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What if Knots Landing also retconned Bobby’s death?
What Ifs That Would Change Knots
- Thread starter Ray_Krebbs
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That's like asking "What if Plato had decided to drink hemlock alongside Socrates?"
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What if Laura lived and met the Williams family?
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That would have made the Williamses less orthopedic and forced as they were, but only in a short run. Every family needs to be defined since their arrival (even with a mystery), but they would have been part of that stupid WPP all the same. Their "transition" into a new normal was even stupider, so they just became a sort of "recurring family" in the cul-de-sac. To this date, I still don´t know how they got away from the baddies or if they could keep contact with their "real" family or what. I do remember that Pat did declare at the court and was attacked for it. Yes, Miss Piggy also tells me that on a frequent basis...
She who thinks she´s perfect.
If you knew about her surgeries...
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A few scenes and events change. Val's son with Gary probably has a different name. Nothing like Dallas though where storylines were redone and went in different directions or had different endings.
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Mack got their dental records altered and id'd them with people killed in a car crash (she and her daughter) and faked Pat and Frank's divorce. Since he wasn't a witness, no one was looking for him. Why they still couldn't contact family - in case the baddies were still watching for them to attempt to make contact, might put extended family in danger.
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Yes, the writers did put forth some extra effort to allow the Sollars/Williamses to quit looking over their shoulders. Then they went and shot the legs out from under the whole effort by saying that Julie's extended absence was because she "went back east to visit relatives," then added to this by saying Frank had permanently moved back "to be closer to Julie".
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Yep...TV writers are infamous for not paying attention to themselves....continuity issues...
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This is interesting.
Yes, I do think that Karen and Sid would've made it the entire fourteen-season run of the show. Even with all of the soap opera curve balls that would've been thrown at them, I really do not see them ever breaking up. Like others have said, though, Sid would've struggled to make the transition into the ritzier era of the show, and I honestly don't know if I'd like him moving very far away from his middle class roots. He may have kept Abby in check some, and hey, he may have even been able to help out better with his own children.
For the direction everyone clearly wanted the show to go, however, I think Don Murray left at the right time. He probably even saw that's where they wanted it to go, and he bowed out when he had the opportunity to do so.
For me, Gary and Val breaking up at the end of Season 3 is one of my favorite storylines. I like the Val/Gary/Abby love triangle, even if I do get bored with the constant tension between Gary and Val as the series lingered on.
But what if they had stayed together? The twins storyline might've been a little less interested, Ben wouldn't have come around, there wouldn't have been any reason for Abby to hire Cathy as a look-alike Ciji, and maybe the writers would've decided to bring Lucy in more.
As much as I like Julie Harris and her contributions to the show, I was fine with Lilimae leaving. She had, for me at least, worn out her welcome.
I do wish Laura had stayed around. Had she done so, maybe she and Greg could've actually worked out, she could've been a good mother to Meg, and she could've helped keep Abby on her toes.
I totally wish Abby had stayed for the duration of the show. Abby is one of my favorite characters on the show, and I would've liked to have seen what the writers had in store for her during the final seasons. I would've liked to have seen her inside the Sumner Group, being a good mom to Olivia, learning to like Harold, maybe ironing out her differences with Val and Karen, and not being involved in the Treadwell stuff that carried throughout the final season.
I was alright with the return of Anne and the introduction of Claudia, but I'd get rid of both of them to have Abby during those final seasons.
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Regarding Sid never dying, I don't know how that would have played out successfully. Mack was so integral to so many of the plots in a way Sid couldn't be because he was a part of law enforcement. He was a bridge to many characters' stories and his personality was so different from Sid that he brought a certain energy to the show that fit where prime time soaps and Knots was headed. I like Sid and Don Murray but KL would not have been very different. Whether that difference was good or bad is hard to say.
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Mack could have been Laura or Val's new beau after Richard and Gary, or maybe a new woman altogether. Maybe even Jill.
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Now that I could give it some thought, Mack wouldn´t have been needed with Sid, but he might have been great instead of Ben. Dobson and Van Ark clearly have a LOT of chemistry on screen. I think done well, Sid might have become a sort of older Bobby in the glamour seasons of "Knots". Actually, I doubt that Mack had to so much yelling at poor, poor Val, and all would have earned something with the change.
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I've never thought about that, but that would've been a good little connection between KNOTS LANDING and DALLAS.
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My big what-if would be this... what if the show didn't listen to Shakelford, Mills, & Van Ark and go ahead with the Gary/Abby affair at the end of season 3? For most of the 2nd half of the season, the show wisely skirted the line with Val being on guard while Gary and Abby would navigate close to the edge without going over.. what if they opted not to cross that line near the end of the season.
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If they didn´t want to bring Charlene to the show, I can´t see them accepting Audrey for anything in the world. However, it would have been nice if Afton had crossed over Knots instead of Kristin and have an affair with The Kenny. And then return to "Dallas"...
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Good point. While they had amazing chemistry, it always came across as platonic, never sexual. Now Mack and ABBY could have made some fireworks, and after they split as they most definitely would, she could have gone on to Greggie, creating even more friction between Greg and Mack...
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I wrestle with the idea of not having Val and Gary split up and Gary getting with Abby. That is one of my favorite storylines, and in my mind, it's quintessential KNOTS LANDING.
However, the thought of them not putting Gary and Abby together is intriguing.
Would Val and Gary still have split up? I'd be pressed to say that they would have, since the writers were pretty determined to cause that relationship turmoil around every single corner.
Would Gary and Abby had an ongoing on-off relationship? I could also see them having done this as well, even if they never officially married or lived together.
You've got a point here. Joan Van Ark, as I've read, was the one who wasn't too keen on Lucy (Charlene Tilton) being around, presumably because making Val the mother of a grown daughter made her appear too "old".
In saying that, I still like the thought of Afton coming over to KNOTS and stirring up her own kind of trouble. Kristin, as we know, was just brought over because the "Who Shot JR?" craze was so wildly popular at the time.