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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 13263" data-attributes="member: 22">04/Jan/84: DYNASTY: The Ring v. 05/Jan/84: KNOTS LANDING: Forsaking All Others v. 06/Jan/84: DALLAS: Peter’s Principles v. 06/Jan/84: FALCON CREST: Sport of Kings v. 07/Jan/84: THE YELLOW ROSE: Divide and ConquerConstruction-related corruption is all the rage in this week’s Soap Land. On DYNASTY, Fallon does business with an architect friend of Peter de Vilbis whom Adam tries to warn her is up to no good. She won’t listen but the deal does seem to be in some way connected to Peter’s debt and drug problems. Over on FALCON CREST, Richard announces his intention to have the official groundbreaking ceremony of the Tuscany Valley racetrack on Falcon Crest property, which will destroy ten acres of vines in the process. "He has perverted the intent of eminent domain principles to get his way, to take what he wanted!” fumes Chase. “That land has been in our family for three generations. It’s nothing less than rape!” protests Angela.Chase calls a meeting of the county supervisors in an attempt to get permission for Richard’s racetrack overturned. "The people of this valley have more at stake than money,” he insists. "Most have lived here for generations because this is their home. You don't just come strolling into the Tuscany Valley, whip out your cheque book and buy a heritage. You work for it. It becomes part of you.” This stirring speech resonates with what Mr and Mrs Marcus, an elderly couple refusing to sell their Lotus Point property to Abby’s company, told Laura in last week’s KNOTS LANDING. “It’s not the money we want. We have lived here for forty years. We know what happens when developers move in … Dammit, this is our home!” This week, the Wolfbridge Group eliminate the problem by simply burning down the Marcuses’ home.While Chase tries to derail the racetrack, Mack Mackenzie attempts to bring down the Wolfbridge Group. In retaliation, both men are subject to almost identical accusations. “Supervisor Gioberti is caught in a conflict of interest,” states Richard Channing publicly. "His is the voice of Falcon Crest and he is concerned for his personal welfare to the exclusion of the rights of the people of this valley and his voting rights should be suspended.” “Commissioner Mackenzie may be a party to a grave conflict of interest,” declares Greg Sumner during a televised press conference. "MacKenzie has used his influence as a public official for his own personal gain … I have … been forced to ask Mack Mackenzie for his resignation.” Richard and Greg both prevail - Chase loses his voting rights and Mack loses his job.It seems like we’re headed for some sort of climax on this week’s KNOTS LANDING. The hemmed-in, handheld camera work during the scenes at Sumner campaign headquarters makes it feel like we’re on a boat that’s about to capsize. Elsewhere, the sight of a hospitalised Karen watching Mack’s downfall on television suggests a doomy end-of-season gravitas. Surprisingly, we’re only three-fifths of the way through the season. The pace of this week’s DALLAS is almost leisurely in comparison. This is a show very confident in its storytelling — there’s something effortless about it. The scene where Afton returns home to find Cliff in an apparently compromising position with Marilee Stone is a variation on a by now familiar Soap Land scenario. However, Cliff and Marilee's matter-of-fact response to Afton’s anger (“Does she storm out like that often?” “She’s done it before”) and the small detail of Afton's headscarf ("there was a flood at the club") give the scene a lightness and wit without compromising its credibility, or its dramatic repercussions.One of those is a great confrontation between Pam and Cliff where she bursts into his office. "What the hell are you doing to Afton?” she demands to know. They end up having the same argument they've been having for the past six years (Cliff: "I've been kicked and kicked hard." Pam: "You mean by the Ewings? You're still singing that old song??”), but it somehow feels fresh, significant and resonant. Similarly, on FALCON CREST, Angela's umpteenth speech about the importance of the land is unexpectedly powerful and even touching. "Richard's gonna tear these vines out of the ground before the day is finished," she tells Chase. "My grandfather planted most of these vines and every generation has tended them and kept them alive. Something terribly important is going to die today."In fact, this entire episode of FALCON CREST is one that, without warning and for no specific reason (except perhaps the bold direction of Larry Elikkan), feels potent and exhilarating. Plot points that have been lying dormant or unexplored for weeks now rise to the surface. Suddenly everything seems to matter. “My marriage is a farce!” yells Melissa when confronted with evidence of her and Lance’s affairs at the deposition hearing over Joseph’s custody. It’s