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<blockquote data-quote="Daniel Avery" data-source="post: 187474" data-attributes="member: 27">At the time it was airing, I knew a new team was taking over the show, since the Lechowicks had been so public about how they couldn&#039;t wait to launch Homefront (and how they took about 2/3 of the producers with them).&nbsp; It&#039;s pretty much understood that when a new regime takes over, they introduce a raft of new characters.&nbsp; The difference was that they were so two-dimensional that they paled in comparison to the established characters forced to interact with them--not just Anne and Benny, but Pierce and Paige, Val with that Lynette person, and even relatively-new Kate with Joseph.&nbsp; It did not help that the new regime had a much more daytime-leaning style of producing the show, with even more pronounced &quot;story bubbles&quot; for the cast members.&nbsp; I&#039;m sure they were instructed to do things on the cheap and they likely got the job because they had &quot;budget-friendly&quot; experience (daytime soaps being legendarily cheap), but when you&#039;re doing nighttime stuff, expectations are a bit higher from viewers.As is usually the case, there are things to like mixed with the stuff that one might not like, but by the time they shut the show down to &quot;re-tool&quot; (that is, fire some people and throw out their scripts) there was a lot of unpleasant chat among the fans of the show.&nbsp; I recall a lot of it was criticism of the lack of Greg Sumner, a lack of Val Ewing, and the lack of depth in the stories.&nbsp; Having just seen Dallas leave the air, I&#039;m sure a lot of the discontent had an air of &quot;You&#039;ve got to fix this, or Knots will get cancelled!&quot;.&nbsp; I know that was my main worry at the time.&nbsp; When Ann Marcus dreamed up the plotline that focused on Greg WITH Val, people were especially thrilled, since they&#039;d never really had anything to do with one another.&nbsp; Unlike the Paige/Greg story in the first half of the season (two longtime characters who similarly had never interacted), the Greg&#039;s Biography story allowed them to interact in the present while digging around in the past.&nbsp; The writers hired for the first half didn&#039;t seem too keen on trafficking in the long, storied history of the show.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Daniel Avery, post: 187474, member: 27"] At the time it was airing, I knew a new team was taking over the show, since the Lechowicks had been so public about how they couldn't wait to launch [I]Homefront[/I] (and how they took about 2/3 of the producers with them). It's pretty much understood that when a new regime takes over, they introduce a raft of new characters. The difference was that they were so two-dimensional that they paled in comparison to the established characters forced to interact with them--not just Anne and Benny, but Pierce and Paige, Val with that Lynette person, and even relatively-new Kate with Joseph. It did not help that the new regime had a much more daytime-leaning style of producing the show, with even more pronounced "story bubbles" for the cast members. I'm sure they were instructed to do things on the cheap and they likely got the job because they had "budget-friendly" experience (daytime soaps being legendarily cheap), but when you're doing nighttime stuff, expectations are a bit higher from viewers. As is usually the case, there are things to like mixed with the stuff that one might not like, but by the time they shut the show down to "re-tool" (that is, fire some people and throw out their scripts) there was a lot of unpleasant chat among the fans of the show. I recall a lot of it was criticism of the lack of Greg Sumner, a lack of Val Ewing, and the lack of depth in the stories. Having just seen [I]Dallas[/I] leave the air, I'm sure a lot of the discontent had an air of "You've got to fix this, or Knots will get cancelled!". I know that was [B]my[/B] main worry at the time. When Ann Marcus dreamed up the plotline that focused on Greg WITH Val, people were especially thrilled, since they'd never really had anything to do with one another. Unlike the Paige/Greg story in the first half of the season (two longtime characters who similarly had never interacted), the Greg's Biography story allowed them to interact in the present while digging around in the past. The writers hired for the first half didn't seem too keen on trafficking in the long, storied history of the show. [/QUOTE]

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