New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 11656" data-attributes="member: 22">24/Oct/83: EMERALD POINT N.A.S: Episode 5 v. 26/Oct/83: DYNASTY: The Hearing (1) v. 27/Oct/83: KNOTS LANDING: One Kind of Justice v. 28/Oct/83: DALLAS: The Quality of Mercy v. 28/Oct/83 FALCON CREST: Judge and Jury v. 29/Oct/83: THE YELLOW ROSE: Walls of FearThis week, Soap Land goes courtroom crazy. There’s a court martial in EMERALD POINT, a custody battle on DYNASTY, Julia’s preliminary hearing on FALCON CREST and Big John's arraignment on THE YELLOW ROSE. Subpoenas fly and witness tampering abounds, with some of the most outrageous behaviour taking place on EMERALD POINT, which has perked up considerably in the lead-up to Casey Denault’s murder trial. When Casey’s fiancee, spoilt princess Hilary Adams, is called as a witness for the prosecution, her daddy Harlan suggests to Casey that he change his plea to guilty - just to spare her the ordeal of taking the stand. Then Hilary herself emotionally blackmails wholesome Kay Mallory into testifying to a non-existent affair with the murder victim in order to cover her own tracks.Over on FALCON CREST, while Angela orders Phillip to “influence" the judge presiding over Julia’s trial, Melissa manipulates Julia into representing herself in court and pleading guilty to both counts of murder. On DYNASTY, Blake’s lawyer Andrew Laird tries to dissuade Krystle from testifying on Steven’s behalf so that he himself won’t have to discredit her good name in court. In the event, Krystle does take to the stand, allowing Blake the opportunity to gallantly prohibit Andrew from cross-examining her. It’s about eight years since I last watched this period of DYNASTY and it’s remarkable how dated this particular story-line - Blake sues for custody of his grandson in order to prevent Steven and his gay lover from raising him - has become in that time. The case itself now feels like a Maguffin - merely a dramatic device to put the characters’ existing conflicts under the courtroom spotlight. That Blake is actually mistaken in his belief that Steven and Chris Deegan are lovers when they are in fact roommates always seemed to me like a cop out on the part of the network or whomever (and perhaps it was). This time around, however, the misunderstanding seems to add a further level of dramatic complication. Even though Steven could presumably bring proceedings to a halt just by explaining the true nature of the relationship, he chooses to gamble custody of his son for the sake of a principle - or possibly just to spite Blake. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re fighting to keep your son or simply to defeat your father,” Chris tells him.Again, it's John Forsythe’s performance that I find myself drawn to. He is totally believable as man utterly convinced in the rightness of what he is doing regardless of the damage it may cause along the way, and it’s that conviction - both on the part of the actor and character - that really drives the story. Forsythe is such a good but un-showy actor that it’s easy to take him for granted and forget that he’s even acting at all. The other witnesses called to the stand in this ep are also given the opportunity to do what they do best - Krystle to be sad and lovely (during her speech beginning “When I was married to Mr Carrington …”, she and Blake suddenly seem as divorced as Bobby and Pam) and Alexis to be vengeful and funny whilst wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Her witness-stand accusations ("He banished me from my own children, he deprived them of my guidance!”) prompt Blake to spring to his feet. "You had seven years to turn him into what he is!” he shouts across the courtroom, referring to Steven, "I’ve been fighting to make him into a man ever since!” “You hate me,” Steven tells his father when the hearing is subsequently adjourned. "You always have.” This father/son dynamic is reversed on KNOTS LANDING when Laura tries to explain to son Jason that his daddy Richard has most likely gone for good. “I hate him, I hate him!” shouts Jason over and over. However, by far the most dramatic parent/child altercation in this week’s Soap Land takes place as part of a brilliant three-way showdown between Karen, Diana and Abby on Gary’s ranch, which