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Dallas the TV series
Dallas - The Original Series
DALLAS versus KNOTS LANDING versus the rest of them week by week
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 88720" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><u>25 Feb 87: DYNASTY: The Mothers v. 26 Feb 87: THE COLBYS: Answered Prayers v. 27 Feb 87: DALLAS: Revenge of the Nerd v. 27 Feb 87: FALCON CREST: Hat Trick</u></p><p></p><p>There are two weddings and two divorces in this week’s Soap Land. Jason Colby is an active participant in one of each. The divorce scene between him and Sable on THE COLBYS is simply a knockout. It’s also one of three recent instances of an estranged couple signing a legal document in a civilised manner that belies the more complicated feelings of heartache and bitterness underneath the surface. On last week’s FALCON CREST, Maggie thanked Chase for signing her son’s birth certificate as the father. “I didn’t expect you to,” she admits. “I was very touched.” “It seemed like the right thing to do,” he replies. However, any hopes that his gesture might lead to a reconciliation are promptly dashed when Maggie apologises for her decision not to have a paternity test performed before the baby was born. “What am I supposed to do — just accept this apology, come running back to you?” he snaps at her. Meanwhile on last week’s DALLAS, Ray and Donna both signed a property settlement in which they each renounced any financial claim on the other. So far so amicable, but when Donna reaches out to him afterwards, Ray proves to be just as resentful as Chase. “If I sound bitter about this, I’m sorry, Donna, but I just can’t help it,” he says. “Why don’t you just go back to Washington, do whatever it is that makes you happy back there? I’m fine. It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally got you out of my system.”</p><p></p><p>Chase and Maggie, Donna and Ray — for a long time, these were two of the most dependably solid couples in Soap Land. The Krebbs and Gioberti marriages provided an emotional ballast to the soapy turmoil surrounding them (the relationships of Bobby and Pam, Gary and Val, and Jeff and Fallon, for instance, which seem almost teenage in comparison). To watch these same characters now behaving towards each other with coldness and indifference — well, it’s a bit like watching your mum and dad split up.</p><p></p><p>Affecting though these scenes are, they pale in significance next to the divorce-paper-signing-scene in Jason’s office in this week’s COLBYS. It is the moment Sable has moved heaven and earth to avoid, but finally, she gives in and signs on the dotted line. She even manages a brave little joke. “I had a plan,” she admits to Jason. “You know that pen of mine that always leaks? Well, I was going sign with that and then hope a huge inkblot would invalidate everything.” The deed done, she stands to leave. She makes it as far as the doorway before turning around. “Don’t marry her, Jason,” she pleads, referring to Frankie. “Please don’t marry her … You need me.” Begging the man you’ve just divorced not to marry your sister isn’t an experience many viewers can identify with, but the feelings behind them, the pain and humiliation, are universal. The line where Sable acknowledges her loss of dignity is particularly striking. “I do know how ridiculous I’ve made myself for you,” she tells Jason. “There are smiles and whispers when I enter a room. Did you know that?” This is a rare instance of a soap character recognising how their behaviour must appear to the outside world. If DALLAS was happening in real life, for instance, Sue Ellen’s social standing would have been in tatters years ago. As stars of their own TV show, however, she and JR are regarded indulgently as “practically an institution.” Sable continues to implore Jason (“Don’t be my husband — I’ll learn to accept that — but please, I beg you, don’t be hers”), but to no avail. “I will marry her. I will be happy,” he insists, quietly but firmly.</p><p></p><p>THE COLBYS’ divorce scene ends with Sable gliding down a hallway swathed in furs, her back to the camera. She appears the image of cool and collected glamour yet we the audience know how broken and defeated she is. It’s a juxtaposition which encapsulates the series’ USP: the messiest of human emotions wrapped up in luxurious artifice and the soapiest of contrivances.