Week-by-week continuity issues with Dynasty

[PhD.in.Dynasty]

I have been recently re-watching Dynasty and the Colbys in the original running order and started to notice some issues concerning the week-to-week continuity between the two shows.

Initially, there was a seamless back and forth between the two shows. E.g. Blake travels to L.A. to see Randall/Fallon in the Colbys, and in the next episode of Dynasty, he is back in Denver, telling Alexis about it. However, pretty soon, there are some problems. Example in point: In the fifth episode of the Colbys ("Shadow of the past", aired on 12 December 1985), Adam travels to L.A. to check out Zach Powers. He also visits the Colby mansion, where he runs into Fallon, who just "remembered" that Adam had raped her on the eve of her wedding to Jeff, back in season 4 of Dynasty. (I believe the quack doctor on the Colbys gave her too much truth serum... lol). The episode ends with this pivotal moment. On the next episode of Dynasty ("The Roadhouse", aired on 18 December 1985), Adam is back in Denver, trying to bribe Bart Fallmont as regards the Colby-Carrington pipeline. No mention is made of what happened on the Colbys the previous week. The next episode of the Colbys ("A House Divided", aired on 19 December 1985), continues where it left off, with Adam in the Colby mansion and him and Jeff later trashing the furniture in the living room. On the next episode of Dynasty ("The Solution", aired on 25 December 1985), again, no mention is made of what happened on the Colbys the previous week.

Now, wouldn't that have been confusing to the original viewers or did people not pay attention? I thought the whole idea had been to create two hours of Dynasty each week, with overlapping storylines -- some sort of a Dynasty universe. The Colbys was originally called Dynasty II (although by episode 5, this title was gone). If this was the case, then these inconsistencies do not make much sense. I understand that the producers faced some problems, including the refusal by Joan Collins to appear on the Colbys. But this doesn't explain what surely cannot have been an oversight. To what extent were the show runners collaborating to keep these stories straight? Did they only work together on creating the broader story outlines, so that they would be consistent on both shows, but did not ensure that week-to-week continuity was there? Or -- even more problematic -- was it assumed that the shows operated on slightly different timelines? I suppose, there were few cross-overs between the shows in future episodes -- was there anything similar to what I described above?

Curious about people's thoughts.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I’m wondering did something get knocked out of sync from episode 3 onwards? If you look at this thread below, you’ll see the sequence that episodes were originally aired in.

Dynasty and The Colbys running order

Before the system crash someone posted a list of all the episodes in broadcast order ie. Which episodes of TC followed episodes of D. Anyone able to republish the list?

www.tellytalk.net

They aired two episodes of The Colbys in its second week on air versus one episode of Dynasty. I’m wondering if they’d originally planned to air one each a week when production was happening but then this schedule change meant the timeline got knocked off slightly? It doesn’t explain stuff not being mentioned from one show to another but it may explain why Adam was in California then Denver then back in California as if he’d never left.

 

[GillesDenver]

It soon became a nightmare for the writers to synchronize both shows so they stopped if ater a few months.

For instance, the first episode of "the Colbys" was postponed quite lately, forcing the writers of "Dynasty" to write an entire episode that occured in the middle of the night (from 02:00 to 06:00 AM !) after "The Titans" and before the premiere of "The Colbys" !

Another instance is that Blake's poisoning had to be postponed as well as Blake needed to be able to travel to L.A. to see Fallon once she regained her memory. That unnecessarily dragged Rita's storyline which was already too long.

 

[tommie]

I’m wondering did something get knocked out of sync from episode 3 onwards? If you look at this thread below, you’ll see the sequence that episodes were originally aired in.

Dynasty and The Colbys running order

Before the system crash someone posted a list of all the episodes in broadcast order ie. Which episodes of TC followed episodes of D. Anyone able to republish the list?

www.tellytalk.net

They aired two episodes of The Colbys in its second week on air versus one episode of Dynasty. I’m wondering if they’d originally planned to air one each a week when production was happening but then this schedule change meant the timeline got knocked off slightly? It doesn’t explain stuff not being mentioned from one show to another but it may explain why Adam was in California then Denver then back in California as if he’d never left.

They actually aired the second Colbys episode at 9PM on Wednesday due to being pre-empted for a Ronald Reagan speech; so I think they aired them in order they intended (Dynasty was pushed to 10PM). I think the simple answer is what @GillesDenver said - they just gave up on trying to sync the shows eventually, probably just out of laziness.

 

[GillesDenver]

I don't think it was laziness, the staff came to the conclusion that it was detrimental to the writing process to keep synchronizing both shows. Diana Gould (main writer and producer of season 6) talked about that here :

Do you think it was difficult to mix the Dynasty's storylines with the introduction of its spin-off The Colbys at the begining of the season?