is fast becoming the setting for KNOTS’ most emotionally volatile scenes.An intense week leads to violent eruptions from some unexpected quarters. Tiny Kirby makes a grab for Alexis’s throat on DYNASTY, gentle Eric smacks his sister Diana hard across the face in KNOTS, and sweet old Lilimae mows down Chip Roberts with her car. Less uncharacteristic but just as juicy: a frustrated Detective Morrison sticking his gum in Chip’s hair during an interrogation scene on KNOTS, and the mere sight of Maggie Gioberti in the visitors room causing Julia to lose it with a prison guard on FALCON CREST. This week’s YELLOW ROSE, meanwhile, is more action-packed than ever, boasting two murders, a barroom brawl and an ambush.While Kirby and Alexis have to be prised apart on DYNASTY, Lucy and Sue Ellen (whom one could argue is as culpable in Mickey’s paralysis as Alexis was in Joseph’s suicide) enjoy an unexpected Fallon-and-Krystle-style rapprochement on DALLAS. “I know we’ve never been friends, but I just want you to know that I care,” Sue Ellen tells her niece, which is enough melt six years of ice between them and for Lucy to open her heart as never before.This week’s KNOTS is both written and directed by David Jacobs himself, and he certainly pulls out all the stops. There's a big sense of scale to the ep, both visually and emotionally. Once again, the ranch sequences look terrific, and even the scenes outside the police station, set against a backdrop of Californian hills and whirring helicopters, have a kind of grandeur about them. Having lavished so much care and attention elsewhere, it’s possible Jacobs had over-extended himself by the time it came to staging Greg Sumner’s fundraising party. As the first social event of the season, one would assume it was envisioned as a somewhat grand affair. As it is, it takes place on the cardboard Southfork patio, ineffectually disguised by some clumsily draped canopies. It’s hard to get a sense of exactly where the scene is meant to be taking place - inside or outside? A banqueting hall or a tent? And why does the fake Southfork roof keep peeking into view? "Gary Ewing and JR Ewing are two different breeds of contributor," says Greg to Abby after the fundraiser, but a more salient comparison this week can be made between Gary and Bobby. With Bobby's divorce now finalised and Gary's not far behind, the two brothers appear to have swapped roles. Bobby may not have sunk quite as low as Gary did at the end of last season’s KNOTS, but while Gary is already moving forward, with a new ranch, a new business and a new family, Bobby finds himself “very much alone in the world”. As he whiles away his solitary hours in all night burger joints ("just so I could be near people”) and mourns his role as a full time father, Gary throws himself into environmental causes - hence that handsome donation to Greg’s campaign - and develops an ever strengthening bond with Abby’s daughter Olivia.There’s an especially striking moment where we see Abby climbing up a small hill at the ranch looking for Gary and Olivia, who are sitting at the top talking about her. Olivia suspects her mother of enjoying the fact that Karen and Diana have fallen out. When Abby gets close enough, she hears Olivia saying, “She likes seeing Aunt Karen miserable." Instead of alerting Gary and Olivia to her presence, Abby walks sadly away. It’s as if she is the outsider, the odd one out on the ranch. Out of earshot, she fails to hear Gary’s response: “Olivia, your mother’s human. Don’t be too hard on her for that." Mack says the same thing to Janet Baines later in the ep when she admits to “a twinge of satisfaction” at seeing the Mackenzie family fall apart. “You’re human,” he tells her. “No, I’m not,” she replies. "I’m a cop.” The same sentiment is echoed yet again by Sue Ellen in DALLAS when Lucy confesses to feeling relieved that Mickey has broken off their engagement. “There must be something wrong with me,” Lucy frets. “There is nothing wrong with you,” Sue Ellen assures her. "You’re young and you’re about to make the biggest commitment of your life.” In other words, she’s human. (Still on the subject of human frailty, David Jacobs uses Janet Baines in her final scene to provide Richard Avery’s epitaph: “He was just a poor unloved guy who just