</p><p></p><p>The Krebbs marriage also comes to an end this week. Their divorce takes place in a courtroom where Ray and Donna have their attorneys to speak for them — not that there’s much left to say. (“It’s all been said,” as Miss Ellie acknowledges during what amounts to a farewell lunch with Donna). In contrast to the emotional nature of Jason and Sable’s parting, there’s a numbness, almost an anti-drama about the Krebbs’ situation which feels as just real.</p><p></p><p>In spite of everything, Sable and Ray each make a last minute attempt to act selflessly. Realising that Jason really is going to marry Frankie, Sable manages to find it in herself to wish him well. “I hope that you’re happy … I won’t make it difficult for you,” she promises him. Ray, meanwhile, quietly signals his lawyer to drop any attempt to challenge Donna for custody of their unborn child.</p><p></p><p>Following their respective divorces, Ray retreats into the past by drowning his sorrows in the saloon bar where he and Donna first met while Sable looks to the future by vacationing in Morocco with new lover Zach Powers — at least, that’s the theory. In reality, her ex-husband’s wedding is Sable can think about. Meanwhile, Ray returns home from the bar to find his future, in the shape of Jenna and Charlie, waiting for him. Jenna wakes up having dozed off on the couch, but Ray tells her to go back to sleep and then sits next to her in the dark. It’s a touching little moment. Watching this season of DALLAS with hindsight, it’s hard to pinpoint precisely where Ray and Jenna’s relationship shifts from the platonic towards something more intimate, but this scene seems significant in that regard. Likewise, the confrontation between Richard and Chase on this week’s FALCON CREST seems to mark a turning point in the Chase/Maggie/Richard triangle. “What in the hell are you doing running around with some cheerleader while your wife sits home with a newborn baby?” Richard demands of his half-brother. “Maggie is one of the finest women I’ve ever known. She gets raped by a maniac and you turn your back on her … I told you this once before — you turn your back on Maggie and I may just come courting.”</p><p></p><p>As for the two weddings in this week’s Soap Land, one is a low key affair (Emma and Vince Karlotti’s on FALCON CREST) while the other, Jason and Frankie’s on THE COLBYS, is anything but. The final scene of this week’s episode takes two show-stopping Soap Land scenarios — the wedding day bombshell (e.g., Pam Ewing learning that Jenna is carrying Bobby’s child just before she walks down the aisle) and a resurrection from the dead (e.g., Pam Ewing finding Mark Graison in her back garden and then collapsing into his arms) — and combines them in one almighty cliffhanger. Midway through her wedding vows, Frankie spots Hoyt Parker in the congregation and freezes. “Oh my God … him!” she finally gasps. Jason follows her gaze and manages to identify the man as “Phil, my brother!” before Frankie, just like Pam Ewing before her, faints in his arms.</p><p></p><p>It’s a toss-up as to who looks the more amazed — Jason and Frankie upon seeing the long-dead Phillip Colby at their wedding or Peter Stavros when he spots his more recently deceased stepdaughter Skylar in a hotel lobby on FALCON CREST. Merely with the aid of a curly wig, Skylar — or rather Kit — manages to convince Peter that she’s someone called Madeleine McKittrick and makes her getaway. (Madeleine is Kit Marlowe’s third persona of the season, thus bringing her level with Wes Parmalee/Jock Ewing/Wyatt Haynes.)</p><p></p><p>At first, the story of Krystina’s heart condition on DYNASTY was about what happens when the rich and powerful are confronted with a situation over which they have no control. In spite of Krystle’s protests (“Blake, this can’t be happening … It can’t be true, I won’t accept it … She’s my baby, I won’t let them hurt her, I won’t!”), there are basic medical facts that money and prestige cannot override. “Her heart muscle is deteriorating and without a transplant, she’s not going to make it,” her doctor states. However, once the search for a transplant donor begins, it becomes a different kind of storyline. The Carringtons’ name and connections mean they can launch a nationwide appeal. (How convenient that newspaper magnate Alexis turned from bitter enemy to eager ally just in time to assist with this latest crisis!) From this point, the situation plays more like a traditional Soap Land kidnap scenario with various family members huddled tensely round a telephone, waiting for the all-important call. It also makes them vulnerable to those “real world” whack jobs against whom they would otherwise be insulated — perverts, extortionists and crazy people. Or in the case of the wonderfully creepy Adele whom Krystle encounters in a hospital corridor, a crazy person who is also an extortionist. “I can get you a heart,” she tells her eagerly. “You’ll pay me to get you a heart, won’t you?”