When did FC slip, in quality?

[Willie Oleson]

Season 4 was the first season with some bad casting & character choices, and I wasn't a fan of the nazi treasure storyline because the best part of that nazi stuff had already happened in season 2.
But it was also the last great-looking season of Falcon Crest (same on Dynasty, of course).
Season 5 is not bad, but a little forgettable (as it happened in Dynasty, of course).
I love impostors but the reason for Skylar Kimball's impostory wasn't very interesting and had nothing to do with The Valley. In some way it kinda looks like the Moldavians coming to America.
We also got the first samples of the self-aware sitcom vibe therefore my vote goes to the second half of season 6.

 

[Willie Oleson]

For anyone interested, there is a similar poll on this topic with a pretty clear frontrunner: https://www.tellytalk.net/threads/biggest-drop-in-quality.14987/

Ah! I voted for season 4 in that thread. All for good, intellectual reasons, of course.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

Pilar was easy on the eyes, but then so was Melissa. In Pilar's case, though, that's about all she had going for her. I don't mean as a person, but as a character, how interesting was she? Why were we supposed to care?? I adapted to her, got used to her, but what choice did I really have? At least she was more realistic than Lauren, and I actually enjoy season 9, but the new producers/writers should have been more respectful to the continuity, and the history of the show.

It's almost, but not quite as bad as Cidre's spin on Dallas, but at least the remaining regular's on Falcon Crest still acted like themselves, or at least as they had in more recent years, and Michael Sharpe was very well written.

I concur with @Snarky Oracle! Fix the writing for Melissa..she had been on the show since the first year. There's no reason that they should have let her go. It would have been more interesting, as others have said, to see Melissa and Angela have an all out battle over Falcon Crest..rather than Nick Agretti, his son, and the long lost Italian mom.. Again, I'm not invested in these people, and they just weren't very interesting. Now, Frank I liked, and can see where bringing in some character's to revolve around him wasn't a bad idea(especially since they killed off his only other known relative at the time) but then Rod Taylor(Frank) ups and goes mining for half the season while Nick and Ben were there. What a way to make up for that lost father/son time. LOL

Didn't Lorimar/CBS also have to pay Ana-Alicia extra to come back somehow, even though she was already contracted? I don't fully understand how that worked, but more power to her.

 

[CeeCee72]

Pilar was easy on the eyes, but then so was Melissa. In Pilar's case, though, that's about all she had going for her. I don't mean as a person, but as a character, how interesting was she? Why were we supposed to care?? I adapted to her, got used to her, but what choice did I really have? At least she was more realistic than Lauren, and I actually enjoy season 9, but the new producers/writers should have been more respectful to the continuity, and the history of the show.

It's almost, but not quite as bad as Cidre's spin on Dallas, but at least the remaining regular's on Falcon Crest still acted like themselves, or at least as they had in more recent years, and Michael Sharpe was very well written.

I concur with @Snarky Oracle! Fix the writing for Melissa..she had been on the show since the first year. There's no reason that they should have let her go. It would have been more interesting, as others have said, to see Melissa and Angela have an all out battle over Falcon Crest..rather than Nick Agretti, his son, and the long lost Italian mom.. Again, I'm not invested in these people, and they just weren't very interesting. Now, Frank I liked, and can see where bringing in some character's to revolve around him wasn't a bad idea(especially since they killed off his only other known relative at the time) but then Rod Taylor(Frank) ups and goes mining for half the season while Nick and Ben were there. What a way to make up for that lost father/son time. LOL

Didn't Lorimar/CBS also have to pay Ana-Alicia extra to come back somehow, even though she was already contracted? I don't fully understand how that worked, but more power to her.

Pilar was a dollar store Melissa.

I think since she was under contract, they were going to have to pay her whether she returned or not, but don't believe she got extra for coming back.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

You also have to figure..we had just lost Chase. Cole was off sailing..We were going to lose Maggie, but I doubt that was known of at the time, but getting rid of yet another, centrally rooted character like Melissa was a bad move.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

Ana was let go under the orders of Michael Filerman. He was involved with the show from the very beginning but then took very much a back seat, in the latter part of season 1. He returned for the 8th season with creative control; making the decision to introduce a new family the Ortegas, in an attempt to bring a more earthy feel after the 'everything and the kitchen sink' season 7 (which was very entertaining).

One of the Ortega characters was Pilar and she was around a similar age to Melissa, just as good looking dare I say it maybe even better but not as feisty or shrewd. So Melissa's fate was sealed but like Sheree J. Wilson in twilight DALLAS Ana was contracted to the end of the season. Michael just didn't know what more he could do with Melissa and Ana was vocal about this, in a diplomatic way. In addition to receiving all her bucks Ana got extra on top for five episodes, portraying doppelgänger Samantha Ross. This was an attempt by Michael Filerman to all but admit he had made a mistake and to throw a life jacket, to a now ailing show.

Samantha Ross (played by core cast member Ana Alicia) is on the phone, in the FC living room to someone in Chicago. Angela wants her to testify for the prosecution in the case against Richard. Pilar goes to the living room, just as Samantha finishes her conversation, (a scene from season 8, 1988-'89):

Pilar: "So what kind of work do you do Samantha?"

Samantha: "I'm a photographer."

Pilar: "Oh! You met Richard on the job."

Samantha: "Why are you so interested?"

