New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 123837" data-attributes="member: 22">24 Mar 88: KNOTS LANDING: Her Letter v. 25 Mar 88: FALCON CREST: Dirty TricksKNOTS picks up directly from where it left off two weeks ago with Val, having received Ben’s letter, bolting out of her house to share the news with Karen. She finds her at Williamses, which gives us the opportunity of seeing Val through the eyes of her new neighbours, just as we have been watching them through Karen and Mack’s for the past few months. “I get the impression that she isn’t very realistic,” decides Pat. Like Val, FALCON CREST’s Lance receives a missive from someone believed to be dead: “Keep after Channing. I’ll be in touch, Remick.” It’s less affectionate than Ben’s “I miss you, I love you, hug the kids for me” but it gets its point across.Having failed in her mission “to keep Mr Cumson out of the country for three months or to make sure he didn’t come back at all”, Rosemont declares Thirteen operative Catherine “beyond salvage.” All her experience as a highly trained assassin then deserts her and she becomes a standard girl in peril. Like April on DALLAS a couple of weeks ago, she returns home to find the bad guys waiting outside her apartment. She runs away and turns to Lance, the very person she tried to kill last week, for help. He arranges for her fake to her own death, which seems to be the standard response in such situations.Elsewhere on FC, Richard and Maggie are leaving for a fancy dinner when he realises she is drunk again. You can feel his heart sink just by looking at his face. “We’ve got a problem, Maggie,” he begins before broaching the subject of a clinic in Colorado. “I want you to get well.” KNOT LANDING’s Jill is proving more successful at hiding her solitary drinking from Gary — or maybe he’s just too preoccupied with his ex-wives and their various offspring to notice. There’s a great moment when, in response to Val calling the ranch for the nth time, Jill responds by tipping a glass of wine over the phone. Even Sue Ellen didn’t think of that one.The gesture is whacky, but also understandable. It’s interesting how sympathetically Jill has been portrayed throughout this season. Val might be the more established, more loveable character, but Jill is technically the wronged woman in their triangle with Gary and has largely conducted herself with patience and good grace. Nor has the KNOTS shied away from showing how self-involved and difficult Val can be, most recently in her custody dispute with Gary over the twins. Likewise, Maggie has always been FALCON CREST’s moral centre but since developing a drinking problem, she’s become increasingly high maintenance. So much so that we find our sympathies shifting towards Richard — the same Richard that currently has Maggie’s daughter locked up in jail without her knowledge. The line between good and bad in Soap Land is getting blurry. And so, when we learn in the penultimate scene of this week’s KNOTS that Jill is responsible for the letter Val believes she has received from Ben, how should we react? We’re shocked, of course — Poor Val! Poor Ben! — but we’re also kind of thrilled — Clever Jill!This week’s KNOTS is also The One Where Karen Wears A Leather Mini-Skirt To A Business Meeting. Fashion faux pas are rarely, if ever, acknowledged in Soap Land. After all, this is the ‘80s: who can say for sure where Travilla ends and faux pas begin? The closest we’ve come recently is Alexis’s publicist’s suggestion that she tone down her style for the electorate and Judith Scott’s implication about Abby’s tacky appearance. Here, the balance is redressed when Abby first watches with incredulous amusement as Karen arrives for their meeting with Manny Vasquez wearing said skirt and later delivers the cautionary quip: “Don’t be a slave to fashion.” But it’s really Karen, squirming in her chair as she struggles to retain her modesty, who sells the scene. Physical comedy is rare in Soap Land and even rarer when it works. (For an example of how excruciating it can be when it doesn’t work, I refer you to Melissa and Richard’s “sexy” dance to ‘Do You Love Me?’ by the Contours on this week’s FALCON CREST. Presumably intended to titillate and amuse, it instead makes one’s toes curl with embarrassment.)Each of this week’s shows contains a satisfying example of When Storylines Collide. On FALCON CREST, having finally agreed to enter a clinic, Maggie has her bags packed to leave when Lance turns up at her front door. He shows her the note from John Remick and warns her about Richard: “He’s a dangerous man.” What will she do? To be honest, I was hoping she’d go on an almighty bender, but instead, she meets with Emma and articulates the crux of her dilemma: “I love him and yet so many people mistrust him, hate him. What if they’re right and I’m wrong?”A week after Jeff Colby popped the question to Sammy Jo on DYNASTY comes another controversial marriage proposal, this time from gangster Harold to seventeen-year-old Olivia on KNOTS. While Sammy Jo has yet to give Jeff an answer, Olivia’s response is immediate: “I will, I will!” And so is Abby’s: “Over my dead body you’ll marry him!” Paige, meanwhile, finally makes a move on Greg (“How would you explain why you go to such trouble for all these other women when I’m right here?”) only for him to look at her like she’s nuts (“Are you joking? … You’re very young … You’re Mack’s daughter”). Piqued, she accepts Johnny's invitation to accompany him on a business trip to Mexico. These two storylines converge in the final scene of the ep. Johnny and Paige are at the airport waiting for his associate, who turns out to be Harold. He too has brought a guest along — Olivia. “We’re eloping,” she explains. Mexico proves a popular destination this week — it’s also where FALCON CREST’s Catherine is headed to start her new life.And this week’s Top 2 are …1 (-) KNOTS LANDING2 (3) FALCON CREST</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?