Yes, that was extremely difficult. We had to write storylines on Dynasty which would segue into storylines on The Colbys, and the two shows needed to be kept in synch. We always needed to be mindful of how a scene or storyline would play out on The Colbys as well. This became difficult at times. It had been hoped that the success of Dynasty would wash over onto The Colbys, but that did not happen.

In "the Alarm", there was a scene showing Adam finding Philip Colby's letter for Jeff. It was purposely deleted and remplaced by a scene with Caress and a bartender : https://carringtondynasty.fandom.com/wiki/The_Alarm_(1986)#Production_details
I guess it was around this time (November 1985) that the staff wanted to reduce the cross-overs and references between both shows.

 

[PhD.in.Dynasty]

Thank you all - these are all interesting points; and the Marchetta interview does shed some light on it.

I do understand that it may have been difficult to "synchronize" the two shows; but then it's also astonishing that the producers would not have been able to anticipate this difficulty when spinning off the Colbys, or else would have limited the connections between the shows a, for instance by confining the link to Fallon and Jeff, with them possibly crossing-over to Dynasty and maybe Blake going to the Colbys but keeping the rest of the cast out of it and getting rid of all the other connections (Dominique-Garrett; Dominique-Monica; Alexis-Zach etc).

I actually do like spin-offs (if they are well-done) but there is always a risk that they alienate viewers who feel they have to watch two shows to understand what is going on, or who -- like me -- get annoyed when the crossover continuity doesn't work out. I think Dallas and Knots Landing did a good of keeping the shows reasonably apart (with the exception of Lucy's total absence in Knots Landing) and for providing some continuity between the shows without requiring viewers to see them both to follow the plot. Are there other shows that had spin-offs with frequent crossovers and plot lines? I am thinking of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, but I don't seem to remember that there was much of a link after the initial set-up.

Would you think the Colbys would have worked better if it had been tied more closely into Dynasty or should they have pretty much left them going without the pipeline plot and the other links that would pop up from time to time? Again, my understanding is that the Shapiros and others initially wanted a very close connection in order to serve up a second hour of Dynasty, rather than create something completely new. Dallas and Knots Landing are worlds apart in set-up, tone and execution; the Colbys does look very similar to Dynasty in all three aspects (maybe with better execution).

 

[tommie]

I actually do like spin-offs (if they are well-done) but there is always a risk that they alienate viewers who feel they have to watch two shows to understand what is going on, or who -- like me -- get annoyed when the crossover continuity doesn't work out. I think Dallas and Knots Landing did a good of keeping the shows reasonably apart (with the exception of Lucy's total absence in Knots Landing) and for providing some continuity between the shows without requiring viewers to see them both to follow the plot. Are there other shows that had spin-offs with frequent crossovers and plot lines?

Watching both Dallas and Knots at the moment it's obvious they often had to make up excuses at to why Gary / Val wouldn't fly to Dallas when something happened, or the Ewings wouldn't go to California; ie Lucy's kidnapped, but let's not contact Gary (and effectively Val, her mother). Gary's arrested for murder, but let's solve it by having Abby make a phone call and tell Ellie that it's all just the press blowing it out of proportion.

As for show with frequent crossovers, I think it's become much more common these days especially with linear television dying, so it's a good way to get viewers to watch a full block; ie Dick Wolf's Chicago Fire / MD / PD have crossovers frequently, same with the Law & Orders and FBIs. I actually had stopped watching Arrow because they would crossover with other shows and I wasn't going to start watching The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Batwoman etc to keep up. Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy seem to have mini-crossovers quite frequently, probably more in the vein of what Knots and Dallas did in the early years.

Of course, there's been shows like Melrose Place that only had 90210 characters cross over for a few episodes to launch it and then they went back to existing in their own respective universes, even re-using actors that had played other parts on the other show.

 

[PhD.in.Dynasty]

Of course, there's been shows like Melrose Place that only had 90210 characters cross over for a few episodes to launch it and then they went back to existing in their own respective universes, even re-using actors that had played other parts on the other show.

Yeah, this may generally be the better approach. I do note that Dynasty and the Colbys had the same actors playing different roles, such as Kevin McCarthy (Billy Waite on Dynasty and Lucas Carter on the Colbys). Similar things happened on Knots Landing and Dallas (e.g. Priscilla Pointer playing a character on Knots Landing before later transforming into Rebecca Wentworth on Dallas).

I am still curious about the discussions at the time among the Dynasty/Colbys producers. Did they just accept defeat of their original concept?

 

[Willie Oleson]

again, no mention is made of what happened on the Colbys

To me, Adam in THE COLBYS is the same as Kristin in KNOTS LANDING. I don't see why it should affect the original series.

