Season 8

[Ked]

The script (even corrected by Paulsen) actually ended with the scene between Jeff, Fallon and Sammy Jo ! (But Sammy Jo was on the phone rather than at the apartment.)

Oh Jeff, that world-class jackass.

 

[Toni]

The script (even corrected by Paulsen) actually ended with the scene between Jeff, Fallon and Sammy Jo ! (But Sammy Jo was on the phone rather than at the apartment.)

Did I read that Jeff "tightens a**"???!!!!

 

[Tony]

Didn’t David Paulsen say in his interview with James from London he wanted Season 8 to end with Pamela Sue Martin in bed as Fallon? Rather like Bobby returning in the shower. Maybe not the end scene but it would have been one hell of a cliffhanger.

 

[GillesDenver]

Didn’t David Paulsen say in his interview with James from London he wanted Season 8 to end with Pamela Sue Martin in bed as Fallon? Rather like Bobby returning in the shower. Maybe not the end scene but it would have been one hell of a cliffhanger.

Not in the cliffhanger, rather in the first scene of season 9.

 

[Zara]

Maybe this season is underrated.

We got to see something a bit more realistic and the not so absurd drama in comparison to seasons before. Politics, and the open fight between Alexis and Blake over something else than the stuff Alexis thrived on to bring up.

Season one and two have a more political aura and when Fallon, Steven and Jeff, and Matthew in his way, touches the subject in that social realism-way from their view, it's hard not to love when getting to know the Denver Clan.

Combined with, in 8, the "politics" around a surrogate-birth and the entanglement it can create.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

They should have had some specific political issue on which Blake and Alexis were on opposing sides. The kind of of issue on which all the characters had a strong opinion and carried through the whole season.

 

[Ked]

They should have had some specific political issue on which Blake and Alexis were on opposing sides. The kind of of issue on which all the characters had a strong opinion and carried through the whole season.

Like what?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

They should have had some specific political issue on which Blake and Alexis were on opposing sides. The kind of of issue on which all the characters had a strong opinion and carried through the whole season.

And that was yet another perversity of the show -- DYNASTY finally did a year-long story arc for the first time in forever, and then they're not allowed to discuss anything!

"Liberal" Hollywood, post-the advent of Reagan, found politics difficult to discuss comfortably -- even in fiction. Some films tried, but it was nervously frowned upon. And, certainly, a series as poorly-written as (most of) DYNASTY, and produced by pimps, was not going rise to the occasion.

So they did nothing. No political issue could be debated. At all. Only what bitches and bastards the two were. For an entire year.

DYNASTY was largely an 'all-dressed-up-and-no-place-to-go' type of program already, but the Season 8 gubernatorial campaign plot, with so much potential, lasting the entire season with absolutely no details whatsoever, was the ne plus ultra of the fervent pointlessness that was The Carrington Saga.

Much ado about nothing -- I'm afraid that was DYNASTY in a decaying Pignolia nutshell..

Like what?

Almost anything!

 

[Jimmy Todd]

Responding to @Ked , it didn't have to be a contentious or emotionally charged issue that would divide audiences such as abortion. It could be an oil pipeline issue that could wreak havoc on the environment but also provide much needed jobs. Blake could support it and could argue to those opposed(Stephen, Krystle, maybe Fallon) that it's easy for them because they are because of his work and for projects like this so it doesn't affect them financially. Alexis would oppose it, not because she gives a feather or a fig about the environment, but she sees an opportunity to challenge Blake and make herself look more caring and thoughtful. It would also.put her and Krystle on the same side of an issue, and there would be interesting dynamics throughout the season.
Unfortunately, as @Snarky Oracle! said, that kind of writing was just not what anyone on Dynasty was interested in doing.

 

[rayray]

And that was yet another perversity of the show -- DYNASTY finally did a year-long story arc for the first time in forever, and then they're not allowed to discuss anything!

"Liberal" Hollywood, post-the advent of Reagan, found politics difficult to discuss comfortably -- even in fiction. Some films tried, but it was nervously frowned upon. And, certainly, a series as poorly-written as (most of) DYNASTY, and produced by pimps, was not going rise to the occasion.

So they did nothing. No political issue could be debated. At all. Only what bitches and bastards the two were. For an entire year.

