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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 174308" data-attributes="member: 22">01 Nov 90: KNOTS LANDING: You Can Call Me Nick v. 02 Nov 90: DALLAS: April in Paris Having ended a week earlier than KNOTS last season, DALLAS now returns a full six weeks after its sister show. This means, in the time that it has taken JR to be dragged out of the visitors room at the sanatarium and put into solitary confinement, Paige has been jilted by Tom, agreed to go on a cruise with Greg after finding out he’s dying, changed her mind after learning that he was the one who framed Tom, and moved in with Tom while under the assumption that Greg and her mother are sleeping together. Meanwhile, Karen has been attacked by Jeff Cameron, Gary by Danny Waleska, and Danny, Pat Williams and Wayne the Security Guard have all died. Not forgetting the arrivals of Greg’s scheming sister Claudia and her tennis-playing daughter Kate (who also happens to be Mary Frances’s doppelgänger).Another new face appears at the start of this week’s KNOTS. Last week, Anne received a ransom demand regarding some incriminating photos of her with an ex-lover, a high profile Italian known as Marco. Marco now sends his emissary (“You can call me Nick”) to investigate the situation — including the possibility that Anne herself is behind the blackmail scheme. Nick proceeds to set up camp in Anne’s (formerly Paige’s) apartment and keep tabs on her every move. This infuriates Anne, just as she infuriated Paige when she was the uninvited lodger.Nick is far funnier and more charming than Soap Land’s typical European guest characters. Less sleazy than Naldo Marchetta or Peter de Vilbis, not as sinister than all those shadowy FALCON CREST assassins, he’s more of an Italian Cary Grant. Speaking of whom, the Actor Formerly Known as Archibald Leach has now officially replaced Joan Crawford and Pee Wee Herman as Soap Land’s most referenced cultural figure. In the FALCON CREST finale, Richard rented three Cary Grant movies in an attempt to win round Lauren; during the recent episode of KNOTS where he attempted to drive Gary off a cliff, Danny described a murder scene from North by Northwest that involved Grant and Eva Marie Saint; and when honeymooners Bobby and April touchdown in France on this week’s DALLAS, they immediately make clunky reference to the Paris-based thriller Charade, also starring Grant. “I’ve seen this in so many movies, I can’t believe I’m really here!” trills April. “You wait till we get into Paris,” Bobby replies. “You’re gonna think that Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant are gonna come around every corner!” “I think he was the greatest looking man that ever lived,” April says dreamily. “With the possible exception of your husband, of course!” joshes Bobby. “I was just gonna say that!” she assures him.Whilst waiting for his role in DALLAS’s sanatarium storyline to resume, Sumner Group Bob has been keeping busy as part of the corporate Greek chorus on KNOTS. Alongside Mort, Michael and Linda, he has been speculating about the state of Greg’s health, his love life and, this week, Paige’s latest contract negotiation. We even learn what she makes — a hundred fifty grand! “Are you kidding?!” gasps Michael. Back on DALLAS, Bob’s sanatarium gang take a similarly inappropriate interest in a legal document — the West Star voting rights JR went to extraordinary lengths to get Jessica to sign. To mark JR’s release from solitary, they cut the document up and turn it into a “welcome back” banner. It’s painful to watch.(Anne Matheson has also caught the cutting-up-bits-of-paper bug. Inspired by the original blackmail letter she received, she has begun sending herself further demands using the traditional method of letters cut and pasted from magazines. Nick’s presence in her apartment leads to a rare Soap Land toilet scene where we see Anne frantically attempting to flush away the incriminating magazine pages, even going so far as to utilise a plunger to make sure they disappear down the pan.)Whether he’s at the Sumner Group or in the DALLAS sanatarium, Bob remains one of life’s butt kissers. “You closed the timber deal, that’s wonderful, I can’t imagine who else could have closed it that quickly!” he tells Paige fawningly. “I never saw anybody that could play as good as you!” he tells JR adoringly over a game of cards. “That was enough sucking up for a lifetime,” concludes Mort.Paige is a really fascinating character at this point, a wonderful mass of contradictions. While she has undoubtedly used her relationship with Greg to further her career, she has also proven herself remarkably adept at business (in spite of a total absence of relevant qualifications or experience). Even as she continues to show up for work in the most outrageously sexy outfits, she complains about not being taken seriously by her co-workers (“Maybe I should come to work in a jockstrap and a tank top,” heckles Mort as she strides past in yet another revealing dress). Her stance seems to be that sleeping with whomever she wants and wearing whatever she chooses should not negate her business abilities (even if those abilities could only exist in TV Land). She’s a relatable woman in a man’s world and a complete fantasy both at the same time — it’s an intoxicating combination. All of her scenes this week — whether with Tom, her mother or the Sumner Group chorus — are rich and interesting, but the best of the bunch is this confrontation with Greg: “I don’t understand you,” she tells him matter-of-factly. “I don’t understand why you said you loved me and then you married Abby. I don’t understand why you destroyed my wedding. I don’t understand why you flirt with my mother right in front of me. I mean, how can you do that? How can you say you love me and then treat me like dirt?” Greg pauses before replying. “Would you like to marry me?” he enquires. “You’re perverted,” she concludes. “You don’t know what you want,” he tells her as she leaves his office. And she probably doesn’t, but again that doesn’t nullify her intelligence or reduce her to the status of a mere ditsy blonde.While JR languishes in a mental hospital, both of his brothers start out the week in a state of great happiness. Gary and Val are set to re-re-marry, with nothing — not a deranged ex-lover or a violent ex-husband — standing in their way. Having already married his beloved April at the end of last season, Bobby is a couple of steps ahead of Gary. Indeed, the newlyweds are now enjoying an idyllic honeymoon in actual real-life Paris. (Southfork might be made of cardboard these days, but the Paris we see on screen is genuinely French.)As Gary and Val bid farewell to one friend, Val’s Aunty Ginny who’s off on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Bobby and April make a new one, a lonely widow named Sheila Foley, who’s visiting Paris as a way to honour her late husband. While Ginny makes a parting a gift of his-and-hers crystals to the engaged couple (“They’ll give you positive energy and they’ll keep away the evil spirits … We all need to look toward the light”), Sheila offers the newlyweds some advice: “Don’t ever put off your plans till tomorrow. Remember how you feel right now. Don’t ever let anything get in the way of that.”Whereas Bobby and April’s happiness mostly manifests itself in them laughing at each other’s weak jokes (see the Cary Grant exchange above), Gary is in a more reflective mood. “I always pictured myself having a working ranch, raising a family, making toys for my children,” he tells Val. “Even when I was a little bitty kid, I imagined myself sitting at the fireplace, a couple of dogs by my side and children playing around me, and my wife … Thirty years later, here I am.”Experience tells us that no Soap Land character has a right to be this happy. Are Gary and Val, and Bobby and April, flying too close to the sun, as Fallon and Jeff did before these mysterious headaches took hold at the end of DYNASTY Season 4? Or Bobby and Pam before Katherine started driving towards them at the end of DALLAS Season 7? Or Bobby and Pam again before that tanker appeared out of nowhere two years later? There is something faintly ominous (while also very appealing) about the “Val & Gary’s Greatest Hits” montage, set to the Platters rendition of ‘Only You’, that plays out towards the end of this week’s KNOTS and then again over the end credits. An equivalent sense of disquiet can be felt while watching the Parisian scenes on DALLAS with the benefit of hindsight. Previous innocent-seeming moments — Sheila, rather than April, being at Bobby’s side when he checks into their hotel, her throwaway compliment about “what a wonderful husband you’re going to make”, the chance encounters with Jordan Lee — take on a more sinister significance in retrospect.Joining Ginny on her way out of KNOTS is, alas, OPEN MIKE producer Dianne Kirkwood. “I have just been offered the top spot on the New York affiliate and I can’t wait to get my bags packed,” she informs Karen before calling her a saboteur and an ego-maniac for good measure. In some ways, DALLAS’s Sheila is a timely replacement for Dianne — both are glamorous middle-aged women whose belief in big hair and power-dressing are a nice reminder of Soap Land’s ‘80s heyday, and both are played, with relish, by daytime soap veterans.For Gary and Bobby, the bubble bursts at the end of their respective episodes. “Something happened to Mom,” Bobby Jr tells a worried Gary after Val fails to return from a picnic on the ranch. “She’s fine — I’m just taking her place for a few days and as long as you do exactly as you’re told, she’ll stay fine — but one wrong move and she’s dead,” Sheila tells a bewildered Bobby after April fails to return from a shopping excursion. Ooh, la la!And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (-) DALLAS</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?