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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 55642" data-attributes="member: 22">05 Nov 86: DYNASTY: The Arraignment v. 06 Nov 86: THE COLBYS: Bloodlines v. 06 Nov 86: KNOTS LANDING: Brothers and Mothers v. 07 Nov 86: DALLAS: The Second Time Around v. 07 Nov 86: FALCON CREST: FlashpointIt’s another very strong week in Soap Land. As the Lorimar shows continue to experiment with form and tone, DYNASTY has now become the most traditional of all the soaps. This week’s ep is pure fun. Nearly all of Alexis’s entrances, of which there are several, made me laugh out loud, either at the ridiculousness of her outfits (such as the wildly inappropriate hat she wears to visit Blake in jail) or at her sheer melodramatic chutzpah. There’s also a terrific, quasi-Shakespearean turn from Christopher Cazenove as Ben Carrington in which he sheds real tears, suddenly overwhelmed with guilt over his mother’s death. Meanwhile, THE COLBYS regains its dramatic momentum, due in large part to Sable sticking her nose into other people’s business, and DALLAS does a great job of balancing nostalgia with forward-looking storylines. KL and FC are no slouches either in the drama department either.Lying on his hospital deathbed in last week’s KNOTS LANDING, Phil Harbert unintentionally absolved Greg Sumner of any involvement in Karen’s kidnapping. On this week’s DYNASTY, Jackie Devereaux is also in her hospital bed when she inadvertently exonerates Blake Carrington of any involvement in the fire at La Mirage. So it is that two storylines left dangling after last season’s cliffhangers are finally brought to a close.Just as the fire spelt the end for La Mirage, the equivalent disaster on FALCON CREST — the Tuscany Valley earthquake — has resulted in the closure of Richard’s racetrack. As he explains to Angela after selling her his share of the business, “Tuscany Downs is being condemned … I built the damn thing right on top of on earthquake fault.”  This is the second time in as many seasons that Angela has been duped into spending a fortune on land which later turns out to be worthless.The more of the 86/87 Soap Land season I watch, the more of a divide there seems to be between the years before Pam’s dream and the post-dream period we’re in now. This applies not only to DALLAS but to the genre as a whole. At this point, DALLAS, DYNASTY and FALCON CREST are all well past the halfway point of their respective runs while KNOTS will reach that milestone in three episodes’ time. The gratuitous display of wealth and glamour one immediately associates with the ‘80s supersoap has already reached its peak. “You are talking about boom times. I’m not sure we’re ever gonna see those times again,” says Cliff Barnes after April Stevens tells him how much Ewing Oil was valued at after Jock’s death four years earlier. Even though the characters are still rich, the novelty of displaying their wealth at every opportunity has worn off. The age of La Mirage, Tuscany Downs and Empire Valley is over. This is now the era of the Carlton Hotel, the Del Oro Spa and Valentine Lingerie.It’s also the era of mullets with frosted highlights and jackets with the sleeves rolled up, as modelled by the newly-sexualised Michael Fairgate on KNOTS LANDING. (One of Michael’s garishly multi-coloured socks even receives its own closeup this week after he leaves it in Paige’s hotel room and she has to conceal it from his mother.) Pam Ewing’s wedding dress in this week’s DALLAS is also an interesting symbol of the times. I vaguely remember reading that the gown in which she married Mark Graison at the end of the dream season was the single most expensive outfit ever worn on DALLAS. As such, it represented a pinnacle of sorts for Soap Land glamour. The dress she wears for her wedding to Bobby, though hardly plain, is comparatively modest. Instead of a bejewelled soap diva, she looks more like a pretty pixie getting married in a woodland fairytale. The raggedy, elbow-length fingerless gloves she wears appear to be have been influenced by Madonna (as well as eerily foreshadowing the bandages she will be covered in at the beginning of next season).The simpler, lighter dress also symbolises the new post-dream Pam. For the first time in years, she isn’t weighed down by emotional baggage — there’s no desperate searching for Mark, no silent pining for Bobby. Nor is she caught up in a raging feud between JR and Bobby or the Barneses and the Ewings. For once, she’s unburdened by the past and free to enjoy her good fortune — until the end of the episode, that is.With Lance and Melissa remarrying on FALCON CREST and Pam and Bobby about to do the same thing, there’s a sense of Soap Land revisiting its past, but this time with a kind of ironic self-awareness. “Knowing how much our family members love each other, we’ll be picking bullets out of the wall till Christmas,” quips Lance after agreeing to have his and Melissa’s wedding reception at Angela’s place. Later, at the party itself, Melissa explains