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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 114044" data-attributes="member: 22">17 Dec 87: KNOTS LANDING: Weak Moment v. 18 Dec 87: DALLAS: Daddy's Little Darlin' v. 18 Dec 87: FALCON CREST: Twist and ShoutThis week’s KNOTS and FALCON CREST are both named after songs that feature during their respective episodes. KNOTS opens with ‘Weak Moment’, a country number that plays over a montage of Gary leaving Val’s bed and getting dressed, and Abby taking receipt of some flowers from Charles Scott and throwing them onto an open fire. On FALCON CREST, a generic version of ’Twist and Shout’ is playing at The Max as Eric Stavros sends his wife Vicky off to dance so that he can talk to FC’s latest murderous guest star in private. ‘Twist and Shout’ is the latest example of Soap Land’s preoccupation with sixties pop music. Classic Motown tracks accompanied both KNOTS LANDING’s recent run of flashback sequences and Melissa’s farewell party on FALCON CREST, while DALLAS's Ray and Jenna returned from their honeymoon last week to find Charlie and Brad Pitt cavorting to the sound ‘Mony Mony’, a 1968 hit for Tommy James and the Shondells. Given that it’s pretty much unheard of for DALLAS to use well-known music in its scenes, it felt like a significant choice. The song gave a kind of retro vibe of Charlie and Randy’s relationship which continues in this week's ep. The scene where Ray gives Randy a fatherly talking to before allowing him to escort Charlie to a dance feels like something out of the fifties. “I don’t want Charlie in any car where the driver’s been drinking,” he tells him firmly — might he be thinking back to Mickey and Sue Ellen’s fateful car crash five years earlier?DALLAS makes several other references to its own past this week. The ep opens with Bobby flashing back to the moment in Season 4 where he bought Christopher from his real father. (As with pop music, flashbacks might be commonplace on the other soaps, but are something of a novelty on DALLAS.) His subsequent visit to Sue Ellen at Valentine Lingerie to tell her “there’s a girl in Dallas who claims she’s Jeff Farraday’s sister … and she’s suing me for custody of Christopher” echoes their conversation in her townhouse six years earlier when he admitted that Kristin was Christopher’s real mother. In both scenes, Bobby uses the phrase “it’s a long and complicated story” to skim over any unnecessary exposition. “If this goes to trial,” he warns Sue Ellen, “a lot of Ewing dirty linen is gonna be aired all over again … I’m worried about you and JR.” Bobby’s previous revelation had left Sue Ellen in bits, but she’s not the same lip trembling pushover she was then. “Believe me, nothing could come up in the trial that would change our relationship,” she assures him coolly. Her parting line to Bobby, “I told you before, I married the wrong brother” recalls another conversation between them, this time at Brooktree Sanatarium at the end of Season 1. “If I’d only met you first, Bobby, I’d have married you instead of JR,” she told him then.Back at Southfork, Miss Ellie hosts a DOA meeting, just as she used to in the show’s early days. This leaves Clayton, still recovering from a heart operation, feeling as redundant as Jock did following his bypass surgery in Season 1. Whereas Jock gravitated towards a younger woman (Julie Grey), Clayton is drawn to a painting of a young woman hanging in an art gallery. “It’s almost haunting,” he murmurs. So taken is he that he buys the picture for $6,000 — small potatoes next to the $35,000 Laura shelled out for the Fuentes painting on KNOTS shortly before her death. Greg returns to the gallery where Laura bought the painting during this week’s ep and the owner informs him that, thanks to Laura’s generosity, Fuentes has been able to quit his job and take up painting full-time. “I hope I get first crack at what he produces,” Greg replies. “I’m very interested in this man’s work,” echoes Clayton with regard to his up and coming artist. To my untrained eye, both paintings are very pretty — the Fuentes looks more like "art" art while Clayton’s is kind of "soap opera" art.This being Soap Land, however, aesthetics take second place to matters of commerce. On DALLAS, the gallery owner assures Clayton he has made a sound investment: “The artist will be famous one day.” On KNOTS, the gallery owner’s assistant — who just happens to be Paige Matheson — is more circumspect. “He’s got a lot of potential,” she says of Fuentes. “Artistic potential or investment potential?” asks Greg. “Investment art would be nice.”Only a week after we heard Laura refer to Greg as Ace for the final time, Paige calls him Pops for the first time. He looks amused — and a new double act is born. There’s a similar “out with the old, in with the new” vibe on FALCON CREST where Lance, on his way home from pushing his dead girlfriend’s car off a cliff as a sort of symbolic tribute (or maybe just as an excuse for a cool explosion), meets his next romantic interest, Shannon, who just happens* to have broken down by the side of the road. Meanwhile on DALLAS, it’s Pam who? “I am getting on with my life now,” Bobby tells April just before they share their first kiss.(*In other words, she's been planted by Lance's grandmother.)Whereas DALLAS is full of familiar moments, there is a strange reversal of roles on KNOTS. It's as if Laura’s passing has somehow upset the series’ delicate “earth, wind and fire” ecosystem, causing "wind" and "fire" to swap places. Val is now the other woman while Abby has claimed the role of the victim.  “You could give lessons in manipulation to Abby Ewing,” Jill tells Val (the KNOTSian equivalent of Afton Cooper’s kiss-off line to Cliff: “You make JR Ewing look like a saint”) after learning that she and Gary have been sleeping together. Abby, meanwhile, is plagued by romantic indecision over Charles Scott. “I was the real victim of your lousy decision,” she cries towards the end of the episode, “the woman who loved you, who trusted you, who would have done anything for you, the little coed who cried herself to sleep every night for weeks and weeks and weeks because of what you did to her!” There’s also a tinge of Alexis Colby’s irrationality in this unfamiliar version of Abby as she allows her personal feelings for Charles to influence their business dealings. And it’s somewhat dismaying to catch her reading a novel by slimy old Jeffrey Archer (come on, Abs — you’re better than that!). This must be the first reference to a Tory politician in Soap Land, in spite of a hastily applied piece of tape across the cover of the book in a vain attempt to conceal the author’s name (come on, KNOTS prop department — you’re better than that!) Another Soap Land first is the use of “thought bubbles”, i.e., voiceovers that allow us to hear what the characters are thinking even as their dialogue suggests the opposite, in a scene between Charles and Abby. For such a fascinating character, Abby’s thoughts are disappointingly generic: “God, his eyes are blue!” By the time we find her in Charles’s bed at end of the ep, Abby has become a kind of Judith Krantz mini-series version of herself, her jagged edges rubbed away in order to fit more smoothly into this extravagantly romantic storyline.Val, Gary and Jill are the new Frankie, Jason and Sable. After leaving Val’s place, guilty Gary goes home to break the news to Jill. “I guess I don’t love you,” he admits. Jill reacts bitterly (“Well, there’s backbone — you can’t even commit to non-commitment!”) before giving Val the kind of tongue-lashing Sable would have approved of: “You’re the one who keeps this victim routine going, Valene. Everyone thinks you’re so sweet, so put upon, so all alone in the world, so victimised, so damn pathetic.” Whereas Sable proved impossible to dislodge from the Colby mansion, Jill is packed and gone from Gary’s ranch within a matter of screen minutes. By the end of the episode, however, she’s back, suitcase in hand. “I don’t wanna beg,” she tells Gary who looks as helpless as Charlton Heston used to.Soap Land has been in the party mood of late — the Ewing barbecue and Alexis’s English fair last week, and now a black-and-white themed surprise party in honour of Maggie and Richard’s engagement on FALCON CREST and the second annual Lotus Point Christmas party on KNOTS. (As has become customary, KNOTS is the only soap to acknowledge the Yuletide season.)The final scene of this week’s DALLAS — the first meeting between JR and Dr Herbert Styles, the country doctor who wound up owning fourteen percent of West Star — is great: darkly lit and full of atmosphere. The doctor’s proposition to JR — that he’ll help him assume control of West Star on the condition that he divorce Sue Ellen and marry Kimberly — is another DALLAS déjà vu moment, strongly echoing Leslie Stewart’s similar ultimatum to JR back in Season 3. A wheelchair-bound despot playing God with his children’s lives, Dr Styles reminds me of Martin Peyton in PEYTON PLACE (who, in turn, reminded me of Angela Channing at her most ruthless).  But then the final twist of the ep suggests that Dr S is simply following his daughter’s orders (“How’d I do, darlin’?” he asks after JR has gone. “Perfect, Daddy. Just perfect,” replies Kimberly, emerging from the shadows) and that she is the real power behind the wheelchair.It’s a bit of a stretch perhaps, but I’ve always thought that as an ageing Texas belle with daddy issues, Kimberly is the closest DALLAS gets to an archetypal Tennessee Williams’ heroine. During this re-watch, I’ve also noticed some implications regarding her marriage to Wilson that add an extra layer of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof-style complexity to their situation. In last week’s episode, there was the couple’s obvious discomfort as Sue Ellen gushed over what a passionate marriage they must have and now here’s Dr Styles, voicing his distaste for his son-in-law: “Never thought Kimberly should have married him ... Man pays too damn much attention to the way he looks.”Styles might be played by a minor member of the DALLAS repertory company (he previously appeared in a small role as a retired senator in Season 5), but he exudes a kind of effortlessly sinister authority that KNOTS LANDING’s Charles Scott and FALCON CREST’s revolving door of ruthless tycoons, for all the big name castings, lack. FC’s latest big bad, a European high roller by the name of Dimitrov, is an honourable exception. He’s played by Theodore Bickel who is as charismatically menacing towards Eric Stavros as he offers him a way to pay off his gambling debts as he was to Dominique Devereaux following the Moldavian massacre. The ultimatum he gives Eric — commit murder or we'll kill your entire family (“I have seven passports. I can be in Bulgaria before the police can even identify your wife’s body”) — is the same one Jean Hackney gave Ben on last season’s KNOTS. I have to admit, I’m kind of a sucker for these reluctant assassin stories. Surprisingly, Eric’s intended target isn’t a central character like Greg Sumner (my money was on Richard Channing) but a judge we’ve never previously heard of.And this week’s Top 3 are …1 (2) DALLAS2 (1) KNOTS LANDING3 (3) FALCON CRESTYeah, it wasn't as much of an ordeal as I remembered. And the teddy bear turning its head 360 degrees like Linda Blair in The Exorcist was kind of fun.I really do! I dislike her far more than any other Soap Land character I've encountered this time around. It's such a shame because in the first three seasons especially, she's just great.I don't know ... in her scenes with Melissa and Emma, it feels like Angela's stuck, repeating the same eye-rolling punchline over and over, like a character trapped in the same scene of a never-ending sitcom. But in her scenes Richard and Maggie, and to a lesser extent Lance and Dan, she's still reasonably interesting.Aw thanks!You should -- it's really fun! What a good idea -- and then you could watch TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN alongside New DYNASTY — what an amazing double bill that would be!</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?