sorry. It was all very dramatic and superb acting by Tonya Crowe, Donna Mills, Julie Harris and Brian Austin Green in the scenes surrounding this. Especially Donna and Tonya got a chance to really shine in tonight's episode.

I think this might have been the season that Tonya won the Soap Opera Digest Award as favorite supporting actress...

Somehow that scene when Abby knocked a whole in the wall with a hammer has stuck in my mind. I felt sorry for Abby. Heck even Lilimae felt sorry for Abby. So yeah great drama.

 

[Karin Schill]

Tonight it was "Nightmare"...

Jean Hackney and her goon finally gets what's coming to them when Mack and Greg outsmarts them and I assume arrest them. They eliminate the threat so Ben can return home to his family.

But while Ben is missing and Val believes he is dead she loses it and tries to buy a gun. When she is not allowed to buy one since she has to wait 15 days she goes out to Gary's ranch and steals his grandfather's gun. She probably would have killed an innocent cleaning lady too if Gary hadn't stopped her just in time.

I don't know why but whenever Val is in trouble Gary is the only one who is always there for her. In this episode tonight she even told him that if Ben was dead and something happened to her she wanted him to raise the twins.

The best line of the episode was probably Abby's when she moves out of the ranch and tells Jill "The first Mrs. Ewing doesn't go away ever!"
I love that line. It's so memorable and it's spot on too since Gary stands Jill up even though they are supposed to get married and goes after Val instead.

Yet at this point it seems to me like Val is actually over Gary. She is more concerned about Ben and doesn't seem to mind that much that Gary is going to marry Jill. She even wishes Jill well.

At the end of the episode Ben wakes up from a nightmare where Jean Hackney kills Val. You can see on his face that the nightmare is not over yet.

 

[Daniel Avery]

That dream sequence always seemed like DS and JvA enjoyed it a bit too much--that is, all the shoot-em-ups and JVA getting to play a death scene.

Favorite line, from Greg to Jean when they caught her: "Actually, I was not that glad to see you; it really was a gun in my pocket."

 

[Mustard]

That line of Abby's to Jill of "Let the second Mrs. Ewing give the soon-to-be third Mrs. Ewing a little bit of advice. The first Mrs. Ewing doesn't go away, ever!", undoubtedly changed Jill from that point onwards. Jill goes off the rails more and more after this.

Regarding Ben, it's interesting how the viewer is given the strong impression that Ben will be back in the future after he leaves late in Season 8, but he never did return. Season 9 is the year of big budget cuts to Knots Landing, too.

 

[Karin Schill]

Oh yeah that was a great line too @Daniel Avery

@Mustard are you implying that DS was let go due to the budget cuts?
I agree that they did make it seem like Ben would return. Poor Val sitting around waiting by that phone without a word from her husband.

True about Jill. It was like Abby opened up her eyes and made her suspicious about Val and Gary.

So tonight it was "Do not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate"...

Paige has completely lost it and is expericing an identity crisis now when she knows Greg might be her father.

The best scene in the episode might be when Abby and Paige goes toe to toe and Paige tell Abby that she is threatened by her since they are alike and Abby tell Paige they are nothing alike since she is just a little spoiled rich girl who is nothing without her trust fund while Abby has worked hard for everything she's got!

Greg is a doting father to little Meg. She's so adorable.

Val hears from Ben who doesn't seem to be on an assignment after all.

It was the classic build up to Peter's death. Abby, Paige and Olivia have all been arguing with him and therefore all can be said to have motif. The episode ends with Abby washing her hands and finding Olivia sitting over Peter's body. Abby thinks Olivia has done it, Olivia thinks Abby has done it. Oh boy what to do?

Bring on the cement!

 

[Daniel Avery]

The open-ended nature of Sheehan's departure was likely because they may have thought that they could bring him back when/if they could justify it in their budget, or perhaps when they ran out of ideas for a storyline to keep Gary and Val apart. They had no way of knowing the budget cuts would become more and more painful. T

he first cuts at the end of season seven (when Lisa Hartman left, and it looked like Doug Sheehan would go with her) was the first time I can recall any notable reduction in the series' licensing fee (the amount of money CBS was willing to pay for each episode). Perhaps the producers did not realize that once a network cuts a licensing fee, they rarely raise it again. It's the old business directive: "Do more with less". By the end of season 13 the budget was cut to a level that they seriously doubted they could afford to produce season 14. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Hunt Block's departure at the end of eight was definitely budget-dictated, but I think DS knew all season long that this was his last season and that he'd only gotten to remain in season eight because of this Jean Hackney plotline they wanted to do. I think they ​

justified the expense of keeping him since Ben was the linchpin character in the story, and it gave the Gibsons/Lilimae and the Sumners something to do together for the first time.