</p><p></p><p>The “real world” people depicted on this week’s DALLAS are generally more benign. When Bobby informs John Carter, a company employee from the town of Pride, that Ewing Oil is shutting down the town’s wells for economic reasons, he greets the news with quiet defeat. “These are some times,” he sighs wearily. “Those oilfields have been the lifeblood of that town.” Things are looking similarly bleak on FALCON CREST where “twenty-six vineyards in the last month and a half” have been swallowed up, Jeremy Wendell-style, by the Tuscany Land Company. “Somebody’s trying to destroy the family vineyards in this valley,” concludes Tony Cumson.</p><p></p><p>Then there are the three seemingly nondescript people we meet in the final scene of DALLAS, working in a basement room of the FBI. With its coded entry system, whirring computers and bunker-style surroundings, there’s a bit of a sci-fi/Empire Valley vibe about the place. The people themselves, however, are reassuringly down-to-earth. There’s Agent Leo Daltery, whom we’ve seen before with JR, complaining lightly about the demands of his job and engaging in some low-level flirting with a file clerk called Henrietta, whose status as “ordinary” is emphasised by the fact that she’s played by Gary and Abby’s Hispanic housekeeper Maria from KNOTS. There’s also an anxious-looking character called Alfred who wears a bow-tie and mutters about cross-referencing and different numbered forms. He’s the kind of socially awkward tech geek that’s since become ubiquitous on TV, but this is the first time one has found his way into the glamorous world of Soap Land. His ears prick up when he hears Leo instructing Henrietta to take the evidence the FBI has on Ewing Oil’s association with BD Calhoun and “deep six it forever.” As Leo, Henrietta and all that dirt on the Ewings disappear out of shot, the camera lingers on Alfred long enough for him to get the freeze frame. It’s a unique introduction to a Soap Land character, especially one as unprepossessing as Alfred. I’ve always assumed that the title of this episode, “Revenge of the Nerd”, refers to Cliff getting one over on the Ewings, but maybe it applies to nerdy Alfred too.</p><p></p><p>There’s a tenuous but emotive theme running through this week’s Soap Land to do with parents surrendering their children. It’s there in the DALLAS courtroom when Ray gives up his custody fight and in the hospital waiting room on DYNASTY where Blake gently persuades Sarah Curtis to give away what is left of her child’s life. (“You have a child with a healthy heart. I have a child that’ll die if she doesn’t get a strong healthy heart. We have a chance to save one of them.”) It also surfaces in two paternity test denouements, one on THE COLBYS, the other on FALCON CREST. First, a magnificently bitter Miles Colby is obliged to relinquish the possibility that he is the father of Fallon’s baby to his brother Jeff: “First you take my wife, then my dad. Now you want my little girl, my only child.” Then it’s Chase Gioberti’s turn to be informed that “you are not the father of this baby.” Compared to Miles, his response is muted. Of course, the extra twist in this situation is that Chase’s blood sample has been switched so maybe he <em>is</em> the father after all.</p><p></p><p>While Madeleine McKittrick, Kit Marlowe’s latest alias on FALCON CREST, is another intertextual reference to Kim Novak’s film ’Vertigo’, the final scene of this week’s DYNASTY evokes the ending of another classic Hollywood movie: an airport runway at night, a small private plane, characters in raincoats, a huge sacrificial gesture, the final shot where the camera pulls up and away to reveal Blake, Krystle and Sarah Curtis as smaller parts of a bigger picture — it feels like the start of, if not exactly a beautiful friendship, then a strange bond between the Carringtons and this grieving woman.