a very self-destructive, exciting moment — all the more so for being so unexpected. There’s also an excruciating scene where Emma visits Dr Ranson at his office and declares her feelings for him, only for him to gently turn her down. It’s an incident that scarcely impacts the rest of the ep, but is one of the most emotionally involving of the Soap Land week — topped only by a blisteringly good break-up scene between Chance and Colleen on THE YELLOW ROSE. (“When it comes down to feelin’, you break and run out to your big lonesome,” says Colleen sadly. God I love the dialogue on this show.)Following harsh words with Alexis and Sue Ellen, Dex Dexter and Peter Richards disappear for much of this week’s DYNASTY and DALLAS. When Dex finally shows up, having spent a fortnight in Australia, ("I needed that two weeks to think about my life: where it's been, where it's going and with whom. It always came down to one woman — you”) Alexis feigns indifference. "Sorry, you're dealing with a disinterested party,” she sniffs. By contrast, Sue Ellen wears her concern for Peter on her sleeve. “I was frantic — nobody knew where you were, if you were all right,” she tells him when she eventually tracks him down to the dingy apartment he had rented for them both. Dex gains Alexis’s attention with a necklace of precious jewels. “It's breathtaking!” she gasps — but is still hesitant about becoming emotionally involved with him. "It's not a collar, Alexis, it's a tribute,” he assures her. She puts the necklace on and they both stare admiringly at her reflection. Meanwhile, Sue Ellen caresses Peter’s youthful face as if it were just as precious. “You are so young and so sweet,” she whispers. “This is just a moment for us. It can’t last.” “That’s not the way I feel … not ever!” Peter insists. Both Alexis and Sue Ellen then submit to their younger men — ultimately because they want to, I guess.As this week’s DYNASTY ends so this week’s KNOTS LANDING begins — with a medical emergency. We leave Kirby staring at a close-up of her suddenly swollen hands and join KNOTS for an extreme close up of Karen’s eyes as she is admitted to a chemical dependency unit. Karen isn’t the first Soap Land character to develop a problem with pills — Lucy Ewing and Eudora Weldon both got there before her — but inasmuch as she has essentially been committed by her husband against her will, a closer comparison might be made with Sue Ellen at the end of DALLAS’s first season. “There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m fine,” Sue Ellen protested back then. “I don’t belong here. I’m not like those people,” Karen insists now. Miss Ellie’s line, “Sue Ellen’s the last person I thought this kind of thing would happen to” is echoed by her son Gary: “Pills - Karen’s the last person you’d expect.” But whereas there was a sense of inevitability about Sue Ellen’s alcoholism, some essential weakness or flaw in her personality or upbringing that meant she was always destined to end up in the Soap Land Sanitarium, there’s more of a "this could happen to anyone” vibe about Karen’s situation, hence her — and Mack’s — bewilderment that it should be happening to them.Like Julia in the FALCON CREST penitentiary, Lane Ballou in her FLAMINGO ROAD jail cell and Gary Ewing when he was hospitalised for alcoholism at the end of KNOTS’ first season, it’s interesting that Karen’s closest ally in the unit, her roommate, should be a person of colour. Like Julia, Lane and Gary, this is the first time Karen has had any meaningful on-screen interaction with a black person — a sign of how far she's fallen perhaps? “I’m not like those people,” she insists, with a sidelong glance at her new roomie. Said roomie later delivers a simple but effective speech on the subject. “There’s a lot of difference between you and me,” she tells Karen. "The drugs I use are illegal. I gotta go to the street to cop. You get yours from a doctor, for now. I can get arrested for mine and you deduct yours from your taxes. You're the lead in a TV series. My character doesn’t even have a name."As Karen gradually adjusts to life in the chemical dependency unit, FALCON CREST’s Julia is transferred to the Institute for the Criminally Insane. There she receives a visit from half-brother Richard who elects to tell her in the most callous way possible that the baby Melissa is carrying, whom Julia believes to be her grandchild through Lance, is really his own: "Aren't you going to congratulate me?” He then smirks as Julia goes berserk with rage. Such thrillingly wanton cruelty is FALCON CREST’s speciality.On DALLAS, Pam’s concern that Cliff is about to reignite the Barnes/Ewing feud provides her with a reason to meet with Bobby so they can discuss the best way to prevent it. Similarly, on KNOTS, Val takes Karen’s collapse as an opportunity to visit Gary’s ranch, ostensibly to break the news to Diana in person. Instead, it’s Gary she ends up spending time with. Despite all the unresolved emotions floating