couldn't cope.”)A week after Laura started working for Abby at Gary Ewing Enterprises, other employment posts are filled. Claudia Blaisdel, recently released from the Soap Land Sanatarium, becomes Fallon’s assistant at La Mirage, Adam begins work at Denver Carrington, Greg Sumner invites Mack Mackenzie to head his new crime commission and Pam Ewing not only agrees to join Cliff at Barnes Wentworth, but poaches old pal Jackie from The Store to work with her.With hindsight, it’s kind of ironic that in the same week that Pam moves into her late mother’s house on DALLAS - the driveway of which will be the setting for one of Soap Land's most iconic scenes - this week’s KNOTS should end with an angry woman driving her car straight at a happily reunited couple, colliding with the guy and sending him over the hood of the car. As the action turns to slow motion, the girl rushes to her man's side, calling his name as she kneels over his unmoving body … Remind you of anything?A more immediate parallel is between Chip’s story on KNOTS and Mickey Trotter’s on DALLAS. With Diana refusing to implicate her husband in Ciji’s death, the case against Chip collapses. “Just you me, kid, on the road to who knows where,” he smiles, contemplating his imminent release from jail. (He then serenades Diana with a line or two from “What I Did For Love”. Given his claim that he killed Ciji so they could be together, this must constitute Soap Land's blackest use of a show tune since “If My Friends Could See Me Now” played over Sid’s arrest for attempted rape back in “Hitchhike”.) Meanwhile, all Mickey can see ahead of him is darkness. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he weeps. "I just want it all to end.” He breaks off his engagement to Lucy, only for her to then rally his spirits and for them to renew their marriage plans. It’s then (as Phillip Erickson puts it in another context in another soap) that the world caves in - Mickey suffers a cardiac arrest and lapses back into a coma, one from which he has scant chance of ever awakening.While DALLAS’s Lil Trotter keeps vigil for her son at the hospital, Lilimae spends most of this week’s KNOTS at the police station, waiting for an opportunity to see Chip so she can make him confess to killing Ciji. “He’s gotta pay for what he’s done,” she insists. "Who’s gonna make sure he pays?“ But her efforts are in vain - Chip is released. Meanwhile, DALLAS’s Lil comes to a decision of her own. “That’s not my boy,” she declares, "and after today, I’m not gonna come over here anymore and watch that machine breathe for him.” Lilimae knows Chip is guilty; Lil knows Mickey is dead, but in each case, the workings of the legal system refuse to acknowledge that fact. Both women are seeking a sense of justice, or at least closure, that the law is unable to provide.So Lilimae runs down Chip, and Ray and/or Lil pulls the plug on Mickey’s life support system. Having arrived in Soap Land in the same week almost exactly a year earlier, it looks as if Chip and Mickey are now dying alongside each other too. We can’t be certain in Chip’s case because all the dialogue spoken after Lilimae’s car hits him is drowned out by the musical score. Conversely on DALLAS, while the camera stays on Ray, we hear the disembodied voices of the medical team attending to Mickey, ending with with the grave pronouncement, “We’ve done all we can”. The episode concludes with Ray huddled by the door of Mickey’s room, Lil’s hand on his shoulder - a silent acknowledgement of their complicity. At the end of KNOTS, it’s a wordless look rather than a touch that Karen shares with Lilimae, and in their case its one of shock and disbelief.With Chip’s release, Janet Baines quits both the investigation and her position as KNOTS’ impartial observer, which she inherited from Mack when Ciji died. “I'm too close to this, Mack” she now admits. And so, with KNOTS’ focus shifting from Ciji to Sumner, it falls to Ben Gibson to assume the role of the show's objective outsider. While Greg’s combination of liberal idealism and determined ambition wows everyone else, from Mack and Karen to Gary and Abby, Ben is left asking the tricky questions. "He was locked in the state legislature for years,” he says of Greg. "He couldn’t raise a nickel to run even for congress and