Anyway, you will likely notice some changes in the production side of things in season nine (two episodes away from this one), so it wasn't just the on-screen talent that got cut. The "look" of the series changed a lot from seven to eight, but changed even more as eight transitioned to nine, as the money started to be spread thinner and thinner. The show felt a lot more "set-bound," with a notable reduction in location/outdoor scenes, and of course a lot of action was handed over to the recurring characters rather than the principal actors.

 

[Mustard]

@Mustard are you implying that DS was let go due to the budget cuts?

I don't think Douglas Sheehan leaving was due to the budget cuts, as he had to be persuaded to stay on for Season 8 before all that. Ben suddenly has a dark past in Season 8, which there was no hint of in Seasons 5-7. However, what the Season 9 budget cuts did mean was a toning down of the grand style of Seasons 4-8, and getting rid of the characters of Laura and Lilimae.

 

[Karin Schill]

Oh no Lilimae leaves in season 9 too?
Somehow I had blocked that out of my memory...

I mean I remember that she left and how she left but I didn't remember it was coming up so soon.

 

[Karin Schill]

Okay so tonight it was "Cement the Relationship."

They have a bit of a murder mystery here and it's hard to figure out who the real killer is. I remember the first time I watched this I didn't realize it was Paige who had done it until much later.

The episode sort of lead you to believe that Olivia is guilty. Especially since she tells Abby. "You must hate me" implying that Abby got rid of the body to cover up her crime.

Then what to say about Abby?
She sure loves her daughter but it's astonishing how she's managing to keep her head so collected. I guess she's in shock and is focusing on what she has to do. But still it's very cold of her. But yeah it's hilarious how she's trying to cover up for Paige without knowing it and then how she is going out to the future playground in her high heels not to mentioning digging up Peter's car keys!
Definitely some black humor there but it works and I think a big part of it is Donna Mills performance and how she plays it straight. Abby is doing something truly awful and yet you want her to get away with it.

I like how Olivia went to Gary and how he was there when Abby got home. She was not happy to see him but her comeback line "aren't we a little too divorced for that?" was great.

It's weird how Gary's been more of a father to Olivia and Brian than to his own kids at this point.

Of course that's about to change now that Ben is out of the picture. Val knows that he's not coming back.

The episode wraps on that crack in the cement.

 

[Karin Schill]

Okay so that's a wrap on season eight so here's some thoughts:

I loved:

- The addition of Paige.
I like the fact that Mack suddenly has a daughter. Although he's been a surrogate father to Eric and Michael for a while now having a daughter of his own is somehow different. I like the conflicts it's created between Karen and Mack. Also Paige sure knows how to stir up trouble. She's lying, she's manipulating, she's cynical and she's a real bitch. Yet there is something a bit vulnerable about her that I can't put my finger on.

- Jill realizing that she's playing second fiddle to Val
I love that she and Gary didn't get married. That something keeps preventing them from doing so and how they keep putting it off.

- Olivia's drug problem escalating
I think this was handled really well and I love it how Abby went to such great lenght to try to save her daughter and get her clean.

- Brian Austin Green
He made a great Brian. I can't get over how young he was though as I am used to watching him on Beverly Hills 90210.

- Gary running against Peter in the Senator race
Most of this was simply hilarious.

- Meg
I love how Greg changed from being so reluctant to have the baby to doting father the moment his daughter was born. It was also funny how he read the stock market section of the paper to the baby when Laura was pregnant.

I liked:

- That Ben told Val about Jean and them trying to escape
The fact that Val knew did create some great drama and I love it how Gary was the one who brought Val to her senses when she was out for revenge on Jean Hackney.

- Jill and Peter's sibling relationship
It makes Jill's character a bit softer that she has a baby brother that she cares about.