to Dan Fixx why she invited him: “I thought you might like to see how the other half lives.” “Apparently, they keep marrying each other. You must have more china than you know what to do with,” he replies.Pam and Bobby, meanwhile, go so far as to reenact the car journey they made to Southfork at the very beginning of the series. Just as they stopped off at a gas station for a little smooch in “Digger’s Daughter”, so they pull over on the way to Pam’s wedding shower for the same reason. This time, however, Bobby gets tangled up in his seat belt and Pam gets the giggles — a tacit acknowledgement that they’re not quite the starry-eyed youngsters they used to be. It feels charming rather than overtly knowing — even if it’s hard to know quite what to make of Bobby’s throwaway line, “I need a shower”, at the end of the scene.In fact, there is no shortage of self-referential moments in this week’s soaps. Most blatant is the one on KNOTS where Val sells the screen rights to Capricorn Crude (her thinly-veiled account of life with the Texas Ewings), to Ramilor Studios (KNOTS’ thinly-veiled version of Lorimar Pictures). In effect, this means that DALLAS is being reduced to a made-for-TV movie within its own spin-off show. (Could this be KNOTS’ revenge for DALLAS turning Bobby’s death into a dream sequence?) Meanwhile, on FALCON CREST, Richard’s secretary wonders why he continues to refer to his bride-to-be as Miss Jones rather than by her first name, Erin. “One of the Walton children was named Erin. I can’t seem to get past that,” he explains. This is one of FC’s occasional nods to its creator Earl Hamner’s other hit show. Elsewhere in the same ep, one of Kim Novak’s past successes is also referenced when her character meets Richard Channing by the Golden Gate Bridge in an almost shot-for-shot recreation of a scene between Novak and James Stewart in Hitchcock’s VERTIGO. It’s Jason Colby’s PLANET OF THE APES “Damn it all to hell!” moment on DYNASTY all over again. (The precise term for this kind of pastiche is, apparently, ‘intertextual’.)Each of this week’s DYNASTY-verse episodes includes a scene from a minor couple’s unstable marriage. In both cases, the husband is a former senator. On DYNASTY, Buck Fallmont upsets wife Emily by railing drunkenly against “my esteemed friends, the Carringtons” in front of their son Clay and his girlfriend Sammy Jo. He also accuses Emily of favouring Clay over their other son Bart. Meanwhile, on THE COLBYS, Adrienne Cassidy breaks up a cosy tete-a-tete between husband Cash and his former mistress Monica by announcing her intention to join him in Los Angeles while he is working on the IMOS Project.“I read an article that said that some men are intimidated by today’s woman,” Jamie informs Cliff on DALLAS. Perhaps some women are too. While Monica Colby represents “today’s woman”, her new-old adversary Adrienne, a wronged wife in furs, feels a throw-back to the pre-dream era. Adrienne makes the distinction between herself and Monica during their first onscreen confrontation. “Funny, I always imagined you carried your own baggage,” she tells her. “All that independence … You were a college girl, I was a senator’s wife. I’d have done anything to protect that … If you have any ideas of picking up where you left off with my husband, forget it. You’re not an innocent college girl anymore. This time, no kid gloves.”Trend of the week: characters squabbling about the sacking and/or reinstating of an employee. “I fired Dana Waring as my assistant. You had no right to hire her,” complains Ben Carrington at Denver-Colby. “Who are you to tell me what to do? … I answer only to Alexis!” snaps back Adam. Alexis gets the last word. Describing Dana as “a very valuable contact”, she sides with Adam. Likewise, at the Del Oro Spa on FALCON CREST, Lance is annoyed when Angela promotes Dan Fixx to concierge a week after he sacked him from his position as a bellhop. “I’m the general manager of this place and I want him out of here,” he insists. “Well, I’m the owner and he stays,” Angela replies. Over on THE COLBYS, Jason attempts to remove Cash Cassidy from IMOS for personal reasons. “You can’t fire a man because your daughter got involved with him,” protests Monica. “The hell I can’t,” counters Jason, “I’m making a formal request — Cash Cassidy goes.” This time, it’s Zach Powers who intercedes, secretly using his political influence to block Jason’s decision. “You make sure Cassidy stays on the project,” he instructs an unknown someone in Washington. “He’s too useful to me right where he is.” There are no such hirings and firings on KNOTS, but Abby and Karen nonetheless clash when the former gives Eric the afternoon off from his job at Lotus Point. “Eric reports to me, Abby,” Karen insists. “I thought he was an employee of the corporation,” replies Abby. “An employee who reports to me,” Karen maintains. “Well, golly whizz, Karen, what would you like me to do — get him back?” Abby asks, smiling sweetly.The DYNASTY-verse’s illicit romances are subject to interference from