now in one fell swoop, he’s going for the senate and he seems to have the wherewithal to do it. Just makes me wonder, that’s all." In other words, who is Sheriff Titus to Greg's Fielding Carlyle? Who is the Office of Land Management to his Cliff Barnes?Interestingly, just as Chase did during his court appearance at the end of last week’s FALCON CREST, Greg concludes his speech at the fundraiser by invoking the spirit of America’s thirty-second president: “Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we’re gonna put a greater premium on trying, on action, rather than on being right all the time.” Cue enthusiastic applause. (Val, meanwhile, is as equally won over by the party decorations as she is Greg’s rhetoric. Forget the ocean, it’s like she’s never seen a balloon before.)JR and John Ross have their first of many bedside chats in this week’s DALLAS. Back in the day, these scenes, sweetly amusing though they often were, didn’t mean an awful lot to me. In light of New DALLAS, however, they take on fresh significance. “Ewing Oil and Southfork should be yours and I’m gonna get ‘em for you,” JR promises his son. Likewise, the scene where Cliff smugly blackmails Sly into spying on JR for him chimes perfectly with the ruthless Cliff of New DALLAS. And with Miss Ellie away, JR and Sue Ellen become de facto heads of the household, creating a slightly different atmosphere at the ranch - one that’s perhaps a halfway stage between the Southfork of Jock and Ellie’s era and that of Bobby and Ann’s.Following straight on from Mickey’s death in DALLAS, Chase hobbles back to work on FALCON CREST. It’s an oddly touching juxtaposition. While JR and Dusty Farlow's equivalent struggles to regain the use of their legs were given relatively little screen time, and Constance’s short-lived paralysis on FLAMINGO ROAD was played mainly for sexy laughs, far more dramatic emphasis is given to Chase’s attempts to walk again. Last week, he was given the full-on montage treatment, complete with a score as rousingly militaristic as the EMERALD POINT theme. This week, there’s more of the same as, determined to walk unaided, he throws down his crutches in the vineyard and pulls himself along by holding onto the vines, sweating and grimacing with the effort. There’s something almost Christ-like about his suffering.While KNOTS and DALLAS conclude with the deaths, apparent or otherwise, of Chip and Mickey, the remaining soaps each end with a court-related cliff-hanger - EMERALD POINT with the commencement of the court martial itself, and DYNASTY with Sammy Jo calling Blake from New York: “Just put me on that stand, Mr Carrington, and I guarantee you’ll get Danny back!” Meanwhile on FALCON CREST, as a result of her guilty plea, Julia now faces the possibility of the death penalty. Whether Melissa intended this all along is unclear, but there’s no mistaking her smile in the freeze frame after she hears the news.To raise Big John's $600,000 bail on THE YELLOW ROSE, Roy Champion puts up the oil rights under his family's land as collateral - the same oil that’s coveted by arch enemy Jeb Hollister (a sort of cross between Cecil Colby and Judith Ryland). Roy justifies his actions with a really great speech where he speaks more eloquently about his ranch than any Ewing ever has about Southfork:“Just what is it we’re trying to protect here, anyway? What is the Yellow Rose - two hundred thousand acres of land behind a barbed wire fence? Is it oil leases and a couple of thousand head of cattle? Is it more than that? Dammit, I love this place and not just because it’s home sweet home, but because it’s a part of the past and it’s a way into the future that I want to be a part of. And if we’re more worried about oil and cows and real estate than we are about people, then I don’t think that the Yellow Rose is worth having in the first place.“In any case, the chances of the Champions holding on to their land and their oil aren’t looking good after Sanchez, the cop-killing, drug-running crazy man who works for the Hollisters, lures Big John and Chance into a trap at the end of the ep.And this week’s Top 6 are …1 (1) KNOTS LANDING2 (2) DALLAS3 (5) DYNASTY4 (3) THE YELLOW ROSE5 (4) FALCON CREST6 (6) EMERALD POINT N.A.S</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =