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DYNASTY versus DALLAS versus KNOTS LANDING versus the rest of them
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<blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 105739" data-attributes="member: 22"><p><u>14 Oct 87: DYNASTY: The Announcement v. 15 Oct 87: KNOTS LANDING: Half-Truths v. 16 Oct 87: DALLAS: The Lady Vanishes v. 16 Oct 87: FALCON CREST: Redemption</u></p><p></p><p>Three episodes into the new season, DYNASTY feels freshly invigorated, its characters more sharply defined than they have in a long while. Last year, Adam was the helpless victim of an identity crisis. Following Blake’s announcement that he is running for governor, he’s back to his former competitive, paranoid self. “I wasn’t seated next to Father at dinner — Fallon was,” he broods. “I was not invited into the library for an intimate chat — it was Steven. What will it take to be treated like an equal around here?” Last year, Leslie was a cloyingly irritating good girl. This week, she overhears Fallon explaining her extra-terrestrial encounter to Jeff and then makes fun of her to Dex — officially reclassifying herself as a bitch. The most notable character transformation is Steven’s. After years of being uptight and conservative, he’s suddenly full of outspoken opinions and insights. “Politics requires an acceptance of, and a commitment to, the rules of society … I have no interest in serving a society that brands me a misfit,” he declares, turning down Blake’s invitation to manage his campaign. He also offers Fallon a fascinating assessment of her relationship with Jeff: “He’s a great guy, but if there aren’t any lines on the pad he gets very nervous, and you have always coloured outside the lines — until you married him … You have become more like Jeff and now he’s forgotten who you really are.” And there you have it — Fallon’s evolution from the whip-smart heiress of DYNASTY’s first two seasons to the conservative businesswoman of the La Mirage era to the meek damsel-in-distress we saw in THE COLBYS to the confused but defiant alien abductee she is today, summed up in a few short lines.</p><p></p><p>If Steven and Fallon have been recast as DYNASTY’s nonconformists who believe in little grey men, then Sammy Jo and Jeff are by default the show's new conservatives. “Ever since we were kids, if it didn’t come in a neat little package he couldn’t deal with it,” says Steven of Jeff. “I’m not sure I understand all the ground rules,” Sammy Jo frets anxiously when her laidback gay ex-husband returns home from a late-night chat with his sister about spaceships. It seems that if Steven did really kill off a version of himself when he stabbed Matthew Blaisdel, it was the stuffy, repressed Steven of the last four seasons. (On the subject of different Stevens, it’s ironic to hear 1987 Steven declare, “I don’t have the time or the inclination for public service” in the same week that 2018 Steven announces his candidacy for city council on New DYNASTY.) Out of nowhere, Steven is now the coolest person on the show. Even his new slicked-back hairstyle is cool — or at least when compared to the silly late-80s bouffants favoured by Soap Land’s latest slabs of beefcake: Sean Rowan, Nicholas Pearce and Casey Denault.</p><p></p><p>One of the advantages of new characters is that we are reintroduced to familiar characters through their eyes. “I’ve seen your kind before,” Sean tells Alexis on DYNASTY. “You’ve got self-indulgence written all over you. You enjoy making people dance … You come on very strong, lady, very strong. I know you’re rich and I know you’re powerful, but don’t play games with me. I’m nobody’s puppet.” “We’re a perfect match, you and I,” Nicholas Pearce informs Sue Ellen on DALLAS. “You want to prove to the world that you’re a winner, that you don’t need anyone else. Well, so do I.” For all that Alexis and Sue Ellen are independent businesswomen of the ‘80s, yadda, yadda, yadda, each responds favourably to being told who she is and what she wants by these younger men. Alexis immediately falls into Sean’s arms and when ordered to ignore a ringing phone, she complies. Meanwhile, Nicholas’s straight talking convinces a previously wary Sue Ellen to consummate a business deal that will guarantee Valentine Lingerie “instant coast-to-coast recognition.”</p><p></p><p>Elsewhere on DALLAS, the arrival of protege Casey Denault affords JR the opportunity to explain the basics of his business philosophy as he rebuilds his empire from scratch (well, sort of from scratch — everyone who drops by his new offices makes a point of saying how much swankier they are than the ones he had at Ewing Oil, and they’re right). In truth, “JR’s golden rules” consist of little more than a few well-worn cliches: “‘Don’t forgive and don’t forget’ and, ‘Do unto others before they do unto you’ and most especially, ‘Keep your eye on your friends because your enemies will take care of themselves.’” “You’re everything my daddy said,” Casey replies. While Casey’s admiration for JR seems to be genuine, it’s hard to overlook his observation that while his own father, JR’s onetime partner, “died broke … you always rode high on the hog.” Back on DYNASTY, it looks as if Sean Rowan has daddy issues of his own. “The sins of the father,” he murmurs enigmatically at one point — which, as Michael Tyrone, Nick Toscanni and Zach Powers have taught us, is never a good sign.</p><p></p><p>Whereas the siege at the end of last season’s DYNASTY is now a thing of the past (Matthew who?), the other soaps haven’t moved on quite so fast. Although FALCON CREST is still getting plenty of mileage out of Chase’s disappearance, it feels as if KNOTS LANDING and DALLAS have each painted themselves into a corner, dramatically speaking, as a result of last season’s cliffhangers. Abby confessing that she killed Peter at the end of last week’s KNOTS means that she now faces the prospect of a fifteen-year prison sentence, while the long road to recovery stretching ahead of Pam on DALLAS following her car accident has already been established. Neither scenario fits very well into the fast-paced world of Soap Land and this week, both are hastily circumvented. In each case, a Ewing brother gets to play detective. A chance remark from Olivia on KNOTS leads Gary to quickly deduce that she and Abby are each protecting the other over Peter’s murder, which means neither of them could have committed it. Over on DALLAS, Bobby uncovers the truth behind Pam’s disappearance via a series of flashbacks involving day players in medical scrubs. The episode does its best to shroud the clunkiness of Pam’s exit in as much mystery as possible and it sort of works.</p><p></p><p>When Bobby learns that Pam was accompanied on her flight out of Dallas by a woman wearing a hat, he fears it was Katherine Wentworth. This foreshadows Christopher’s assumption twenty-six years later that the woman he sees with Dr Gordon in Zurich, also wearing a hat, is Pam herself. In each case, the mystery woman turns out to be Pam’s nurse — maybe even the same nurse.</p><p></p><p>Following hot on the heels of Ben Gibson and Chase Gioberti, Pam is the latest major Soap Land character to disappear without a trace. A letter delivered to Bobby at the end of this week’s DALLAS explains that, like Ben, she has left of her volition because she believes her family is better off without her. “I have done the best thing for all of us,” she writes. “When I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn’t stand the thought of you or Christopher ever seeing me that way … I couldn’t stand to destroy our love by having you see me the way I am.” (This point will be underlined by Dr Gordon in 2013: “She felt she was hideous. She didn’t want to scare her little boy.”) As Bobby cries, Val Gibson and Maggie Gioberti cope with their respective spouse's absence in contrasting ways. While Val turns Ben into Daddy Bunny, the hero of a bedtime story she reads to her kids (“The idea is that Daddy Bunny, Ben, still loves us very much and he’s just out there somewhere taking care of us”), Maggie has Chase swiftly declared dead at a court hearing similar to the one pertaining to Jock Ewing five years earlier.</p><p></p><p>As well as Pam, FALCON CREST’s Nicole Sauguet also departs this week after just three episodes. She is yet another Soap Land character tainted by her connection to the Vietnam War. When we learn that she made her fortune by hijacking medical supplies and “letting American soldiers die”, it’s not hard to imagine Phillip Colby or even Pam’s teenage husband somehow mixed up in her scheme. It’s implied that Nicole also fabricated her wartime affair with Chase, but I prefer her version of events so I’ll stick with it.</p><p></p><p>AIDS gets its second Soap Land mention this week, this time on DALLAS. In contrast to the serious discussion on the subject that took place between Blake and Steven on DYNASTY, it’s pretty much a throwaway remark that arises as JR catches up with Serena, his favourite call girl, after a gap of three years. “These days, the girls I know are out of business,” she tells him. “We’re all scared to death of the AIDS thing. It’s done what the police couldn’t — put most of us into retirement.” JR’s less interested in discussing a health crisis than in hearing about the drilling equipment that Serena’s strapped-for-cash boyfriend needs to offload.</p><p></p><p>KNOTS LANDING’s Paige and FALCON CREST’s Melissa both suffer nightmares this week, prompted by the deaths of Peter and Chase respectively. Paige cries out in her sleep a couple of times, which is enough to bring Mack to her bedside. “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream," he tells her gently. Melissa, meanwhile, succumbs to full-blown hysteria, first screaming the house down and then yelling maniacally when Dan Fixx tries to comfort her. This is par the course for Melissa. Almost every time she appears on screen, she ends up either screeching or screaming or laughing hysterically, or some combination thereof. Frustratingly, it never occurs to any of the other characters to tell her to shut the f**k up.