concerned third parties this week. While Steven plays the protective big brother towards Amanda on DYNASTY (“I want to know what you’re up to,” he tells Michael Culhane. “I’ll stop you before you hurt Amanda”), choreographer Sasha is every inch the autocratic Soviet when it comes to Kolya’s relationship with Bliss on THE COLBYS (“I warn you, Kolya, if you persist in seeing this Colby girl, I shall be forced to report you”). Over in the Ewing-verse, Cliff Barnes’ and Michael Fairgate’s trysts with sexy young blondes are rudely interrupted by disapproving family members. “You bastard!” yells Cliff's wife Jamie, hurling a champagne bottle in the direction of him and April Stevens after catching them "working late" at Barnes-Wentworth. On KNOTS, Eric arrives home unexpectedly to find his younger brother Michael canoodling with their step-sister Paige. While Jamie subsequently walks out on Cliff, Eric and Michael come to blows.The Fairgate brothers’ fight is nowhere near as embarrassing as I remember from previous viewings. Granted, it’s less conventionally macho and more emotionally messy than Soap Land’s usual sibling fisticuffs (e.g., Jeff and Miles’ duel in the pool during last week’s party on THE COLBYS, Chase punching Richard during this week’s party on FALCON CREST), but when one remembers that this is the first time Eric and Michael have ever physically fought — or even properly argued, for that matter — the fact that they both dissolve into tears makes a kind of emotional sense. Less plausible is the fragility of the Mackenzies’ living room furniture — curtains are ripped and a coffee table demolished within seconds of the brothers starting to trade blows.If one were so inclined, one could also read a meta-subtext into the boys’ conflict. When Eric calls his brother stupid for getting involved with Mack’s daughter, Michael responds by calling him jealous. Jealous of Michael getting Nicollette Sheridan into bed? Sure — but also, maybe, jealous of the fact that KNOTS is now presenting Michael as a full blown Tiger Beat cover star, complete with a washboard stomach and front burner storyline. Indeed, Michael’s onscreen development from goofy prepubescent to sexually active pinup is a unique one in Soap Land. Over the same period, Eric has progressed from shy skater boy to a square in a suit whose biggest adult plot-line thus far has required him to lie in an arsenic-induced coma. Meanwhile on DALLAS, try as Charlie Wade might, neither her mother nor the series itself will let her grow up. (By my reckoning, the Charlie we met in Season 1 would be about seventeen by now, but the Shalane McCall version been hovering between fourteen or fifteen for about three years at this point.)Last week’s punch up between brothers Miles and Jeff and this week’s between Eric and Michael leaves Sable Colby and Karen Mackenzie in similar positions. “This war you’re having with Jeff, fighting in the pool like a couple of water rats — what is going on?” Sable asks her son. “I want an explanation and I want one right now!” demands Karen of her sons. While Eric and Michael’s silence turns the newly unconfident Karen inward (“I blame myself for not being able to figure out what’s wrong with the family”), Miles’s ignorance of whatever provoked Jeff makes Sable even more curious. “What is making everyone in this house so sensitive lately?” she wonders.There are three sort-of weddings and a funeral in this week’s Soap Land. Preparations for Bobby and Pam’s nuptials dominate DALLAS, although the instalment ends before the vows have been exchanged. As well as Lance and Melissa’s reception, FALCON CREST features Soap Land’s first fake wedding since Nicole Simpson tricked Jeff Colby into thinking they were man and wife on DYNASTY two seasons ago. This time, Richard Channing pulls the same trick on Miss Jones for reasons yet to be revealed. Meanwhile, Phil Harbert’s funeral on KNOTS is a low-key affair with only two mourners, Greg and Mack, in attendance. A wistful, not-in-so-may-words truce takes place between the two men (“Are we getting older?” asks Greg. “I hope we’re getting smarter,” Mack replies), marking the scene as a turning point in the KNOTS saga. I really like Greg’s line when one of the organisers asks if he’d like a reading at the graveside. “Sure,” he replies, “if you’ve got Camus or Kerouac — something with a lot of answers.” It’s a nicely inconclusive coda to Phil’s story.A couple of weeks after a photofit of Phil’s face on the front page of the local paper led to his capture on KNOTS, Jeff Wainwright’s photo on the cover of the New Globe leads Vicky Gioberti to finally realise that the lover she has gone away with on a romantic road trip is the very same man who kidnapped her mother. Can she raise the alarm without arousing Jeff’s suspicions? It’s a familiar but exciting scenario. Just like Diana Fairgate and Jenna Wade before her, we see Vicky making a frantic call for help from a payphone, only for Jeff to disconnect the call in the same way that Chip Roberts and Naldo Marchetta both did previously. There are other echoes of past scenes: Vicky standing helplessly by as Jeff assaults a gas pump attendant recalls the same scenario that featured Lucy Ewing and Willie the crazy trucker back in DALLAS Season 1, while an attempted rape in a motel room recalls Naldo’s attack on Jenna in DALLAS Season 7.There is plenty of baby-related drama this week. While Jenna turns to her ex’s brother on DALLAS (“Ray, I’m pregnant … it’s Bobby’s!”), Fallon confides in her mother-in-law on THE COLBYS (“Frankie, this is my baby, but I don’t know whether Jeff or Miles is the father!”). Channing, meanwhile, tells Sable about a high school rape which resulted in a pregnancy and botched abortion that’s left her unable to conceive. It’s a quintessentially lurid Soap Land back story, but thanks to a scene where we see Channing secretly taking birth control pills, Krystle Carrington-style, we also know it isn’t true. Just as DALLAS’s Cliff has been pretending to his wife that he is impotent in the hopes of getting an annulment (“You’re not impotent, you’re just worn out!” Jamie concludes after finding him with April), Channing is pretending to her husband Miles that she is barren for reasons that only become clear towards the end of this week’s episode. Impotence, infertility — familiar Soap Land subjects both. Like Sue Ellen’s detective scam at the beginning of the season, these are two more examples of characters in the post-dream era understanding the conventions of the genre and then subverting them for their own ends. Nor is Channing the only recently arrived character to be shown lying about her past this week. On KNOTS, Paige assures Karen that her mother’s death has left her financially well off: “Money’s not a problem.” We later see her on the phone arguing with her bank about a bounced cheque. We’re also given hints about the secret pasts of two other Soap Land newcomers. On THE COLBYS, Adrienne thanks Monica “for not telling Cash about the agreement you and I reached all those years ago,” while on FALCON CREST, Lance asks Angela with reference to Dan Fixx, “How much longer are you gonna have to pay for what you did to his mother?” “The rest of my life,” she replies gravely.This week’s COLBYS and DALLAS both end on a pregnancy revelation. So does the penultimate scene of FALCON CREST. THE COLBYS’ scenario is the cleverest, DALLAS’s the most dramatic and FC’s the weirdest. After sending Channing to Dr Waverly for a second opinion regarding her infertility, Sable later drops by the doctor’s office hoping to find out the results. For once, a Soap Land doctor honours her Hippocratic oath and keeps shtum about the fact that Channing can conceive after all. She does, however, inadvertently reveal that Fallon is further along in her pregnancy than Sable had supposed. All it takes is a look at Fallon’s medical file (which Sable browses through as casually as if it were a novel in a bookstore) and a couple of flashbacks for her to figure out the truth. “Why, Miles, it appears you’re going to be a father after all!” she beams delightedly. While there’s no one around to hear Sable’s words, the same cannot be said of Ray’s similarly-themed announcement at the end of DALLAS. “You’re walking down the aisle with Pam while Jenna is carrying your baby!” he shouts at Bobby — loud enough for Pixie Pam (who, unlike Channing, really is barren) to overhear.FALCON CREST’s pregnancy disclosure, meanwhile, takes place under circumstances even more extreme. Having dressed Vicky up as her mother (complete with a blonde wig left over from the Krystle lookalike story on DYNASTY) and tied her to a chair, Jeff now semi-believes that she really is Maggie. This is conveyed to the audience by Susan Sullivan and Dana Sparks alternating the role of Vicky-dressed-as-Maggie. Jeff then threatens to stab her. Terrified for her life, Maggie-as-Vicky-as-Maggie blurts out the truth: “You kidnapped her, you raped her and now she’s pregnant!” As if this wasn’t sufficiently bonkers, the scene ends on a blackly comic note with Jeff solemnly informing Vicky that “this means we’re gonna have to quit seeing each other.”Whereas THE COLBYS and DALLAS conclude with Sable and Pam stumbling on the truth about Fallon and Jenna’s respective baby daddies, DYNASTY and KNOTS both end with bedroom scenes. While Dex and Alexis take refuge in each other’s arms during a storm, KNOTS cuts between Ben and Val toasting her movie deal in bed and a post-coital conversation between Jean Hackney and an unknown lover. As Ben and Val laugh happily, Jean’s voice plays ominously on the soundtrack: “It’s been hard enough getting him [Ben] to agree to spy on Sumner. Imagine how he’s gonna react when he finds out his real assignment is to kill the man.” FALCON CREST ends on an even more murderous note as Jeff pulls a gun on Vicky, they struggle, she topples over a cliff and he takes off, leaving her for dead.And this week’s Top 5 are …1 (4) THE COLBYS2 (1) DALLAS3 (-) DYNASTY4 (3) KNOTS LANDING5 (2) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?