DYNASTY was largely an 'all-dressed-up-and-no-place-to-go' type of program already, but the Season 8 gubernatorial campaign plot, with so much potential, lasting the entire season with absolutely no details whatsoever, was the ne plus ultra of the fervent pointlessness that was The Carrington Saga.

Much ado about nothing -- I'm afraid that was DYNASTY in a decaying Pignolia nutshell..




Almost anything!

(Flashback: In Fallon's rape storyline, it was all in her imagination! Which was painful and ridiculous during a time when women were beginning to get traction on safety and assault issues. They wouldn't mention race in Dominique's storyline even though that was the obvious reason why the other cast members rejected her, doubted her, didn't like or feel safe with her, or were threatened by her mere presence in any given space.)

Given that the show's previous "attempts" (in profoundly inverted commas) to deal with controversial topics like rape (Krystle, Fallon) and racism + mixed race parentage (Dominique), where they bungled each in ways that were patently ridiculous back then, it wasn't surprising AT ALL that they had two central characters opposing each other in a political race without identifying a single substantive issue where Blake and Alexis differed.

Instead they debated The Environment! Women and Stuff! They wouldn't even identify a fictional party either belonged to. I was amazed at the time that they couldn't invent a fictional political party for each, the way they would routinely invent African or Latin American country names.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

(Flashback: In Fallon's rape storyline, it was all in her imagination! Which was painful and ridiculous during a time when women were beginning to get traction on safety and assault issues. They wouldn't mention race in Dominique's storyline even though that was the obvious reason why the other cast members rejected her, doubted her, didn't like or feel safe with her, or were threatened by her mere presence in any given space.)

Given that the show's previous "attempts" (in profoundly inverted commas) to deal with controversial topics like rape (Krystle, Fallon) and racism + mixed race parentage (Dominique), where they bungled each in ways that were patently ridiculous back then, it wasn't surprising AT ALL that they had two central characters opposing each other in a political race without identifying a single substantive issue where Blake and Alexis differed.

Instead they debated The Environment! Women and Stuff! They wouldn't even identify a fictional party either belonged to. I was amazed at the time that they couldn't invent a fictional political party for each, the way they would routinely invent African or Latin American country names.

In "defense" of DYNASTY -- which I'm well-known for -- Diahann Carroll requested that writers not mention Dominique's race, and simply script her the same way they would a successful white male. (I understand her reasoning in that, but then Blake's reluctance to "accept" her as his sister went unexplained -- especially since she didn't appear to be Eskimo).

Obviously, the handling of Fallon2's rape was dumb... But, actually, I like the way they handled Krystle's rape by Blake -- because that's exactly how she would handle it.

I've heard from my Bat-phone they wanted to bring back Charlton Heston to be the third party candidate in the gubernatorial race, but the show could no longer afford him; that might have been good, Jason's return, but it wasn't going to happen... I might've liked Season 8 to have come right out and said that they were all running for the Republican nomination, and have Jeff (in the first episode of Season 9) tell Blake that "it looks like Romer is a shoo-in for reelection" (Romer* being the real life Democratic governor of Colorado who was indeed reelected that November, only a few days prior to that episode's airing... but that's just a little unnecessary detail I'd want).

I accepted Zimtumbe because it's "so far away" but the sponsors of the assassination attempt on Alexis' in her Jackie O suit should have been something more shadowy than simply nutty Sean (even if they made him the gunman). I've fantasized that Blake's ex-fiancée, the one Alexis shoved out of the way when they were teenagers and is now a Washington power-broker and Georgetown matron, arrives in Colorado to help Blake in his campaign in order to stop Alexis, but is killed in the shooting before we learn she set up the assassination attempt herself in order to kill Alexis and herself, that fiancée terminally ill... Who would we cast?? ... But that's just me).

And after one of Alexis' paid paparazzo snaps some shots of Krystle in an innocent-but-looks-compromising situation with some dude (Alexis' campaign manager? Jason Colby, if they could get Heston?) in the estate garden, Krystle pulls out of her husband's campaign and returns to Ohio where she starts clairvoyantly healing her old family members thanks to that A-V malformation.

I swear I'd do it.

And I'm sure I've never mentioned any of this before.


"Oh, no! Now I'm psychic, too..!"

*EDIT: got the governor's name wrong.