Rita Lakin Dynasty Season 7 writer speaks

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Which is exactly what I said: "One can't discount their early contributions to DYNASTY without discounting how they shaped Alexis"

So you're assuming they did?
 

Snarky Oracle!

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Both they and Esther Shapiro have said so in interviews (and nobody has ever said otherwise), so yes.
Esther says a lot of things, including calling the Pollocks "brilliant constructionists" when they weren't. Lakin dismissing them as not really being writers seems more accurate.

So if the Pollocks were allegedly so good, why did their work drop like a rock in their second year and never recover? (Which is why I sometimes toss in the point about Ledding).
 

Michael Torrance

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Esther says a lot of things, including calling the Pollocks "brilliant constructionists" when they weren't. Lakin dismissing them as not really being writers seems more accurate.

Considering the episodes she herself wrote, I dismiss her just as easily as you dismiss them.

So if the Pollocks were allegedly so good, why did their work drop like a rock in their second year and never recover? (Which is why I sometimes toss in the point about Ledding).

I don't think season three is bad narrative-wise other than the empress Alexis angle, which apparently the show (including Ledding) had already planned from season two. As for Ledding, I can easily ask why his other shows are not as good as DYNASTY's season two.

But I don't consider the Pollocks as good as say, the Shapiros in season one, who created a set of characters that were really original to TV, like Steven, Claudia, Krystle, and Fallon. The Pollocks themselves admitted they knew "form" which is their way of saying they knew how to turn out a product, not necessarily have vision. They understood the show needed a more well-defined and permanent Alexis than Shapiro's six-week plan. But once their original bible for Alexis (which was based on their blueprint for their own proposed prime time soap which was not green-lighted) run out, they just went to more form, i.e. mini-arcs and people coming and going. The Shapiros, on the other hand, had the in-built flaw that they did not care for their shows like David Jacobs or Steven Bochco. They simply saw them as intellectual properties that once created, someone else could run them. This, more than anything else, is why I think DYNASTY started sliding. When Shapiro got scared in season 6B and got involved again, we saw she could still refocus her own product. But then she abandoned it again.
 

Alexis

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I think it's pretty clear that Joan Collins helped shape Alexis. Probably more so than any writer on the show. I mean if you see her work before Dynasty a lot of it is just very Alexis. It's like she herself was preparing for that role for years. Then when she's given the role she runs with it. Boy does she run with it.
 

Toni

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Yes Howard is Rita’s son.

She got him a writing job on Flamingo Road in a great example of nepotism ;)

Miss Piggy says that she would have loved her mum to give the Constance role to herself! Or moi as she says!!

upload_2018-5-29_21-41-33.jpeg


"Flamingo Road" Muppet version!!​
 

colbyco

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Actually, they were executive story consultants in season 5 (minus the first 4 episodes that they missed before Esther Shapiro called them back) and from season 6 to season 8 they were executive producers (even though their primary task was still the same - being consulted by the seasonal producer in charge of the writing). They were also executive producers on "The Colbys".

- Do you know why the Pollocks missed 4 episodes? Did they left the show?
 

Michael Torrance

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- Do you know why the Pollocks missed 4 episodes? Did they left the show?

They had left the show in season 5 (and never came back as head writers--they were given a different title), and Esther Shapiro called them back because Spelling and Cramer thought Marchetta was not able to "pull Dynasty the way they did."
I think the Pollocks were good for Dynasty's seasons 2 and 3, but then they were given free reign in season 4, when they should have been under very tight supervision always. Unfortunately, left to their own devices once the Shapiros mentally checked out, the Pollocks actually believed that surprise plotting--aka unpredictable and in the end implausible twists--would reel the viewers in. Marchetta was used to the more traditional arc-based writing in her bible and breakdown episodes, and she had a plan from start to finish. Although it had elements I found disastrous (Moldavia, Lady Ashley, Nicole Simpson, Daniel Reece) it also had some solid plotting: Alexis' trial, Amanda's appearance, the Alexis/Dex/Amanda triangle, the Tom/Blake/Dominique plot (which the Pollocks changed), the Dexters' plot (which the Pollocks axed) while they introduced their surprise plotting again in instances such as Sammy Jo being the culprit for the photographs sent to Blake and Krystle.

I think they also brought back the Pollocks once plans for the spin off started materializing since they were, as @GillesDenver mentioned, executive producers of that show.
 

Matthew Blaisdel

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while they introduced their surprise plotting again in instances such as Sammy Jo being the culprit for the photographs sent to Blake and Krystle.

So who was the culprit according to Marchettas original outline?
 

colbyco

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They had left the show in season 5 (and never came back as head writers--they were given a different title), and Esther Shapiro called them back because Spelling and Cramer thought Marchetta was not able to "pull Dynasty the way they did." (...)

Thanks for your answer ...
- so they first fired then and a little later they hired them again? How do know that Spelling and Cramer thought Marchetta was not able to do it "the right way"?
 

Luke Fuller

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According to imdb Rita Lakin was a writer of the last 10 episodes of season 7 and Laurence Heath wrote all 28 episodes of this season. It was really a bad time for Dynasty.
 

Michael Torrance

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Thanks for your answer ...
- so they first fired then and a little later they hired them again? How do know that Spelling and Cramer thought Marchetta was not able to do it "the right way"?

"The way they did it" was certainly not "the right way" by that time. Marchetta has said the Pollocks were called back because the producers diagnosed something was missing and the Pollocks came back to offer, per Marchetta, "their inimitable magic." Camille Marchetta was a big name in soap opera writing at the time, so when she, for whatever reason, was recruited for Dynasty, it would make sense to let the Pollocks go. That 4 episodes were enough for execs to determine something was wrong per their ideas in season 5, but they had no clue Rita wasn't working for 11 episodes (12 considering Titans was a two-parter) in season 6 speaks volumes.
 

Michael Torrance

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- Where can I find the interview?

There are more than one, but the one where she discusses the Pollocks is the french website one. Sorry I don't remember the site now but I am sure it is posted here somewhere
 

colbyco

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According to imdb Rita Lakin was a writer of the last 10 episodes of season 7 and Laurence Heath wrote all 28 episodes of this season. It was really a bad time for Dynasty.

- It seems she was brought in to write the Krystina storyline ... her first credit is for "The mother"
 

colbyco

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(...) Marchetta has said the Pollocks were called back because the producers diagnosed something was missing and the Pollocks came back to offer, per Marchetta, "their inimitable magic." (...)

- The first episode the Pollocks were back was the only episode Camille isn´t credit for "story" but Joel Steiger ...
 

Matthew Blaisdel

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Laurence Heath wrote all 28 episodes of this season. It was really a bad time for Dynasty.

I wonder if Paulsen named crazy gun-threatening Fritz Heath after him in S9. :D

After all real-life Heath was responsible for Alexis getting totally sidelined in the 2nd half of S7... whereas in S9 fictional Heath almost caused total bankruptsy to Alexis' company. Hear, hear!

"You have gone... too faaaaar!"

 
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