New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 18117" data-attributes="member: 22">16/Oct/85: DYNASTY: The Man v. 17/Oct/85: KNOTS LANDING: The Christening v. 18/Oct/85: DALLAS: Saving Grace v. 18/Oct/85: FALCON CREST: Blood BrothersAlthough mention of any specific disease is scrupulously avoided, the subject of terminal illness is raised in three of this week’s soaps, each time providing a strong motivation for a character’s behaviour. "I watched my father waste away from a debilitating disease,” Mark Graison tells Pam on DALLAS. "I was helpless to do anything but suffer along with him. I couldn't put you through that.” And thus we are finally given the reason why Mark staged his own death two seasons ago. “My mother is dying,” Joshua tells Cathy at the end of this week’s KNOTS LANDING, thereby explaining the real reason he is reluctant to move out of his family's house. (Except it isn’t the real reason at all — save for an achy shoulder, Lilimae is as fit as a fiddle.) Meanwhile on DYNASTY, Constance Colby explains to her brother Jason that it is because of his illness that she is giving her half of Colby Enterprises to their nephew Jeff. "If I’m going to lose you, I’ll be damned if I’ll see all of your hard work die with you,” she tells him, pointing out that his own son Miles "is not interested in running this company” and, more intriguingly, "doesn’t have the integrity to run it.” Constance’s action proves as controversial as Bobby Ewing’s instruction that Pam should preside over Christopher's share of Ewing Oil on DALLAS. "Accept Jeff Colby as my partner? That boy?!” barks Jason. "I don’t even know if he can pour beer out of a boot with the directions printed on the heel!"The week after DYNASTY introduced us to Jason Colby, FALCON CREST brings us Peter Stavros, yet another hugely successful businessman of the kind Soap Land is so fond. (Indeed, Jason and Peter would appear to be this season's Paul Galveston and Daniel Reece.) While Joel Abrigore recently described Blake Carrington as "one of the world's wealthiest men," Greg Reardon refers to Peter this week as "almost the wealthiest man in the world.”Like Jason and Blake, Peter Stavros and Angela Channing are old acquaintances. "How long’s it been — twenty years, give or take a few?” Jason asked Blake last week. "How long has it been — ten years, eleven?” Peter asks Angela this week. “You stole some oil leases from me,” recalled Blake. "You broke my heart,” Peter remembers. Unlike Blake, Peter harbours no ill-feeling towards his former associate and even agrees to help Angela foil the Rossini family's attempt to turn Falcon Crest into a resort.His meeting with the Rossinis provides Peter with plenty of opportunity to make grandiose reference to his own reputation, just as Jason Colby did last week. “What did you expect — that Peter Stavros spends all his time buying and selling boats, shipping bananas, courting movie stars? You read too many magazines, my dear!” he mock-chides Cassandra. Where Jason casually recalled getting thrown out of the White House, Peter happily admits to a high-status indiscretion of his own. ("Is it true about you and the princess?” asks Anna Rossini. "Every word,” he replies.) While Constance reminds Jason on this week’s DYNASTY that, “You have worked hard to build Colby Enterprises and I’ve been with you every step of the way,” Peter is happy to brag about his own achievements: “I'm a man who does his homework — that’s why I was able to take my little fishing boat and turn it into an empire.”Boastful Peter may be, but there is also a twinkly-eyed warmth about the character, and such is the chemistry between him and the customarily austere Angela that one accepts their long-term bond without question (even though we’d never heard of him before last week). In fact, theirs is perhaps the most instantly convincing rapport of any Soap Land couple since Karen and Mack on KNOTS.DYNASTY's Claudia and KNOTS LANDING’s Laura have been leading parallel lives of late. Each received a marriage proposal under less than ideal circumstances — Greg popped the question to Laura during a row over his supposed affair with Abby, Adam proposed to Claudia in the immediate aftermath of the Moldavian massacre — which she has since turned down. Having returned to her former profession of realtor, Laura has now succeeded in building a life not only away from Greg but also outside of the interconnected world of Seaview Circle. (The main downside of this is that she gets less screen time.) Uncertain of her future at La Mirage, Claudia makes a similar strike for independence this week. "I’ve spent my life leaning on people,” she tells Steven, "on Matthew, on you, on your family. Maybe in San Francisco, by myself, I can find what I really need, what I want.”However, neither Greg Sumner nor Adam Carrington is willing to let go of his respective woman so easily. Greg turns up at Laura’s place of work this week and is physically aggressive towards a co-worker with whom he thinks she is involved. (Such violent behaviour from Greg is as uncharacteristic as the punch-up instigated by JR after he found Dusty at Sue Ellen’s bedside on DALLAS two weeks ago.) Meanwhile on DYNASTY, Adam tracks Claudia down to her hotel room in San Francisco. Whereas Laura stands her ground with Greg (“What are you hounding me for? I can do what I damn well please!”), Claudia, in spite of her protests, ultimately capitulates to Adam’s demands. “There’s a current in him — it pulls me,” she admits.Elsewhere, FALCON CREST’s amnesiac and DALLAS’s alcoholic also make a bid for independence this week. While Maggie Gioberti moves into a secluded cabin, Sue Ellen Ewing enters a voluntary rehabilitation programme. (Let us overlook for the moment that Maggie's cabin is owned and Sue Ellen’s rehab bills are paid for by their respective husbands.) "I may never know who I was before the accident, but if I’m going to find out who I am now, I have to do it by myself,” Maggie informs Chase. “She’s started the programme on her own. She’s going to get better on her own … She’s finally chosen to take control of her life — let her!” Miss Ellie tells Dusty on Sue Ellen’s behalf. Mama Farlow is impressively tough-talking in this scene. Ironically, however, she later hands over control of her own affairs to her husband — as JR discovers when Clayton takes her place at a lunch meeting. “Whatever you have to say to her, you’re just going to have to say to me,” Clayton tells him, “and don’t even think about going around me.” Similarly, Pam is only too happy to let the newly resurrected Mark Graison take over her dealings with JR. Meanwhile on KNOTS, Abby is relieved when Gary, still in mourning for Bobby (as are Ellie and Pam), asks her to continue managing his affairs at Empire Valley. (Gary does, however, find time to lend his mama a sympathetic off screen ear. On DALLAS, we see Miss Ellie’s half of their phone conversation as she debates the pros and cons of selling her shares of Ewing Oil to West Star.)Several moments in this week’s Soap Land made me laugh out loud. “Well, I’ll be damned,” says JR after Mark Graison walks into his office. “You probably will,” Mark replies. “I thought he was dead!” exclaims Sly when Mark leaves. “I hope I don’t end up wishing he was,” counters JR. Meanwhile, just the sight of Linda Evans, aka Rita, aka Krystle-to-be, sporting dark glasses and a bandage across her face to signify the surgery she has undergone to remove what is essentially a bit of clay from the end of her nose is endlessly amusing.Towards the end of this week’s DYNASTY, Joel and Sammy Jo wait impatiently for Rita to return home from having her bandages removed and her hair styled to make it look more like Krystle’s. When she finally arrives, she explains that she has been window-shopping. “One of the things you see when you look in the window is your own reflection,” she says. "I kept going from store to store, looking for myself, but I couldn’t find myself, Joel. Rita doesn’t exist anymore.” Over on DALLAS, we hear of another transformation. "Mark Graison bailed out of the plane and before he hit the ground he became Mitchell Swanson,” Mark tells Pam. He goes on to explain how he later paid someone else to assume the identity of the fictional Swanson in order to convince Pam that he (Mark) was really dead.This comes at a point in Soap Land where the concept of identity, and even reality, feels ever more transitory. Characters believed to be dead are coming back to life on an almost weekly basis. Actors are replacing (and occasionally re-replacing) other actors in the same role. While some characters lose their memories, others adopt new identities. Little wonder then that references to dreams and nightmares, both literal and metaphorical, should be cropping up with such regularity. Last week’s DYNASTY opened with Jeff Colby waking from a nightmare about his supposedly dead fiancee. “Tell me I’m not dreaming,” says Pam Ewing looking into the eyes of her supposedly dead fiancee at the beginning of this week’s DALLAS. On FALCON CREST, Anna Rossini admits that since returning to the Tuscany Valley, she has had recurring dreams that her late husband is still alive: “I dream I’m back with Dominic. We’re tending our own vineyards. I even reach out for him.” “Are you going to risk the lives of other men just to chase a dream?” Blake asks Alexis when she talks of launching a rescue mission to find King Galen.In the midst of such unreality, there are glimpses of a grittier world that exists beyond Soap Land’s walls. On DYNASTY, having finally received confirmation that Fallon is still alive when a desk sergeant in a Los Angeles police station recognises her photo, Jeff demands to know why her case hasn't been prioritised. “Take a look around this place,” the cop replies. "We got guys strung out on PCP, we got gangs killing each other for control of the street corners. Now this girl comes in and I’m supposed to drop everything?” Over on KNOTS, Mack Mackenzie also finds his current storyline playing second fiddle to more pressing offscreen concerns. “You could have called me last night and told me he wasn’t going to make it,” he complains after travelling to Sacramento for a meeting with the governor. “We would have — if the Lakeshore housing project had burnt down last night instead of this morning,” the governor’s assistant Jill Bennett replies pointedly. Closer to home, Father Christopher brings a social conscience back to FALCON CREST when he highlights the poor living and working conditions of Melissa's and Angela’s field workers. “Most of these men tell me they work ten or twelve hour days, no overtime, no health insurance,” he informs a totally unrepentant Melissa. “A lot of people don’t live quite as well as you do,” he points out to Angela, "like your employees … A lot of them don’t even have indoor plumbing.” FALCON CREST has raised this subject before, back in Season 1, but then it felt as though such exploitation was somehow endemic to the culture of the Tuscany Valley. When confronted by Christopher this week, however, Angela immediately capitulates. “It will be rectified immediately,” she assures him.On last week's DALLAS, Pam Ewing was picnicking with her son in a park when she became aware of a man observing them. On this week's KNOTS, Val is unaware of Sheila Fisher watching from a distance as she and her twins also picnic in a park. In each case, the stalker’s intentions prove benign. "He was your guardian angel,” says Mark of the detective he had hired to keep an eye on Pam. Meanwhile, the Fishers explain that all they want is an opportunity to say goodbye to the babies before leaving town.The Fishers make their farewells and, as a final gesture, Sheila hands Val two pairs of knitted booties, presumably homemade. Both women are too emotional to speak, but Val’s nod as she accepts them seems to indicate some sort of forgiveness and/or acceptance towards Sheila. Over on DALLAS, the gifting of baby booties is also a defining moment between two women. During another maternity-related shopping expedition, Jenna presents Donna with a gift, "for you, Ray and you know who” — a pair of fluffy, duck-shaped baby shoes. They look a lot more expensive than the booties Sheila gave Val and unlike Val, Donna is not lost for words. "They are precious! Thank-you!!" she gushes. She and Jenna hug, thereby cementing their newfound friendship.Two semi-naked men are awakened by late-night intruders in this week’s Ewing-verse. On KNOTS, Ben Gibson (PJ bottoms) wrestles his prowler to the floor before realising that it's Val. On DALLAS, Jack Ewing (boxer shorts) creeps up on his intruder, but the man escapes before his identity — or more specifically, the identity of the person who sent him (Jeremy? JR? Cliff?) — can be revealed.There are equivalent bittersweet moments between Pam and Mark on DALLAS and Val and Ben on KNOTS this week, each related to Bobby’s death. "I love you, but not the way that I loved Bobby,” Pam admits to Mark. "I've always lived with that," he replies bravely. "Pam, there are all kinds of love. If it never went beyond how we feel right now about each other I'd still consider myself a very lucky man.” It’s a lovely, poignant speech. On KNOTS, the emotion comes from what is unsaid. Following the prowler incident, Val and Ben go to bed together and in the post-coital darkness that follows, Val brings up the subject of the babies’ baptism. In the scene, Ben is facing away from her, but we can see from his sad, disappointed expression that he already knows where this conversation is headed. Sure enough: “Would you mind if I named my boy Bobby?” Val asks. “After Bobby Ewing?” Ben replies, even though he already knows the answer. (This scene is the pay-off for the rather clumsily staged moment in last week’s ep where Ben overheard Val telling Gary offscreen of her decision to call her son Bobby.) He pretends not to mind, but of course, he does. (Now that the stolen baby saga is over, KNOTS has lost some of the dramatic momentum it managed to sustain over the past few seasons, but the trade-off seems to be that we get richly complex scenes like this, full of subtext and depth, instead.)While Pam comes clean to Mark about her reconciliation with Bobby just before his death on DALLAS, Richard tells Maggie about the kiss they shared just before the explosion on FALCON CREST. The two couples walk and talk in almost identical surroundings — a romantically pretty lakeside forest. When Chase sees Richard and Maggie together, he is as angry and jealous as Greg Sumner was at the sight of Laura and her workmate. It’s interesting to see all these alpha male characters — Greg, JR, Chase — suddenly so helpless and frustrated.A year after Joshua Rush, the innocent son of a preacher man, turned up in KNOTS LANDING’s Seaview Circle, Father Christopher, an idealistic Catholic priest, arrives in FALCON CREST's Tuscany Valley. Joshua had always believed that his mother had died when he was a baby and was therefore shocked when his Aunt Lilimae confessed that she was his real mother. Father Christopher, meanwhile, has grown up believing that Angela Channing is just a kindly philanthropist who made several generous donations to the orphanage where he was raised. This week, he discovers she is really the grandmother who separated him from his mother when he was first born. "It’s all a lie,” wept Joshua then, “my whole life. I don’t know what I’ve done that was good or that was bad. I don’t know if I’ve ever been right. I don’t know what is right.” "I had a mother and you gave me to the priests,” Christopher shouts at Angela now. "I had a family and you gave me to an institution. I had a faith in God and now I don’t know what I have."And this week’s Top 4 are …1 (2) DALLAS2 (1) DYNASTY3 (3) KNOTS LANDING4 (4) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?