New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 13796" data-attributes="member: 22">12/Mar/84: EMERALD POINT N.A.S.: The Wedding v 14/Mar/84: DYNASTY: The Voice (1) v. 16/Mar/84: DALLAS: The Unexpected v. 16/Mar/84: FALCON CREST: The Gathering Storm v. 17/Mar/84: THE YELLOW ROSE: Debt of HonorA wedding jeopardised by a violent maniac, a missing bride-to-be, an abandoned wedding dress - the final moments of EMERALD POINT anticipate plot elements still to come on this season’s DYNASTY, DALLAS and FALCON CREST. Certainly, EMERALD POINT rallies sufficiently at the end of its run for one to wonder what would have happened next. As classic last words of a season go, “You raped my sister!” is right up there with “My God, that’s my mother!” and “She’s dead, you bastard!"A week after Gary was resurrected during his own funeral on KNOTS LANDING, the line between Soap Land life and death becomes increasingly blurred. At her father’s wedding on EMERALD POINT Celia sees her long dead mother being attacked by Harlan Adams, while on DYNASTY, Claudia hears her long dead husband’s voice over the phone. Both women then faint with shock. As Steven and Krystle rush to Claudia’s side in time for the freeze frame, Celia is attended to by a doctor who on closer inspection turns out to be … sinister cartel henchman Spheeris from FALCON CREST using a fake American accent! Before he can be exposed, he whips off his stethoscope and scuttles back to the Tuscany Valley in time for a James Bondian casino sequence where he violently threatens Pamela Lynch while her lover and boss Richard Channing is busy winning at the baccarat table.There’s more gambling action in the opening scene of this week’s YELLOW ROSE which takes place in the kind of Vegas casino hotel where Bobby Ewing ran into brother Gary back in “Reunion” (DALLAS Season 1). In fact this week’s ROSE is a fascinating amalgamation of three stand alone episodes from early DALLAS, while also serving as a clear example of what sets THE YELLOW ROSE apart from its Soap Land contemporaries.Like “Reunion”, the focus of the ep is the family black sheep, Trey Champion. However, Trey hasn’t managed to lick his gambling problem the way Gary did and he’s $35,000 in the red. This prompts his visit to the family ranch for the first time in several years (imagine if Gary had ever shown up at Southfork while in the throes of addiction). Acting like the successful rodeo star he once was, he tries to sucker big brother Roy into investing in a nonexistent shopping complex in order to clear his debts - it’s as if Bobby’s old college football hero Guzzler Bennett from “Fallen Idol” were masquerading as Dusty Farlow. However, Roy doesn’t have Trey on a pedestal the way Bobby did Guzzler. That role is taken by Roy’s son Whit instead.Whit turns eighteen in this episode, just like Lucy Ewing did in “Runaway”, and is as frustrated by his father's reluctance to let him leave the Rose to join the rodeo circuit as Lucy was by her granddaddy's refusal to allow her to pursue her dreams of becoming a singer or invite Val to her birthday party. Adding to the sense of familiarity, Trey Champion is played by the same actor as Willie, the unhinged robber who picked up the hitchhiking Lucy in “Runaway”. A streak of Willie's manic self destruction runs through Trey’s character too (in his first scene, we see him put a gun to his head), but is mostly concealed behind a veneer of success. Where Willie gave Lucy a ride in his van, Trey lets Whit drive his Ferrari. Where Willie took Lucy hostage and held her at gunpoint, Trey inadvertently endangers Whit when two thugs from Vegas show up and threaten to hurt Whit unless Trey settle his gambling debts. (There’s an equivalent scene in EMERALD POINT this week where two mean guys rough up Casey Denault and make threats against his wife unless he pay off the losses he sustained at the race track.)Just as Willie used Lucy singing in a bar as a distraction for an armed robbery, Trey contemplates a similar crime during a local rodeo in which Whit is competing. The main difference is that while Willie was jeopardising Lucy’s safety for his own ends, Trey is prepared to risk his own neck to save his nephew. For all his demons, Trey’s sense of decency ultimately prevails. And that kind of achingly heartfelt sincerity — always hard won and real, never maudlin or mawkish — is one of the qualities unique to THE YELLOW ROSE. While the other soaps more than deliver on cheap thrills (which aren't to be sniffed at) — characters are rarely depicted flippantly on THE ROSE. It may not always give you what you want, but it'll give you what you need.There's also the richness of its dialogue to savour. Old time ranch hand Luther Dillard recalls Trey as “always lookin’ down the road farther than he could see”, while Trey himself explains his weakness for gambling thusly: “The turn of a card was as good to me as a good bucking horse or a pretty woman on a cold motel morning”.Trey’s departing scene at the end of the episode has an open-ended poignancy similar to Guzzler’s on “Fallen Idol” and Gary’s on “Reunion”, but is ultimately more optimistic and even more touching than either. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s a thing of beauty.At the other end of the Soap Land scale, following Vaughn Leland’s comeback on last week's DALLAS, another amusing adversary returns to DYNASTY this week, heralded by a Middle Eastern flourish on the soundtrack. Yes, the outrageous Rashid Ahmed is back! Rashid’s dialogue is gloriously nonsensical: "It has been said that the greatest cuisines of the civilised world are Chinese and Italian," he informs a bemused Blake. "So it is appropriate that we two gourmets, gourmets in power that is, met first in Rome and now in Hong Kong!” Both Vaughn Leland and Rashid are the focus of somewhat improbable business story-lines this week. Should Cliff Barnes accept a too-good-to-be-true loan for his offshore drilling venture from Vaughn’s bank without insisting he first define the term "acceptable collateral"? Should Blake enter a top secret deal for the China Sea oil leases with someone as notoriously untrustworthy as Rashid? Probably not, but both story-lines are sufficiently entertaining for us to happily go along for the ride.After a discussion with his financial adviser, Cliff meets with Vaughn at the Oil Baron’s Club to define the terms of the loan agreement. Just as they are reaching the crux of the matter, they are interrupted by JR, who has pre-arranged with Vaughn to stop by their table: "What a combination — the crook from Houston sitting down with the incompetent from Dallas," he observes before warning Vaughn against doing business with Cliff. Lest Vaughn be scared off, Cliff signs the loan agreement there and then, ambivalent wording and all. Back on DYNASTY, Adam takes a confidential business call from Blake while in Alexis's office and makes a note of his orders on her phone pad, conveniently writing the words "RASHID AHMED LEASES” so heavily that once he has gone, Alexis is able to decipher the indentation on the page underneath with ease. Both plots hinge on these absurd contrivances yet somehow succeed as much because as in spite of them. In each case, the implausibilities are part of the pleasure.Of Soap Land’s four working girls, DYNASTY’s Tracy has seemingly played the smartest game thus far this season, keeping her cards close to her chest in terms what she’s really after, while the past secrets of FALCON CREST’s Terry, DALLAS’s Jenna and KNOTS LANDING’s Cathy have all caught up with them, jeopardising their relationships in the present. While deputising for Krystle on a business trip to Hong Kong this week, however, Tracy badly overplays her hand, making a pass at Blake so embarrassingly clumsy I can only watch it through my fingers. Meanwhile, Gary, Bobby and Dr Michael have each forgiven Cathy, Jenna and Terry their respective sins. Bobby even has a confession of his own for Jenna in this week’s DALLAS: “Pam’s still got a hold on me and I don’t know when or if I’m gonna feel any different about her than I do right now.” This echoes the admission Val made about her Ewing ex, Gary, on last week’s KNOTS: "This house has never been without him because I've never been without him and I know now I never will.”Krystle learns she’s pregnant on this week’s DYNASTY, her previous inability to have a baby now modified to a “[the doctor] said that if I were careful and didn't do things to excess that I had a chance”, in the much same way that Maggie's brain tumour on FALCON CREST has been downgraded from "inoperable" to "surgery extremely dangerous”. Joining Maggie’s tumour and Mark Graison’s leukaemia on DALLAS are Fallon’s unexplained headaches on DYNASTY which she keeps secret from her family just like Pam Ewing conceals Mark’s illness from her loved ones — including Mark himself.While Blake showers Krystle with gifts to celebrate her pregnancy (a sable coat, a Rolls Royce and chauffeur, a necklace) before setting off for Hong Kong, Mark returns from the Middle East also bearing gifts, pearls for Pam. The words he uses as he puts them round her neck — "I detoured five thousand miles and had six divers diving for these because I’m extraordinarily wealthy and very handsome” — sound very much like the boast made by Dex Dexter when he returned from Australia with a similarly impressive piece of jewellery for Alexis earlier in the season: "I spent most of my time searching for the one thing on this earth that comes closest to matching you - this.” But where Dex’s declaration was unequivocal in its macho confidence, Mark’s is laced with self-deprecating humour and anxiety as he awaits Pam’s response to his marriage proposal. “The answer’s yes, Mark,” she tells him. “Yes, I will marry you.”Towards the end of this week’s DALLAS, Clayton’s sister Jessica arrives at Southfork for his wedding to Miss Ellie. Played by another statuesque Hollywood veteran with a salty no-nonsense demeanour ("Please, don't 'Lady Montford' me to death ... Folks used to say I rassled mountain lions down in San Angelo”), she makes a fitting replacement for Rose Hollister, killed off in last week’s YELLOW ROSE. It’s only when she’s alone at the end of the episode that we realise Jessica has a sinister secret agenda. “I wouldn’t count on your marrying brother Clayton, Miss Ellie,” she scowls into thin air. “I wouldn’t count on it at all.” Who knows? Maybe she’ll take a leaf out of psycho David’s book on EMERALD POINT and kidnap the bride just before the wedding. Nah, that’ll never happen.FALCON CREST, meanwhile, concludes with a hospital scene. Two weeks after Fallon awoke from her coma on DYNASTY with an anguished cry of “Oh my God, I can’t move my legs!”, it’s now Maggie’s turn: “Oh God, I can’t see!”And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (2) THE YELLOW ROSE2 (3) FALCON CREST3 (4) DALLAS4 (6) EMERALD POINT N.A.S.5 (5) DYNASTY</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?