- Mack's backstory with Anne
They really kept digging into his past this season with all the flashbacks. It's nice how he has a first love and I like that she wasn't dead after all. Poor Karen didn't know what she was doing when she asked Mack to go see Anne.

- Olivia's crush on Peter
It was so cruel how Peter used her to get the letter. But I like the drama it provided. It seems a bit of a stretch that Olivia and Abby were interested in the same guy though. But oh well it kind of worked.

- Michael and Paige
It created some tension in the McKenzie household. Poor Michael getting his heart broken though as Paige was just passing the time with him. She didn't love him like he loved her.

- Anne
Some people might argue that the show didn't need another bitch. But I think she's a different kind of bitch than Abby as she has a different background.

I disliked:

- The Jean Hackney storyline
I just can't picture solid old Ben to be involved with people like that. Not even in his youth. I think this story is changing Ben's character too much. He's supposed to be the good guy and now all of a sudden he is giving up his career to go spy on Greg Sumner and even goes as far as trying to kill him.
It doesn't suit him IMHO and he is no longer a character I can identify with.

- Karen being kidnapped by Phil
This plot dragged out for several episodes in the beginning of the season and was quite annoying. I just wished for it to be over.


- Abby and Gary divorcing
I liked them as a couple. I much preferred them together to Abby/Peter and Gary/Jill

- Ben deserting his family
It didn't seem like a Ben thing to do. Also he and Val were cute together so it sucks how he just disappeared.

So well that's it for season eight!

 

[Karin Schill]

Tonight it was "The Trouble With Peter"...

The title is obviously a homage to the Hitchcock movie "The Trouble With Harry" (1955) where they find a body and try to figure out how he was murdered.

Anyway Karen is shocked to find that the dead body is Peter. Abby feels sick and is jumpy and Gary reads Abby's reaction and jumps to the conclusion that Abby has killed Peter. He then goes to tell Jill that her brother is dead. Jill's reaction is sort of weird. She is calm, a bit shocked but also in a way it's like she knew what Gary was going to tell her before he did. Probably because Peter has been missing for 6 weeks already.

Karen and Mack discuss that Gary thinks Abby did it. They don't think she did and can't picture her dumping the body in the playground. It's funny because the viewer knows that she did do that!

Val and the twins misses Ben. Then they see Gary who ignores them. His reaction makes Val sad.

Laura has suddenly heard from Richard who is remarried and she and the boys are going out to see him. I can imagine Jason must be excited about this.
Then as for Daniel, considering how young he was when Richard left I guess to him Greg is the only father he has known. Little Meg has grown so much that they even comment on how fast she's grown in the episode.

It's time for the funeral and Gary figures out that Abby is covering for Olivia. He tells Abby that Olivia must take responsibility for what she did and receive a slap in the face for it! Don't mess with Mama bear who will do anything to protect her child.

Over all it feels like a solid episode. It's interesting and the plot moves along at a good pace to draw you in and really care about the drama.

The only thing that is too slow is the new opening credits where the music has been slowed down and the painting between the images feels like they draw out for a long time. I miss the up tempo music with lots of images already. But the new logo is nice.

 

[Mustard]

The new slower music and painting imagery is for Seasons 9 and 10 only. Season 11 sees the music closer to the faster version again but it is the only season without any images of the main characters on the opening credits, while the scrolling images of Seasons 3-8 are back in a similar style for Seasons 12-14 with Knots Landing in the 1990s.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I always thought the seasons 9/10 opening titles were dreadful and an ill-advised attempt at fixing something that wasn't broken.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I always thought the seasons 9/10 opening titles were dreadful

I thought it was suitable for the "Fuentes" season.

in a similar style for Seasons 12-14 with Knots Landing in the 1990s

I didn't like those framed opening credits (also didn't like the framed opening credits on Falcon Crest) and I also didn't like the title font. Why did they pick this one for the DVDs?
Season 2 are the best opening credits imho*, but I prefer the title font of S3-8. I also liked the one from season 1 & 2, it's very similar to Knots Landing Motors, I think?

*although it probably wouldn't work for the characters that didn't live in the cul-de-sac.

 

[Seaviewer]

I liked the season 9/10 opening with the cameo-style portraits and the dreamy arrangement of the theme. The sandcastles were nice idea but wore thin over the season.