Pilar: "I'm just curious. Now what kind of woman would've agreed to do what Richard asked?"

Samantha: "The kind of woman who is very interested in money and something tells me you just might understand that."

Pilar raises her infamous eyebrow. This happens when she is annoyed.

Angela joins them: "Oh you see Pilar understands a great deal about money."

I knew I remembered seeing this info somewhere. So, it sounds like they did have to pay her in addition to what she already would have made.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

"Michael just didn't know what more he could do with Melissa"...SMH

It seems like I recall reading once that he also wasn't a fan of Linda Gray in the beginning. I might be incorrect on this, but.. If this is the case, he definitely was better staying behind the scenes.

 

[Toni]

Ana Alicia explains here that she was paid twice in her last season.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Ana Alicia explains here that she was paid twice in her last season.

She's watching her words very carefully.

And she was on the show before David Selby!

 

[TJP]

Since Ana Alicia's original contract was for the character of Melissa, the new guest rôle as Samantha had to be paid separately, of course. SAG rules and industry standard. Not unusual at all.

The fact that she had to be paid for her Melissa contract for the remainder of season 8 was due to the usual "pay or play" clause, which is a misleading technical term though. The clause basically means that it's completely at the studio's discretion whether the player is used in every episode or not, but that — regardless of their decision — the studio is obligated to pay for every episode until the talent's contract is up. Also SAG and industry standard.

 

[TJP]

For me, it’s season 6, when that hack Jeff Frielich took over. Synthesized music, the awful acting from Kim Novak, terrible Vicki recast, Chase becoming even more of an asshole, the daytime soap-ish retcon of Richard’s birth. Ugh. I agree season 5 was drab and they needed a change (who told Babylonia she could sing?) but he was the wrong person to run the show.

Richard being Angela's son was not a typical retcon at all. Jeff only utilized Earl's original idea. Earl had played around with that idea from the earliest moment on in the original bible of "The Vintage Years", even before he redeveloped other character features in the course of the transition from Michael Swan to David Selby.

 

[Bobby Southworth]

I watched "The Vintage Years" a long time ago..I can't remember for sure if it was YouTube?? It was either YT, or possibly a site related to Falcon Crest. I remember now that Richard was, in fact, already a character in this pilot. Unfortunately, it's been so long now, that I don't really remember too much else about it, except wasn't there an episode of season 1 that was almost identical to the plot?

Someone might have already mentioned the season 1 episode that was essentially a rewrite of "The Vintage Years". @Snarky Oracle! I'm thinking it was you.

In my memory of viewing Falcon Crest as a kid, having Richard being revealed as Angela's son never bothered me, but in binge watching years later, I still liked the concept, but felt it just didn't make all that much sense that Douglas would do that to Angela all those years ago. So, I liked him being her son, but the explanation was just a little hard to believe.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I watched "The Vintage Years" a long time ago..I can't remember for sure if it was YouTube?? It was either YT, or possibly a site related to Falcon Crest. I remember now that Richard was, in fact, already a character in this pilot. Unfortunately, it's been so long now, that I don't really remember too much else about it, except wasn't there an episode of season 1 that was almost identical to the plot?

Someone might have already mentioned the season 1 episode that was essentially a rewrite of "The Vintage Years". @Snarky Oracle! I'm thinking it was you.

In my memory of viewing Falcon Crest as a kid, having Richard being revealed as Angela's son never bothered me, but in binge watching years later, I still liked the concept, but felt it just didn't make all that much sense that Douglas would do that to Angela all those years ago. So, I liked him being her son, but the explanation was just a little hard to believe.

Yes, the two-hour unaired pilot from Hamner was a mess, so Michael Filerman wisely hired Bob McCullough to re-write it. McCullough restructured it so that the Giobertis were still in their New York brownstone and then make the brave and exciting trek to the California wine country with considerable trepidation. (In THE VINTAGE YEARS, a different Chase & Maggie are already there in Tuscany Valley and Angela was already having Lance bomb one of the outbuildings). So McCullough took the ideas from Hamner's original pilot and stretched them across the entire first season -- thus preventing the muddled-burnout dynamic promised and replaced it with coherent pacing and character-based motives other than the we're-fully-at-war narrative Hamner was offering up on Day One.

Although I love the original version of Lance & Cole's "you dumb preppy" scene filmed near the actual Villa Miravalle staircase in the VINTAGE pilot as directed by Alexander Singer, dark and creepy, as opposed to the blander, flat-lighted re-shoot later done on the studio set.

And, yep, the problem with the Richard-is-Angela's-son switcheroo as Season 6 and 7 collided was not that they did it, but that no logical motive was provided once they did ---- I mean, talk about lazy! (Is this Moldavia??). Clearly, if Douglas would maintain a fond, three decade-long divorce relationship with Angela up until his death in 1982, he must have been duped by wicked, wicked Jacqueline after Richard was born in order to trick Douglas into helping her abscond with the baby.

I argue that Jacqueline must have manipulated Douglas into believing that the baby wasn't his, the obvious explanation being that Angela had had an affair that never happened (with whom? I'd guess Carlo Agretti, but who knows?). And once Douglas realized the ruse, he felt correctly guilty and helps Richard's career from the shadows. And Jacqueline, once exposed -- as a lyah!! -- assists in the grooming of her son he never was.

Hence, her obvious preference for Chase.