</p><p></p><p>And this week’s Top 4 are …</p><p></p><p>1 (4) DYNASTY</p><p>2 (1) DALLAS</p><p>3 (3) KNOTS LANDING</p><p>4 (2) FALCON CREST</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, there was a definite shift in the way Chase was written during his last season -- he'd gone from being the (supposed) hero at the heart of the show to a cold and distant figure we didn't really know -- so when he died, it felt a bit like we'd never known him at all. And reinventing his past seemed to fit in with that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James from London, post: 105739, member: 22"] [U]14 Oct 87: DYNASTY: The Announcement v. 15 Oct 87: KNOTS LANDING: Half-Truths v. 16 Oct 87: DALLAS: The Lady Vanishes v. 16 Oct 87: FALCON CREST: Redemption[/U] Three episodes into the new season, DYNASTY feels freshly invigorated, its characters more sharply defined than they have in a long while. Last year, Adam was the helpless victim of an identity crisis. Following Blake’s announcement that he is running for governor, he’s back to his former competitive, paranoid self. “I wasn’t seated next to Father at dinner — Fallon was,” he broods. “I was not invited into the library for an intimate chat — it was Steven. What will it take to be treated like an equal around here?” Last year, Leslie was a cloyingly irritating good girl. This week, she overhears Fallon explaining her extra-terrestrial encounter to Jeff and then makes fun of her to Dex — officially reclassifying herself as a bitch. The most notable character transformation is Steven’s. After years of being uptight and conservative, he’s suddenly full of outspoken opinions and insights. “Politics requires an acceptance of, and a commitment to, the rules of society … I have no interest in serving a society that brands me a misfit,” he declares, turning down Blake’s invitation to manage his campaign. He also offers Fallon a fascinating assessment of her relationship with Jeff: “He’s a great guy, but if there aren’t any lines on the pad he gets very nervous, and you have always coloured outside the lines — until you married him … You have become more like Jeff and now he’s forgotten who you really are.” And there you have it — Fallon’s evolution from the whip-smart heiress of DYNASTY’s first two seasons to the conservative businesswoman of the La Mirage era to the meek damsel-in-distress we saw in THE COLBYS to the confused but defiant alien abductee she is today, summed up in a few short lines. If Steven and Fallon have been recast as DYNASTY’s nonconformists who believe in little grey men, then Sammy Jo and Jeff are by default the show's new conservatives. “Ever since we were kids, if it didn’t come in a neat little package he couldn’t deal with it,” says Steven of Jeff. “I’m not sure I understand all the ground rules,” Sammy Jo frets anxiously when her laidback gay ex-husband returns home from a late-night chat with his sister about spaceships. It seems that if Steven did really kill off a version of himself when he stabbed Matthew Blaisdel, it was the stuffy, repressed Steven of the last four seasons. (On the subject of different Stevens, it’s ironic to hear 1987 Steven declare, “I don’t have the time or the inclination for public service” in the same week that 2018 Steven announces his candidacy for city council on New DYNASTY.) Out of nowhere, Steven is now the coolest person on the show. Even his new slicked-back hairstyle is cool — or at least when compared to the silly late-80s bouffants favoured by Soap Land’s latest slabs of beefcake: Sean Rowan, Nicholas Pearce and Casey Denault. One of the advantages of new characters is that we are reintroduced to familiar characters through their eyes. “I’ve seen your kind before,” Sean tells Alexis on DYNASTY. “You’ve got self-indulgence written all over you. You enjoy making people dance … You come on very strong, lady, very strong. I know you’re rich and I know you’re powerful, but don’t play games with me. I’m nobody’s puppet.” “We’re a perfect match, you and I,” Nicholas Pearce informs Sue Ellen on DALLAS. “You want to prove to the world that you’re a winner, that you don’t need anyone else. Well, so do I.” For all that Alexis and Sue Ellen are independent businesswomen of the ‘80s, yadda, yadda, yadda, each responds favourably to being told who she is and what she wants by these younger men. Alexis immediately falls into Sean’s arms and when ordered to ignore a ringing phone, she complies. Meanwhile, Nicholas’s straight talking convinces a previously wary Sue Ellen to consummate a business deal that will guarantee Valentine Lingerie “instant coast-to-coast recognition.” Elsewhere on DALLAS, the arrival of protege Casey Denault affords JR the opportunity to explain the basics of his business philosophy as he rebuilds his empire from scratch (well, sort of from scratch — everyone who drops by his new offices makes a point of saying how much swankier they are than the ones he had at Ewing Oil, and they’re right). In truth, “JR’s golden rules” consist of little more than a few well-worn cliches: “‘Don’t forgive and don’t forget’ and, ‘Do unto others before they do unto you’ and most especially, ‘Keep your eye on your friends because your enemies will take care of themselves.’” “You’re everything my daddy said,” Casey replies. While Casey’s admiration for JR seems to be genuine, it’s hard to overlook his observation that while his own father, JR’s onetime partner, “died broke … you always rode high on the hog.” Back on DYNASTY, it looks as if Sean Rowan has daddy issues of his own. “The sins of the father,” he murmurs enigmatically at one point — which, as Michael Tyrone, Nick Toscanni and Zach Powers