</p><p></p><p>DYNASTY, dominated as it is by Krystina’s story, currently has more in common with the three-hankie, women’s weepies of old Hollywood than the inter-family feuding we’re used to seeing in Soap Land. However, the episode does contain one deliciously soapy scene where Neil McVane, freshly released from the Soap Land Penitentiary, lies in wait for Adam in his suite at the Carlton Hotel. The lighting is dark and ominous music plays on the soundtrack. A framed photo of Alexis at her most ridiculously glamorous prompts McVane to flash back to the dramatic moment in Season 3 where he tried to strangle her. “No one will save you this time, Alexis, no one,” he murmurs alone in the darkness. The confrontation between him and Adam that follows is just as juicy. “I’m certifiably sane,” McVane insists, looking anything but. He then casually rewrites Carrington history by announcing that “Adam Carrington, the real Adam Carrington, died the day after he was kidnapped.” Adam — if indeed he is Adam — looks stricken, as well he might. The impostor who doesn’t even know if he <em>is</em> an impostor — it’s an interesting variation on the fake identity theme that has been running throughout this season.</p><p></p><p>Elsewhere on this week’s DYNASTY, Alexis encounters Dirk Maurier, aka “the man <em>World Finance</em> called a financial genius.” Meanwhile, Angela has a new associate on FALCON CREST, Roland Saunders, aka “the rudest billionaire in the <em>Fortune 500</em>.” Beyond their reputations, little is known of either man, but both seem quite unsavoury, if not downright sinister. In terms of villainy, Saunders gains the advantage when he orders the execution of the mother of his child, Kit Marlowe. Moreover, he wants to watch it happen. “I just want to be there to say goodbye,” he explains.</p><p></p><p>The last episode of DYNASTY found a disillusioned Alexis on a beach in California, questioning her life choices. There have been similar moments involving Greg Sumner, Dominique Devereaux and Bobby Ewing in recent weeks, and now Ellie Farlow becomes the latest character to succumb to soap fatigue. “I just can’t bear anymore,” she complains. “There’s been no peace in this family for as long as I can remember.” Clayton responds by calling her “the rock that holds this family together.” “I don’t want to be a rock!” she insists, thereby rejecting her primary dramatic function. As if that weren’t shocking enough, she then says the unthinkable: “Sometimes I think I should just sell the ranch, period, and let everybody go on their way.”</p><p></p><p>FALCON CREST heats up this week with several disparate plots — the Kit Marlowe story, Angela’s association with Roland Saunders, the mysterious Tuscany Land Company, Chase’s love life and the ongoing feud between Angela and Richard — starting to converge in interesting ways. It also finds time to go back to its roots with Angela giving Vicky a guided tour of the family gravesite and a brief character sketch of each of the ancestors buried there. (No other soap family is as interested in its forebears as the Giobertis.) The scene is a blast from the past in more ways than one — Angela shared a near identical scene with Vicky’s brother Cole during the first season.</p><p></p><p>DALLAS also revisits its backstory as Cliff’s surprise inheritance of Jamie’s ten percent of Ewing Oil reignites the Barnes/Ewing feud. “They cheated old Digger Barnes and they laughed,” he recalls. “Jock Ewing treated him like dirt just like his son JR treats me like dirt and now it’s my turn. There is no price you can put on that.” The manner in which Cliff, after years of scheming and struggling, suddenly lucks into a slice of the company is reminiscent of the way JR was unexpectedly offered complete control of Ewing Oil by Pam at the end of the dream season. Whereas the tone of that story had an end of an era momentousness about it, this one is mostly just fun. Watching Cliff trying to keep his mounting hysteria in check as he realises all his dreams are about to come true is a blast.</p><p></p><p>However, one can also detect an underlying darkness to his obsession, especially in the scene where Pam asks him to sell Jamie’s ten percent to her so she can put it a trust for Christopher. “You don’t deserve it and you are going to destroy us. I am begging you to sell me those shares,” she pleads. “No way on earth,” he replies flatly. The Cliff we see here and during a subsequent confrontation with Bobby is a very different man to the one who behaved so generously and compassionately towards Jamie's friend Mary Elizabeth in last week’s episode. As he himself acknowledges, he is now “smelling blood, Ewing blood” and has consequently acquired a tunnel vision where nothing else matters, not even his sister and his nephew. Amidst all the funny stuff, we can glimpse the monster he’ll become in New DALLAS.</p><p></p><p>And this week’s Top 4 are …</p><p></p><p>1 (-) THE COLBYS</p><p>2 (2) DALLAS</p><p>3 (-) DYNASTY</p><p>4 (3) FALCON CREST</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ha ha ha, that's really true!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 88720, member: 22"] [U]25 Feb 87: DYNASTY: The Mothers v. 26 Feb 87: THE COLBYS: Answered Prayers v. 27 Feb 87: DALLAS: Revenge of the Nerd v. 27 Feb 87: FALCON CREST: Hat Trick[/U] There are two weddings and two divorces in this week’s Soap Land. Jason Colby is an active participant in one of each. The divorce scene between him and Sable on THE COLBYS is simply a knockout. It’s also one of three recent instances of an estranged couple signing a legal document in a civilised manner that belies the more complicated feelings of heartache and bitterness underneath the surface. On last week’s FALCON CREST, Maggie thanked Chase for signing her son’s birth certificate as the father. “I didn’t expect you to,” she admits. “I was very touched.” “It seemed like the right thing to do,” he replies. However, any hopes that his gesture might lead to a reconciliation are promptly dashed when Maggie apologises for her decision not to have a paternity test performed before the baby was born. “What am I supposed to do — just accept this apology, come running back to you?” he snaps at her. Meanwhile on last week’s DALLAS, Ray and Donna both signed a property settlement in which they each renounced any financial claim on the other. So far so amicable, but when Donna reaches out to him afterwards, Ray proves to be just as resentful as Chase. “If I sound bitter about this, I’m sorry, Donna, but I just can’t help it,” he says. “Why don’t you just go back to Washington, do whatever it is that makes you happy back there? I’m fine. It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally got you out of my system.” Chase and Maggie, Donna and Ray — for a long time, these were two of the most dependably solid couples in Soap Land. The Krebbs and Gioberti marriages provided an emotional ballast to the soapy turmoil surrounding them (the relationships of Bobby and Pam, Gary and Val, and Jeff and Fallon, for instance, which seem almost teenage in comparison). To watch these same characters now behaving towards each other with coldness and indifference — well, it’s a bit like watching your mum and dad split up. Affecting though these scenes are, they pale in significance next to the divorce-paper-signing-scene in Jason’s office in this week’s COLBYS. It is the moment Sable has moved heaven and earth to avoid, but finally, she gives in and signs on the dotted line. She even manages a brave little joke. “I had a plan,” she admits to Jason. “You know that pen of mine that always leaks? Well, I was going sign with that and then hope a huge inkblot would invalidate everything.” The deed done, she stands to leave. She makes it as far as the doorway before turning around. “Don’t marry her, Jason,” she pleads, referring to Frankie. “Please don’t marry her … You need me.” Begging the man you’ve just divorced not to marry your sister isn’t an experience many viewers can identify with, but the feelings behind them, the pain and humiliation, are universal. The line where Sable acknowledges her loss of dignity is particularly striking. “I do know how ridiculous I’ve made myself for you,” she tells Jason. “There are smiles and whispers when I enter a room. Did you know that?” This is a rare instance of a soap character recognising how their behaviour must appear to the outside world. If DALLAS was happening in real life, for instance, Sue Ellen’s social standing would have been in tatters years ago. As stars of their own TV show, however, she and JR are regarded indulgently as “practically an institution.” Sable continues to implore Jason (“Don’t be my husband — I’ll learn to accept that — but please, I beg you, don’t be hers”), but to no avail. “I will marry her. I will be happy,” he insists, quietly but firmly. THE COLBYS’ divorce scene ends with Sable gliding down a hallway swathed in furs, her back to the camera. She appears the image of cool and collected glamour yet we the audience know how broken and defeated she is. It’s a juxtaposition which encapsulates the series’ USP: the messiest of human emotions wrapped up in luxurious artifice and the soapiest of contrivances. The Krebbs marriage also comes to an end this week. Their divorce takes place in a courtroom where Ray and Donna have their attorneys to speak for them — not that there’s much left to say. (“It’s all been said,” as Miss Ellie acknowledges during what amounts to a farewell lunch with Donna). In contrast to the emotional nature of Jason and Sable’s parting, there’s a numbness, almost an anti-drama about the Krebbs’ situation which feels as just real. In spite of everything, Sable and Ray each make a last minute attempt to act selflessly. Realising that Jason really is going to marry Frankie, Sable manages to find it in herself to wish him well. “I hope that you’re happy … I won’t make it difficult for you,” she promises him. Ray, meanwhile, quietly signals his lawyer to drop any attempt to challenge Donna for custody of their unborn child. Following their respective divorces, Ray retreats into the past by drowning his sorrows in the saloon bar where he and Donna first met while Sable looks to the future by vacationing in Morocco with new lover Zach Powers — at least, that’s the theory. In reality, her ex-husband’s wedding is Sable can think about. Meanwhile, Ray returns home from the bar to find his future, in the shape of Jenna and Charlie, waiting for him. Jenna wakes up having dozed off on the couch, but Ray tells her to go back to sleep and then sits next to her in the dark. It’s a touching little moment. Watching this season of DALLAS with hindsight, it’s hard to pinpoint precisely where Ray and Jenna’s relationship shifts from the platonic towards something more intimate, but this scene seems significant in that regard. Likewise, the confrontation between Richard and Chase on this week’s FALCON CREST seems to mark a turning point in the Chase/Maggie/Richard triangle. “What in the hell are you doing running around with some cheerleader while your wife sits home with a newborn baby?” Richard demands of his half-brother. “Maggie is one of the finest women I’ve ever known. She gets raped by a maniac and you turn your back on her … I told you this once before — you turn your back on Maggie and I may just come courting.” As for the two weddings in this week’s Soap Land, one is a low key affair (Emma and Vince Karlotti’s on FALCON CREST) while the other, Jason and Frankie’s on THE COLBYS, is anything but. The final scene of this week’s episode takes two show-stopping Soap Land scenarios — the wedding day bombshell (e.g., Pam Ewing learning that Jenna is carrying Bobby’s child just before she walks down the aisle) and a resurrection from the dead (e.g., Pam Ewing finding Mark Graison in her back garden and then collapsing into his arms) — and combines them in one almighty cliffhanger. Midway through her wedding vows, Frankie spots Hoyt Parker in the congregation and freezes. “Oh my God … him!” she finally gasps. Jason follows her gaze and manages to identify the man as “Phil, my brother!” before Frankie, just like Pam Ewing before her, faints in his arms. It’s a toss-up as to who looks the more amazed — Jason and Frankie upon seeing the long-dead Phillip Colby at their wedding or Peter Stavros when he spots his more recently deceased stepdaughter Skylar in a hotel lobby on FALCON CREST. Merely with the aid of a curly wig, Skylar — or rather Kit — manages to convince Peter that she’s someone called Madeleine McKittrick and makes her getaway. (Madeleine is Kit Marlowe’s third persona of the season, thus bringing her level with Wes Parmalee/Jock Ewing/Wyatt Haynes.) At first, the story of Krystina’s heart condition on DYNASTY was about what happens when the rich and powerful are confronted with a situation over which they have no control. In spite of Krystle’s protests (“Blake, this can’t be happening … It can’t be true, I won’t accept it … She’s my baby, I won’t let them hurt her, I won’t!”), there are basic medical facts that money and prestige cannot override. “Her heart muscle is deteriorating and without a transplant, she’s not going to make it,” her doctor states. However, once the search for a transplant donor begins, it becomes a different kind of storyline. The Carringtons’ name and connections mean they can launch a nationwide appeal. (How convenient that newspaper magnate Alexis turned from bitter enemy to eager ally just in time to assist with this latest crisis!) From this point, the situation plays more like a traditional Soap Land kidnap scenario with various family members huddled tensely round a telephone, waiting for the all-important call. It also makes them vulnerable to those “real world” whack jobs against whom they would otherwise be insulated — perverts, extortionists