around, both sets of Ewing divorcees broach the topic of their exes’ new partners as maturely as they can. “We do have to get one thing out of the way first — how’s Mark?” says Bobby as he and Pam sit down to dinner together. He then gestures for her to do likewise. Pam laughs. “How's Jenna?” she asks. Over on KNOTS, Gary inquires about Ben and expresses concern when Val admits they’re no longer seeing each other. Val then bravely requests that he “say hi to Abby for me,” before driving away at the end of the scene.When Gary tells Laura that he will oppose the development of Lotus Point by an unknown company ("I’m not gonna give up without a fight”) it looks as if we’re in for a variation on the DALLAS Season 3 plot where Miss Ellie vowed to stop the Takapa project without realising Jock was behind it. This time, Gary takes his mama’s role, Abby substitutes for Jock and Laura is a more morally compromised version of the caught-in-the-middle Krebbses. However, by the end of this week's episode Gary is sufficiently suspicious of his wife’s involvement to order a company audit. Abby and Laura are left looking as shifty as Angela and Philip did when Chase ordered the same thing at Falcon Crest last year, or JR when Jock insisted the Ewing Oil accounts be inspected back in DALLAS Season 2.Another trend of the week: unknown enemies lurking without. On DYNASTY, Steven’s son Danny is approached by a nameless man in the park whom his nanny is later convinced has followed them home. On FALCON CREST, Maggie has no idea she too is being followed by an anonymous man as she continues her research on Jacqueline Perrault. On KNOTS LANDING, Mark St Clare discusses Mack’s fate with Greg over the phone as a group of unidentified men, their faces shrouded in darkness, look on in silence. On DALLAS, another unknown man observes Donna lunching with Edgar Randolph at the Oil Barons Club before sidling up to JR at the bar. “He’s the one. No doubt about it,” he tells him.Random coincidence of the week: DYNASTY’s Steven Carrington and DALLAS’s Steven “Dusty" Farlow both celebrate a birthday. The latter’s big day take place off screen but is referred to by his father, thereby providing JR with an opportunity to pry a little further into the Farlow family’s past, specifically Clayton’s mysterious sister Jessica. This week he learns that she is the widow of an English lord. Interesting stuff — but nothing compared to the dirt FALCON CREST's Maggie digs up on the Giobertis’ own Europe-based relative, the late Jacqueline Perrault. "Her second husband was a Nazi sympathiser who made his fortune by looting the French art museums during the Occupation,” she tells Chase. "He was murdered and she inherited everything."The YELLOW ROSE equivalent of Jessica Montford and Jacqueline Perrault makes her on-screen debut this week. The bitterly estranged sister of Jeb Hollister and the secret mother of Chance McKenzie, Rose Hollister is as controversial a character as they come - a kind of Jacqueline Perrault and Rebecca Wentworth rolled into one. Rose harbours a secret similar to the one Jacqueline did when she arrived in FALCON CREST: “If Jeb ever learns that I had a child by Wade Champion and that child is in line to inherit everything Jeb stole from me and more, it’s that boy who’ll be destroyed." And in the same way that Lana Turner’s reputation for glamour and scandal overlapped with Jacqueline’s on FALCON CREST, the casting of legendary Hollywood star Jane Russell as Rose complements both her character’s status and no-nonsense attitude. (What other female in Soap Land could deliver the line, “Flattery don’t cut cow flop”?) While Soap Land has been full of veteran movie actors from the beginning - Barbara Bel Geddes, Jane Wyman, Howard Keel, Julie Harris - none of them brought with them the star wattage or iconic “baggage" of Jane Russell or Lana Turner. Rose’s introductory scene takes place in a saloon bar where she first observes and then flirts with Chance without letting him know she’s his mother. This certainly puts Adam and Fallon's inadvertently incestuous kiss in last season’s DYNASTY into perspective.THE YELLOW ROSE ends with a really terrific family meeting where the Champions vote on whether or not to allow Jeb Hollister to drill for oil on the ranch — a decision that would secure their future but also go against the promise Roy to made to his late father. “Choosing between a land covered in oil wells and no land at all because we can’t afford to hold onto it isn’t a choice at all,” says Chance. "I’m sorry, Roy. This isn’t the 1940s, it’s the 1980s.” It’s as tense and dramatic as equivalent scenes on the original DALLAS, but there’s an additional component too — an emotional complexity of the kind often found in New DALLAS, which also makes it genuinely moving.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (-) THE YELLOW ROSE2 (-) FALCON CREST3 (-) DALLAS4 (1) KNOTS LANDING5 (2) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?