 

[PhD.in.Dynasty]

To me, Adam in THE COLBYS is the same as Kristin in KNOTS LANDING. I don't see why it should affect the original series.

Hah! I guess, I’m a purist… I would also say that there is a difference as there was no cross-over plot for Kristen - she simply showed up in Knots Landing and it was not really explained what happened in Dallas. When she reappeared in Dallas, they did not talk about what happened in Knots Landing. Adam on the other hand was part of two plots that connected both shows - the alleged rape that happened on Dynasty and which supposedly explained Fallon’s disappearance and subsequent resurrection on the Colbys, and the whole pipeline business with Blake, Jason and Zach.

Not that it really matters but the inconsistencies do annoy me a bit!

 

[Matthew Blaisdel]

Adam on the other hand was part of two plots that connected both shows - the alleged rape that happened on Dynasty and which supposedly explained Fallon’s disappearance and subsequent resurrection on the Colbys, and the whole pipeline business with Blake, Jason and Zach.

Not to forget that he was the one who found Philips letter, without which might never have come out that Jason was Jeffs father!
So actually his involvement had quite a heavy impact on how some very important things turned out on the Colbys, more than any other crossover character ever had.

 

[Gabriel Maxwell]

They actually aired the second Colbys episode at 9PM on Wednesday due to being pre-empted for a Ronald Reagan speech; so I think they aired them in order they intended (Dynasty was pushed to 10PM).

Keep in mind, this was Thanksgiving eve. When the 3rd episode finally premiered in The Colbys’ regular timeslot Thursday at 9pm the following night (Nov.28), it was Thanksgiving. Perhaps not the best night for timeslot premiere (though the episode does fittingly open with the Colbys’ thanksgiving dinner).

Rumor has it, Charlton Heston unsuccessfully tried to get his old buddy Ronald Reagan to delay his speech on Thursday Nov.21 because of The Colbys originally scheduled timeslot premiere, lol.

 

[tommie]

Keep in mind, this was Thanksgiving eve. When the 3rd episode finally premiered in The Colbys’ regular timeslot Thursday at 9pm the following night (Nov.28), it was Thanksgiving. Perhaps not the best night for timeslot premiere (though the episode does fittingly open with the Colbys’ thanksgiving dinner).

Well, it was always meant to air November 28th - hence why they had to fit in the second episode before then. It doesn't quite make sense to me why you'd air the second episode on Thanksgiving, but then again, both CBS aired a new Magnum episode and NBC aired new Cheers and Night Court episodes, so it wasn't like it was the only original programming that night.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I just wish they'd taken their time spinning it off, with the Colbys visiting in Denver for weeks on end, possibly renting Cecil's Nine Oaks estate from Alexis for that time, with Huson & Bass basically running the Colbys' storylines, their scenes intertwining with those of the Carringtons.

That way, the parent series could benefit from the presence of the Californians, Rita would have received less screen time, Alexis' attempts to help Galen reclaim the throne would have received less screen time (although two or three episodes of Queen Alexis would have occurred mid-season), and once THE COLBYS does indeed spin-off, three fifths of the way through the '85/86 year, the audience would have more reason to follow them.

 

[Gabriel Maxwell]

Well, it was always meant to air November 28th - hence why they had to fit in the second episode before then. It doesn't quite make sense to me why you'd air the second episode on Thanksgiving, but then again, both CBS aired a new Magnum episode and NBC aired new Cheers and Night Court episodes, so it wasn't like it was the only original programming that night.

Yes, of course. They also aired an all-new Dynasty that season on Christmas Day and the following season on New Year’s Eve (unimaginable today). That’s just how they used to air these soaps with 30 or so episodes per season in the 80s (and pretty much all classic shows in the early days of TV). They didn’t seem to care about potentially lower ratings around holidays. It just seems somewhat unfortunate for the show to have its timeslot premiere on Thanksgiving (though they originally planned it for the Thursday 1 week before Thanksgiving).

 

[Gabriel Maxwell]

And the plot thickens, lol. I did a quick search this morning and it turns out the same conservatives who started Reagan off in the political circles wanted Heston to run for Senate in California hoping to emulate that success once again.

But Heston disappointed them by choosing The Colbys instead. Perhaps that's another reason Reagan wasn't bending over backwards to delay his speech over Heston's soap (on top of a summit with Soviet President Gorbachev seemingly being more important, lol).

I guess Esther Shapiro who traveled to London in June 1985 to sign Heston up was persuasive by appealing to Heston's pompous personality when she told him she had "I, Claudius" in mind when she and her husband originally created Dynasty. Apparently she scored George Hamilton on the same trip.

And poor, poor Esther, lol. She says she almost had a cardiac arrest when she was told of the plans of the White House to delay her new show timeslot premiere.