and crazy people. Or in the case of the wonderfully creepy Adele whom Krystle encounters in a hospital corridor, a crazy person who is also an extortionist. “I can get you a heart,” she tells her eagerly. “You’ll pay me to get you a heart, won’t you?” The “real world” people depicted on this week’s DALLAS are generally more benign. When Bobby informs John Carter, a company employee from the town of Pride, that Ewing Oil is shutting down the town’s wells for economic reasons, he greets the news with quiet defeat. “These are some times,” he sighs wearily. “Those oilfields have been the lifeblood of that town.” Things are looking similarly bleak on FALCON CREST where “twenty-six vineyards in the last month and a half” have been swallowed up, Jeremy Wendell-style, by the Tuscany Land Company. “Somebody’s trying to destroy the family vineyards in this valley,” concludes Tony Cumson. Then there are the three seemingly nondescript people we meet in the final scene of DALLAS, working in a basement room of the FBI. With its coded entry system, whirring computers and bunker-style surroundings, there’s a bit of a sci-fi/Empire Valley vibe about the place. The people themselves, however, are reassuringly down-to-earth. There’s Agent Leo Daltery, whom we’ve seen before with JR, complaining lightly about the demands of his job and engaging in some low-level flirting with a file clerk called Henrietta, whose status as “ordinary” is emphasised by the fact that she’s played by Gary and Abby’s Hispanic housekeeper Maria from KNOTS. There’s also an anxious-looking character called Alfred who wears a bow-tie and mutters about cross-referencing and different numbered forms. He’s the kind of socially awkward tech geek that’s since become ubiquitous on TV, but this is the first time one has found his way into the glamorous world of Soap Land. His ears prick up when he hears Leo instructing Henrietta to take the evidence the FBI has on Ewing Oil’s association with BD Calhoun and “deep six it forever.” As Leo, Henrietta and all that dirt on the Ewings disappear out of shot, the camera lingers on Alfred long enough for him to get the freeze frame. It’s a unique introduction to a Soap Land character, especially one as unprepossessing as Alfred. I’ve always assumed that the title of this episode, “Revenge of the Nerd”, refers to Cliff getting one over on the Ewings, but maybe it applies to nerdy Alfred too. There’s a tenuous but emotive theme running through this week’s Soap Land to do with parents surrendering their children. It’s there in the DALLAS courtroom when Ray gives up his custody fight and in the hospital waiting room on DYNASTY where Blake gently persuades Sarah Curtis to give away what is left of her child’s life. (“You have a child with a healthy heart. I have a child that’ll die if she doesn’t get a strong healthy heart. We have a chance to save one of them.”) It also surfaces in two paternity test denouements, one on THE COLBYS, the other on FALCON CREST. First, a magnificently bitter Miles Colby is obliged to relinquish the possibility that he is the father of Fallon’s baby to his brother Jeff: “First you take my wife, then my dad. Now you want my little girl, my only child.” Then it’s Chase Gioberti’s turn to be informed that “you are not the father of this baby.” Compared to Miles, his response is muted. Of course, the extra twist in this situation is that Chase’s blood sample has been switched so maybe he [I]is[/I] the father after all. While Madeleine McKittrick, Kit Marlowe’s latest alias on FALCON CREST, is another intertextual reference to Kim Novak’s film ’Vertigo’, the final scene of this week’s DYNASTY evokes the ending of another classic Hollywood movie: an airport runway at night, a small private plane, characters in raincoats, a huge sacrificial gesture, the final shot where the camera pulls up and away to reveal Blake, Krystle and Sarah Curtis as smaller parts of a bigger picture — it feels like the start of, if not exactly a beautiful friendship, then a strange bond between the Carringtons and this grieving woman. DYNASTY, dominated as it is by Krystina’s story, currently has more in common with the three-hankie, women’s weepies of old Hollywood than the inter-family feuding we’re used to seeing in Soap Land. However, the episode does contain one deliciously soapy scene where Neil McVane, freshly released from the Soap Land Penitentiary, lies in wait for Adam in his suite at the Carlton Hotel. The lighting is dark and ominous music plays on the soundtrack. A