Of course they did retool the show in season 7, it's just that we don't have many details about it contrary to season 6 B.
Yes, that is what prompted me to start this thread, because people often talk of the original bible, cut scenes with Wayne Northrop etc., and I was hoping to get all the info people have.
From what I read during the first half of 7A, the Shapiros were in a law suit with Spelling's company over Dynasty royalties, to the point that 'no one was minding the store' as John Forsythe commented.
You know, I remember Esther Shapiro declaring "the show was taken from us" but I wasn't sure of the time-frame. It would make sense if that was it.
They did make a big publicity attempt in November 1986, with the signing of two year contracts for Evans, Forsythe and Collins to take them through to the beginning of Season 9. Plus the much touted press releases of better storylines, shorter story arcs, the Carlton set!, and Dynasty's 150th episode celebration which you can watch on Youtube.
But I think a misguided complacency 'What problems' we've fixed them?' after Season 6's nose dive, makes you think that the producers didn't learn from their mistakes - e.g.; firing Oxenberg, hiring Cellini, and letting Kate O'Mara go (at Collins insistence I suppose because she just resigned her contract).
I remember the publicity for the 150th episode--I saw the pictures in Europe and was surprised that all of a sudden Evans had a new hairdo. Firing Oxenberg and hiring Cellini merely on resemblance, and apparently hairstyle being the main direction she was getting, was I guess the writing on the wall that things were going wrong again after improving in 6B.
An odd statement from Aaron. Clearly he had not watched Dallas as their story arcs could run a whole and still keep the audience enthralled.
Not only that--DYNASTY started as a soap that would
show DALLAS how it's done (and it did), with an amazing tightly-woven novel plot unlike DALLAS' early loose episodes in the first two seasons. But was Spelling someone who had any expertise on how a soap was supposed to be written and therefore should be making such claims?
I think
@Gabriel Maxwell delivered a most thorough account of what was the original plan (most of which I did not know). The retooling was in the opposite direction--making the show worse instead of better like in season 6. Dex and Caress going in Australia would not merely have been important for digging up dirt on Ben but also for seeing how these two characters interacted, for instance. A bible is a whole canvas, not just little dots of colour.
And like
@Matthew Blaisdel I refuse to believe the audience did not care for Ben or Caress.
I'm not sure I entirely agree. By the end of the '80s, KNOTS LANDING, though down, was outrating the other nighttime soaps because its writing was so much better. The soaps' slide wasn't inevitable -- not as fast it happened in the late-'80s. At the time, everybody was talking about how awful they'd gotten.
Absolutely. Look at how DALLAS faded--gradually--as opposed to the precipitous decline of DYNASTY in seasons 7B and 8 ratings-wise. Maybe the era of big prime-time soaps dominating the top 10 was over, but they could still be in the line-up. Which brings me perhaps to the biggest problem...
The Steerers were the audience! ABC did hire people to organize focus groups and show them episodes and if they hated what was going on they would send producers notes and then producers would change whatever they were doing!!!!
I would like to think that isn't true, given how in interviews (like in
THE DYNASTY YEARS) Esther Shapiro swore they never had surveys for the plots, but maybe that was when she was no longer in control, or no longer cared, or both, and I am afraid it probably is true.
You know, Shapiro had shared that the original title was Oil and the network did a survey of other possible names the Shapiros offered. Oil came in dead last so that made them forget about it and it was a working title anyway. "Mile High" came as #1 on the focus survey and DYNASTY was #6, but the Shapiros chose DYNASTY for what it evoked. That kind of decision shows someone with a vision. Focus group feedback is the kind of desperation that leads to playing roulette with your show.
I have always liked season 8 more than season 7, despite the promise of 7A and "A Love Remembered," but maybe because after the discombobulated feeling of 7B, anything was bound to feel better.
Reminds of the times I use to attend meetings with middle management. Those meetings of course would be steered by someone higher up the ladder. They would speak and the others would nod....in unison. Sometimes I felt like I was participating in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Was I the only person with a different opinion?