have taught us, is never a good sign. Whereas the siege at the end of last season’s DYNASTY is now a thing of the past (Matthew who?), the other soaps haven’t moved on quite so fast. Although FALCON CREST is still getting plenty of mileage out of Chase’s disappearance, it feels as if KNOTS LANDING and DALLAS have each painted themselves into a corner, dramatically speaking, as a result of last season’s cliffhangers. Abby confessing that she killed Peter at the end of last week’s KNOTS means that she now faces the prospect of a fifteen-year prison sentence, while the long road to recovery stretching ahead of Pam on DALLAS following her car accident has already been established. Neither scenario fits very well into the fast-paced world of Soap Land and this week, both are hastily circumvented. In each case, a Ewing brother gets to play detective. A chance remark from Olivia on KNOTS leads Gary to quickly deduce that she and Abby are each protecting the other over Peter’s murder, which means neither of them could have committed it. Over on DALLAS, Bobby uncovers the truth behind Pam’s disappearance via a series of flashbacks involving day players in medical scrubs. The episode does its best to shroud the clunkiness of Pam’s exit in as much mystery as possible and it sort of works. When Bobby learns that Pam was accompanied on her flight out of Dallas by a woman wearing a hat, he fears it was Katherine Wentworth. This foreshadows Christopher’s assumption twenty-six years later that the woman he sees with Dr Gordon in Zurich, also wearing a hat, is Pam herself. In each case, the mystery woman turns out to be Pam’s nurse — maybe even the same nurse. Following hot on the heels of Ben Gibson and Chase Gioberti, Pam is the latest major Soap Land character to disappear without a trace. A letter delivered to Bobby at the end of this week’s DALLAS explains that, like Ben, she has left of her volition because she believes her family is better off without her. “I have done the best thing for all of us,” she writes. “When I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn’t stand the thought of you or Christopher ever seeing me that way … I couldn’t stand to destroy our love by having you see me the way I am.” (This point will be underlined by Dr Gordon in 2013: “She felt she was hideous. She didn’t want to scare her little boy.”) As Bobby cries, Val Gibson and Maggie Gioberti cope with their respective spouse's absence in contrasting ways. While Val turns Ben into Daddy Bunny, the hero of a bedtime story she reads to her kids (“The idea is that Daddy Bunny, Ben, still loves us very much and he’s just out there somewhere taking care of us”), Maggie has Chase swiftly declared dead at a court hearing similar to the one pertaining to Jock Ewing five years earlier. As well as Pam, FALCON CREST’s Nicole Sauguet also departs this week after just three episodes. She is yet another Soap Land character tainted by her connection to the Vietnam War. When we learn that she made her fortune by hijacking medical supplies and “letting American soldiers die”, it’s not hard to imagine Phillip Colby or even Pam’s teenage husband somehow mixed up in her scheme. It’s implied that Nicole also fabricated her wartime affair with Chase, but I prefer her version of events so I’ll stick with it. AIDS gets its second Soap Land mention this week, this time on DALLAS. In contrast to the serious discussion on the subject that took place between Blake and Steven on DYNASTY, it’s pretty much a throwaway remark that arises as JR catches up with Serena, his favourite call girl, after a gap of three years. “These days, the girls I know are out of business,” she tells him. “We’re all scared to death of the AIDS thing. It’s done what the police couldn’t — put most of us into retirement.” JR’s less interested in discussing a health crisis than in hearing about the drilling equipment that Serena’s strapped-for-cash boyfriend needs to offload. KNOTS LANDING’s Paige and FALCON CREST’s Melissa both suffer nightmares this week, prompted by the deaths of Peter and Chase respectively. Paige cries out in her sleep a couple of times, which is enough to bring Mack to her bedside. “It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream," he tells her gently. Melissa, meanwhile, succumbs to full-blown hysteria, first screaming the house down and then yelling maniacally when Dan Fixx tries to comfort her. This is par the course for Melissa. Almost every time she appears on screen, she ends up either screeching or screaming or laughing hysterically, or some combination thereof. Frustratingly, it never occurs to any of the other characters to tell her to shut the f**k up. And this week’s Top 4 are … 1 (4) DYNASTY 2 (1) DALLAS 3 (3) KNOTS LANDING 4 (2) FALCON CREST Well, there was a definite shift in the way Chase was written during his last season -- he'd gone from being the (supposed) hero at the heart of the show to a cold and distant figure we didn't really know -- so when he died, it felt a bit like we'd never known him at all. And reinventing his past seemed to fit in with that. [/QUOTE]
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DYNASTY versus DALLAS versus KNOTS LANDING versus the rest of them
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