framed photo of Alexis at her most ridiculously glamorous prompts McVane to flash back to the dramatic moment in Season 3 where he tried to strangle her. “No one will save you this time, Alexis, no one,” he murmurs alone in the darkness. The confrontation between him and Adam that follows is just as juicy. “I’m certifiably sane,” McVane insists, looking anything but. He then casually rewrites Carrington history by announcing that “Adam Carrington, the real Adam Carrington, died the day after he was kidnapped.” Adam — if indeed he is Adam — looks stricken, as well he might. The impostor who doesn’t even know if he [I]is[/I] an impostor — it’s an interesting variation on the fake identity theme that has been running throughout this season. Elsewhere on this week’s DYNASTY, Alexis encounters Dirk Maurier, aka “the man [I]World Finance[/I] called a financial genius.” Meanwhile, Angela has a new associate on FALCON CREST, Roland Saunders, aka “the rudest billionaire in the [I]Fortune 500[/I].” Beyond their reputations, little is known of either man, but both seem quite unsavoury, if not downright sinister. In terms of villainy, Saunders gains the advantage when he orders the execution of the mother of his child, Kit Marlowe. Moreover, he wants to watch it happen. “I just want to be there to say goodbye,” he explains. The last episode of DYNASTY found a disillusioned Alexis on a beach in California, questioning her life choices. There have been similar moments involving Greg Sumner, Dominique Devereaux and Bobby Ewing in recent weeks, and now Ellie Farlow becomes the latest character to succumb to soap fatigue. “I just can’t bear anymore,” she complains. “There’s been no peace in this family for as long as I can remember.” Clayton responds by calling her “the rock that holds this family together.” “I don’t want to be a rock!” she insists, thereby rejecting her primary dramatic function. As if that weren’t shocking enough, she then says the unthinkable: “Sometimes I think I should just sell the ranch, period, and let everybody go on their way.” FALCON CREST heats up this week with several disparate plots — the Kit Marlowe story, Angela’s association with Roland Saunders, the mysterious Tuscany Land Company, Chase’s love life and the ongoing feud between Angela and Richard — starting to converge in interesting ways. It also finds time to go back to its roots with Angela giving Vicky a guided tour of the family gravesite and a brief character sketch of each of the ancestors buried there. (No other soap family is as interested in its forebears as the Giobertis.) The scene is a blast from the past in more ways than one — Angela shared a near identical scene with Vicky’s brother Cole during the first season. DALLAS also revisits its backstory as Cliff’s surprise inheritance of Jamie’s ten percent of Ewing Oil reignites the Barnes/Ewing feud. “They cheated old Digger Barnes and they laughed,” he recalls. “Jock Ewing treated him like dirt just like his son JR treats me like dirt and now it’s my turn. There is no price you can put on that.” The manner in which Cliff, after years of scheming and struggling, suddenly lucks into a slice of the company is reminiscent of the way JR was unexpectedly offered complete control of Ewing Oil by Pam at the end of the dream season. Whereas the tone of that story had an end of an era momentousness about it, this one is mostly just fun. Watching Cliff trying to keep his mounting hysteria in check as he realises all his dreams are about to come true is a blast. However, one can also detect an underlying darkness to his obsession, especially in the scene where Pam asks him to sell Jamie’s ten percent to her so she can put it a trust for Christopher. “You don’t deserve it and you are going to destroy us. I am begging you to sell me those shares,” she pleads. “No way on earth,” he replies flatly. The Cliff we see here and during a subsequent confrontation with Bobby is a very different man to the one who behaved so generously and compassionately towards Jamie's friend Mary Elizabeth in last week’s episode. As he himself acknowledges, he is now “smelling blood, Ewing blood” and has consequently acquired a tunnel vision where nothing else matters, not even his sister and his nephew. Amidst all the funny stuff, we can glimpse the monster he’ll become in New DALLAS. And this week’s Top 4 are … 1 (-) THE COLBYS 2 (2) DALLAS 3 (-) DYNASTY 4 (3) FALCON CREST Ha ha ha, that's really true! [/QUOTE]
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